Chapter One

     I hadn't rested, let alone slept, in more than a day. I had waded through knee deep water for several hours to conceal my tracks before I finally found a favourable location to leave the stream. When I returned to dry ground, I was careful not to leave any conspicuous signs.

     It was a grey autumn afternoon. I hadn't gotten far beyond the brook when it started raining again. Shortly after I had taken cover in the dense brushwood, the slight drizzle abruptly turned into a heavy downpour.

     It took quite a while until the rain diminished to a gentle shower that was drumming on the partly dried up, remaining foliage. My legs were still aching and the rest of my body felt strangely numb as the rhythmic pulse of the raindrops made me drift off slowly but surely.

     I suddenly heard a loud splash followed by a curse which tore me right out of my doze. The subsequent roaring laughter told me that my pursuers were but a short distance away. I nevertheless forced myself to wait; breaking out of the undergrowth would have only attracted their attention.

     I felt fairly confident that they would miss the spot where I had left the brook; confident that they would instead just walk further upstream past my hiding place. But my spark of hope got extinguished when I heard somebody yell, “Here's where the trail continues. Give the signal!”

     What followed was a very loud and distinctive bird call. It was soon answered by several fainter similar sounding bird calls coming from various distances and directions.
Terrified and left with no other choice, I burst out of the thicket and ran off in a random direction, away from the river and the voices. I went as fast as I could until it felt like my windpipe was on fire and the stitch in my side got unbearable and therefore forced me to stop.

     My heart had been beating loudly in my ears, but it slowed down to a normal rhythm and so did my breath. Listening to my surroundings, I soon realised that no one was chasing me; no sound of running feet or breaking branches was audible behind me. Maybe they hadn't noticed my escape or they had decided to wait for their leader, who might have been in another party.

     Parched as I was, I drank some water from my canteen before I started my run again. I had to move at a reduced speed in order to save my remaining strength, but I went as fast as I was able for as long as daylight lasted. When it got dark, I lay down on the mossy ground between two rotting tree trunks and fell asleep immediately.



     I woke up with a start, alarmed by an owl cry. At first I thought they had caught up with me, but then I realised there was an actual owl hunting squeaking rodents nearby. Slightly trembling I took some dried deer meet out of my satchel and washed it down with a little water.

     The moon was just a small sickle of little significance, but it still told me that I had slept for about half the night. Another good seven hours of darkness lay ahead of me. I got up to my feet to try and make some more headway in the dim light. My endeavour proved to be quite difficult because the forest got ever thicker and the air ever murkier. Before long, the sky was draped in a heavy blanket of clouds which rendered the night pitch black and I found myself stumbling through a dense woodland in complete darkness.

     When daybreak finally arrived, I suddenly staggered out of the almost impervious web of twigs and straight into a wide river. As I was kneeling, with my hands and shins in the cold water, I thought to myself, “I can't go on like this. Water alone won't dispose of my pursuers. Since the beginning of my escape, I have crossed countless bodies of water, everything from little brooks to torrential rivers, but they keep finding my track again, no matter how hard I try to rid myself of them.

     “But what if there is no new trail for them to find? Instead of using the river to cover my path, I can backtrack my own footprints.”



     With that plan in mind I started my cumbersome march backwards through the thicket, first in the new light of day and then all through a misty, grey morning. I quickly got used to walking backwards and putting my foot exactly in my footmarks. It had already become second nature to me by the time the sun reached its zenith in a cloudy sky that made your eyes water if you looked up for too long.

     For a while now, I thought I heard them behind me. They were coming closer towards me just as I was walking towards them. I suddenly heard their leader's distinctive short, harsh laugh ringing through the air and cringed. He must have reacted to his second-in-command, who was the only one to make him laugh. I kept walking backwards and tried to remain calm, even though I felt more and more strained.

     I almost tripped when his laughter echoed through the forest once more and this time it was even louder. Keeping my balance should have been easy for me but under such an amount of pressure and sleep-deprived as I was, even the most nimble individual gets a little insecure in their step when startled. I could now clearly hear their fast approaching footfall breaking through the undergrowth behind me. I looked around hounded and was relieved to see my track go right past a big tree. It had a strange rusty coloured scar at its foot but other than that it looked strong and stable. Most crucially, I would be able to reach the lowest branches with a bold jump.

     When I arrived at the lowermost bough, I went past it and took ten more steps backwards in order to build up enough speed to make the jump. It would be difficult to accelerate while staying exactly in my footmarks, but I couldn't afford to break from my trail. The people following me had gotten quite good at tracking and what they lacked in skill, they made up for in determination.

     I closed my eyes, inhaled deeply and focused entirely on this very moment. I ignored my pursuers coming closer and concentrated only on my jump. When my lungs were completely filled, I opened my eyes, directed my attention to my goal and started my short sprint without hesitation. Feeling the air move around me, I got hold of the branch and used the momentum for a pull-up. Climbing the rest of the tree was simple. There was always a bearing branch nearby to get me higher up, but the voices were almost beneath me when I came to a halt at a dizzy height.

     With my heart beating strongly, I listened to the sounds of my pursuers, who had almost caught up with me. I hoped that they wouldn't notice the deeper indentations in my tracks and that they would cover them up with their own footprints, leaving no sign of my jump for them to find when they backtracked our by then overlapping trails.

     The sounds of the hunting party came ever closer and I could almost spot them through the increasingly leafless branches. I wore my satchel over my stomach, pressed my back against the trunk and extended my legs flat against the bough I was sitting on so as to appear as part of the tree. The only true grip I had was from my hands, which were tightly grasping the branch underneath my thighs. I ignored the voices below me and focused on my breath in order to maintain my balance. I found ease in the tension of the moment and could so remain still in my position until the chatting and laughing voices faded off into the distance.

     I slowly relaxed my muscles and as the last noises of my pursuers died away, I was overwhelmed by a profound tiredness. But I couldn't miss their return, mustn't fall asleep in the next few hours. Hours�"I hoped it would only be several hours that I had to keep watch; although I feared it could be days. How would I manage to stay awake when an infinite fatigue was about to overcome me? I hadn't slept properly in days and I had been running almost non-stop.

     How could I keep this creeping weariness at bay? How could it have come so far? How did I end up in this predicament in the first place? How did I come to sit in a tree while being hunted by a whole band of people? Yes, yes, that was exactly it. The sheer scope of emotions that flooded my mind was exciting me. That was the way for me to stay wide awake; by living through the story again with all the feelings attached. I had to immerse myself in it, remember every detail. It was my very own life after all; it was filled with love and trust, but also with loss and betrayal.

     I settled back against the tree trunk, dangled my tired legs off of the bough and stared at the partially bare branches sweeping in the wind. Well then, it was best to start at the beginning.

Author's Note

I rewrote and shortened the first chapter. I hope you'll like it!

Reviews

[BL]

Great work, I liked reading this. You certainly have packed a lot in

[Lady Lola]

Thanks! I'm glad you liked it!
There will be more soon.