Chapter 3

"First, you have to skin it." Your father explains, sliding one of his thick, hairy fingers across the belly of the deceased deer hanging upside down in front of you. "Make a long cut from the pelvis towards the chest, as I taught you... Go ahead, son."

Your fifteen-year-old you stay frozen with your little knife in your hand. You first look at your father, who looks down at you with his arms crossed and a raised eyebrow and then at the dead deer. You take a step closer, the smell instantly going to your nostrils, making you gag. "I-i can't." You whimper, covering your mouth and nose to contain your urges to vomit.

Your father snorts, combing his bushy mustache with his fingers as he looks down at your pathetic little display. "Gods, Theo. You still can't do it without puking? Maybe I should have Mattie helping me here instead." He grabs the knife of your hand and quickly cuts the animal open without flinching.

"Sorry, dad..." You take a few steps back, escaping from the odor and letting your father work.

"It's okay, son." He smiles, making deep cuts on each one of the deer's legs. "You have a good heart. You don't have to become a dumb hunter like your old man... with a bit of luck, maybe you can become a drunkard, like your uncle." He laughs at his own joke. You roll your eyes and laugh along with him.

"...It's actually been a while since uncle Felix last came to visit." You say, sitting down on a nearby wooden box. "Do you think he will-"

"Probably not." Your dad grunts, swiftly removing the hide from the deer's body, exposing its organs and pink flesh. "Last time he was here I... I told him to never come back."

"W-what? Why?"

"...He proposed something to me..." He softly talks, taking a step back from the deer and unconsciously fidgeting with the wedding ring wrapped around his finger. "Something I didn't like."

You sigh and stay silent. That was probably all the information your father was willing to share, he always tends to keep things to himself...

He mimics your sigh, tossing the small knife to the side, taking an old-looking rag out of his pocket, and wiping his hands with it. "Son..." He starts talking, turning towards you, walking close, and placing a hand on your shoulder. "I made a mistake. Felix can sometimes act like a piece of shit... but he is still my brother, he is family. You always keep family close, understand? I want you to be better than me."

You look at his face, pondering on his words for a few seconds before enthusiastically nodding your head up and down.

"That's my boy." He grins proudly, his hand now moving towards your head, playfully ruffling your dark hair. "Now... I think it's time for you to wake up. Good luck, son."

W-wait. Wake up...? What do you...?

You open your eyes with a soft gasp, your vision blurry at first, accompanied by an annoying ringing in your ears. You try to shift your body around but you don't quite completely feel it yet. Despite all of this, you are alive. How the hell are you alive?

After a few minutes of waiting, the fuzzy shapes around you start to make sense again... It seems like you are in some kind of cave. Great... another cave... but this one looks a lot more mossy, humid, and green in general than Kara's wolf den.

The sensitivity gradually returns to your body, starting with the upper part of it. You now know and feel that you are laying on a bed... or something like that. This bedding consists simply of a bunch of large dark green leaves piled up on top of each other, yet it is a lot comfier than one might think by its description. You are laying shirtless, you weakly move your neck down to see your torso, noticing a rather long scar on its right side, must have been that branch that speared you...

Your hair has been neatly cut short and your face has been clean shaved, seems like someone took the time to properly tidy you up while you recovered. The ringing on your ears finally disappears, and it's immediately replaced with a soft, soothing, feminine hum of a song you don't recognize... That's nice...

You move your head to the side, you can see a light-green-skinned, short young woman turning her back at you. She stands in front of a wide tree trunk that's now being used as a table. The girl keeps singing to herself as she prepares a bowl of warm water, dipping some herbs into it along with a pinch of some kind of salt.

She grabs the bowl with both hands and turns back to face you again. The calm expression on her face quickly gets replaced with a shocked one as she sees you awake. "Mother!" She loudly yelps, the bowl falling from her grip and into the ground. "M-mother! He woke up! He woke up!" She continues, sprinting out of the mossy, cave room.

"W-wait..." You softly call out to her as she runs away. You weakly move up to a sitting position over the bedding, your legs still numb. "...Where the hell am I...?" You ask yourself after a pair of seconds, rubbing your face.

