The Forest's Secret

Chapter One: The Beginning

       It all started with the birth of a girl. Well, you could say birth but in reality it was an...appearance.

     The reason of this appearance is that the people of neighboring towns were preparing for a harsh winter and had been chopping down the trees of the forest.

     Soon the trees were scarce and the forest became angered at the people's selfishness so it created a guardian to ward them off.

      Many years later though, the guardian, a girl, started to become unhappy as the people no longer came for they thought the forest was haunted. The girl was stuck wandering the forest overseeing it's safety from threats that no longer existed.

      One day though, a shrouded figure entered the forest. Slightly annoyed but happy to be doing something the girl came to scare him away.

     As she made her way to where the figure had been sighted she noticed a sapling had been cut down. Filled with anger and disappointment that she failed as guardian she wasn't watching where she was going and ran into something hard. As she fell with a scream she heard a low moan coming from what she ran into.

       As she thought it was one of the wildlife that lived in the forest she was quick to apologize. Until, that is she caught a glimpse of what had fallen with her.

      She saw what must have been "The Figure" but his robes had fallen off with the impact. What she now saw was a boy, older than her, starting to get up.

      Frozen with terror, as she had never been seen, she stood there unsure of what to do.

     As the boy got to his feet he started to mumble something she couldn't discern but quickly caught his breath as he caught sight of her.      

    The two stared at each other silently until the girl panicked, screamed and ran up the closest tree.

       "What are you?" The boy said hesitantly coming up to the base of the tree.

       She did not respond so he tried another approach.

     "What's your name?" He asked as kindly as he could.

     A few moments later as the boy got annoyed by how shy she was he responded sarcastically, "You could at least tell me that seeing as I have no clue what you are, I mean you have a fox's ears and tail", he exclaimed.

     "I-I don't have a name." The girl responded answering his question untruthful. In reality though the forest had deemed her name to be Alice.

     "Seriously, " he said, "You can just make one up then because you won't tell me your real name.", he said getting more annoyed by the second.

      "I'm not lying!" she yelled.

      "Suuuurrrreeee," he replied.

       "Why don't you just leave, you're not welcome here." She remarked with a dangerous glint in her eyes.

       "From what I understand no one's welcome here," He rolled his eyes.

      "Correct", she said with a smug expression, "Anyway, did you cut down my tree?" She said seriously.

     "Yeah, well sort of", he said slowly, "I tied my horse to it but he spooked and broke it", he remarked with a sly smile.

       "Uhg, now what am I going to do?" she suppressed another groan.

        "Help me find him?", he suggested.

        "Let's make a deal", she said,"I'll help you if you leave, got it?"

        "Got it!",he said with a smile.

        He continued smiling as they started down the path, he thought to himself, 'I don't have a horse.'