Chapter 2

Doomed by Chance

Mikey woke with a start, opening his eyes; he looked up into the branches of what appeared to be a very large oak tree.

He sat up, wincing as a massive headache now gripped him. Suspecting a concussion, he quickly pulled his hand up in front of his face to see if two fingers would become four. Thankfully this was not the case and his vision was definitely not doubled since he only saw one oak tree as he stood up to see if he could walk, just to check his balance.

Slowly he made his way through all the steps his father had taught him on how to tell if he was seriously injured and as far as he could tell, apart from a slowly fading headache, the results were promising.

After quickly taking stock of the situation, he tried to remember how he had gotten here in the first place.

Ok, he remembered talking to Marlon in the apple tree about something. Sightings, that was it and he had gone up the tree to take a nap before, before… he couldn't remember what had happened after that point. Wait sightings!

'The Stalker!' He thought to himself and it was then that his true situation hit him. He was alone and right now a creature with a reputation for stealth and lethal ambushes was prowling around, possibly in any of the bushes around him and no one was here to protect him. He felt something at that moment, something that he had never felt before, alone and vulnerable; what it was like to feel truly helpless.

Somewhere nearby someone let out a groan, Mikey jumped with his tiny fists raised in a ridiculous attempt to look tough, but as he looked around nothing jumped out at him teeth, bared ready to tear him limb from limb, instead he heard the groan again and it definitely came from somewhere very close by.

He instantly looked to where he believed the sounds to be coming from and saw their source. Lying at the base of the oak tree was another possum, unmoving except for an occasional twitch.

Mikey approached slowly at first, following the rule of assisting an injured comrade, thanks again to the constant lessons his father had forced upon him throughout his childhood.

Checking his surroundings every few steps, he made his way to the injured possum and kneeled down next to it, and took one last look around in case of an ambush before lowering his head to the possum's chest to check for a heart beat at first, which he managed to hear almost instantly although it was very slow and weak.

Mikey raised his head and looked down upon the possum thinking. Taking quick look over the injured creature he noticed that its chest wasn't rising and falling properly. Now with a rough idea of the problem he lowered his head again, pressing his ear to the possum's chest but a little higher this time.

Yep, there it was, a faint whistling noise.

Standing up and taking a few steps back, Mikey prepared to perform something he'd made up himself but had never really had, nor wanted, the chance to try it on a living thing. After carefully setting up the angle in his head, Mikey broke into a quick run, before leaping into the air, hoping he'd gotten this right.

As he fell his elbow struck perfectly in the centre of the other possum's chest, the possum seemed to flop comically as Mikey landed and along with what was probably the world's worst coughing fit, a small acorn flew up from the possums mouth, with Mikey managing to catch it just before it could fall back in again.

Relieved Mikey could feel that although still unconscious, the possum began to take in huge gulps of air and thinking it better to stand up and give the guy some room, Mikey took a few steps backwards.

As he did so, he bumped into something, something soft and furry, something that seemed to growl at his touch.

Turning around slowly, carefully avoiding any quick movements he, moved to face this new arrival, desperately hoping it to be Marlon, or better yet, his father.

Oh if only he could be so lucky.

Instead of the a hawk or falcon, he now found himself staring up into the ever feared, deep, dark eyes of the an unmistakable horror, its body covered in a layer night-black fur with a face that could only show vicious intent, The Stalker.

"Well you're out," it spoke with a calm, cold voice, pausing momentarily to look at the sun, "late. Or is it early with your kind?"

Mikey shook with fear completely paralysed by the intense feeling of dread and immanent death with which the creature was so frighteningly adept at filling its surrounding environment, and was unable to answer the Stalker's question, his hand merely fell open dropping the acorn.

"Scared, too frightened for words it seems. Why is it that so many seem so intent on holding their last breath when I meet them?" The creature clearly found something amusing about Mikey's utter terror and couldn't help smiling menacingly, "I see you're not alone, I must compliment you on the simplicity of the manner in which you saved your friend. Ironic isn't it, that mere moments after his revival, he was fated to die."

Mikey couldn't believe the situation in which he now found himself, his gaze trapped in the eyes of a thing that was clearly so used to freezing its prey with fear that it felt compelled to taunt them before they were inevitably devoured. It was clear to him now that this creature's reputation was definitely a well deserved one.

"Are you not going to speak little possum, it's probably the best chance to prolong your life that you could ever hope to receive from me?" the creature was still smiling and staring into Mikey's eyes, seeming to penetrate his very soul.

