My gaze remained fixed on her. Human. One of the small, soft-skinned, ephemeral beings who wielded fire and sharp metal, whose presence inevitably meant change, disruption, and loss. Their scent was usually carried on the wind from the edges, the places where the forest bled into cleared land.
Buthere? So deep within the green heart, far from the scars their axes left on the world? Alone, broken, washed up like storm debris. Why? Was she merely lost, a stray lamb wandering far from the flock? Or was she a harbinger, the leading edge of a newintrusion? The thought sent a cold dread trickling through me, colder than the damp stone at my back. The memory of ringing steel and falling giants surfaced, unwelcome.
The roar of the waterfall filled the chamber, a constant thrumming barrier. She was safe within it, for now, suspended in this fragile moment, under my unwavering gaze. But her very presence here was a discordant note in the ancient song of the forest, a question mark etched against the stone walls. Notwhatare you, butwhyare you here? And what follows in your wake? The quiet resonance I sensed around her pulsed faintly in the air, less a mystery of her being, and more like the low hum of potential energy, a storm gathering just beyond the horizon.
CAPTIVE AUDIENCE
Sienna
My ankle decided to be my alarm clock, sending a deep, grinding throb up my leg that yanked me out of whatever uneasy darkness I’d sunk into. Progress, I guess? Yesterday, or possibly the day before—time had gone wonky—it had been screaming pure, blinding agony. Now it felt more like someone was enthusiastically tenderizing my bones with a mallet. Still agony, just at a lower frequency. Small mercies in the land of the possibly mythical giant tree dude.
Theotherthing that hit me was the quiet. Gone was the deafening, wall-shaking roar of the waterfall that had hammered my skull for hours. Now, it was a softer hiss, a constant background shush punctuated by the rhythmicplink, plink, plinkof water dripping somewhere nearby. Outside the cave mouth, instead of a solid gray sheet of rain, I could hear the tentative chirps of birds. Actual birds. The world hadn’t ended, then. The storm had finally buggered off.
Relief flickered for about half a second before the cold dread flooded back in, settling heavy and damp in my gut, just like the clothes still clinging to my skin. Because the storm passing didn’t change the fundamental fact that I was still here, in this cold stone pocket, ankle comprehensively buggered, and somewhere nearby, almost certainly watching me with those deep, unreadable pools of shadow, was rescue or my jailer. My ridiculously oversized, bark-skinned, potentially-going-to-eat-me-later host. Yeah, the quiet wasn’t comforting at all. It just made the silence between us louder.
Right, sitting here marinating in my own misery wasn’t exactly an escape strategy. The throbbinghadlessened, fractionally. Maybe that meant healing? Maybe the weird green sludge he had plastered on wasn’t just decorative mud. Hope, that stubborn little weed, poked its head up. If I could just stand, maybe lean heavily on the wall, maybe evenshuffle, it was a start. Anything was better than being a sitting duck.
Gritting my teeth until my jaw felt ready to crack, I levered myself upward, using my good leg and arms, scraping my back against the cold, damp stone. The cave immediately decided to do a slow, sickening lurch, like I was drunk on cheap wine. Okay. Steady. Breathe through the head spin. Just gotta test the ankle.
Moment of truth. Bracing myself against the wall, I tried to shift the tiniest fraction of my weight, maybe just the weight of my sock, if I’d had one, onto the ball of my injured foot.
Bad.Very, very bad idea.
It wasn’t just pain, it was a sudden, sickeninggrind, like jagged rocks scraping together deep inside my joint. White-hot agony exploded behind my eyes, stealing my breath in a strangled gasp. Black spots danced in my vision, the cave walls seeming to pulse inward. My legs just quit. No warning, just gone. I didn’t so much sit down ascrumple, slamming back against the unforgiving stone with a force that knocked the remaining air from my lungs. Nausea surged, hot and acidic.
So much for Operation Pathetic Hobble to Freedom. Stage one, stand up. Result, abject failure, complete with bonus dizziness and near-vomiting. The tiny flicker of hope didn’t just gutter out, it was snuffed out, ground underfoot, leaving behind the cold, sharp certainty of my situation—trapped, immobile, and utterly, terrifyingly dependent. Fantastic.
The wave of nausea finally receded, leaving behind the familiar throb in my ankle and the cold, clammy sweat of pain and panic. Lying slumped against the rock wasn’t getting me anywhere, except maybe closer to developing bedsores. If I couldn’t walk out, and oh boy, could Inotwalk out, then I had to make himletme out. Simple. Except for the small detail that ‘him’ was a giant creature of the forest who’d already decided I wasn’t going anywhere.
