Sir Osis
It would be stupid to stay in the same area where whoever had brought him here must be. He had no idea what was beyond the flooded field before him, but it was unlikely to be anything he couldn’t handle, he figured. He had vanquished a demon platypus just fine, after all. There was no more time for hesitation. He heard a shout before him and sprinted out into the night. He ran for about five minutes before doubling over and gasping for breath. Nobody was following him. Oh well. He needed the cardio exercise anyway. As Sir Osis caught his breath, the fact that he was in a strange place with no idea where home was hit him once again. What was he supposed to do now? Just walk until he found home? Who knew how far that was? Even the air smelled different here. After going through a few minutes of panic and catching his breath, Sir Osis too a good look at the path before him. It snaked through hills and fields before disappearing into forbidding darkness. Perhaps there was a settlement or a home he could stop at not far off. There was only one way to find out. He resumed his trek, this time at a much more manageable pace. In order to occupy his mind with something other than worries, Sir Osis started taking in every detail of the night around him.
Some of the sounds of the night were familiar, others, nothing like anything he had ever heard. All sound was unresting, unceasing, endless. It was almost unnerving to hear so much which he could neither identify nor see. Actually, it was very unnerving. He decided he should probably stop concentrating on it, but that only made things worse. The thought crossed his mind that he may never hear a human voice again, and that thought scared him. Lowly, he even started singing to himself some old song his mother used to sing about a lady and her lover that turned into a horse—or was it a horse that was her lover? The details were unimportant. The song had the desired effect, and Sir Osis had hardly realized it before he had entered into the jungle itself. The moon was blocked here, making the surroundings difficult to see, and Sir Osis soon decided that he should stop for the night. First he would need firewood. He wasn’t about to go sleeping in some strange forest without a fire. There could be wolves there, after all, and perhaps the ground was colder than was the air.
The leaf litter on the forest floor was damp, and Sir Osis worried that he would be unable to find anything dry enough to light. The intense darkness was not helping matters whatsoever. While he was kicking at the ground in front of him as he walked in search of a log large enough to be worth stripping the inner bark from, he ran into a fallen tree and fell onto his knees. Then he heard a hiss, and something struck him in the hand. Muttering something under his breath, he looked around to see what had bitten him but found nothing. Well this was worrying. Still, he felt no pain beyond the initial bite, which itched a bit, and he figured he would probably be fine. Then he built the fire and settled in for the night. It was only a few short hours before he woke up vomiting and with tightness in his chest. So that bite was something to worry about after all. He decided to wait things out a bit in case they got better. They didn’t. By the time he decided he needed to go back to the city to receive help, he was unable to walk. All he could do was lie on the ground until his own lungs refused to draw breath for him any longer. The jackals had a change from the usual fare that night.
Some of the sounds of the night were familiar, others, nothing like anything he had ever heard. All sound was unresting, unceasing, endless. It was almost unnerving to hear so much which he could neither identify nor see. Actually, it was very unnerving. He decided he should probably stop concentrating on it, but that only made things worse. The thought crossed his mind that he may never hear a human voice again, and that thought scared him. Lowly, he even started singing to himself some old song his mother used to sing about a lady and her lover that turned into a horse—or was it a horse that was her lover? The details were unimportant. The song had the desired effect, and Sir Osis had hardly realized it before he had entered into the jungle itself. The moon was blocked here, making the surroundings difficult to see, and Sir Osis soon decided that he should stop for the night. First he would need firewood. He wasn’t about to go sleeping in some strange forest without a fire. There could be wolves there, after all, and perhaps the ground was colder than was the air.
The leaf litter on the forest floor was damp, and Sir Osis worried that he would be unable to find anything dry enough to light. The intense darkness was not helping matters whatsoever. While he was kicking at the ground in front of him as he walked in search of a log large enough to be worth stripping the inner bark from, he ran into a fallen tree and fell onto his knees. Then he heard a hiss, and something struck him in the hand. Muttering something under his breath, he looked around to see what had bitten him but found nothing. Well this was worrying. Still, he felt no pain beyond the initial bite, which itched a bit, and he figured he would probably be fine. Then he built the fire and settled in for the night. It was only a few short hours before he woke up vomiting and with tightness in his chest. So that bite was something to worry about after all. He decided to wait things out a bit in case they got better. They didn’t. By the time he decided he needed to go back to the city to receive help, he was unable to walk. All he could do was lie on the ground until his own lungs refused to draw breath for him any longer. The jackals had a change from the usual fare that night.
