I stood for a moment trying to decide which way to go. Obviously not the way I ran from last night but that still gave me three options. I decided to go straight. As I was walking through the forest I was running through everything that happened the night before. Still bothering me of course were the screams but why on earth were they going to that place. Did they not know what was going to happen to them? I almost felt an urge to go back to the wall in the daylight and see what it looked like and see if I could find anything more out to help those people but that thought soon exited my brain as quickly as it entered. As much as I wanted to help I couldn't be brave enough to actually face the fears and walk back there. My feet and mind wouldn't allow it.
I walked for what seemed like a few hours. Still nothing in the scenery changed but I was getting used to it and actually enjoying all the wildlife and plants. I started to notice small changes within plants from place to place. I had been walking uphill for awhile and the walk started to get steeper then before. Finally after almost falling down and sliding backwards I made it to the top of an actual mountain. When at the top I decided that I should climb a tree so that I could see what was around me. I grabbed onto the closest sturdiest looking branch and heaved myself up which was a feat because it had been ages since I climbed a tree and actually exercised this much. I climbed branch to branch slowly not looking down until the limbs were not going to hold me and my weight. Fortunately I was able to stick my head up out of the tops of the trees to see what was before me and around. I did a 360 degree turn. It was breathtaking the view that I could see. To what I will call east was an even larger mountain, to the south was the wall that I walked from the night before, it looked rather small but I felt a chill rush through my body, to the north was what I could make out was a castle type building, and to the west was a body water that looked like an ocean to me. I sat up in the tree for a moment taking in the rather beautiful sights.
While I was far up in the tree I started to hear many loud noises coming from what seemed like below me. I froze like I was a statue. I held my breath and looked down. I slid closer to the tree holding on for dear life. I tried to make myself part of the tree and physically hurting myself from the bark. Looking down I started to see someone, then another person, and soon many people. They formed a line and seemed to all be chained together. They seemed to be struggling walking all together trying not to fall down the steep slope. I was slightly glad that everyone seemed to be looking down at the ground not noticing that there was someone up in the tree but they all looked so sad, so miserable.
Soon there came up someone sitting on a horse. Once he got to the top of the mountain he just sat there holding a whip watching the men and women climb the steep grade. Every now and then the man would strike the whip on the ground and very occasionally hitting someone. I didn't move a muscle up in the tree. I didn't think that I was actually breathing. Suddenly a bird flying through the trees hitting me in my side. I was startled and started to lose my balance and footing on the branch. I started to feel body pitching to the right and I was suddenly airborn. I hit a branch or two on the way down each time trying to grab at the branches to stop me from falling all the way down to the ground. Finally I was sucessful at grabbing a branch. I felt like my arms ripped out of the sockets though. I squelched a scream and hung there for a moment until my arms gave out. I fell the last 4 feet and landed with a big thud on the ground in front of the man with the whip. I laid there for a moment looking up at the tree that I had just fell from. There was a racous around me and quickly there were four big, burly, dirty looking men looking down at me as well as the man sitting on his horse.
To be continued...
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