Deceived

Her

My eyelids flicker open into complete darkness. I lie in a hard surface. I calm down just a little, thinking I am still in my alleyway and I had just suffered a nightmare. I am feeling something though. I can't quite pinpoint what. I turn on my back to find the bright sunlit sky. Then I realize what I am feeling. Confinement.

I am in the lion's shell.

I struggle to squeeze myself out. I see dried blood on my hands. It must be from when I stabbed the thing with my arrow. I wonder where it is. Then my hand goes up to my head and I feel the bow there. I come out into night, with the pale moonlight providing light.

"Max!" I yell, "Max where are you?"

I hear some rustling. "I'm here!" He calls and runs out from behind a bush. "In all the time I thought you were dead, I realized I didn't even know your name."

"I'm Autumn."

"Well Autumn, the time is right. The leaves are falling and the air is crisp."

"Don't make fun of my name," I say warningly.

"Alright fine," says Max with defeat. "Are you hurt? My family has lived in the woods long enough to know which plants are medicine, which are edible, and which are just plain bad."

"I'm fine really." I say, although I'm really not. I try my best to hide my limp because my ankle is causing very much pain right now. But I guess Max is something of a doctor, because he grabs me and lays me down. "What are you doing?" I ask.

"Just trust me Autumn." He runs into the woods and comes back a short time later with a couple of huge leaves and something sticky on his hands. "Alright. So I brought some leaves to make you a cast out of, because you definitely sprained it when that lion fell over. And-" He pulls a berry of a nearby bush, "I will crush this berry and put it on your ankle to ease the pain. The sap is to keep all the leaves in place." Looking slightly pleased with himself, Max applies the three objects to my ankle. I feel some relief. We find a stick for me to use as a cane, and we move on.

At a lake, we have a drink and eat some flowers that Max says are edible. And we walk. Past more lakes, more trees, more bushes. We settle a long distance from our last camping spot. We seem to have traveled a decent amount. We lay down, and close our eyes in wait for the next sunrise.