Gentle wind blew causing soft rustling of tree leaves and pulling Arthur's dark long hairs with it as sun sets, shining it's last ray of light on Arthur's face turning his brown eyes to a light golden colour.
Fist clenched, eyes determined, arthur took a long deep breath and released it lightly.
"Let's do this" hands reached to tie his long hairs in a simple fashion. He turned a left towards dark woods of mount Oros leaving behind the setting sun.
Rustle Rustle…
Dry leaves made weird noises as they cracked under Arthur's feet.
"Hmm… looks like this place is really far away from home. There is no traces of rain at all"
He moved forward clearing bushes away to make a path. Humans rarely visit mountain Oros due to dangers that lie in it.
"Looks like I need to cut myself to attract some wild beasts with the smell of my blo.." his thoughts stopped suddenly as they were interrupted with an unusual sight.
"Is…is that, what is a little girl doing here?" Arthur exclaimed as he saw a child roughly 7 or 8 year old, surrounded by small insects roughly the size of a leech, their body slim and many teeth showed themselves as they moved slowly towards her, their quantity was in thousands of maybe in tens of thousands. Slowly crawling towards to eat her flesh alive. Some were already on her legs and bit down on them as she wailed and cried. Her screams loud and terrifying.
Arthur quickly gathered some dry leaves under his feet and striked two stones together to start a wire.
Fuu fuu…
He blew here under it desperately to start a fire to get it on a stick and run to the little girl.
Chances of actually being a little girl are closer to zero than one.He knew that it's unlikely that she is an actual girl. He knew that chances of her being an illusion created by a magical beast to lure him in were very high but the chances were only very high not hundred percent which meant there is a very small chance that she might be real and is in danger.
He was successfully able to start the fire and get it on a dry stick he broke from tree beside him.
"Yes," he exclaimed as Arthur ran toward the girl.
Woosh woosh…
He waved the fire around the lich type insects scaring them away. As he held the little girl's hand it broke down like ash and flew away like light dust.
As soon as the hand was separated whole girls and leech type insects turned to light dust and flew away.
Sigh… "so it was an illusion after all" Arthur thought holding up the lit fire. Arthur's feet were grabbed by wooden veins erupting from the ground. The dust slowly subsided, revealing a large beast slowly approaching Arthur from left. Grey and red strips ran down it's body which resembled tiger in some aspects but it's size was way bigger, almost 4 to 5 times the size of a tiger with a large purple flower growing diagonally from from its head.
It walked slowly towards Arthur, growling in a low voice.
"You know the illusion was impressive, first illusion of a helpless girl in danger with a danger which most people can take head on with minor injuries, to lure them in. Then binding their legs with wooden veins to earth and slowly coming from left." Arthur said with a small smile emerging from his face.
"But you did a small mistake, why would an animal as large as this flower tiger need to lure me in and bind my legs when he can clearly roam the jungle with his size. And an animal as large as this tiger needs to have quite a lot of weight but then why is soft ground isn't damp at all under his LARGE PAWS" arthur raised the fire even higher, throwing it inside the large open mouth of a plant beast hovering directly above him"
SCREECH SCREEH….
A loud screeching voice came out of monster as it's insides were burned with fire. In a fit of rage he raises arthur and throws him strongly out of his reach. Arthur's back collided with a tree in distance, weird breaking noises came from his body but fortunately it was only a displaced shoulder. The collision was significantly softened because of all the bails and low hanging branches of trees otherwise Arthur's intestines would have splattered all over.
Arthur sat up again on the ground, supporting his back with the tree he just collided with.
"Shit," his breathing grew heavy as he held his left arm tightly.
"Now, this is a problem" his left shoulder was dislocated. Intense and sharp pain ran through his entire arm. It felt like thousands of needles were stabbing him all at once.
"It is obviously a death sentence to walk in these woods with this sharp pain and zero movement in one arm. I have to try to pop it back into the socket"
Arthur thought to himself as his breathing got shallower with every passing minute but there is a high risk that Arthur was aware of, if any of his blood vessels burst in the process or if it's not popped back all the way to socket it will be even more painful and dangerous.
But this was a risk Arthur was willing to take. If he wandered woods with this barley functional arm then he wouldn't survive for long anyway.
Arthur lifts his left arm gently with his right arm and slowly rotates it a little.
Thud. Suddenly arthur pulls in violently giving it a sudden jerk.
AAAHHHHHHHH…..
A loud and agonising scream followed the sudden jerk. The shoulder didn't go all the way through; it was grinded painfully against the walls and tore many blood vessels. The blood starts oozing out of the vessels causing internal bleeding.