Right. Communication attempt number, well, number one, really. I craned my neck, ignoring the protest from bruised muscles, toward the cave entrance. Yep, still there. A hulking silhouette against the brighter, water-streaked light filtering through the now-gentler waterfall. He hadn’t moved much, just stood like a particularly mossy statue, watching. Always watching.
My throat felt dry, scratchy. “Okay,” I started, my voice sounding ridiculously thin in the echoing space. “Look…” Deep breath. “I appreciate the… uh… first aid. And the shelter. Really top-notch kidnapping amenities.” Sarcasm probably wasn’t the best strategy, but it was leaking out under pressure. “But I need to go. Seriously.”
He didn’t react. Just stood there, absorbing my words like the damp stone absorbed the dripping water.
“People will be looking for me.” I tried again, pitching my voice a bit louder, trying to inject some urgency. “My job… okay, maybe not my job, butsomeone. Eventually.” Still nothing. My words were failing. Time for charades with the cryptid.
Ignoring the sheer absurdity, I pointed emphatically toward the waterfall curtain, the way out. Then I stabbed a finger back at my own chest. “Me. Go. Out.” I made a weak little walking motion with my fingers, wincing as even the thought sent a twinge up my leg. “Leave? Hike? Walkies?” I waved my hand toward the exit again, trying to look pleading, probably just looking pathetic. “Please? Let me go?”
The silence stretched, thick and heavy, broken only by the waterfall’s hiss and the frantic thumping of my heart. Pleading with a wall of bark and moss. This was my life now. And the wall wasn’t answering.
Just when I thought the silence was going to suffocate me, he moved. Not suddenly, not aggressively, just flowed. Like a shadow detaching itself from the cave wall, he shifted hisimmense form directly into the entrance. One second, there was a curtain of gray light and dripping water, the next, there was just him, filling the space, plunging my little corner back into deeper gloom. The message couldn’t have been clearer if he’d spray-painted ‘nope’ on the rock face.
He didn’t roar, didn’t glare as far as I could tell in the shadows, didn’t make any threatening moves. He juststoodthere, an immovable object made of bark and ancient stone and sheer, stubborn presence. Then, slow as a sunrise, one of those massive, root-like hands came up, palm facing me. The universal sign for‘talk to the hand, because the giant tree-man ain’t listening.’Or, you know, just ‘stop.’
He held it there for a beat, letting the gesture sink in. Then, deliberately, he lowered it and pointed a finger thicker than my arm straight at my injured ankle, still propped uselessly in front of me. After holding that point for a moment, letting me connect the dots, he made a slow, sweeping gesture toward the dense, dripping greenery visible through the waterfall, the treacherous, tangled world outside this stone pocket. He shook his head once, a slow, ponderous movement.
No translation needed.You. Broken.Out there. Bad.You. Stay.
My stomach, already doing nervous flip-flops, plummeted straight down to my useless foot. He understood perfectly. And the answer was a resounding, non-negotiable ‘no.’ Not angry, not threatening, just absolute. Like arguing with a mountain. And the mountain had just politely, but firmly, told me to sit down and shut up. The air suddenly felt thicker, the cave wallscloser. Yep. Definitely not a rescue. This was captivity, pure and simple, just delivered with disturbingly calm finality.
And just like that, the floor dropped out of my world. Again. His calm, deliberate refusal wasn’t just a ‘no,’ it was a sentence. The vague hope I’d clung to, that this was some bizarre misunderstanding, a temporary shelter until I could leave, evaporated like mist in sunlight. He wasn’tlettingme stay, he wasmakingme stay.
Suddenly, all his previous actions clicked into place with horrifying clarity. The water he’d brought cupped in the leaf. The berries and nuts were food for me. Even the disgusting, but apparently effective, green gunk on my ankle. I couldn’t help but think he was tending to a stray animal he’d decided to keep. Feed it, water it, patch it up so it doesn’t die on your watch, but keep it penned in.
My gaze flickered around the cave, seeing it properly for the first time, not as a refuge from the storm, but as a cage. The smooth, worn stone walls weren’t protective, they were barriers. The waterfall entrance wasn’t a doorway, it was the bars. And him? He wasn’t my reluctant savior, he was my warden. A very large, very quiet, very bark-covered warden.
Why? The question screamed in my head, bouncing off the stone walls. What did hewant? Was I some kind of pet? A curiosity? A long-term snack project he was fattening up? The sheernot knowingwas worse than any imagined threat. It left this gaping void filled with cold, swirling dread. My ankle throbbed, a painful anchor pinning me to this rock floor. My body was aprison, and he held the key to the cell door, showing absolutely no intention of using it. The air felt heavy, pressing in, thick with the scent of damp earth, ancient moss, and the terrifying reality of being completely and utterly trapped.
