Clandestiny [on hold]

Chapter 1

Please let me know of any areas for improvement. Any suggestions are much appreciated.

I trek through the alpine scrub; it’s so thick I barely touch the ground with all the logs I have to haul myself over. The forest that neighbours my house is a great place to cool off; it’s so serene, so picturesque. This walk is just the thing I need to clear my head after that big fight with my dad. Oliver and I get into fights often, most times over nothing. He just gets so crazy and so angry and it pisses me off so much I have to snap back. I’m not usually and aggressive person, it’s just Oliver that gets to me. He’s a strange man, calm one minute, psycho the next…he wasn’t always this bad though. Something’s changed…

Up ahead in the distance I see a deer prancing through the trees. It’s unusual to see deer in this forest. As the deer merges with the trees, a group of men dressed in black, five I think, come into view. Each one has a gun strapped to their back, tranquilizers I think, it’s hard to tell from so far away. They must be hunters as they are right on the deer’s trail. I stop walking until they’re out of sight.

I walk in the opposite direction to the hunters as I don’t want to get caught up in their gunfire. My pace is slow. It’s hard to push yourself though this forest without some clue to where you’re headed. A group of robins fly up from behind me before making a steep ascent to the treetops. I’m too distracted by them to notice the bush in front of me, and I crash straight into it. I’m lying right on top of the bush, staring into it, wondering how I can be so retarded as to fall on a plant. It’s a surprisingly comfortable plant though, I must give it that.

I roll off the thick shrub and land on a bed of soft moss. The sky is really pretty today. Soft wisps of white cloud scrape the perfect blue of the sky, tree tops dot it with leaves. The late morning sun sprinkles through it all to land on my face. The tranquillity, the serenity, it’s this that clears my mind and pushes me home every time.

I turn my head to the bush, only to immediately leap high into the air. I screamed too…more like squealed. There was a person underneath the bush! A girl, probably my age or older, was lying still beneath the bush. Is she dead? Who killed her? Is the killer still out here? IS HE WATCHING ME?! I’m ready to race home, ready to crawl to the safety of my own room and leave this to someone else, but my legs won’t budge. This is the most terrifying situation I’ve ever been in; I’ve just stumbled across a dead body!

My mind is racing but I can’t get my legs to do the same. My face drops as I feel my stomach start to come up. I close my eyes, take deep breaths and push my breakfast back down. I look around me, I have to get out of here. But I can’t just leave a person here, can I? Ugh, what if it’s all rotten with maggots and everything, I mean I can usually handle that sort of stuff, but not on a human being!

I have to man up. I take a few breaths to calm myself and lean in closer to get a better look. It’s a pretty, young girl about my age, or older, probably older. She lays slumped beneath the bush, dead branches broken away to fit herself in. I brush away a few branches in my face. She looks so beautifully peaceful laying there, definitely not a rotting corpse. Just as I get my face close to hers, she makes a noise.

Suddenly I find myself cowering behind a tree about 30 feet away from the girl. How did I get here? I curse myself for being a sissy. I peep around the trunk to where the not-so-dead dead body is. It made a noise, I know it did, but now remains still and silent under the shrub. I step cautiously out from behind my shelter, and begin to tread tentatively towards it, that, her.

Without thinking I pick up a stick and poke her in the arm. She doesn’t move. I poke her again, this time she catches the stick before it hits her and pulls me the ground. I hit it hard, so hard I become stunned. I blink a couple of times to clear my head, and once my vision sharpens I see the girl on top of me. She has her knees on my shoulders and her hands at my throat, but she isn’t chocking me, it’s just to keep me still.