The forest was eerie and deadly silent expect for distant owl hoots and gusts of winds rustling the treetops as well as the branches below. Being alone, it would have shaken me for a good long time to come, but with company it felt as if we would get out together as soon as we found my brother.
Michael was blowing into the glass bottle top.
"Jason!" he called out. "Come out! Answer us! Come out so we can see young crying like big baby!"
"Provoking won't help," I replied. "It just encourages him to take bigger steps."
"So you're suggesting we provoke him with kindness?" remarked Hawkbit.
"Wrong time for sarcies, Hawkbit," said Michael seriously as he blew into the top again.
"Urrrgh!"
We gasped as we heard a groan behind us. It was coming form being some stumps.
Hoping it was Jason, I dashed to the location when I saw, not Jason lying on the ground but -
"Fiver?"
Fiver in the flesh, the wide seawater eyes, the tawny fur and pudgy cheeks.
"Leo?" he gasped.
"Fiver!"
We ran to each other and nuzzled each other in great force. It was wonderful to know that my rabbit-brother was alive and well - if he was willing to hop after he stay we found him in.
"What are you doing?" I cried, half happy and half concerned.
"There was some bird," Fiver explained. "Me and the others we made a burrow for the night and we waited for nightfall so we could follow the white path and low and behold, they had all disappeared. But their scents were as strong as ever. I planned on looking for them when low and behold, this big black bird made a grab for me and - well, here I am. I woke up and then you found me."
"Why would a bird pick you up and drop you here?" Pipkin pondered.
"Perhaps it took him that long to remember he's on a diet," remarked Hawkbit.
"I really don't know," said Fiver looking up. "All I know is, it must be something about what has happened previously, these tasks, the paths, something new is in store. The disappearance of the others must be to do with this. Knowing them, they would never leave me."
"They wouldn't if they'd any sense," said Dandelion. "What's the point of reading the future to yourself?"
"This is no time for jokes, Dandelion," I criticised.
"A joke within a fact, innit," Dandelion defended.
"So what you lot doing here? And where's half of your group?"
"Half of them are back out of the forest, but armed with other stronger rabbits. We felt half wouldn't survive lest danger came. We're here because that stupid brother of mine has gone gallivanting of into this forest. Because of him, we might break up again."
"I'm not one to usually insult," said Fiver, "but you're right; that was stupid of him."
He suddenly gasped and remembered the vision he had earlier that day.
"What is it?" I asked. "Did you have any vision relating to this?"
Fiver considered saying no, lest I worried but he did not want to commit the crime of lying again.
"Yes," he said. "What I saw was pretty accurate to this current situation; He who sees shall soon depart, and reunite with friends all smart."
This was pretty accurate seeing as Fiver was taken from his group and found us lot.
He went on: "A stupid child shall take a chance, the sibling learns within advance."
"Well it's not too accurate is it," I said shortly. "I learned he ran away long after."
"I'm only saying what I said and saw," said Fiver.
"Of course," I said. "Sorry, Fiver. It's not you I'm mad at."
"I know," said Fiver. "I'd be furious if it was me. There's more if it may solve the confusion."
I nodded eagerly.
"Fangs of white shall they all meet, they all must run to shun defeat."
"Wolves," Michael assumed.
"Well if that's the case, we need to find Jason now before …"
I tried very hard not to picture the consequences if we were too late.
"We'll find him, Leo," Fiver comforted. "Have faith."
"But how can I?" I remarked forlornly, "he just has to do something and we have to end up looking for him before the worst happens. He's done so many stupid risks I cannot count them. I've literally lost track."
"I thought I got Fiver killed once," remarked Pipkin. "But we were lucky. You might be too. Come on, the more time we waste the less caches there are of finding him."
We began to hope forward, me pondering of what would happen if we didn't find him. I could just imagine facing Mam and Dad for this incident if we lost him for good. I'd hate to think if they might have disowned me for this. I never knew of such a thing but these things often occur when someone worries themselves to death.
"Switch on, Leo."
Michael snapped me out of my thoughts when I found the others standing by the edge of train tracks. I panicked as the next imaginary image smacked me.
"Suppose Jason didn't know where he was going?" I said. "Suppose he … he,"
"He didn't," said Michael. "Fiver said nothing about death in the vision."
"But an escapade," said Fiver. "I suppose that's a positive sign on survival."
We all hopped across the trestle as distant screeching approached, lights advancing.
I checked to make sure we were all out of it's way, but on the tracks stood Fiver, staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed into the trains direction.
"Come on, Fiver!" I shouted with worry. "Get off the tracks!"
