Forest Foray

----notes: not actual story as yet----

The canopy was thick: a combination of giant palm leaves, mushroom caps and underbelly gills of the giant shrooms that towered alongside the trees. The colors were splendid, if you could see them: umber and pale yellow, dark forest greens sun-bleached down the spectrum into lime greens.  You could not see them from the forest floor, not in most places. Whole swathes of the forest were dark as night, darker even, for no stars or moon touched these barren floors. Even in the summer, the warm winds never reached this forest center, for it was larger than even kingdoms, ancient and cold.  The icy floor of the forest earth cracked lightly with each step, the sounds reverberating, ringing in your ears. Yes, without sight, every sense grew more vivid until you saw through tastes and sounds and smells.

And the people, can they be described? You cannot see them anyway, but they are dark of apparel and light of skin, for black has blanched their features. They are humanoid, yes, though covered with tiny feeling hairs on their feet and hands that sense vibrations in the air. They can smell blood for miles, fear from a day's distance, and their ears are sharper than any owls. Creeping through the darkness, they avoid all sticks, twigs, and even stones, running silently across the bare, pallid ice and earth.  Every stump and clump of mushrooms evaded with ease.

Almost two full days, the race into the forest continues, with scarce rest for food and water. No sunshine is seen, no light of any kind.  Lost still slumbers, thrown across a man-creature's back who scarcely heeds the burden, leading the rest into the vastness of the old woods. Occasionally, the man-creature lurches to a halt, making no visible motion of any kind - they would see nothing if he did. He sniffs the air and knuckles his forehead, reaching out with his mind, sensing the mental vibrations of the forest: a mushroom there, some great mountain firs, and small life feasting on fallen leaves and decrepit mushrooms. It is not these that frighten him - a saurian form pounds through the trees nearby, several men high, though it is not hungry. It has just feasted on a climber. Less than a mile away, a many-leg insect scuttles, and even its careful vibrations and fierce hunger they can feel. The centipedes kill, hungry or not, and it has caught their scent. And lastly, there is another, a girl not unlike the man they carry now: alien and pulsing with the strength of gods. How she has survived, they do not know. They fear her also.

Satisfied, the leader hoists the man once more, and with a silent telepathy, urges them forward. The city is near; the man soon awakens.