Samuel lay comfortably in the fresh green grass for quite a while until he heard a strange sound.
One that eventually made him jump up.
Grumble~Grumble
It went quiet for a moment.
His ears searched for the direction of the sound. Golden sunlight flowed into his dark brown eyes.
He closed them to focus entirely on listening.
Grumble~Grumble
After hearing the sound again, he seemed to have located its source. The noise didn't seem to
come from a creature… well, not really, because it was his own stomach complaining.
He placed a hand on his stomach to suppress the now faint hunger. But over time, the hunger grew
stronger and stronger. Samuel had no food with him, and even if he did, he wouldn't even know
what to do with it. Samuel had never learned how to cook. Why would he? He was a 14-year-old
boy with a loving family. It had simply never crossed his mind to learn such a skill.
But he couldn't just sit here and starve. No matter how much he might want to. His instincts
overpowered his will.
He stood up to properly take in his surroundings for the first time. The ground beneath his feet was
soft, springy. Not a firm, even surface, but slightly uneven, with barely noticeable dips and rises.
When he stood still, he could feel the weight of his body slowly sinking into the earth, as if the
ground were gently accepting him—or swallowing him. Here and there, small flowers grew,
scattered like randomly placed splashes of color. Some white, others yellow, and more rarely a lone
violet. They barely moved, even when the grass around them swayed, as if they had a rhythm of
their own. The wind came across the plain and created wave-like patterns. You could see it long
before you felt it. The grass began to bend in the distance until it reached him, brushed against his
clothes, and moved on. Behind him and farther out, almost lost in the vastness, stood the trees. Not
in dense groups, but alone or in small clusters, spaced apart. Their crowns were irregular, shaped
by the wind—not perfectly round, but frayed, alive. Some cast narrow shadows that stretched
across the grass and slowly shifted, almost imperceptibly. Above him stretched the sky, wide and
open, almost overwhelming in its size. The clouds drifted slowly, some thin and frayed, others
denser with clear outlines. Their shadows moved across the meadow, constantly changing the
landscape. And on the horizon lay mountains. Now that he looked longer, he saw more. Not just a
single line, but layers. Softer shapes in the foreground, behind them higher, sharper formations.
The colors were muted, a bluish gray that stood apart from the green of the meadow without
sharply dividing from it. Between them lay a distance that was hard to grasp.- All of this doesn't seem so unfamiliar to my home. Yet what I've experienced so far, and this
feeling of strangeness, tells me this is not my world.
He followed his gut and decided to head toward the mountains.- I need to find something edible. Even if I have to hunt for it.
For quite a long time, nothing exciting happened as he made his way toward the mountains. He
quickly grew bored, as expected from a boy his age. After a few hours, he finally reached the forest
at the foot of the mountain range.
A massive shadow spread across the land as the sun slowly set. It swallowed all the orange hues
that had given Samuel a sense of warmth.
His heart pounded in his ears. A small wave of excitement filled his body. For a moment, he simply
stood there… unsure whether to flee or continue.
Then his stomach spoke up again.
Louder this time. More urgent.
Grumble
He pressed his lips together.
"…I need food," he whispered hoarsely.
The darkness answered with silence.
So he kept going.
The darkness of the forest swallowed him more with each step.
The last light disappeared between the branches until only a pale gray remained. The ground was
uneven, crisscrossed with roots that jutted out of the earth like petrified snakes. More than once he
almost stumbled. His hands soon grew cold, his fingers stiff.
Then he heard it.
A soft rustling.
Samuel froze instantly.
His breathing became shallow.
Slowly, he turned his head.- "There!"
Something small moved between low bushes. Quick. Careful.
A rabbit.
His heart leaped.- "…Okay…"
He crouched down as quietly as he could. Every movement suddenly felt too loud. The snap of a
twig under his foot made him flinch inside. He hadn't expected these creatures to exist in this world
as well.
The rabbit froze.
For a moment, neither of them moved.
And then in a single bound—the animal was gone.
"Damn it!"
Samuel jumped up and ran after it, almost tripping over a root, barely catching himself—
Too late.
Nothing left to see.
Only darkness.
And silence.
He tried again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Every time the same.
A rustle.
A brief spark of hope.
Then nothing but the sound of fleeing footsteps in the undergrowth.
His movements became more frantic. More impatient.
He breathed heavily, his chest burning.
But he was too slow.
Too loud.
Too inexperienced.
The forest did not belong to him.
The night dragged on.
The cold slowly crept through his clothes, biting into his skin. His hands now trembled
uncontrollably. Even if he had caught something… he didn't know if he would still have had the
strength.
His stomach ached by now.
No longer a simple growl.
A dull, pulling pain.
At some point, Samuel leaned against a tree. His legs wouldn't carry him anymore.
"…Just one…," he murmured weakly.
His voice sounded foreign. Thin.
But the forest remained mercilessly silent.
At some point, he gave up.
He sank down at the base of a tree, pulled his knees to his body, and wrapped his arms around
them. The ground was hard and cold, completely different from the soft meadow before. He wished
to be home, in his warm bed, with a full fridge, and most importantly with his parents.
But that wish was not granted to him.
Even here, the wind found its way, brushing through the trees and making them creak softly.
Samuel closed his eyes.
The hunger remained.
So did the cold.
And the darkness… never fully disappeared.