Fiver seemed to ignore me for stayed in the same position and expression.
"Fiver! Get off!" I yelled now in deeper worry as the lights were growing stronger.
"GET OF THE BLOODY TRACKS YOU, IDIOT!" Michael thundered in panic. "YOU'RE GONNA GET YOURSELF KILLED!"
Fiver heeded nothing for he still stood there, wide-eyed as the train zoomed closer and closer.
Michael charged at the runty rabbit and knocked him off the tracks, dodging the train in the nick of time.
When the train was clear of pathway, we ran back to the other side where we saw Michael sitting shocked and Fiver sitting up looking confused.
"Wha- what happened?" he stammered.
"WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENED?!" shrieked Michael. "YOU ATTEMPTED SUICIDE, YOU PILLOCK! DAMN YOU, FIVER! DID YOU NOT HEAR US CALLING YOU?!"
"I didn't!" wailed Fiver cowering. "Please! I probably went tharn!"
"WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? BUNNY-CIDE?! YOU'RE LUCKY TO SEE TOMO-"
"THAT'S ENOUGH!"
Pipkin's voice cracked like gun going off. Even Michael was shocked enough to stop yelling. I myself found it uncharacteristic but then, everyone had their limits. I certainly recalled Fiver's outburst at Hawkbit back at Watership Down.
"Tharn is when you are petrified," Pipkin clarified to Michael. "It always happens to us rabbits when in the way of a hurrudadu."
Michael took it in and looked at Fiver who sat down in shock.
"I'm sorry for attacking you like that, Fiver," Michael apologised. "I was really scared. I thought you were gonna get killed."
"Apology accepted," said Fiver half smiling and standing up. "Thank you for saving my life."
Michael smiled gently, patted his shoulder and said, "Glad I did, Fivvo."
"Fivvo?" asked Fiver in confusion.
"Just a nickname I picked," said Michael. "Just playing around with your name, like how Rosie calls Leo 'Lolly'."
I smiled at this and turned to the left to notice a sillouhette, a sillouhette with red eyes and two yellow buck teeth noted down like a knife's end. It seemed to growl and it hopped away.
"We got to move, now!" I said urgently.
"Yes," agreed Blackavar. "Jason."
"Not so much that," I said. "I saw something similar in the midst."
"Who?" asked Fiver.
Quietly I explained; "Two years ago, you, me and Pipkin nearly got killed when we ran into his teorrioty."
Fiver gasped. "I read nothing about him. Only fangs of white and its teeth are yellow."
"We're in no hurry to know what you're talking about," said Hawkbit plainly.
"The Gold-Toothed Shadow," I explained.
Hawkbit seemed to wear a look of shock.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Erm, nothing," said Hawkbit who was actually eying Pipkin as his replied.
"You don't have to worry about scaring me, Hawkbit," said Pipkin. "I encountered him before."
"The name just sounded familiar," said Hawkbit, but his confident delivery did not make it sound convincing.
Jason hopped on and on through the forest. It was starting to get really eerie but he was reminded of the rewards of passing through peril. His show-off brother would finally stop treating him like he is little. Finally he might achieve something to win attention. The nice rabbit seemed to be the answer to all of his problems. He recalled the very afternoon today after Leo was schooling him;
"Who are you?"
"Cornstalk."
"How do you know my brother?" asked Jason.
Cornstalk smiled coldly. "You would be jolly well surprised."
"Yes, yes, I know," Jason remarked. "Leo Barning from Above, blahdy, blahdy, blah! King of the Clouds, Super Bunny, Bunny Barning the Brutal."
"You prove talent for such insults, I ought to confess," replied Cornstalk cooly. "Your brother is of hate then?"
"Indeed he is," spat Jason looking down on the leaves he tore after his brother kicked him in the backside. "Won't let me prove myself. Always feels the need to steal the spotlight."
"As well as the fact that he willingly pushed me into a bear pit."
Jason perked up his ears.
"Two years before you arrived, I was helping him and his two friends, the seer and the rabbit with the weasel dead parents solve a mystery when he trying nudging me into the cave of three bears. But I dodged him and pushed him in along with the other two."
Jason held a lot of grudge on Leo but the last thing he wanted was his own brother mauled to death by bears. He was already in big trouble after nearly getting him drowned. He was grounded until his parents arranged him to go to summer school for the whole holiday to think about what he did.
"I don't necessarily want to commit fratricide," Jason confessed, "but I totally want to better him, show him he's not the lord."
"That's where I come in, my friend," Cornstalk said in a friendly tone. "Two misfits wanting to better someone to prove themselves, they are the sort of friends who must be willing to team up. Come with me."
