White Woods

Kindness: The Tale of the Rabbit

Fleeting winter winds from a season past wove around wooden walls and thatched roofs of a town once friend, now foe. Tears of fear and confusion glistened in the moonlight as young man just barely considered an adult was forcefully dragged into the forest by the clenched fist of his father around his frail forearm. He tugged and pulled fruitlessly against the man's powerful grip, too small and too weak to pull away. He just kept tugging, until a fierce voice filled with furious words beyond his understanding frightened him to silence. He gave up his fight, allowing the stronger man to guide him against his will through the labyrinth of trees and streams until he was certain he could not find his way back.

A splatter of mud flew into the air, a yelp of pain loosed from his lips as his father threw him down into the mud with a force that wiped the wind from his lungs.

"Stay, rat" his father shouted.

"What...? Why?" The boy tried to sit up, but was swiftly kicked full-force in the chest by a heavy boot that knocked the breath from his lungs.

"I said STAY."

As he lay there gasping for air, His father walked off into the woods, casting out his last burden into the night. He felt the cold mud caked against his skin, his heart aching in a wave of weakness that washed over him as he lost the fight to remain conscious.

When he woke the next morning, beams of light shone down through the branches onto his face, drying the sticky mud into a hard substance that cracked and tore at his pale skin. Birds chirped blissfully above, the babble of a brook streamed through a line of proud trees. Baggy brown eyes broke through the mud, searching his surroundings as he sat up. They eventually locked on a little butterfly that fluttered off through the trees, disappearing just as soon as it had appeared.

His whole body ached from pain both new and old, but he found the strength to rise to his feet, chipping layers of caked mud from the black bruise on his arm and wiping it away from his face with the torn sleeve of his tunic. Having lost sight of the butterfly, he fumbled off into the treeline after it, slipping past brambled bushes and broken branches until he came across a scene so serene that even the fearful mess of a man he was could find some sense of solace amidst his somber silence.

The trees gave way to a field of rushing rivers and rustling leaves that jingled in the wind. Golden grass and crimson colors lined the streams that cut across the meadow in a web. Butterflies of all kinds dotted the meadow in a rainbow of colors. He took a seat on a smooth boulder to admire the slow flow of a simple steam in front of him, plucking a stick from the mud with which he scribbled a host of symbols into the earth. He knew them as his name, but could only read as far as the third letter. "Arc," it read, just three letters of a much longer name that was gibberish to him. Just three letters of something more, that made his heart feel hollow at the thought.

CRACK! Arc looked up at the sky as the sky's voice roared over the forest, lightning in the distance lit up the sky from its dark home in a wall of clouds peeking up over the distant line of trees on the other edge of the meadow. He frowned, looking back down to continue drawing in the mud.

In the corner of his eye he caught a flash of white, washing down the current, and immediately shot up, lunging into the rocks and river to aid a little white rabbit that had been whisked away from the shore.

But the surface of the river had been deceptive. It rushed far faster, and flowed far deeper than first glance could tell. While Arc struggled to swim in the cold waters, the current pushed the rabbit away from him. It thrashed wildly as it was washed further downstream, Arc not far behind as he struggled through the deceptively strong current after it.