Outcast Among the Reeds

Chapter Three

   Dedicated to Akiochan45 for your encouragement. Thank you. :)

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   Ronria jolted awake at the first clap of thunder. She slowly pushed herself to her hands and knees despite the objections of her sore body. After he had left, she'd wanted nothing more than to sleep for the next ten-day. Once she'd responded to his advances, he had become an insatiable beast,  taking her over and over again until she could hardly move and he had had to carry her inside before he left. Well, she would never make that mistake again.

   Dust dribbled down from the ceiling from the reverberations of the second rumble. With the onslaught of the rain, her debilitated shack groaned and shuddered in protest. Water snaked its way through the thatch, dripping, slowly at first, onto the rotting floor boards. As more precipitation collected into the bowl-shaped roof, a steady stream began to pour down, just outside her fire pit.

   Wind slapped the flimsy door against its frame, finally shattering its desperate hold and making her jump. Like a defeated warrior, it collapsed to the ground, quickly swallowed by the swaying grass sea and torrents of rain. The shack let out a keening wail, as though mourning its loss. With a violent crack, the old dimbers gave way. All of the water built up in the roof suddenly cascaded down into the interior, flattening everything beneath its overwhelming weight.

   Opposite her, an overpowering gust buffeted the failing shelter. Coughing, she whipped her head around, hearing the angry snap of more wood. The wall behind her bowed frighteningly outward, weakened without the support of the timbers. The back wall creacked then split as the entire shack began to tip to the side beneath the assault of the storm.

   Scrambling to her feet, she vaulted through the bending doorway. Immediately, thousands of frozen needles pounded against her skin. Paroxysms of wind thrashed her bare body, tearing her drenched hair away from her head. Just below the howl whirling around her, she heard boards splinter as the bent wall finally gave way. The shack, her only source of security against the hazards of the forest, crumpled into a worthless heap.

   She looked around her small glade, her home for as long as she could remember. The grass which had shielded and hidden her as a child, had become waves of blades, slicing into her tender skin. The trees, her beloved guardians, moaned and twisted, reaching out as though to entrap her with their skeletal hands.

   For the first time in her memory, she feared the forest. She looked into the dark shadows beneath the canopies of clouds and leaves, alarms ringing through her exhausted body. Something felt wrong. Her forest would never harm her; it protected her as she guarded it. But the trepidation would not cease, no matter what logic she attempted to console herself with. Could it have turned on her? Had she unknowingly allowed harm to befall it while she dealt with him? No, she would have known had something happened. So, why did she feel as though she would die the moment she stepped foot beneath their embrace?

   Despite the ferocity of the storm raging around her, her feet remained rooted in place, refusing to take her where her mind insisted she could find shelter. So, she gazed around her, constantly wiping strands of writhing hair from her eyes so she could see. A cluster of branches drew her attention. They did not seem to move the same as those around them; almost as though they were held down by something. She squinted into the driving rain, hugging her shivering body.

   Light arced down from the sky behind her, illuminating the glade in an eerie paleness. In the instant of stark brilliance, she saw it. Hidden within the confines of the branches, it gazed at her, hunger burning within the large black eyes on the sides of its head. Its mouth gaped open in a wicked grin, revealing opposing rows of razor sharp fangs. Shoulders, as broad as the space between her elbows with arms stretched wide, and thick as half her torso was long, hunched against the furious wind. Burly arms spread before it; one gripping onto the branches like a screen against the hammering downpour; the other wielding a long blade that swelled more the farther fromt he hilt it grew until it curved into a thick point.