"They'll get suspicious if I leave," said Jason looking overhead at the others minding their own business.
"It's just behind these bushes," Cornstalk explained.
Jason followed him behind the bushes of red berries.
"Can you smell strong oak?"
"Being in a forest, yes," remarked Jason.
"Freshest, strongest oak," Cornstalk clarified.
Jason tried again.
"Now I can," he said.
"Wait for the right moment," Cornstalk instructed. "When you do, said 'Freeze for the Betterer' and they shall halt. You may swap that silly thing with Dawn-Rah's necklace. Once you have, follow the scent of this forest and you shall soon find the cord you lost. Not only that, you will also be given the answers where to find the Child of the Seer whom I had done time with."
Jason was about to ask how he did time with Chestnut was he was gone.
Wherever he went, he was a big help. All he had to do was wait for the right moment.
And so he did. There he was, off to complete the task of proving himself to his brother Michael. Just because they were stage and YouTube gods he could do something bolder than they ever would. Just because Leo had unlocked a magic necklace with some risky challenges, just because Michael killed a weasel, just because Fiver is a future reader, just because Pipkin is a cocky daredevil, just because his baby comrades were also tough, Jason could be every one of those without showing off. They saw potential in him and all of a sudden they become boring Mother Hens. They would soon see he's stronger than Leo and they'll see how wrong he was overprotecting him like this. The more he thought of all of this, the angrier he got - after all, he would be seventeen in October.
The forest was now getting thicker, the trees somehow had what looked like faces of forest critters. Jason looked about and a quick scream whipped out of him as the shock of the wolf-shaped oak in front of him greeted him. Jason couldn't be more relieved to know it was not real but his heart was trying to beat its way out his chest.
"Video games and movies," he whispered calmly to himself as he braved on. "Video games and movies. Video games and movies. Video games and movies."
The ritual seemed to keep him calmer than he did before but there was no help from the sound of howling wolves and hooting owls.
He ventured on until he came to two trees standing in-between a passage. In-between the passage, there seemed to be a pair of red eyes and what looked like a golden mini knife. Jason could immediately make them out to be teeth. His heart began throbbing again as growling emerged from the creature which finally roared and pounced in Jason's direction. Jason dodged the attack and quickly shot off, the creature in pursuit.
"HELP!" he screamed. "HELP ME! MURDER! SOMEONE HELP ME! HEEEEELLP!"
The creature charged on towards the wretched buck. He looked behind him when he suddenly slipped down a crevice, slipping, skidding, tumbling and sliding down to the bottom. He slammed onto the ground, not badly hurt but winded from the impact. As he got up he noticed a green acorn before him with some sort of string. He had found it! Finally there was something to rub in Leo's face but wait … there was something else Cornstalk said; the answer to finding Chestnut. There was the option of opening this trinket and going home and letting Leo find him by himself but somehow, his instinct told him not to. However he slipped it over his neck with the golden trinket.
"He's here," said a voice.
Jason looked on as a light came into the distance. It ascended and as it got closer, Jason realised there were a variety of red eyes. The light was splitting itself into - wolves!
Jason was about to panic when one of them said "You seek the Child of the Seer?"
"Y-yes," stammered Jason.
"Follow us," said another.
Jason obeyed and followed the pack through the pathway, theatres curving over not letting any light of the moon shine down but the coats of the wolves was bright enough to distinguish.
When they reached the opening, Jason found himself standing in a round clearing, on-top of the bottoms was a hill descending down to where he was standing, where the pack had clambered to and sat there glaring at Jason. There was something peculiar going on here. The place he was standing gave him a sick feeling like he was standing in the ring of the Great Colosseum of Rome.
"Is here here?" hissed a female voice for the vacant gap in the middle up from where Jason was standing.
The wolves howled simultaneously. Jason knew he was minutes away from completing everything but he was shaking from this experience, being a rabbit and all.
Emerging from the gap, came a huge, white wolf only her eyes where blue and for a female, she seemed to hold more muscle than any of the males. She glared rather hungrily at Jason.
"You are eying, Skymoon," she said to Jason. "Who are you and what brings you here?"
"My name is Jason," he said meekly.
"Speak up!" the wolf whipped.
"Jason!" he said loudly this time. "I come from the instructions of Cornstalk. He said you know answers to all questions."
Skymoon glared.
"The Twilight Pack is one to answer all," remarked Skymoon. "But we know of no Cornstalk."
Jason was getting very confused but more shaken and paranoid
"Ask!" Skymoon demanded.
