The Elfling

Chapter 2

(First person)

When I woke up I didn't know were I was. I almost thought it was a dream. I was surrounded by thick trees, there was no one around. All I could hear were birds chirping and little animals scurrying around through the branches of the trees that towered over me. I was in awe, I had never seen such a sight before in my life.

It was beautiful and surreal. It was nothing like the Dursley's, it was calm. I was wearing an oversized shirt with some sort of cloak wrapped around me. My hair seemed to be longer and more straight. As I moved my hand along my head I noticed the tips of my ears were more pointed, 'how strange'.

I slowly got to my feet, when I was finally up pain flared through my chest and I remembered uncle Vernon hitting me at breakfast. Even though it hurt I knew I couldn't stay here I had to find somewhere safe. So I began to walk not knowing where I was going.

After hours of walking it started to get dark and I knew I should probably stop and get some rest, but there was another part of me that wanted to keep going, so I did. Soon it got too dark and I could barely make out anything. Not wanting to hit a tree or something I decided to stop. I laid down on the soft ground below me, the exhaustion of the day quickly getting to me I lowered my head down and quickly feel asleep.

This was the same for the next few days just walking in some random direction for hours on end. Sometimes I would find some berries and eat them, but overall food was scarce. It's not like I wasn't used to it however, since I was living with the Dursley's and was only ever fed table scraps a few times a week. While most days I just went without.

I don't know how long I've been out here, however I don't think I can make it much longer. My broken rib has started to affect my breathing, each breathe becoming more painful, I have few cuts on my body from my journey through the forest and I think something's wrong with them, there is yellow puss coming out of them, i don't know what that means though. My body aches and my feet are sore. I have also been getting really bad headaches too.

There was suddenly a rustling noise somewhere close to me thinking it was probably a deer or something I ignored it since I had seen several. All of a sudden these strange looking creatures start running towards me making high pitched screeching noises.

I start to run and soon find myself in an open like plane which did not help my situation, however I noticed large pockets of rocks and large stones lying throughout the clearing. As fast as my small legs could carry me a run towards a set of boulders and squeezed myself through an opening. I could see the creatures getting closer to my hiding spot and started shaking in fear.

One jumped up onto the boulder and jabbed a sharp object at me it cut both my arm and my stomach quite deeply and blood started flowing through my wounds. More creatures were starting to make there way towards me when suddenly I heard the sound of something approaching, not knowing what it was I tried to move back as far as I could, without much luck.

The pain in my arm and my side was starting to make me nauseous as well as the blood loss. Next thing I know hear a loud *Thunk* and the creature that had stabbed me fell away. I could hear the creatures screech as the thing got closer. I looked out of the hole I had squeezed through and noticed that there were about a dozen people on horseback killing the creatures with arrows and knives. When it was all over a few dismounted their horses and started wander around examining their work, making sure none were still alive. One started to get closer to where I was and I let out a low whimper, was this person going to kill me like he did those creatures. I placed the hood of my cloak over my head and tried to make myself smaller.