Rhenium quickly found herself lost in the forest. The last burst of the evening sun on the horizon had faded away in the confusing veil of twilight and fog, and the darkness had crept up the sky. The trees, so white, indeed gracing the earth, now seemed all the more foreign in the dim light and the eddying mist. The air was cold and moist to the skin. Rhenium shivered as she walked.
The woods were silent. There was no song of the lost crickets wandering from home. No rustling of the birds preparing for rest. There were no sounds at all.
“This place is horrid!” She cried out, simply to break the silence of the woods. But her voice was swallowed up by the mist. She shivered again.
“If only the fog would leave!”
Suddenly, a cold northern wind blew up. The mist rolled cascading away. The moon silently stole up the sky, lighting the night.
“Ah…” But her relief was short-lived, for the very wind that carried away the fog brought with it the sounds of wailing wolves. Wolves on the hunt. She froze, for these wolves did not howl, but sung with deep haunting voices;
We, the wolves, death we cry,
Great or small, on you we’ll dine,
Chew your rump and gnaw your rind,
Flee tonight or else you’ll die.
She glanced at the shadows, expecting a wolf to bound out of the shadows and swallow her whole.
It was after a long daunting silence, that she finally dared to move. But just as she stepped out, a heart-rending howl came from behind her. She screamed and then swooned.
~~~~~~~~~~
Rhenium awoke with a throbbing head. She could barely open her eyes, for the light was a dazzling white. At last, her eyes dilated, and she could look around. The sky was bright, and the birds were calling. It seemed like a different world compared to last night. She staggered to her feet, groaning, and wiped her sleep bleary eyes.
“Where am I?” She asked. Naturally, there was no reply, save the singing of the birds. It slowly came back to her. The darkness—the wolves—the singing. She shuttered. But the light had come and driven out the dark and all its horror. She yawned, stretched, and then sank back to the ground.
“Horrid to have to sleep on such uncomfortable rocks,” She whined to no one, failing to note that the hillock where she had lain was soft and grassy. But she forgot about all her imaginary discomforts when her stomach growled with a very real one. She hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before.
“And nothing to eat too,” She would have lain on the ground and sobbed, had that not been so far beneath her dignity. But, as it was, she could not stop the few disloyal tears that leaked out her eyes and streaked down her sullied face, dripping from her chin, and landing silently in the grass.
She sniffed and blew her nose into her sleeve. It was then that she noticed the forest had gone completely silent. She sniffed again.
“Why is it so quiet?” She asked softly. She didn’t like the way it made her feel, as if all the animals in this place were watching her. Unnerved, she stood once again and stepped forward, craning her neck to see if there were any birds nearby. She could see no animals, but she did see a patch of green thirty paces ahead. She walked forward quickly, coming to what she supposed was a glade, looked out and saw a vast vista of a grassy rolling plateau that slowed to a halt at the feet of some stony mountains far away. She gasped. And then, seeing a small town less than half a mile away with smoking smokestacks, her stomach snarled, beastlike. At that, she began to walk toward the waiting village, desperate for food.
Ten minutes and twenty-seven stomach rumbles later, she had reached the village and the beaten dirt roads. She followed the track down to the entrance of what appeared to be the village inn.
She walked inside.
After her eyes adjusted to the dim interior, she squeezed her way through the tightly packed tables to the counter, where the proprietor, laying on his arm, seemed to be snoozing. His curly brown hair, streaked with grey, waved in the windy storms of his snores.
“Hello?” She called. The man started, awakening.
“Huh? Hello! Customers, Lod! Customers and asleep again! What would you like, miss?”
“Food. But I can’t pay and I’m dreadfully hungry.”
“I dare say you can’t,” He surveyed Rhenium and she self-consciously covered her snot-covered pink hoodie sleeve. “But” He pause for effect. “I might have something you can do instead. I’ll give you breakfast and you’ll— do the dishes,”
“Well,” Her stomach rumbled. “How long would I have to do them?” She glanced over her shoulder.
“I see what you are saying. Ha. Only as long as it takes. You haven’t got long, have you?”
“Long for what?”
“Till he comes to get you,”
“Who?” This conversation was beginning to be uncomfortable.
Lod leaned forward across the counter, whispering. “The warden,” He watched with satisfaction as her eyes suddenly widened in fear. “Ohhhhh, you didn’t know that did you?”
“He doesn’t know.” Rhenium countered, whispering, sucked into the conspiracy.
“Dwurin knows all… or he soon will.” With that, he pushed back and asked; “What’ll it be? Oatmeal? Good, good. My cook doesn’t get here until eleven and I can’t cook anything but oatmeal. Used to be that I couldn’t cook anything at all, but then my cook, his name is Anther by the way, got fed up with me (Get it? Fed up? Food?) going to his house for breakfast every morning and taught me how to make oatmeal. I can’t cook anything else. But that is a secret, so don’t tell anyone, okay?” He didn’t wait for an answer but wandered off into the kitchen and Rhenium heard the noises of pots and pans clanging periodically. She slipped into one of the tightly packed chairs.
As Rhenium sat, she stared at the ceiling, her mind abuzz. She could not shake the feeling that the icy eyes of the warden were on her once again, freezing the very marrow of her bones. She shook off the thought and studied her surroundings with a half-hearted interest.
When Lod came back, he bore a large bowl with a spoon. He placed it on the table before her with a flourish. It looked extremely soupy, the oats swimming in the water. But Rhenium was so hungry that she didn’t care. She spooned it out and into her mouth as fast as possible. Lod watched with great satisfaction.
“Good, is it not? When I saw it, I said to myself, ‘Lod, my boy, you’ve outdone yourself once again. In fact, I fancy that you’ve surpassed even your teacher this time. They say an old dog can’t learn new tricks, but you sure did.’ I said that, I did. In all truth, I admit that I wanted to taste it. Nearly stuck my finger into it.” He continued to prattle on about his culinary skills. Rhenium finished the oatmeal and dropped the spoon back into the bowl. “Done already? It must have been good. To the dishes then?”
Rhenium sighed and stood. She followed Lod into the kitchen and gasped in amazement— and horror. “What—in—the—world?” The sink was stuffed with half-filled mugs and grimy forks, spoons, and knives. On the counter all around the sink were stacks of dirty bowls and plates, week-old food caked on them.
“Like it?” Lod seemed rather proud of the mess. “I used to wash the dishes, but I kept forgetting to do it, so I just started buying new dishes each day. Brilliant, no? Well, I’ll leave you to it.” He turned to leave.
“Where is the water?” Rhenium asked, still trying to grasp the magnitude of the job.
“Oh. That. Yeah, the pump is in the yard. Through the back door. Bring the water in with a bucket. I’ll be back in twenty minutes,” With that, he walked out the door. Rhenium slumped to the ground, with her hands on her face.
“This is ridiculous.” She kicked the bucket over. Finally, she stood and retrieved the pail. She walked slowly out the backdoor and to the pump. The handle was rusted, and it was exerting to pump the water. Taking a break, she leaned against the spout, absently staring at the distant woods that she had come from.
Suddenly, she started, for out from the woods came a figure and, even from the distance, Rhenium knew that it was Dwurin, the warden. He was coming, coming for her. How he could know was beyond her imagination, but coming he was, coming to drag her back to her monotonical world.
“No! I will not go back!” She gritted her teeth. Turning away from him and leaving behind pail and pump, she ran, running toward the dark mountains.
"The only thing that anybody really knows about this author is that he is a real nutcase."
-Anonymous reporter
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