He did however decide it best to attempt speech, if only to give him a chance to look for the now seemingly impossible chance to escape, if only he could stop staring into its eyes.

"P-p-please d-don't, I'll d-do anything," he begged, shaking uncontrollably, using the only words he could fish out of his mind, which only made the creature give a large grin of amusement, giving Mikey a full view of its many razor-sharp teeth.

The thing lowered its head to his level, until its eyes were right in front of his own, "Many have begged for that, but I'm afraid my only answer is and always will be, no."

As it spoke the final word, the Stalker opened it's jaws, Mikey could feel it's warm breath, wreaking of the flesh of the hundreds of unfortunates before him and pulled its head back preparing for a stylish snatch it had perfected over the years to ensure the prey bled as a little as possible so that its flesh remained soft and juicy.

Everything seemed to happen in an instant, the Stalker threw itself, jaws wide open, directly at Mikey's neck. However Mikey, freed from the paralysing view of those hypnotic eyes, dived as fast as he could to his left, avoiding the Stalker's final killing bite.

Rolling onto his back to see what the Stalker was doing, he very narrowly avoided a lethal blow from one of the Stalker's now unsheathed claws, completely by accident.

Barely sure of what he was doing, Mikey leapt to his feet and began to run on all fours right toward the Stalker, making sure to avoid looking into its eyes and dived underneath its large, black body.

Rolling onto his back again, he began to kick mercilessly up toward the Stalker's soft underbelly. The beast let out a terrifying yowl, more of anger and frustration, than pain and leapt away from the surprisingly dangerous possum.

Spinning round, in one quick movement, it made a pounce toward Mikey who attempted to dive away once more, but as he reached the ground he felt the Stalker's jaw bite down on his tail and in a second equally fast movement of its head, the beast threw Mikey into the air right toward a tree.

(SMACK!)

Mikey slammed, headlong into the tree and began to slide down the smooth bark, dizzy, disorientated and barely conscious and slumped on the tree's roots.

The Stalker, taking full advantage of the lethal upper hand it now possessed, pounced once more toward a helpless Mikey. As it flew through the air paws outstretched and claws unsheathed, something awkward happened, instead of landing on the possum ready to devour this delightfully playful meal, the Stalker was grabbed in the talons of a low flying bird, which unable to carry the weight, let go, throwing the Stalker into a cluster of ferns.

The beast rolled many times before stopping in a tangled heap, completely unconscious.

Mikey stood up slowly, again noticing an immense pain somewhere in his body, but this time it wasn't just his head. His tail was stinging terribly and after grabbing it and pulling it into view, he noticed the damage was much worse than he had thought. Blood was flowed in a steady stream over his hand, from the badly mangled remnants, that were once the final few centimetres of his tail.

Marlon's voice broke in from the branches overhead, "Michael, are you alright!"

"Sort of," Mikey answered shakily, still reeling from the event which had just taken place and his own revulsion of the bloody piece of flesh, at which he was now staring .

He felt a small cool breeze flow passed him, followed by a soft rustling that could only be Marlon flying down to investigate, probably fearful of what Mikey's father would do to him should he ever find out that Mikey had been attacked and subsequently wounded under his watch.

"Let me see that," Marlon spoke with real concern in his voice, possibly the first time Mikey had ever heard it from him, leaning down to investigate Mikey's mangled tail, "I'm sorry Michael, it's my fault. I shouldn't have let you go up to that branch."

"No worries Marlon," Mikey now spoke still shakily, his entire body now shivering uncontrollably, "I should have been more careful, sorry Marlon"

"Not as sorry as you are about to be," returned Marlon, after examining the injury, "Hold out your tail, I'm afraid I'm going to have to remove that."

He indicated the bloody, mangled portion of Mikey's tail.

"What!" Mikey yelled, and pulled his tail closer to himself in an attempt to hide it from Marlon.

"Michael, that injury is far too serious, if I leave it there it's going to become infected, please it's for your own good," Marlon begged Mikey to hand over his tail.

Deciding it was best to follow Marlon's advice, Mikey held out his tail and Marlon proceeded to grip the injured portion in his beak.

Deciding he'd much rather not look at his own mutilation, Mikey turned around to give Marlon as much room as he could to do his work.

Marlon mumbled something that sounded like "ready?" and Mikey nodded, mentally preparing himself for the pain he was about to experience and he gave the order, "Do it."

Mikey screamed as he felt a stab of sudden, intense pain shoot through his tail, his cries echoing into the surrounding trees as Marlon's incredibly sharp beak sliced clean through his tail, severing the injury completely.