Chapter Text
The forest was unnaturally quiet. It was still. Slade walked across some bushes making as little noise as possible. Still his every movement, his every breath felt so loud in unnatural silence.
Forests were never silent. As neither was life. Somewhere a bird sang, an animal hopped across the lawn or some mice were chasing each other in the roots. The leafs were chattering with the wind and every tree spoke its unique language of groans and cracks.
It was never silent. Though it was.
Slade cautiously crept forward, every nerve in his body pulled taunt. He was hunting. As usually. What made this hunt unusual though apart from unnatural stillness was his prey. His human prey. A man who thought himself above the law.
Well, Slade himself wasn’t below it as well, but he never liked those bastards that run into the woods from their problems. Woods weren’t for people. The vast expenses of their green covered the majority of known world and operated on different from human’s rules. No one knew them, apart from some obvious and simplest ones, and no soul had returned from the depths. And a lot of people tried. Fools.
The branch under Slade’s feet crunched and he stilled, listening to unnatural echo.
You see, the first rule that humans learned about woods, was that there were layers. Or rings. Or levels. Whatever works for explaining. The firs zone stretched for about thirty kilometers deep. There was no danger except for animals and other natural dangers like snakes, fallen trees and other humans. This forest was normal and as friendly as any nature can be. Then there was ten to fifteen kilometers of high-risk zone. Only about of half percent of population were able to enter this zone and only twenty to come back alive. Then there was no-man zone, with the ability to enter five percent and come back - one percent. And then there were depths. No one in their saint mind would walk into depths. Even if they were able to wander through high risk and no-man zones. Because the rate of successful returnings was absolutely zero. Slade too had never crossed the border into the depths even if he was in that one percent of lucky men to walk through the no-man forests.
That’s why he was here. Stalking through green on a chase after a serial killer, whom police had stupidly let run off. He was stalking him for half a week already. Firstly in a city and now through the woods further and further into the green mass of leafs and branches.
Slade liked the woods. Normally. He himself lived near the West-side woods, one of the most dangerous on the entire continent with numbers of twenty, seven and five kilometer per zone. This forest was unique in many ways and that’s why Slade chose it to be his hunting ground. And now he was paying for that choice.
The dark shadow darted behind one of the trees and Slade halted in his pursue. The shadow was stock still, trying to hide his presence and Slade grinned. Finally. He pulled his riffle from his shoulder and gently lay his finger on the trigger. He needed the bastard alive, but no one was delusional enough to demand that from him. Accidents happened. And it is better dead than aloof.
He slowly creeped forward.
“Now, now,” he said watching the shadow. “Come out with your hands raised and I won’t shoot you.”
The shadow flinched. It stood in its place and Slade moved forward circling the tree. There was no sound only two labored breathings.
Slade held his breath and raised his riffle, ready to jump around the tree and apprehend the bastard when shadow darted past the tree, forward, deeper into the woods. Slade cursed. Shot. Missed the covering figure. Shot again. Missed. Reloaded the riffle and rushed after the running man. Slade was fast but the bastard was slippery as hell. No matter the police didn’t manage to hold him. He was ducking behind trees and using the natural curves of terrain to his advantage. He was greatly profound to running and escaping. Slade was good at giving chase. It was a limbo situation, where none of them had the upper hand.
Slade cursed, jumping over the fallen tree. He had noticed that it was becoming harder and harder to run. The branches were continuously hitting him in the face; long scratches now adorned his body all over. The ground under his feet became more slippery, and Slade grunted tripping over a not a second ago there root and falling face first into the leafs.
Never, and he means never, fall into the leaves in the no-man and high-risk zones. It could hide anything from a protruding upward stick or root that will embody itself in your brain to a highly venomous snake or insect. You just never know.
So, after falling into the leafs, Slade quickly jumped back to his feet and looked around. The criminal had vanished, not a trace of him. No footprints in the moss. No broken branches and disturbed leafs. Nothing. Not a whisper of human presence. Slade cursed, taking note of unfamiliar trees and shadows. He had studied and memorized every square of all of the three zones and the only one he had never seen was the depths.
