The stare-off seemed to drag on for minutes even though it was only mere seconds. I was completely thrown off guard. This little girl could see me through the wood of this fence.
The post in question was at least thirty or so centimeters thick, and given how most humans don't have x-ray vision, assuming she was human, It was logical to conclude that she couldn't. Nevertheless, no amount of reasoning or rationale could explain away that her eyes were, in fact, lasering through directly at me.
I hastily withdrew the tendril from her field of view, and slowly inched away, maintaining the post's interposition between us. As I did, she followed my every movement. The shock written on her face had melted away to curiosity, and her head canted from one side to the other. A slight movement convinced me she wanted to come around to get a better, unobstructed view, but I wasn't keen of that.
So a retreat was in order, and it couldn't have come at a better time. I could sense two others approaching at a lively pace behind the girl. Undoubtedly her parents, judging by their appearance.
There was no question where the little one got her looks from. Her mother was a complete knockout. I wouldn't have hesitated to take a chance with her back in my previous life. She was definitely my type. Lines in all the right places and... holy, they're huge.
But the father was... let's just say rustic and endearing. His moustache was a prim and tidy thing though, I could appreciate that much. Huge in a different way from his wife, he towered over her a a solid meter or so.
The lanky fellow scooped the girl up into his arms and rebuked her with a pinch on the nose. I suppose she wandered off from them while they weren't looking. I would call that neglect, but the lady seemed to be carrying another one of their charges in a blanket. She must've been interrupted partway through indulging the infant in the age-old art of breast-feeding. Troubles come in bundles, it appears.
I wasn't jealous. No. I wasn't.
Alright, I'll admit it, maybe I was glaring daggers at that lucky bastard. And the child.
Ah... now I'm starting to feel ashamed of myself. Of all the things I had to remember, why was my virginity one of the few that stuck around?
But now was as good a time as any to take my leave. I shuffled just out of their periphery, never taking my sight off the little girl. Although she struggled a bit, the ruffian soon gave in. Of course, not without one last obstinate peek behind her.
You've got a nice life, little one. Don't fret over me. I'm not like you or your kind. I don't even know what I am for that matter, let alone how far we are apart in the taxonomic order of things. If there was such a thing in this world.
My encounter with the wholesome family soon ended, where I left them to their happy lives. It was back to footslogging for me. Or I should say, tentacle-grappling. The fence was a rather convenient framework for travel, which I took full advantage of to haul myself along. I figured I was going a little more than twice as fast, a massive improvement over the awkward flips and rolls I'd been doing until now.
Morning turned to late afternoon, and that into the milky oranges of dusk. At last, I reached the northern edge of the town. A path peeled off from it's northernmost fringe, striping a dusty-brown line into the dusk-laden horizon and the trees ahead. Firs grew thicker and more abundantly the further I went along that path. An odd mixing of deciduates, or what I assumed to be of that type, grew in between. They weren't barren, so it meant it was probably either late spring or summer. I couldn't tell. The sensations of hot and cold are long forgotten memories to me now.
The addition of deciduates might be a precursor to a change in environment, but it could also mean they were put there intentionally at some point. Impossible to say.
At any rate, I found what I wanted. Cover, for my weak, defenseless self. The deeper in I push, the less likely I'll come across anyone in the future, so I had my sights set for the very center of the thickening forest.
Darkness was merely a construct when pitted against my sight, of course. The canopy above closed together, trunks sidled closer and closer, yet I could still clearly see the forest floor as though it were day. Gnarled, ancient roots plunged and surfaced from the soil. Coiling, twisting around mounds of detritus. A thousand snakes couldn't have made a more sinister weave. I might, given enough mass and time to form tendrils, but that was just a theory for the moment.
If only I could hear. Auditory stimuli are an essential early warning for many creatures, myself included. Unfortunately for me, I could only rely on my sight, which interestingly was panoptical in nature. I could swing my attention here and there freely, without needing to turn a head or roll an eye. While not fully panoramic or all-encompassing, it was a blessed thing to have that flexibility. Coupled with my sense for presence, which I wasn't altogether sure if it was merely an extension of my vision, it made for a reliable short-range detection system.
Despite all that, I missed my sense of hearing. It's strange to say that, going into my fifth day like this. Still, I couldn't shake my old habits off, like a dusty book. White noise, ambient, natural background sounds that I ordinarily would've heard, simply didn't exist in my world. Complete and utter silence. Lonely, in the sense that the only things I could hear were my own thoughts.
The further I pressed into the forest, the signs of native fauna grew more frequent and, alarmingly, larger. There were some worryingly huge tracks left behind by one such creature. Straight out of the Cretaceous, or maybe earlier? Jurassic? They were of reptilian origin regardless; they had the same iconic V-shape, bisected by a central toe.
I say they're large, but that was a bit of an understatement. I didn't fill but a quarter of a heel. The Heel. Not including the toes or arch. Only a small corner of the heel.
Whatever it was, I certainly didn't need to get involved with it. There were other inhuman creatures in this forest other than myself that have lived in it longer than I have, and their sheer size was a testament to that. I had to be careful not to stumble into one of them on accident. Otherwise, I might turn out to be said accident.
Fortunately, the terrain was perfectly suited to my newfound mobility. I began my ascent up a nearby tree. I would've liked to try shimmying up one of the more strait-laced firs, but a vague touch of dread told me that getting aloft as soon as possible would be the wiser choice. That, and my strength stat probably wasn't enough to make the attempt anyway. Instead, I settled for the lower-hanging branches of a nearby deciduate, which resembled a type of oak.
High above, I had a commanding view of the forest floor. It was there that I saw the full breadth of those large tracks.
Terrifying.
It wasn't bipedal. Going by the arrangement of footprints, it was likely four-legged. One pair of feet lingered near each other, while the next set diverged. Definitely reptilian, considering the sway back and fourth between them. Perhaps something like an Iguana, or a Monitor lizard.
I was nearly finished studying them, when a slight tremor disturbed my branch.
An earthquake? If this world was anything like my old one, tectonics were surely a part of its geology. Though a sinking feeling confirmed that wasn't the case. Another one sounded out, this time a little more powerfully. The leaves around me began to quiver. Timbers quailed, branches swayed, and the atmosphere of the forest thrummed in the shockwave's advent.
Whatever it was, I was probably safe from it up here. Surely.
You'd have to be at least ten meters tall to reach up here, right?
Ah, my presence-sense is tingling a bit.