Chestnut and The Forest of Secrets Chapter 1
#1 of Chestnut and The Forest of Secrets
_Chapter 1_
Morning Disaster
Chestnut awoke, the sun casting shadows across his nest in the trees, his head popped up.
"Oh no! I'm late." he gave his red fur a quick groom before leaping out into the forest of branches that made up the tree-tops. He bounced from tree to tree, thoughts rushing through his mind, his first ceremony and he was late! He was growing ever closer to the ceremony tree when suddenly a cry from above caught his attention. It was a bird of prey, and he was the prey!
Chestnut pushed harder, but it was too late, at less than two tail lengths from safety, he looked up. Bad idea, a talon closed around his head and a claw stabbed in his eye, hot white pain flamed through his skull.
"Ahh!" he squealed, but no one was listening. The darkness at the edge of his vision told him he was soon to pass out, but before the darkness grabbed him he heard the caw of alarm and his plummet to the forest floor began, falling into the darkness that enveloped him like a wave.
Chestnut dreamed of nothing but the blackness Flowing around him like an ocean, he sensed occasional movement and rubs against his fur, but stayed unconscious and through it all the darkness flowing till he awoke. He opened his eye to shadows around him, roots above and leaves below. Chestnut was in a den, and by the smell in the air a fox den. Suddenly he noticed a black heap in the corner, scurrying awkwardly to investigate, he discovered a dead Raven carcass. And by the smell of the blood on the talon, the same raven that lifted him from his treetop home.
"Serves him right," Chestnut, chirped self-consciously, pawing his injured eye, "Can't even see out of it!" suddenly he remembered teeth in his scruff while his was unconscious, something brought him here, he realized. Chestnut spun around, as a scrabbling sound announced the entrance of another animal, and dashed back to the patch of leaves and laid back down, pretending to be asleep or dead. Anything could have brought me here, he thought, as a young fox trotted purposefully into the den. For my sake, he thought, hope it was the fox.
The fox padded past him, and if he noticed something out of the ordinary, he didn't show it. Chestnut hoped that meant that the fox had brought him here, because if he didn't then Chestnut was a present to the beast. That would have a bad outcome, the fox padded over to the pile of leaves Chestnut was laying on and sniffed the area around his injured eye.
"Infection!" the fox grunted in alarm before dashing back out the entrance. Is my eye infected? He wondered leaping to his paws, and why would that be alarming to the fox. Most of all, since when can I understand Fox!!!
Chestnut was examining his injured eye in a puddle of water when a voice behind him spoke.
"Good to see you up." spinning around Chestnut discovered the fox was back, "you say that like an old friend," Chestnut replied, warily, "but we've never met."
"Of course not, but would that give me a reason to be rude?" he replied.
"No?" He replied, confused, "but y-you're a fox!"
"And you're a red squirrel, what's the problem?" he replied, obviously not getting it.
"Foxes eat squirrels!" Chestnut replied, losing his calm.
"Oh," he replied, "I get it now, ok so you're not in the same realm of existence anymore."
"What?" Chestnut replied.
"Welcome to the forest of secrets, where food is eaten only for taste not for need, and hunger doesn't exist." He barked gleefully.
"Huh?" Chestnut questioned.
"Are you hungry?"
"No."
"You've been asleep for eight sun-ups," He replied, "if you could get hungry you'd be starving."
"Oh." Chestnut replied
"Ok so let me see that eye," he grunted, reaching out with a paw covered in a green solution, "it needs something to bring down the infection." Chestnut flinched away from his paw but didn't escape it as he felt the slimy herb solution smear against his eye. "I would recommend not touching it for a while, otherwise it won't heal." He turned and padded towards the entrance, "I have a meeting to get to, somethin weird has been going on in the East forest, by the way my name's Archer." He then disappeared from sight. Chestnut did his best to fight the urge to clean his eye and padded over to the far wall of the den and settled down.