"My brother's friend's son is missing. This kitten is called Chestnut, otherwise known as, the Child of the Seer."
Skymoon looked up to the night as did the other wolves. Through the growling, they chased: "Saka, saka, hooli-meh! Saka, saka allee-ro! Ga-ga ga ga-ga! Himmy, himmy, hamma hoo! Seelo, seelo, Feelo, fa!"
They ended the chant with long howl to the moon which seemed to reached up to it.
They all then stared down at Jason looking all around him.
"The Child of the Seer is lured to imprisonment," explained Skymoon, "not by death by mind. The enchantress, Chillblack has allowed Larkspur to inherit half her power only stronger, that way shall Leo Barning from Above return into her threat, she shall be ready for battle towards him. The child, along with a group of other kittens and a badger, are lured to the Field of Firth's Miracles where beauty traps the victim who believes in the answer to what they desire. You only have to sleep through tomorrow and reach there by evening to be on time."
Jason sank this all in. He didn't feel like rubbing this whole thing into Leo's face now. This felt more like a situation that needed instant action.
"Thank you," said Jason. "You've been a big help."
He turned to hop away when -
"What of your debt?" said Skymoon suddenly.
"Debt?" asked Jason.
"Where is your sacrifice?" the wolf replied severely.
"I - I didn't know you had to pay debts or sacrifices for a question."
"Indeed one must," replied Skymoon as she, along with the pack ascended slowly down to Jason. "When one doesn't, the only way to repent is the cheat's own life."
"But," began Jason in panic. "Can't I leave something for ransom and find you a mouse or something?"
"The Twilight Pack never falls for trickery to long-ears, like yourself!" snarled Skymoon. "Dinner is served."
Two wolves pounced at Jason and he immediately dodged it. He charged up to the hill where trey were standing and made a speedy dash away from the pack, they in pursuit of him. This task was not what he had hoped for. Cornstalk was one he thought he could trust. He dashed on and on, ignoring the eerie critter noises of the trees.
Through the panting and growling of the pack behind him, he could hear the sound of a ship horn.
Jason! Jason, where are you?!
"HERE!" Jason screamed.
We were standing by a steep hill when we heard his voice. I gulped down as much relief as I could. There he was, running from a large light. But a growling light.
"Wolves!" I cried. I looked around and saw a very long slope behind us like a steep slide. We would just have to risk it.
"JASON!" I cried. "KEEP RUNNING HERE!"
Jason managed to reach us and we slid down the slope, the wind blowing on our face as we slid into the soft mud below. There we all lay panting and looking up at the pack was growling down at us and finally walking away.
"They've given up the chase," Blackavar observed.
"Don't jinx it, Blackavar," chastised Hawkbit in his worried trance. "Wolves are not as stupid as dogs."
"But wolves are dogs," Dandelion pointed out.
Hawkbit grumbled.
"Look!" Blackavar pointed out.
He was referring to a rather old boat, half of it resting by the bank, a dark green over over it.
"Remember when you saved me and Primrose from Efrafa?" Blackavar reminded.
"Yes!" said Fiver delightedly. "We can use that to get away from here as far as we could."
Everyone clambered in except for me, Michael and Blackavar. We pushed with all our might and the boat slowly edged into the water.
"Nearly there!" Michael strained.
Finally, with another strong shove, the boat began to rock through the stream. Me and the other two caught up with it and hopped aboard. Just as I thought we were safe I gasped as various white lights apparelled on each side of the distance of the bank.
"You jinxed it, Blackavar," reacted Hawkbit as he and Dandelion hugged each other in fear.
I looked towards where the boat was headed; strong rapids. The wolves shot down to us as the boat began to beat and hit violently to the rapids, bouncing us about and knocking into each other and swaying and swirling through the stream like a roller coaster. I wanted to see if we were far off for the wolves but I feared being whacked overboard by a branch or something.
Michael sprung up and looked about.
"They've given up!" Michael cried. "There's nowhere for them to run."
We all cheered but then another rapid episode occurred and this time a lot more violent.
"I prefer hurrudadus to this!" wailed Hawkbit.
"I prefer military exercise to this!" Dandelion argued.
The cover suddenly ripped off. I got up and inspected it; it got caught on a long branch and now we were uncovered. I looked at the boat's front to see the top of a waterfall and in front of it, a huge boulder, strong enough destroy an old boat.
"BRACE YOURSELVES!" I screamed when -
BASH! CRACK!
"AAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHH!"
We toppled all the way down to the bottom of the waterfall, the spitting of water getting in our eyes.
Down, down, down, DOMPSHH!