The Firelands

1 - The Forest Village

50 years later

7th day of the Second Month, Love's Moon

Midday

Forest Village

Kalen stood frozen, his entire body ridged, all his senses on high alert as he looked into the shadows of the forest that surrounded his village.

Something was wrong.

He had grown up running through those forests, never once had he feared them - he had feared the things that could be found in them, but not the woods themselves.

At that moment however, he didn't take a step further. Instead, he focused on everything around him. Every sound intensified, individual heartbeats met his ears, the rush of blood through thousands of veins, the scurry of feet and the ruffle of feathers, a robin's heartbeat easily identifiable from the mouse to his left ten feet away and the paws of a fox thirty feet ahead. His vision sharpened, colours becoming defined, shapes taking on a shaper edge. Smells invaded his nose, not all of them pleasant. Fresh earth, rotting leaves, a river ran off in the distance. Everything he saw, smelt and heard was normal to the forest he had grown up in, but something wasn't right... and he couldn't focus on where the irregularity was.

Footsteps and a heartbeat that approached him from behind drew his attention for a second until he knew who it was, then he returned to the forest.

"There you are! I've been looking everywhere, I swear if you leave me all the work there will be repercussions. Don't think I won't tell your mother!"

Zerron - Kalen's best friend of thirteen years - stormed into the forest after him, sounding like an ogre to his sensitive hearing and stopped beside him. One look at Kalen's face and Zerron looked towards the dappled shadows.

His eye flicked between the snow that dusted the forest floor to the sunlight that wasn't giving any heat whatsoever. He could hear the birds, and the rustle of the leaves that winter didn't affect, but to him there was nothing out of the ordinary. Well, apart from a weird pickling that ran up his skin.

Rubbing at his arm, he looked at Kalen.

"Do you see something?" he asked, his voice dropping to barely a breath - Kalen would hear.

"No," Kalen muttered.

"Hear?"

"No."

"Then...?"

"I don't know."

Kalen just kept staring into the forest, but his instincts failed him, he couldn't understand what was wrong. It was like there was nothing there.

His eyes widened.

Oh, but that was it, was it not? There was nothing there. There was a hole in his senses, a void, where sound and smell just stopped, though when he directed his sight in that direction, everything looked at it should.

He pointed in that direction and took a step forwards.

"Kalen," Zerron hissed, catching Kalen by the back of the collar and dragging him back.

"What? Don't you want to see what's out there?"

"Yes, I don't want you to do the looking though, what if it's something dangerous?"

"I am almost certain it is something dangerous."

Zerron smacked him over the head and a creak in the direction they had been looking instantly made them spin towards it.