Cursed Forest: Sightless

To Learn of Neighbors

"Rhea and I found him." Bellene said as she entered the dining room. Medusa and I had finished our meals a while ago. Bellene sat back at her seat. She started eating her now cold meal. "They'll be here shortly."

"Same place he always enters?" Medusa asked.

"Indeed." Bellene agreed. "He brought Jora with him. He said he wanted to meet your 'new friend'. He's such a stalker."

"Did you see Cross or Patra?" She asked.

"No. I expected so when I was coming back up.Something's holding them back." She said . I was surprised she wanted to eat her cold meal. "Maybe an annoyed frog or something?"

"Maybe." Medusa said.

"You don't know much about our visiting neighbor do you?" Bellene asked me. I shook my head. Medusa had gone to her library and brought a book back from there. She had been reading to me when Bellene had returned.

"Not much." I said .

"His forest is referred to as the Forest of Blood." Medusa explained. "Mine's the forest of Stone. He's a Vampire, and so is his friend that he decided to bring with him. Jora."

"I've heard of Dracula." I said, nodding. "How many of our stories are real?"

"I can't say." Medusa Said. "There's a bunch locked away here."

"Damn someone's cruel." I noted. I guessed it was a well known smiter. Maybe Am' Wilar? Orh' Dera? Ura' Mori? I thought about those divinites who just loved to cause suffering.

"He just does what he pleases." Bellene sighed.

"That's his thing." Medusa said sadly.

Medusa started to mutter to her little head-snakes. I heard "Dave stop." and "Kathrine don't bite Gary." The snakes upon her head were like her children. She loved them and cared for them. They rebelled against her like any child would.

This was my first morning and things were already happening. I was wondering how long I would even stay here. How close would I get to Medusa or Patra? How well would I end up knowing them?

One day I would be able to tell Bellene and Rhea apart when they speak. Bellene collected our plates and disappeared. She came back not too long later. I was sure she went to the dishes to the kitchen. Medusa started to read to me.

I heard someone approach from the hall. By the way Medusa and Bellene reacted to them entering the room, It was Cross and Patra.

"We got stopped by some Deer." Patra complained. " They saw someone at the edge of the forest around there. They were worried and wanted to make sure they weren't hunters."

"Don't you eat meat?" I asked.

"We have cows for that." Medusa explained.

"I tend to them." Cross said. "I don't get attached. They get attached. They are not allowed to meet the cows."

"What can I say? They are so cute." Medusa said. I could relate. I got attached to a sheep in a farmers farm once. The farmer decided not to sell or kill it because of that. Though my father, being chief, took it without having to pay. Then tried to feed it to me. I still can't eat lamb.

"So that means it was Dracula." Patra said. I had some questions. Medusa couldn't lead me out. Could one of them? They weren't cursed, as far as I knew anyway. Then it hit me that I didn't really want to go back at all.

"How far away were you when you left them?" Medusa asked Bellene.

"Still around his place of entry." Bellene said. She sounded tired. "He hadn't bothered to move. He said 'I knew one of you'd show up soon'. He had waited talking to Jora about something. He said there was a little more than 'yall's new friend' to talk about."

"What's Jora like?" I asked.

"Jora? She's a sweetheart." Patra said happily. "She deals with his complaints and his issues so easily. Then she'll listen to us and our own complaints."

"Jora will come over on her own sometimes." Medusa added in. "Dracula doesn't hold a candle to her. He says he's being friendly and he's 'worried' about us.Though i'm still suspicious. I can't be when it comes to short little Jora."

I wonder what's taking them so long. I thought to myself. Just how large was the forest? I knew from My mother that the whole thing stretched as far as her own Tribelands. That also raised the question of how many cursed there were.

Medusa quieted them down, told them that if they were to stay here they had to be quiet. Then continued the book she had brought to read to me. They listened to her. I noticed her snakes had quieted down. They let out small hisses that sounded almost like a song.

I wondered what caused them to be cursed. They didn't sound bad, or acted like it. Did they do something seriously wrong? We all knew Divinity Ra' Leonma was the mother of vampires. She brought some dead people back to life with her blood.

Ro' Githra is the divinity of snakes. She breathed life into different kinds of vines to take down the large population of rodents and such. There were some races said to be born of her, such as Gorgons.

The great Divinity of Snakes,hunters and Prey. She wasn't known to smite others. Neither was Ra' Leonma. There was Orh' Dera who liked to do such things. He was the divinity of war and strategy . He wasn't known for niceness.

Am' Wilar was a divinity of creativity and pain. He wasn't very nice to his other sisters who shared his title of creativity. He was also the divinity of monsters. As my thought's landed on Ura ' Mori I noticed I hadn't been paying attention to the book.

I tuned back into the story and stopped trying to understand why they were cursed and who cursed them. I was sure I'd learn. There were only a few reasons why they would keep it secret. It didn't matter to me. If I was staying, I was going to learn.