Cursed Forest: Sightless

Knowing them More

Cross came out from a door a bit away from the door Patra and I entered from. I assumed the door in the hallway led to the kitchen as did the one he used to enter the dining room. Breakfast was eggs and steak. I could smell it as soon as he opened the door to the kitchen.

The smell itself was mouthwatering. I felt the steam rising from my plate before he set it down in front of me. The steak was juicy and the eggs were very flavorful. The fried eggs burst in my mouth. Even the yoke tasted oddly good and salty.

"I'm glad you like it." Medusa said after finishing a mouthful of her own food. "You look so happy about it!"

"Mom isn't the best cook." I explained. "I could smell the difference. This is twice as good as hers. No offense to her, she tries. The cooks always burn my meals so my Mother took the job over."

"What a wonderfully good sense of smell." Patra noted. She was very perceptive. Yet so was I, and I could hear people eating. It wasn't exactly pleasant. Someone was eating with their mouth open.

"Mom always told me it was my body making compensation for my lack of sight." I smiled. My Mother had always been there for me. Making everything seem just a little better.

"Then how did you not notice Medusa?" One of the twins chirped. This is one sat next to Patra who was across from me. Medusa was at the end of the table, right next to me. Another twin sat next to me, next to her Cross had sat. I was beginning to think it was Cross who was chewing with his mouth open.

"Well at first I wasn't paying attention." I said. I smiled nervously. " Then I thought I heard movement in the brush around me. So I didn't completely miss her. She didn't exactly try to stay quiet."

"I was wondering why you were just sitting there." Medusa said. "I met your eyes on accident. I was trying to scare you away, instead, I scared you into a ball...then met your eyes. I was pleasantly surprised and kind of horrified..."

"What exactly do you even do here?" I asked them.

"We just live to the best extent we can. We grow a garden, we talked to the little animals that live here. Special little dudes." Patra nodded. "We live like little hermits. Bellene's a bit of an Artist so she paints. Medusa likes to read and research."

"We gather food and hunt." Cross added around a mouthful of food. "We've got games we play."

"We kick people back into their own forests." The twin next to Patra giggled. "I don't really understand why he always comes here. He ain't lonely."

"We act like normal gorgons, and that's not too far from how humans act." Medusa answered. She shuffled in her chair. I heard hissing from her direction. The hissing grew in volume. The I heard a yelp.

"That stings." Medusa muttered crossly. The hissing hadn't stopped.

"Why is he so mad?" Patra asked Medusa. That was when it came to me that one of those snakes upon her head was acting up.

"I had a chill so I think our Visitor is here." Medusa muttered. Then to me she added. "I'm connected to the very ground here,thanks to my curse. I can't leave, but others, like our neighbor, can leave theirs. But not the forest as a whole. But since I'm connected to it I can feel people enter the forest. That's how I knew you were here."

"What if it's that neighbor but the other?" Asked the Twin next to me. "Bellene and I will go check around there. Cross and Patra could go down to the place Drac likes to enter through."

"Dave don't bite your fellows." Medusa muttered to the mad head-snake.

"You think it may be people from my tribe?" I asked them.

"Maybe, there are two of you. You and your stone friend." Patra replied.

"Why would a tribe risk entering for two people?" Asked Cross. He had stuffed his face almost full. It was hard to understand what he was asking.

"We'll I'm the Chief's son and she's an Elder's Daughter." I answered without thinking.

"What!!?" They yelled.

"What?" I asked, noticing it was likely a bad idea to have said anything.

"You're the son of the tribe chief?" Medusa asked.

"My job's to get married and have a child before my dad dies." I said. I didn't want to be chief, so that was fine, but i didn't want to bring a child into the world where they were only good for one thing. " He wouldn't let me chief, since I don't have eyes."

"You've got eyes." The twin next to Patra said quietly. " They almost look normal, other than those large cataracts. They're a nice green color. Not that means anything to you."

"My eyes are useless. Might as well not have them." I said.

"I'm off." Cross said loudly. "Patra finish your breakfast or leave it while we get our guest."

"Fine." Patra said. I heard them slither down the hallway in which we came. She was twice as graceful sounding as Cross. I noted the twins followed them, leaving their food half finished. The twin next to me stuffed the steak in her face as she left.

That head-snake still hissed up a storm. Like something spooked him and he didn't want to show he had been spooked. I wondered what kind of snake he was. Patra had referred to the snake as a he, and Medusa called him dave. They were so attached to the little snakes.

"Why hasn't he stopped hissing? Also why aren't you going with?" I asked her.

"The chill has always spooked him." Medusa explained. " He will stop after a while. It never bothered the rest like it did him. The reason I'm not leaving is I don't want to kill them. I've got a blindfold, so I'll sit here with it on. I'm not very...coordinated. So I'd hurt myself if I tried to go out there with the blindfold on."

"Then why'd you show up when Clarice and I entered?" I asked.

"I was already close by, I didn't have my blindfold." She explained. "I didn't want you to wander further in, without aid, or at all. I did not know what your friend was up to. She made me a little suspicious. I got curious, it wasn't supposed to end like that."

"Who were they talking about?" I asked.

"Oh? Oh! Right, right." Medusa laughed, "our little neighbor Dracula. He can leave his part of the forest. He's got free roam. He visits us constantly. He never says if he visits the others as much."

"You didn't seem to like him." I noted.

"I don't. I don't really trust him. He's up to something, I think." Medusa explained.

"So your snakes have their own mind?" I asked.

"I have no control over any of em." Medusa agreed. "They notice everything. People don't really like to notice em half the time. Those that don't die. Ignore them. They notice where people put their eyes. Dave is just a bit feisty and a bit of a scaredy-cat."