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The forest is so calming. All the natural noises it causes could possibly make you go to sleep if you laid beside a tree. The warmth that nuzzles into your skin is comforting at best. You came into the nearby forest to explore and maybe have a picnic by yourself. Well, definitely having a picnic by yourself since you brought the supplies and all.
You go deeper into the forest, noticing that the path is getting progressively less clear to walk through. Stumbling through thick roots and medium sized rocks within your steps. Only a few moments later, you pause and look at your surroundings. You found the perfect place to set up your picnic! It surprisingly has a flat ground and not many natural obstacles to prevent your little party. You laid down the blanket, it has cute floral pattern all across it and it's fairly large for many people to sit on but you are on your own this time.
You did visit this specific forest before, just with close friends but you built the confidence to finally visit on your own. Though you did hear the previous history of this place, it's rather tragic and rather not think about it too often whenever you visit. The view is the opposite of its history, gorgeous and vibrant, like it just came out of a painting an artist spent weeks working on. You unpack the food from the package and lay it all out before you, contemplating on which one you should start with.
You grab the classic ham and cheese sandwich, still somewhat cold to the touch when you grab and bite into it. Good Lord is it good, cheese and ham is possibly the best combination when it comes to sandwiches. You started to eat the sandwich fast to get to the rest of the food. You head for the bottled apple juice and sip it, but you felt like you were being stared at. But you ignore the feeling as you enjoy the taste of the apple juice. Of course you would be stared at, there's so many critters in this place, maybe it was a deer or something bigger.
The noises of the forest seem to get a bit louder but that's what makes it more pleasing to be around when eating. Suddenly, you hear some bird singing as it rapidly approaches and lands on your floral blanket in front of you.
You stare at it.
And it stares at you.
But it's gaze thrift on some leftover bread you haven't eaten yet. You rip a little bit of it and put the bread in front of it, it immediately starts to pick at it and you leave it on the blanket to continue eating from it. You stop all movement and just analyze all the little features this little creature has, with its patterns it seems to be male. You didn't know much about birds but this specific bird always fascinated you when you were little, always trying to mimic their singing and flap your arms up and down.
You basically stopped all breathing as he continued to eat the bread. Trying not to startle him and make him fly away.
'I should've brought a sketchbook with me! Ugh! This was probably a once in a lifetime moment and I wasn't prepared for it. Maybe I could take a picture though…'
As you do, the bird seems to be in the perfect pose to snap a picture, but then it finishes up eating and flies away behind you. Leaving you with disappointment in your stomach. Maybe you could come back later to get a picture… maybe..
_____
As you finish up your picnic, you start to pack up and get ready to leave. Though the feeling of being stared at hasn't really left your back. It was gone when the bird left but that feeling was back. Though it doesn't feel like you're in danger… but it does make you uncomfortable not knowing what or who it was.
You look behind you.
It was far away and hard to notice, all you could make out was some sort of boulder. Well what looked like an oddly shaped boulder, it was covered with all kinds of plants that matched the forest. And the dark shadows caused by the surrounding trees doesn't help. You swear that boulder wasn't there before.. maybe you missed it at first. The bird you saw earlier was standing on the side of it, looking around and looking back at the boulder while singing a tune. For some reason, this all felt really weird for you, why was the bird just looking at this boulder and back at you? Why did it feel like there were two sets of eyes staring at you?
You started to hurriedly walk away from the scene, you were stumbling at all of nature's obstacles to make your way back home. The sky was starting to turn to its yellow and orange look, signifying that it's going to set. You usually like looking at the sunset but that doesn't seem like the time to admire it, even if it was beautiful.
'Shit.. I parked my car far away. Hopefully I don't get home late.'
The sets of eyes behind your back disappear, making you sigh in relief. You didn't even know you were holding your breath. Your body felt a little chilly because the sun was setting.
You arrive at your parked car and quickly get inside. Relaxing your body against the leathery seat and your eyes getting heavy from all the walking. Your mind drifted off earlier today.
You're left with a feeling of uncertainty. But also with a feeling of curiosity with what you experienced within the time you spent there. Maybe you could go take a closer look at the weird boulder and the bird, figure out what was giving you this weird feeling.
Maybe…
Your tiredness won over and you fell asleep in your car. Oh boy, you're going to wake up sore all over. But your tired brain pays no mind.
________________
You woke up with the sun hitting your eyes, making you clench your eyes tight shut by the sudden exposure. You let out a slight groan in confusion as you slowly look around. You were still in your car. Your body realizes its position and gives you that iconic soreness from sleeping in the car.
"I really didn't miss this…"
You mumble under your breath and you rub the back of your neck. It reminded you of your college days sleeping in your car at times, mostly because you ran out of coffee and your body just shut down. All of those unhealthy habits really made a mess of you at the time, but you're in a better place now.
Way
better
You look out your window and watch the forest in the far distance. Even if it was so far away from you, you could still see its vibrant hues of green and many different colors coming from its flowers.
You smile.
You really loved the forest. It made you think of your family and them hanging out in a park making carne asada. Family chattering on about and music blastic from a boombox bigger than your whole being, your mom always telling you to not stand too close to it or it might fall and kill you. You chuckle at the memory, Mom was really protective of her children.
You then remembered the events of yesterday. The bird. The strange shaped boulder and its aura emitted around it. But none of them gave off a feeling that it'd harm you. Strange..
You continued to stare off into the forest and check your phone. It was 7 am surprisingly and you had a little idea. You started up your car, wanting to prepare for the day to go make your next venture to the forest.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
You just got out of your car, having a hand bag over your shoulder. Making your way to the forest, it takes a while to get there but the look of the forest is worth it every time. What you have inside your bag are what you believe would be useful items for your trip. A water bottle, an energy bar, phone, a sketchbook and a camera.
