[SRP] Get Out (Heima)

[Moire Frost]

Solo RP - Heima

prompt

The last thing you remember is…Well, you don’t remember. Strange?

Where is this place? It looks like you’re in the middle of dark forest. Was it even dark the last time you were….coherent? Just as you’re about to ask yourself what is going on, you hear what you will later start calling The Voice.

“Hello, fool.” The voice is terrifying with how normal it sounds. There’s a slight lilt to it, but that’s it. It seems to come from everywhere or nowhere at once.

“Let’s play a game. Right now you’re in the middle of a forest and all you have to do is find your way out. Simple? Yes, truly, just like your mind.” The airy laugh echoes on. “You have two hours.”

You shout at the voice asking how you get here, along with a bunch of other questions, but the only answer is–

“Tick, tock. Time’s running out little fool. This time we’ll play for a prize and if you fail, well, I won’t take it out on your utter incompetence. But next time…the stakes will be higher.”

You spend the next five minutes trying to talk with the voice or reason with, but it refuses to say another thing.

Really, whether you like it or not, you’ve only got one choice—GET OUT!

Prompt: You wake up in the forest. How you got there isn’t important right now. But the thing is that you’ve been given a time limit by a sinister voice who acts like this is just the first round in some demented game. Whether or not you really want to play, you do know that you don’t want to stay here.

What you need to do:
Write out facing 2-3 obstacles/riddles to overcome before you make it out of the forest. Your prompt should end with you making it past the edge of the woods. At the end of the month the mysterious voice will let you know whether you made it out in time. Who made it out on time will be chosen by rolling a few from the list of those who entered. Those rolled will also get ONE ticket for the end of the year raffle.

 

[Moire Frost]

Heima's hair stood on end as the words sunk in; she had to get out, and she had to get out now. Though she was immediately on edge, a wicked smile curled on her lips.

“You're on!” she shouted to the Voice, leaping toward the edge of the forest and crashing into the foliage as she blindly chose her path out. She slowed her pace as the vegetation grew thicker, vines and gnarled trees twisting into a makeshift barricade to keep her moving toward a specific place.

Well, at least she knew she chose the right path.

Before too long, the trees on either side of her led her to what appeared to be a well-maintained wall of hedges. It took her a second to realize there was a narrow entrance to the hedge, the path inside disappearing into darkness; she had to get through a maze.

“Easy peasy,” she said to herself, tossing her forelock out of her eyes and trotting confidently into the maze. She kept up her quick pace, turning on the spot and galloping back to her main path whenever she met a dead end. Playing with her siblings as a foal, traversing the thick forests near her home, had prepared her for this her whole life. She mentally mapped the maze as she went, fighting every urge to use her wings to lift herself up off the ground to see above the hedges; she wasn't sure if she'd be disqualified for cheating, and plus, where's the fun in that?

She made it to the end of the maze without much issue, laughing to herself as she galloped from the exit toward the next obstacle.

It appeared within seconds; a small clearing, surrounded by the same prohibitive foliage, guiding her straight toward a dark and foreboding cave on the opposite side. She could smell it already, musty and damp, and though the entrance seemed large enough for her to enter comfortably, she could tell it wouldn't be as roomy once she tried to get through it.

“Good thing I'm not afraid of the dark,” she scoffed, sauntering over to the cave and spreading her wings as she entered, barely scraping her feathers against the walls ahead of her as she moved forward. She was reminded of Kveikur trapping her in a similar cave when he was young, hiding her fear so as not to give him the satisfaction. She tapped into that same feeling now as the cave snaked through the earth, sometimes sloping so dramatically that she felt she was climbing a mountain.

Suddenly Heima heard something behind her; the sound of hooves following, trying to match her steps but just slightly off, and a deep, slow breath echoing against the walls.

Run, every fiber in her being screamed, and she picked up her pace, keeping her breathing as even as possible so as not to alert whatever was following her that she had caught on. She could hear it getting closer, more reckless with its steps now as she was with hers, its breath coming out ragged and harsh. She reached her wings out further ahead of her as she followed the tunnel, nearly smashing her head against a low under hang she missed.

She turned a corner and saw it; far off in the distance, a straight shot, she saw light. She started running now, the thing following her just barely behind her now and gaining quickly. She heard claws scrape against the stone walls, and a low, guttural growl rumbled deep throughout. But she kept moving, scraping her leg against a rock, nearly tripping over something that shattered as she stepped on it. With a sickening crunch, she realized it was bone, but kept moving.

Finally she reached the end and flung herself into the blinding sunlight, collapsing into the grass with a groan and trying to catch her breath. Whatever had been following her didn't join her in the light, instead retreating back to the depths of the cave with a roar that grew quieter with each passing second.

As much as she wanted to lay there and recover, she knew she had to get moving. There was no more path to follow, she had to find the rest of her way on her own.

Heima was lucky she grew up with the family she did, rough and tumble and not afraid to get their feathers dirty. She crashed through the forest blindly, ambushing rabbits and deer without a care in the world... until she came face to face with a large, angry bear.

She cackled as the bear chased her, fluttering out of its reach whenever it got too close, until finally she saw the edge of the forest looming ahead of her. She took a quick detour to lose the bear in the forest where it wouldn't follow her to freedom.

Finally she made it, completely out of breath as she launched herself out of the woods and into the clear, bright daylight. She laughed as she looked around her, whooping triumphantly and scaring birds out of the nearby trees.

“I did it!” she shouted joyfully. “Take THAT!”

Word count: 862