Chapter 1: What the?

Chapter 1:

Wait. Watch. Meira crouched low, the waning brush leaves giving her cover in the undergrowth. An old redwood towered beside her and wisps of steam wafted upward with her steady breaths, disappearing into  the thin autumn air. It was up ahead, 100 yards at least. A small cabin nestled between two trees. It's owner had probably hoped it would blend in…mud caked the outer log walls, and vines crept over mesh wire on one side. The narrow windows had shattered long ago and bits of broken glass littered the ground underneath.

Birds chattered in the background and a soft breeze made a low whisper in the trees. It was an eerie sound, Meira thought. Like someone breathing down her neck...she shuddered. Water was definitely flowing somewhere nearby. It was hard to tell which direction is was coming from though. Lingering morning frost was melting and dew-droplets pattered on the ground, muffling other sounds in the forest.

Nobody home most likely. Just as she was about to move in closer, Meira spotted a flicker of movement in the window.…someone is still hiding here. It baffled her how they could live so exposed and somehow by some grace of whatever, they weren't dead yet. She waited a few more lengthy minutes and again saw a shadow moving inside. Patience was a virtue though, and a lifesaver, so Meira stayed put.

Twenty more highly uneventful minutes passed and Meira could feel her pack growing heavier on her back. It was one of her favorite possessions, and a relic of the old days that she’d found on a previous expedition. It was worn, but still functional and it had a bottle compartment that she always filled with water before every trip. She took a sip through the tube. This is taking too long, she thought. Her joints were starting to cramp up a bit, and she shifted her weight to one side.

Just as she tried to get comfortable, a light click resonated through the forest, muffled by the falling water. Barely audible. Meira’s eyes whipped up to the door of the cabin.

Ahhhh. Finally. She quickly grabbed the binoculars at her hip. Propping herself up by the elbows she was able to get a good view of the cabin.

The door opened up just a crack and a sliver of the dark interior became visible. The darkness widened, and a man poked his head out. He looked like he was in his thirties, sandy brown hair, weary eyes. He came further out the door and Meira could see he had a bucket in one hand and an axe casually tucked through the back of his belt. He gestured inside, noded and then slowly crept out the door, moving cautiously around the edge of the cabin until he disappeared around the back.

Meira wasn't sure how far the river was, but the man couldn't be out long just to fetch water. She also wasn't sure if these were the people the village had been looking for, but she couldn't afford to be careless. She pulled out a hunter's knife from her belt; quick and quiet. It would get the job done in a pinch.

Once she was sure the man had walked far enough Meira got silently to her feet and slowly made a beeline for the cabin, ducking behind trees and checking her 6-o'clock every ten feet or so.

Meira loved going on expeditions away from the village, even if it was to hunt for criminals. She savored the feel of the ground against her feet, like an anchor. Something about the way it made her feel. Steady like the world wasn't slowly falling apart. Like the Others didn’t exist.

As she approached the cabin, treading lightly was the only option. On hands and knees she crawled to the wall of vines. After getting a glance behind her she slowly crept her eyes up over the sill of an old small window underneath the vines. It took a second for her eyes to adjust until the dim cabin interior became visible.

Inside, the furnishings were sparse. A small bed spanned one wall, and a table with two chairs sat in the middle with a lit candle on the top. The light flickered across two figures in the room. One was a woman. She was a sad, sunken woman, her dark eyes staring at the door in the front of the room. A medium sized shotgun lay across the table. She sat across from it. The woman’s eyes occasionally crept across the barrel as if it were a creature about to spring to life.

On the old bed was a much smaller figure covered in blankets. It moved a little. Definitely alive.  A child? Meira thought. Something was off here...it was the middle of the day and it seemed strange to Meira that the child would be just sleeping away in a cabin like this, even if the parents were watching out for Others. They could easily be overtaken by a small horde if one wandered by. This was just too careless to be believable. Maybe the child was ill. In any case, Meira could tell this obviously wasn't the group of men who had raided their village.

Maybe this family was in need of help. The village was always looking to up its population of Normals, so it could be worth trying to escort them back and search for the raiders later…

Just as she was about to get up, there was a soft snap directly behind her. Her hand shot down to her knife, but before she could reach it a hot pain flashed through the back of her skull as something hard struck her from behind. Meira hit the ground hard and her vision floated with darkness on the edges. As she tried to roll over she could see the man from earlier standing over her. Except this time his eyes were just a bit more crazy. S**t!

And then the handle of the axe came down again, and the world went black.

Author's Note

Chapters will be posted with minimal editing, but feel free to comment on storyline or with suggestions.