Various Vilifications

Nobody Here

Dark clouds started gathering overhead in the early afternoon. They only appeared one by one, small gloomy spots in an azure sky that otherwise could not have made for a more inviting weather. As the day progressed however, the clouds gradually became more in number. In time they began to form a loose, drifting pattern that would constantly change to make room for the steadily increasing gray which seemed to have had itself fixed on eradicating every last bit of open sky that still floated around it.

In the end their roles reversed to a point where the blue, itself now fading into a shade of navy would become reduced to a disconnected and ever shrinking number of small patches surrounded by an endless sea of dark silver. For another short moment or so, these would leave some of the sun's warmth and light shine through to the woods and mountainsides below. When they disappeared at last, all the valley became tucked in under a thick cloud cover that grew darker all the while and promised to stay in place for the night ahead.

Nobody could tell just how long it took for the aforementioned process to be complete. There wasn't anybody around to do so. Nobody ever settled this valley in the past, and this day didn't shape up to be the one changing the status quo. This doesn't mean of course, that no living things could be found here. Plants and animals had lived in this valley for a time which could probably be most accurately described as forever.

None of them recalled moving here of course. The valley was their natural home, and it always had been. Even the past and future didn't mean much to them. Time didn't seem to matter either. None of the animals and plants would measure the time it took for the clouds to gather, be it in hours, minutes, seconds, or days. If they even had gathered, they did so in what had already become the past. And the past didn't matter. Right now, there were rain clouds hanging above their heads. That was relevant. And who knew? Maybe they had always been there. Just maybe, the overcast sky filled with the forebearers of rain was the one natural state of things. Whether it was or wasn't didn't matter all that much. None of them could do anything about the clouds, anyway.

The forest became abundantly silent around this time, assuming it hadn't always been so. Some uncertain amount of time ago, the woods had been filled with the chirping of birds, sailing from one tree to another, looking for food, shelter, a mate, or whatever else it is that a bird of the forest usually searches when the weather permits it. Constant wind, sometimes even just a breeze rushed through the forest making the trees shake and their leaves rustle, adding to the symphony that was constantly surrounding them all.

And then there was no wind. It had fallen silent, and as far as those around were concerned wind may as well be an entirely fictional concept. It may have been as foreign as the chirping sounds hailing from the trees. None of them existed at this point. Had they ever? The birds had their own instincts; it told them something was coming. And whatever it may be, it wouldn't permit them to keep on singing. An explanation which proved more than sufficient for them. Meanwhile, everybody else didn't even bother for any explanation at all. The birds had likely never chirped in this forest, why would they start now?

Some rustling leaves and the sound of a few snapping twigs every here and there momentarily disrupted the quiet before the storm, as two small figures blurred by their own speed rushed across the soil below. It was in itself covered in rotting branches, bushes, and fallen trees. The ground lay beneath all sorts of larger plants that were dead, and smaller ones that nourished themselves on the dead ones. To a more advanced species this type of self-sufficiency may have looked somewhat unethical. But considering being dead was merely the natural state of these collapsed trees and pieces of woodwork, none of those around even thought of criticizing any of it.

Meanwhile, the two running figures brought a few seconds of disruption into the otherwise omnipotent silence wherever they went. They were following along a path that couldn't be foreseen by any bystander, random as it seemed. And tiny as they might seem from above, the realization that one of them kept chasing the other would present itself to any creature looking on for more than a few breaths. Not that any of them cared about what was going on, as long as the unfolding events didn't directly concern them. And seeing how this chase merely involved a fox going after a rabbit, none of the birds spotting it would at any time consider themselves an active part of what happened, nor could they see any reason as to why they should intervene in the situation.