"You are in the heart of the woods." A voice next to you replies, more deep and mature than the previous girl. "A sanctuary, hidden from the brutality of your kind."

You quickly look towards its source, widening your eyes in surprise as you gaze up at the tall, plant-like woman looking down at you with an air of superiority and a stern frown on her elegant face. Her body green colored, like her supposed daughter, with a thin figure wrapped by branches, vines, and adorned by flowers of various kinds. "What... what are you?"

"I'm afraid the answer is too abstract for your limited human brain to handle."

"Alright..." You grunt, too worn out to think of a witty thing to answer. You look down and examine the cicatrized wound at the side of your torso, gently sliding your fingertips over it. "Gods. I really thought it was my end. Thanks for helping me... But how long was I out?"

"I didn't help you. One of my daughters did, save your thanks for her... You have been **** for a month." The plant lady simply says, clasping her hands on her front.

"A month..." You repeat in a gasp. "The girls must think I'm dead... I-i have to go." You say, trying to get up from the bed as you recover control of your legs.

"Not so fast. We need to have a little talk first." She stops you with a scowl. "...You can't tell anyone about this refuge. This is a secret, and I intend to keep it that way... I will know if you open your mouth. Wherever there is a plant, a tree, or even a small bit of grass or dirt, I'll be listening... And you don't want to make me angry. Nature always wins, remember that."

"...Listen..." You sigh, standing up over your wobbly legs. "I couldn't care less about this place. I won't bother mentioning it to anyone, I just want to go home... You don't have to worry about me."

The woman looks down at your face for a pair of seconds, like trying to read your mind, before uttering a soft: "Good.", taking a step back and pointing at your patched-up white shirt resting over the tree trunk table. "My daughter will guide you to the exit."

"Thanks." You say, moving towards the table, sliding the shirt around your torso, and starting to button it up. "Where is my sword?"

"We got rid of it. We don't allow instruments of destruction in this place."

"Of course..." You snort, your eyes suddenly widening as you notice the lack of a ring on your hand. "A-and my ring?"

"Ring? You didn't have any ring when my daughter found you. And no, I'll say it before your barbaric instincts make you think we may have stolen it, something like a ring has no value on here."

You take a deep breath and rub the bridge of your nose. It must have fallen when you... fell... Okay, you'll search for it later. Finding the girls is your top priority now. "...Alright. I think that's everything, then."

"Good. Now, get out of here. And don't return." The plant woman commands, pointing towards the passage leading out of the mossy cave room.

You go through the passage without saying another word and... woah... this cave is a lot bigger than you thought... It actually isn't a cave at all, it's more like an underground smaller forest below the actual forest you know, with tall dark trees, low running rivers, a collection of sweet-smelling flowers, and various kinds of docile small animals strolling around.

You take a few steps forward, examining the landscape with an amazed gaze. Scattered around the borders of the habitat are lots of small passages like the one you just came through, they must lead to the rooms of the rest of the woman's daughters. A soft, pleasant greenish lighting covers the whole area, making the atmosphere more peaceful than the woods you already know. You decide to close your eyes and take a pair of seconds to enjoy the sound of the water flowing, birds chirping and trees softly shaking... This might be the most relaxing place you ever found... but you already wasted too much time, you have important things to do.

You open your eyes again. Now, where is that girl you have to fol-?

"HI, I'M EVIE!"

You almost experience a heart attack as the short green girl, who first saw you wake up, jumps into your line of sight. A big excited smile on her cute face as she practically screams her introduction, immediately noticing that it came out way louder than she was expecting and covering her mouth with her hands...

She must be 5'5 feet tall, looking like a small version of her mother. Light-green colored with some vines of a darker color fused to her skin and a couple of wooden branches wrapped around different parts of her body. Evie has a slim figure, accompanied with some shapely legs, hips, and a plump pair of round breasts, all covered up by just some kind of dark green leaf-made strapless bra and an also leaf-made small loincloth. She has emerald green eyes and long, tousled green hair adorned with some pretty flowers... Green, green, green, how many times did that word appear?

