One (A SPM AU BASED ON LN2)

The Woods: Part 4

(AN: Pic isn't mine!)

We continued walking through the woods for a while longer, the moonlight streaming through the trees. If it hadn't been for the moon, it might have been pitch dark outside.

In the moonlight, we could still see the silhouettes of the traps up in the trees. It was like they were just a part of the forest, which was really disturbing. I would probably have had nightmares about them if I was a normal child, but I never did. The only nightmares I had at that time involved my father never coming back for me, which was always more terrifying than anything this world could throw at me.

Not all the traps held children though. Some held innocent animals like raccoons or bats, most of which weren't dead yet. One wanted to free them all. Every single time we passed a cage I could see in his eyes that he wanted to do something, but I think he could tell I was worried about getting caught by a hunter, so he just stuck to the mission, helping lead me through the forest, promising himself that someday he'd come back here and free every trapped animal and child.

So we continued walking in the quiet.

Until it was no longer quiet.

We walked in the dark when through the trees, I could suddenly see someone tall walking, holding a bright lantern and a shotgun.

The hunter from earlier.

I opened my mouth to gasp, so One had to quickly come behind me and cover my mouth to prevent me from screaming.

"Shhh...." He softly whispered under his breath. "Don't panic. We're almost there,"

I shakily nodded, so he let go. Then I followed behind him as he led the way, using the trees as cover. All was going well. We were staying out of sight, and the hunter hadn't spotted us yet.

That was until we passed by a simple bird sitting on a branch, our movement scaring it away, making it flap around and grab the hunter's attention, causing him to turn and point his lantern right at us.

One visibly winced, now having two trained spotlights on him. The lantern and the moon.

This was one of the only times I actually got a good view of what this hunter looked like. He was really tall, but not exactly thin. He was pretty muscular. He moved quickly and he wore big hunting boots. I didn't even see his face because it was covered by the bright light being shone at us. It was sad really, I had spent so much time locked away in his home and I never knew his name or what he had looked like. I didn't even remember his voice. All I remembered of him was how terrifying he was.

I remember freezing at the moment. It was like I was petrified in fear. I could recall One shouting something, but it had sounded so distant.

"SIX! COME ON!" He cried, shoving me in front of himself. I started running, but I wasn't really thinking about it. It was like my body was doing things, but my mind wasn't quite there. I was running, listening to the sound of gunshots behind me, just like before.

Something that I did happen to notice was that the hunter never did fire at me. Yes, he was chasing us, but he only ever fired shots at One. He only ever came close to hitting One. It was like he wasn't even aiming at me. I wasn't even relevant.

However, even though One was the one being fired at, he only ever seemed worried about me. He kept shouting things like, "Keep going," and "run Six! Keep running!"

So, I continued sprinting, not daring to look behind myself. I was too afraid of seeing something I didn't want to see. So I continued running until a small shed came into view in front of us.