"I don't have time for this, if any more blood leaks then it will form a tight wall, making it impossible to reduce the shoulder" arthur thought as he quickly grabs his arm and pull it back out with a strong jerk. Intense pain assaulted him again from neck to the tip of his finger. This was the worst pain he ever experienced in his life.
Arthur gets up and faces a big shoulder to his right.
BAM….
With a violent slam into the stone Arthur successfully located back the shoulder but the problem was only partially solved.
The leaking blood accumulated so much that the rest of hand wasn't getting any useful blood, turning it blue and motionless. Arthur's shoulder was swollen to the point that he felt it was about to burst out. He quickly takes a sharp stone lying around and with a shaky hand and blurred vision makes several small cuts to let blood out.
The sharp pain was reduced successfully. The arm regained it's movement, not much but it wasn't completely unusable like before.
As the sharp pain faded away Arthur's eyelids felt heavy. A strong sense of intoxication assaulted him. He couldn't even keep his eye open and fell asleep almost instantly with a strange warmth coming from a distance.
Suddenly in the utter darkness arthur felt a strange sense of comfort. A women emerged in his sight, laughing and giggling. Arthur rested his head on her laps as she gently caressed his hairs. Arthur's vision was blurry, her face appeared like moving water. Her long hairs gently fell on his face as sweet and fresh smell of jasmine entered his nose.
Arthur tightly shuts his eyes and open them wide to get a better look of her face but his eyes opens up to a bright blue sky.
His breathing heavy and sweat coming out from everywhere.
He slowly gets up leaning on one elbow and sits using rock he slammed his shoulder on as support.
"What was that dream?" He murmured softly, shaking his head. He turned his head around to look and surely enough, he found the sharp rock he cut his shoulder with lying around in a pool of blood.
He checked on his left shoulder which was numb from all the pain from last night with a continuous dull aching pain. The cuts he put yesterday have already stopped bleeding and the internal bleeding was also stopped by this time. The only thing he noticed weird were some signs of infection from doing small cuts using the stone, but he didn't mind it much. It was better than immediate loss of his one full arm and a very sharp pain.
Arthur gets up on his feet with difficulty, his complexion pale from all the blood loss.
"I see, I wondered why no beasts were attracted by the smell of blood. Turns out they were scared of this wild fire."
The torch which Arthur threw in that plant beast mouth actually caused a wild fire. Lasting whole night. Some areas were still burning but the flames were slowly getting weaker. The plant beast was already dead because of the wild fire. This was not something Arthur intended but it came as collateral since these beasts can't move from there place.
Arthur enters the region where fire was already out, looking around very carefully.
"Ah ha…" exclamation left Arthur mouth as he picked up a half burnt animal resembling a rabbit but with spikes around his face and a long tail.
He cut the burnt area and cooked the area which was still fine to eat over the already lighted fire. With the entry of some food in his stomach after almost 3 days his complexion got a bit better and gave some power to his fists.
"I should find some place for water soon. I need to drink some water and if possible then wash these wounds too."
So Arthur leaves the place not moving his left arm as much as possible. After a while of walking he saw a large crater in the ground. It was massive, almost as large as a small hill deep in the ground. Arthur carefully leans over the edge to see inside.
A weird beast came to his sight. It was like a humongous earthworm with hundreds of small teeth in his mouth. It was roughly twenty feet tall and seven feet wide when it opened its mouth.
It went in and out of earth like it was having fun in the soft soil.
"I should take a detour. In my current condition if this thing sees me then I will surely di.." As Arthur was about to complete his statement a strong gust of wing came from above pressing all over him.
He raises his head to look and an enormous bird descended from above and caught the big earthworm in it's claws. It's wings were immensely large and had a bright red colour.
"Is…is that a Pyrrhus" Arthur exclaimed. Pyyrhus are huge flame breathing birds. They are essentially the kings of sky after dragons but they are in very small numbers and are almost going to go extinct.
He didn't show any interest in Arthur because Arthur was too small for his appetite. Why would he go for something so small when he can get a nice lunch.
"I guess I wouldn't have to take a detour" Arthur thought to himself with a smile on his face.
So he gets up and continued on his journey. It was almost evening of second day but Arthur didn't find any place where he could get some water.
"Hmm? What is that?" As he was about to give up for the day, sound of water falling entered his ears.
He jumped in his excitement and hurriedly moved towards the source of sound.
Rustle Rustle….
He didn't bother finding a path, instead he walked through the bushes and long grass.
With every step the sound grew louder and louder and so did his footsteps. Arthur didn't get any time to eat or drink since last 3 days now that his food problem was solved, he couldn't sit idly by. If he doesn't drink some water in a day or two it can be life threatening.
After almost 5 minutes of walking through bushes, leaves and trees, wet soil came under his feet. Arthur excitedly opened the last bush with his hand and a view of waterfall entered his vision.