A world with two moons

CHAPTER 3 - A VILLAGE

As I went out of the mansion and strolled, I saw that All around me was nothing but woodland. I saw no sign of anything resembling civilization. (woa it feels really different on what my life was on the colonies and mother ships. Living in a planet is really the best.)

I took my time strolling and admiring the beauty of nature, I started doing the only thing I could come up with: wandering aimlessly and hoping I was lucky enough to find something or someone who could tell me where is the rest of the civilization is. Ofcourse I did not use the memories of the late Vermillion since its more fun this way to explore without knowing a thing.

You've probably guessed already that I was about as adept a frontiersman as a monkey trying to quote Shakespeare. I remembered seeing a couple movies that claimed moss grew heaviest on the north side of a tree. I tried looking at moss, which there was no shortage of, but couldn't really identify any discernable pattern of thickness. I tried looking for a creek or something that could lead to a river or some other body of water. Most rivers flow south, right? I think... ? Well, I didn't find any creeks or rivers.

After wandering for at least an hour or two and getting turned around probably a couple dozen times, I finally let myself collapse against a tree once I couldn't walk another step. My feet were killing me, and my throat was dying for a drink of water. And oh yes, I was lost in the woods, too. Scenes from The Blair Witch Project started coming to mind; not pleasant thoughts. I sincerely hoped that this forest didn't have anything like that lurking in it waiting to come out and hunt me after nightfall. In fact, the idea of still being here by nightfall was by itself a frightful notion.

Something about these woods had been bugging me for a while, something that seemed wrong and out of place. I'd been a little too distracted trying to find some clues to lead me somewhere to really think about it, but sitting there then, it dawned on me. The plants all around me looked a lot more tropical than they should have. God, I was so dense for not realizing this to begin with...

Where the hell was I?
Suddenly I heard a weird noise coming from beyond the trees. It sounded like some kind of animal noise, but not like any animal I'd ever heard, in the real world or in the movies. It was like a throaty, guttural hissing sound. And it sounded like it was moving closer.

I rose to my feet, every nerve I had on edge. Slowly I started inching closer to the sound, craning my head to try to see what was making it. And even as my feet continued moving forward, I realized my own stupidity. (Real smart legs of mine, Move toward the threatening animal noise.) And yet I didn't stop.

At least not until the sound stopped. I stood there, frozen, not daring to move, listening for any recurrence of the sound, watching carefully for any sign of what might have made it. I was coiled tight, ready to snap if so much as a squirrel appeared. I waited ... and I waited some more.

Nothing moved that I could see. I gradually started unwinding, thinking whatever made that noise must have moved past me and continued on.
And if I'd said that out loud, I'd say I jinxed it. Because that's when four large gray-green shapes sprang out of the brush. I stumbled onto my back and scuttled backwards as quickly as I was able, unable to accept the existence of the things that stood hissing at me.

They were about the size of grown men, and vaguely shaped like them, but the resemblance stopped there. Their arms were too long, as were their fingers, if you could call them that. They were more like long, spindly talons that looked sharp enough to write someone's name in a rock, and long enough that they almost scraped the ground with the way the things hunched over. Beyond that, they looked mostly reptilian, with leathery scales for skin, yellow lizard eyes and mouths permanently shaped into a vicious, predatory grin full of razor-sharp teeth. For noses they just had two vertical slits, topped by two slanting rows of little bony spines running up their foreheads, forming a V that framed a sort of natural hood sloping back over their bald heads. Other than that their bodies were shaped with sort of humanoid musculature, with thin clawed toes on their feet, and I was pretty sure I saw what I guess were pieces of male anatomy (don't even ask me to describe them)