"I-i'm sorry! Sometimes I'm too loud, I-i'll try it again: Hi, I'm Evie!" She nervously says, controlling her excitement this time, her expression suddenly getting a bit worried as she sees you clenching your beating chest. "Are you okay?"

"Y-yeah, yeah. Don't worry..." You clear your throat, a bit embarrassed by your startled reaction. "...Nice to meet you, Evie. I'm Theo."

"Hello Theo! It's great to finally know your name after all this time!" She exclaims, the huge smile returning to her face, the girl shifts her weight from one foot to the other, almost bouncing in the spot. "You are actually the first human I've met! Mother says humans are really scary, but you aren't scary at all."

You chuckle, smiling down at the plant girl. "Well, you saved this human's life. Thank you, Evie."

"Aw, don't mention it! You looked really bad, your arm was bent like this..." She does her best impression, twisting her right arm as much as she could without hurting herself. "And your leg looked like this..." She continues, lifting one leg off the ground and bending her knee in the air, mimicking a fracture. "And that big branch got-"

"Y-yeah, I get it." You laugh again, on the corner of your eye you can see the tall plant mother disapprovingly looking at you with her arms crossed and her eyebrows furrowed... "Evie, I'm in a bit of a hurry. Could you-"

"So how does it feel being a human? Tell me about yourself! What's your favorite color?" She takes a step closer, eagerly awaiting your answer.

"Uhm, blue."

"Oh, there are some beautiful blue flowers I can show you later! ...Try to guess my favorite color."

Your smile widens, this one is easy. "Heh... I think it's green."

"...H-how did you know?!" Evie asks, actually surprised.

You shrug your shoulders, amusedly looking down at her.

"Anyways... Do you like rabbits? We can pet one together! There is a really cute brown one. I call him Mr. Whiskers because he has the most adorable-"

"Evelyn." Her mother interrupts in a stern tone of voice. "Guide him to the exit, please. He has to go now... Isn't that right, human?"

You softly nod your head up and down.

"O-oh... already...? But- but-" She pouts, but finally sighs in defeat after a pair of seconds. "Okay... let's go, Theo." She grabs your hand and starts directing you through the underground forest.

"Ugh! I hate when she calls me that..." She groans to herself once she is far enough from her mother to hear. "Evelyn, this. Evelyn, that. I told her a million times to simply call me Evie..."

You walk by the girl's side, looking around the area as she rants. You can notice Evie's sisters doing different activities all around the woods, they all look similar to her, but each one with different hairstyles and body shapes. You politely wave your hand at them, some wave back, some blush and try to hide and some simply frown.

"-Do I talk too much? My sisters always say I talk too much. I think the real issue would be not talking enough, everybody loves a good chat, right? Why is it that-"

"Evie, forgive me for asking, but... what are you?" You decide to change the topic and hopefully stop her monologue.

"...Mother didn't tell you? We are dryads."

"Dryads... That's the first time I've heard that word."

"Doesn't surprise me. We aren't allowed to leave the forest. And we can't interact with anyone that isn't an animal or... well, another dryad." She sighs. "...It's really boring. Sometimes I wish I could be like you and just do whatever I want...."

"...I'm sure your mother is just trying to protect you. The world out there isn't a very friendly place."

"Yeah, well... I don't need to be protected. I can take care of myself."

You reach the center of the area. Standing in front of a rather large, thick, and very ancient-looking tree with a dark, tall hole in its middle, you can hear really weird sounds coming out of it.

"Here we are. You just have to go across that hole. I recommend you to close your eyes before passing through, you might get a bit dizzy if you don't."

"Great. Thanks again, Evie." You smile, the dryad still holds your hand.

"You... you'll come visit sometime? You already know we... exist. So I don't think there is a problem if we keep being friends, right?"

"...I-i don't really think your mother would like that... I'm sorry."

"Y-yeah, you are right..." She sadly sighs, letting go of your hand. "Good luck, Theo. I might name a rabbit or a bird after you, it's a really cool name..."