Oh, the camera. You hold it so fondly over it, since it was the most expensive object that your mom personally bought for you. You were interested in photography for a while in college but you didn't have much time to even use it at its full potential. You get saddened by the thought but you shake it off, strutting off to nature's territory in confidence.
You walked and walked, noticing that the clear path is getting more covered in grass, flowers and roots that gives it's signature look. You have a feeling that you are getting near your previous position from yesterday as the tree leaves give more shade on your path.
Stepping a little more and you arrive, looking around the forest with curious eyes, as if you've never been here beforehand. You didn't bring a blanket or something similar to it so you decide to sit on the grass, hopefully no ants decide to bite you. You place your hand bag on your lap and take the items inside. You grab the sketch book and draw a tree, you haven't really drawn things from nature other than flowers. Your hand naturally shakes, not being able to make a straight line at all but that adds to its charm. Your mom taught you that technique to take advantage of your shaky hands, making swift lines to resemble an item or a person. You continue to sketch and sketch, you probably drew for 20 or so minutes.
You weren't known to be a quick drawer, heck not even quick with a lot of things in your life. But taking your time with things proven to be an effective way to guarantee that your results would be something to be proud of. You lift up your hand slightly, graphite staining underneath your palm, it reminds you of your childhood funnily enough. Now you usually do drawings digitally, pretty much ruining some of your eyesight for years to come but you'll always be able to witness natural beauty before you.
You hold your sketch up in front of you to better view your work. The tree turned out rather nice. It was smudgy at some of the corners and a lot of dark shadows to it but still nice if you didn't examine it too much.
Now, whenever you sketch or draw; your other senses would disappear immediately and would leave you vulnerable to getting scared easily. You know this because your mother would randomly come into your room and you would be so startled that you felt your heart hitch, which she found funny everytime. Any animal noises, water trickling, and grass crunching would be harder to notice for you; heck, even loud music wouldn’t even bother you while drawing. So that is why you didn’t notice the upcoming, slow and heavy footstep from behind you.
You felt a presence not so far behind you.
You turn your head around, your eyes couldn’t register a thing or a shape.
Until.
Just behind one of the bushes, something big covered in plants took a step forward; making a dirt cloud and a few of the grass crunch within its step. Its movement is slow and cautious but you've seen it move. It's like it's trying not to scare you, like a small scared street cat. Your senses were telling you to run away, but you stayed still.
Your eyes slowly drifted from the bottom until it reached to where you would think a head would be located at. A blue glow softly emitted through thick vines spread across its face. Is it an alien? What the hell is it? You look to its sides, it was hard to notice but one of its limbs resembled one of a gun, an assault rifle to be exact. You were struck by fear as all new thoughts went through your head.
‘Is it going to kill me? No one would know where I was. What the hell was this thing?’
The bird you saw yesterday flew in to land on its shoulder, he sang and looked around. The thing turned its head to the bird on its shoulder and the bird let out a little chirp, it extended its finger to scratch the back of his head. It looked like he was enjoying the little scratches as he closed his little eyes. Though you stared at this scene with a little less fear than before, the thought still lingered
‘even if it's kind to animals, it could still hurt me.’
It returned its gaze back to you, calculating whether or not to move near you.
You were the first to move, by clumsily standing up to your full height while maintaining eye contact. It somehow felt rude to interact with it while sitting down, even if you were scared. Though there isn't much height to begin with. If you stood next to it you would barely be able to reach its chest. Or whatever it was its chest. Your heart was pounding as you felt your skin tingle in nerves.
It let out a rather cute ‘beep beep’ as it waved in a circular motion at you. It took a while for you to register what it was doing, you timidly waved in return. You were a little stunted by how high pitched its voice was, would that even be a voice? Still, you wouldn't take another step towards it. But the bird decided to land on your head and the thing followed right behind. It sounded rusty and you could hear a tiny bit of creaking every step it took. It extended its hand out to give out more scratches for the bird to enjoy.
It was right in front of you. Your heart stopped pounding and you became as still as a statue, you hoped that standing still would make it uninterested and go away with its bird alongside it. But it took its time petting its bird that was on top of your head. Your wide eyes began to wonder over its appearance. You guess it wasn't around civilization for a while based on how it looked. Grass trickled over its surface, long enough that flowers and vines began to grow on it as well. A lot of it covered its figure to the point where you couldn't see where its joints were.
Where did this thing come from and how is it still movable and active? By the noise it made, you assume it was an Omnic, sentient one too. But what type of Omnic? It had a gun shape on its left arm so maybe one of those Battle Omnics from the past. From the past… Hell that was so long ago, when did it activate and why is it friendly? Though you shouldn't complain over that, you would be dead where you were standing long ago.
The bird bounced on your head for a little then off he went, chirping along. The Omnic went after him with a hand still raised. The crunches of the grass lowered and lowered until you couldn't hear it walk anymore. You let out a breath of relief, sweat trickled down the side of your face. You felt cold. It wasn't getting late or anything, maybe because of your nerves. Yeah the nerves. You shook yourself a bit and started to pack up your belongings clumsily, a few of your pencils dropping out. You didn't care, you just wanted to get home.
You speed walked yourself out, your feet occasionally stepping over each other. What would happen next? Can you even go to the forest anymore? Your mind traveling to its previous mannerisms, how gentle it scratched its bird companion, how careful it was to not scare you it seems. It must be close to the bird, they seem to be together most of the time from what you've seen of them.
You stood next to your car door going through the events of what happened, what an interesting afternoon to have to be honest.
…
Maybe next time you could interact with it more. But now it is time to worry about your daily life.