Depths.
Where no human belonged.
“Fuuuuck…”
Slade ran a hand through his hair. He was screwed. Totally and undeniably screwed. He should have listened to his gut and let the man go. The silence warned him. The stillness warned him. And he didn’t listen. Now he was somewhere with no way back.
Slade looked around. Contrary to three previous zones the depths lived. They thrived. There were only splotches of blue sky overhead, greatly hidden by high old trees and heavily intertwined branches. Everything below was dark and shadowed. And dump. Unfamiliar flowers bloomed in beds among unfamiliar trees and bashes. Different voices conversed everywhere throwing melodic words and getting chirps in return. It was dangerous, beautiful and peaceful. Slade would have appreciated the opportunity to properly examine his surroundings if it wasn’t for a fact that there was his death lurking somewhere among the trees. So he looked around, reloaded his riffle and moved forward. Every nerve was pulled taunt. Every instinct was in overdrive. Every muscle ready to run for his life. There were simply no chances to win a fight against woods. Slade wasn’t stupid enough to try.
He cautiously walked into the woods, moving further and further. For a moment, he almost heard a scream. A primal terrified sound, freezing his soul with horror. Slade halted. Except for him and a killer there was no one else so whatever lurked beneath the branches had already killed the man and was ready to come after Slade.
The hunter squeezed the riffle tightly.
He walked forward, stepping over trees and hollows. The trees whispered above him in hushed cautious tones and Slade never believed in myths or mystiques but the woods were unnatural, they were something other. He couldn’t deny that. But he never believed until he saw.
On the small clearing among high trees and thick branches covered in blood and flesh sat a creature. Its antlers swayed from side to side as it dig into a body laying before it. The long red dripping claws teared and ripped the flesh and creature screeched a high guttural sound in delight as it bit into the meat with sharp unhuman teeth. It was sitting before the body, its long hooted legs covered in black fur and bent outward as if they were the legs of goat. It was similar to a wendigo if it wasn’t for a completely human torso and head with long black locks.
Slade froze.
The creature, the monster, was sitting with it’s back to Slade, completely absorbed in his gory feast, so Slade slowly began to edge backwards. He had no plans for becoming the next dish for something he even doesn’t have a name for. So slowly, painfully slowly, he was moving back into the woods. Step by step. Carefully. Feet after feet.
Something gave beneath him seconds before loud crunching sound echoed through the forest and Slade froze, heart beating rapidly in his throat.
Creature paused. Two similar to deer’s ears on the top of its head perked up and Slade forgot how to breathe. The situation he found himself in was so similar to one of those horror movies Grant liked to watch it was painful. Slade wasn’t making any sounds just like terrified out of their mind protagonists from that stupid films.
And just like them he was praying.
God never loved him. And he didn’t change his mind now.
The creature slowly rose his head, a piece of bloody flesh fell from its teeth, then it fluidly got his hooves under him and stood. His back was still turned to Slade, and now the unfortunate hunter was able to see just how long those legs are. He was able to see how long and sharp that bloody claws are. How human torso was actually anything but human. Lean and muscular and long, with shoulder unnaturally bent inward as if creature was used to traveling on its fours.
Slade rose his riffle.
Creature turned.
Its unhuman blue eyes met the gray human one, something akin to shock passing in their depths.
Slade was struggling to breathe.
Creature cocked his human head to the side and squinted at him.
“Oh,” his voice boomed through the forest. “I think I know you.”
Then it grinned. Slow and bloody, as it purred.
“I actually know you.”
And Slade’s psyche broke. He made a shot, abandoned his riffle and ran. No amount of training could have prepared him to that. He run for his life. Behind him, he could hear creature howl and give chase. It was fast, really fast. Slade felt claws brush his back multiple times as he made sharp turns and fake maneuvers.
He was fast too. He was trained. He was experienced. He was in enemy’s territory however and the last thing Slade saw was a thick tree raising out of nowhere in his path. He dove into it at full speed headfirst. Then there was nothing.