Lenny sat up wincing at a sharp pain in her chest. There was nothing around; simply pitch darkness surrounded her. A clinging of metal against metal echoed growing louder and louder.
"Lenette, Lenette, what a failure you are. You tried to fight a weakened warlock and failed. What failure of an Oakman are you?" A voice Lenny recognized but couldn't place spoke its voice filling the empty space around her.
A bright green light exploded in front of Lenny, a figure emerging from the glowing light. Forest; he appeared out of the light he no longer looked like a spirit, his body was solid and soft thuds followed his footsteps now as he walked towards Lenny.
Lenny tried to pull herself to her feet, the pain in her chest swelling and pushing her down to all fours, each breath feeling as if the blade which pierced her chest before was drove into her chest over and over each time, air struggled to enter her lungs. She crawled wincing with pain as she tried to distance herself from Forest and the soft thud of his steps. Until a small pop and he appeared in front of her. Forest no longer seemed like a small spirit which killed those who got lost, he was no longer a what if, no longer a legend, no longer just a story to scare kids. He was real and standing in front of her, he was real and his clawed hand was reaching out to her.
"Lenette, I can make the pain go away. I will just need a small favor in return." Forest's voice echoed around her, Lenny looked up at the green eyes and sat up asking in as collected of a voice as she could, "What is this small favor?" Forest laughed a large toothy smile stretching across his face before he answered, "Help me get my body back." Lenny shook her head, "You made Iago a monster and I already let you have him, plus I'm supposed to kill you." Forest growled something in ender under his breath before his form seemed to melt away.
Lenny screamed, her head burned with pain and her chest felt heavy. She held her hands to her head, tears dripping onto the ground below her, and the white space vanished.
She lay on a dirty wooden floor her whole body ached, she felt blood drip from her nose, and looked up to see four creatures that looked like Forest but taller, better fed and with young teenage features. The boys saw Lenny move and the one in front asked. "Now what do you think you're doing runt?" as the one in fronts foot collided with Lenny's sore stomach, another spoke, his foot smashing against her shoulder. "We all know your fathers a stray white wing, bet he got eaten." The first boy grabbed Lenny by the hair and pulled her up, and asked the other boys. "Think we should eat the runt? I'm personally sick of him taking up the little food we got." The three others chanted, "Eat the runt! Eat the runt!" A door slammed open and a woman's harsh voice shouted and the first boy let go of Lenny's hair and she dropped to the floor. "No eating your brother! He's our ticket out of this dump, him and his little dances...now clean up your father will have dinner ready soon go plate the food, and yes Algiz that includes you.
Lenny got up about to correct the woman on her name but decided to just limp after the other boys seeing her stern glare. They walked to a small kitchen and the other three boys grabbed pots off the stove where an older tired looking man leaned against the counter, the man set a stack of bowls so high it obscured Lenny's vision in her hands, she asked "Why do we need so many bowls?" The man chuckled replying, "oh your brothers got you in the head quite a few times didn't they? What do you expect your sisters and aunts to eat off of?" stuffling his chuckling the man pushed Lenny's back and urged Lenny to follow the boys. They entered a grand dining room that had high ceilings and a long table that could have sat half of Crosswoods village.
They set the plates and the pots down, then sat at the far end of the table, the man sitting at the head of that side of the table. The large dining room doors flung open and the stern woman followed by twelve other women and many young girls. The stern woman sat at the other end of the table, once everyone was settled she spoke her voice booming in the large bare walled room.
"My sisters, daughters, and nieces. I your head huntress share news, we have a challenger for a new mane! We shall meet him after our dinner!" She lifted the ladle, as Lenny noticed singular ladle off the table and served herself then passed the ladle to the woman to her right she served herself then passed it across, then to the left, then across, then right and so on it went the pots emptying and the servings becoming smaller and smaller until the ladle reached the boys, Lenny and the man. The man served himself then from the biggest boy to the smallest then passed the ladle to Lenny. Lenny peered into the pot ladle in hand, her stomach growling; yet the pot was empty besides what looked like one soggy gray vegetable. Lenny placed the vegetable in her bowl and looked at the others, Lenny's stomach growled again and she said in a voice she didn't recognize, in a language she knew was ender but not how she spoke it. "Where's my food? The pots are always empty when it gets to me. Why won't you guys share? I thought I was your way out!"
A hand slapped across Lenny's face; leaving a sharp stinging pain. The old man had slapped her and looked at the woman at the other end of the table waiting for her to finish her bite of food. Her swallow silenced the last of the muttering, her quiet yet firm voice cut across the table.
"I thought you'd learn about respecting those above you by now. Algiz, you sleep outside today. If something doesn't kill you perhaps it will teach you to appreciate the fact I didn't drown your runt ass when you were a baby. Now get lost."
Lenny walked out of the dinning room and out of the house, into a world that seemed to come in shades of gray and red. She stepped off the porch, without the porch cover shielding her eyes, the sun hit them as if it were a fire close enough to burn her eyelashes. She stepped forward onto the stone and sand that made the ground, she lept back the ground was hot enough to bake a casserole. She took another deep breath and kept walking over the sand following a path that seemed to be muscle memory. Climbing over this and that until she came across a tiny wooden door in a pile of dirt and metal scraps. She pulled the door open, her burnt hands screaming in pain, and slid down the shoot behind the door, she slid down a metal slide and into a small room where a few other children were curled up next to each other. She found an open spot and layed down, falling asleep.
She opened her eyes, she was back in the white room her body lay in front of her wrapped in thin strings with glowing green eyes; words came out of her mouth that were not hers, but Forest's.
"I told you you'd cooperate one way or another. Now you can be helpful until I no longer have a use for you."