#itdotn

The ground around the pit was normal, twigs and leaves, but at the edge of the pit, it suddenly changed as the pit was littered with jagged rocks and some strange material he couldn’t quite identify in the split second he looked at it. Despite the moonlight illuminating the area enough to relatively see, the details of the pit were fuzzy even as he gazed into it.

Precious sound was finally back, but this wasn’t the sound of regular fauna, it was instead an unsettling clacking and clicking, almost a chittering, from within the pit that he couldn’t see the real bottom of. Even his keen eyes only captured an endless sea of black at the bottom, much like the other details of it.

The momentum of his collapse brought him to the edge of the pit, teetering on the edge of the pit without anything to hold onto. For a heart-stopping moment, he hung there on the edge. He flailed his arms desperately, invisible eyes open as wide as they could go as his mouth formed an invisible ‘o’.

But his hopes were dashed as the edge of his heel brushed a rock down from the edge. Watching it tumble into the dark abyss, the ground below his feet gave way as the sound below him got louder.

A strangled note was finally wrenched from his lips as his eyes instinctively closed. His invisible limbs flailed and his stomach lurched as he began to fall.

-

Heart pounding nearly out of his chest, Logan’s eyes blew open to a blast of sudden light. Limbs flailing for a moment, he nearly cried out as his mind was still in the interim stages of waking up for a long moment. The world was fuzzy, much like the pit, for a long few moments that had Logan’s jaw clenching and him holding his breath until it finally resolved into clarity.

Left hand flying up to his chest, Logan leaned back as he blinked his eyes in the light of his surroundings. Glancing down at his body for a moment, Logan frowned. After taking stock of himself, he quickly made sense of his surroundings.

A canopy of green was above him, yet that didn’t stop the slanting light of the barely risen sun to stab him directly in the eyes where it bypassed all the limbs and leaves. And that was despite the thick foliage between Logan and the sun, where most of the ground was still shrouded in darkness.

The ground… the ground is-

Craning his neck up from where it had been propped up against something, the edges of Logan’s mouth dipped as his eyes scanned the forest floor that was a few dozen feet below him. Logan’s hand stayed mostly limp at his sides as he flicked his eyes up to the tree’s canopy of leaves above him. He tracked the trunk until it rested behind him and it fell out of direct view from where he sat against it.

Taking a single deep breath, Logan once again brought his attention down to his body. The material of his clothes gave way to the familiar sensation of the thick weight of his pack and the surprisingly lightness of his covering. 

I’ll never understand why some people call my covering a cloak. It looks like a cloak, but a cloak and a covering are two distinct things. Though words are made up, but-

His ears flicked just a little as a small, sudden sound nearby caught his attention. Expression wavering to a near cringe, the awareness of the sound gave way to all of the sound Logan had been unconsciously tuning out hitting him all at once. The light breeze in the trees rustling the leaves around them, the far off sound of bird song, the buzz of various bugs everything suddenly penetrated Logan’s ears in a near painful way.

His hands were frozen on his leg and stomach for just a moment before Logan sprung into action.

Someone- or something is here.

In a flurry of limbs, Logan was halfway down to the ground within the next blink, silently scaling down the tree with the ultimate precision.

A heaviness was draped over him as his feet alighted the ground. It dragged not just his arms and legs down, but also his eyelids as well. Despite the fact he just woke up, Logan’s body was begging for him to go back to sleep for a week.

I can’t sleep. If someone is here they could kill me in my sleep without me even knowing, I have to kill them first before they can strike. This task is too important to let my guard down.

Stepping carefully across the forest floor, Logan’s hands reached simultaneously behind him with calculated precision. His heart still stuttered to a near stop when his hand came up to grasp only empty air. Thankfully, his pinky bumped his prized possession instead. 

Logan let a grateful breath out from his nose as his hands worked independently of each other. His left hand expertly grabbed an arrow from his quiver at the same instant he pulled his bow from around himself. Nocking the arrow with perfect precision, anyone that observed the action would have only observed a blur of movement before Logan was already ready and primed to shoot.

Face impassive and breathing steady, Logan stepped slowly towards where the sound had come from.

Logan ears flicked once more when a second louder but equally indistinguishable sound came from slightly off of where Logan had been sure the sound had come from. Somehow, his form both relaxed and tensed at the sound, but his hands remained ready and steady on his bow.

Another virtually silent huff of air, distantly noting the slight fog his breath made in the semi-frigid air. The cold had been fought off easily by his covering, but his hood slowly dipping as it slid off his head made him finally shiver.

Relaxing the bowstring, Logan wrapped his left pointer finger securely around the arrow while he reached up with his right hand and pulled his hood down again. Muttering under his breath, he waved his hand in front of his face and tugged on his hood again before returning his hand to the bowstring once more.

The distraction was gone, so Logan finally continued to stalk forwards towards the sound.

Trees became a little sparser the closer he got to the source of the sound. The bushes that had been a rare sight nearer to the tree Logan had slept in were now an impenetrable wall around the source of the sound.

As Logan reached the edge of the underbrush, the sound grew to near constancy. It was the sound of something heavy hitting the ground, but it was a strange sort of thud.

What? What could this possibly be? Is this even from a humanoid?

Logan paused, if just for a moment, as his brow wrinkled and his dry mouth only grew dryer. Swallowing was difficult. The sound occurred again, Logan straining to discern what was happening beyond the bushes. However, the sound still remained as confusing as ever.

His hands began to falter. They were shaking, but not loosening their firm grip on the bow. But as quickly as Logan’s hands shook, Logan’s hands stilled once more as the muscles in Logan’s jaw tightened and he took another stalking step forward.

I can’t stop, I at least have to see. There’s no going back.

Logan continued through the growing population of bushes until something moving finally revealed itself shifting behind the last layer of bushes.

With bated breath, Logan’s eyes stayed laser focused on the movement until the point of his arrow began to poke through the last bush. Bringing his arms down slightly but still leaving his weapon ready, Logan poked his head through the bush where the threat lay.