In the Jungle, the mighty Jungle

You woke from a rough night’s sleep in the nearby forest. You wrap your bed role back up and set out again. The forest got thicker and more humid until it became a thick jungle. It was at this point you realised you are lost. You knew from studying maps of your lands that the nearest town was on the edge of the forest and that the kingdom’s border was roughly where the forest stopped, and the jungle started.

You are in unclaimed and poorly charted land where no one lived. Myths said that shadow creatures roamed the jungle and dark trolls too. Dark trolls didn’t exist. They were said to be able to control shadow just as the forest trolls could control plants, the rock trolls control the earth and the ice trolls controlled the snow. There were many tails of encounters with all the other trolls and some had been killed or captured to prove their exitance and their powers. Trolls were powerful but not exactly smart and therefore easy to capture. However, every expedition into the jungle had come back empty-handed with not even a sighting, if they came back at all.

You try to follow her tracks back to the forest path, but this just sent you in circles. You got more and more lost until you hear rustling behind you. You draw your dagger and swung around just in time to catch a shadow fox as it leapt for you. It looked like a fox but all black except the white at the end of its tail. It seemed to move like smoke as if it wasn’t all solid. As it leapt, You plunged your knife into it and itpassed straight through it like a shadow. It bit you on the arm and then disappeared into the shadow of a bush.

You thought to herself “If they are shadows then maybe the shadow of my knife could hurt them.”

You stand ready, eye on your shadow, the light behind you sending it out in front of you like a shield. The shadow fox leapt again, and you thrust with your knife. But instead of aiming for it you aim for a blank space in such a way that your knife’s shadow thrust forward out of your shadow and into the fox. It was stopped in mid-air steamily impaled on your shadow of a knife.

“Yhoooll!” Screamed the shadow fox as it slumped the ground. Its form solidified and became the dead body of a black and white fox. Apparently, the creatures of this jungle could become a shadow and, in this form, could only be harmed by shadow. However, they were very much real once dead.

You manage to make a small fire and then skinned, gutted and cooked the small shadow fox. It did not taste great, but it was better than the dried bread you had brought with you.

It was about midday and starting to get relay hot and humid in the jungle. Your black dress was torn and clinging to your scratched and bruised skin, you had mud on your leg’s arms and face. Flies swarmed her but would not bite, you had found a plant that you had read about which when broken and rubbed on the skin kept biting insects at bay. You loved plants and had read all about them and memorised the properties that some had.

You hear another rustle in the bushes up ahead and readied your knife and checked your shadow just in case. This was a lot bigger than a fox, it rustled the lower branches of the canopy. Your plan changed from attack to hide. You spotted a bush that you could dive into, its leaves gave off a strong smell that would put off most predators. You leap towards it holding your nose but just before you land, you feel a hand clasp around your ankle.