[ IP ] Through the Trees

The forest of whispers was always much louder than I thought. Nobody would dare speak in such a sacred place, but the animals made noise like they were not afraid of any of us. My group and I had been walking through the forest for many days at this point. It was a long trek to get from one side of the continent to the other. Every map and guide had said to avoid the forest of whispers. It was a sacred place that did not allow those who would mistreat it. 
 
 We all believed this was superstition. It would take an extra month to walk around the forest than to walk through it. The first morning spent in the woods was the most interesting. We awoke to find that forest creatures had entered our clearing and slept among us. Our leader awoke to a deer sharing his blankets. None of us had ever seen animals less scared of humans. 
 
 We did not wish to kill such a good omen we set off on our walk. Some of the animals came with us, traveling beside us. The chipmunks would sit on our shoulders to prattle on to each other, while the deer walked side by side with us. They helped lead us to clean water and easy trails. After three days of our journey through the forest did we first suspect we were being watched. 
 
 It was fleeting sounds or glimpses of somebody among the trees. Whoever it was could have been following us the whole time and nobody noticed until now. After somebody tried to speak to the figure we never saw it again. People spoke among the group that the person watching was the guardian of the forest, sent to watch over us. 
 
 Everything went well until we ran out of food. The group had been traveling for months together and were used to being able to hunt in the lands we traveled, but nobody wanted to kill anything in these woods, and our rations were running low. There were fruited trees and bushes carrying berries, but we had lost people earlier in the journey to poisoned plant life so we stayed away. One morning we doled out the last bit of rations, and we knew that we would have to hunt before the day was over. To call it a hunt is wrong. The deer was asleep next to us during the mid-day break, and just let our crew leader slit its throat. 
 
 That's when everything went wrong. This was the first time the weather changed from a perfect sunny day. Clouds formed overhead almost immediately. A single thunder crack startled everybody and let them see somebody silhouetted on a nearby hill. Through the trees, we saw all the nearby animals flee past the silhouette, and knew that this figure would end us like we ended the deer. 
 
 
 
 ( ( kind of dumb i know but didnt want to spend that much time on it. ) )
