Forest of the dead.

*Chapter one*

Amelia’s an ancient Roman dragon who’s been living in the depth of the forest of the dead since the beginning of time. You can say that she’s the gatekeeper of the forest. Walking the 729 acres of land that the forest lays on. Which generally means each day is the same. Except for this practical day.

Something’s off, Amelia thought sniffing around. What is that? Is that human?

It wasn’t long before Amelia stumbled across a human child. A human child that happens to be crying. The ancient dragon looked around for the adult humans that this child belongs to but nothing.

Amelia put her head down to the child and snickered then blew smoke out her nose. The child stopped crying and thought Amelia was hilarious. Amelia rolled her eyes, shook her head and went to walk away but the child started crying again.

Irritated, Amelia stopped and looked back at the child knowing if she continued walking she would have to hear the faint cries of the child. That and the child was following her. So, she grabbed the child and put the child on her back. It seemed to soothe and calm the child.

Amelia started back on her path of wandering the forest and noticed the child had fallen asleep. She rolled her eyes; Maybe on my walk, I can try to find where this child belongs to. Can’t just leave the child alone, especially in the forest of the dead. It’s not a place for children.

Amelia tried to sniff out the child’s adult humans but just a faint scent. Between the faint scent and the state of the child, it was clear she was abandoned.

The thing is this forest is 729 acres and has been here for thousands of years. Over the centuries there have been many myths and folklore about what happens in the forest. So, it was baffling as to why a child has been left out on her own…. Unless the child is a sacrifice. For a moment Amelia pitied the child.

After wandering around for a few hours and not finding any signs of where this child came from they reached Amelia’s favourite pond. The child woke up and stretched. Amelia helped the child down and was finally able to get a good look at the child seeing it can’t be more the 2 or 3 years of age. Amelia nudge the child to see if it could talk.

“Do you talk?” Amelia asked.

The child laughs; “Doggie!”

This instantly an insult; “Nono you stupid child, I am a Dragon.” Amelia snorted smoke out her nose in disbelief at being mixed up with a dog.

“What is your name child?” Hopefully, the child understands what I am saying.

“Name?” The child thought about it for a long time and repeated name.

“Yes, name. What are you called, child?” Amelia getting frustrated with the child.

The child thought some more and stammered; “Luna.”

“Luna, huh? A beautiful name for a beautiful girl,”

Luna threw her hands up giggling; “Doggie!”

Amelia rolled her eyes and snickered threw her teeth; “I’m not a dog, I’m a dragon.”

That just made Luna laugh more.

“Luna, can you tell me how you ended up out in the forest? Where’s your mama?”

“Mama?” Luna pondered about this for a minute.

“Yes, where is your mama?”

“Mama is sad.”

“Why is mama sad?” Amelia went along with the child because she understand that the child’s vocabulary isn’t very large. From her experience with humans, Amelia knows that small humans need to get to the point.

“Mama sick,” Luna being only 3 and being stuck in the middle of adult problems. “No money?”

Luna seemed confused about the wording but Amelia understood very well what happened; “Mama is sick and has no money huh?”

At this moment, Luna got distracted by Amelia’s tail. Humans are just pure assholes, Amelia thought to herself. Sacrifice a child to have good health, poor thing.

Even still, why sacrifice your child? What sacrifice your only child to get better just to have a new child? Then what? When times get hard again sacrifice that one too? This is why humans are real monsters.

Amelia climbed one of the larger rocks and laid down to watch Luna chase a butterfly around without a care in sight despite being abandoned.

What am I going to do with this child? As a gatekeeper of the forest I can’t just leave this child alone, Amelia seemed to get annoyed with the idea of becoming a babysitter for this human child. But at the same time if I raise this human child I can create a human gatekeeper of the forest. It’ll help, hopefully, filter out all the unnecessary abandonments and getting lost out here.

So, it was settled. Amelia would adopt the human child. Besides what could go wrong? The scariest thing in the forest of the dead was her, the ancient dragon. Nothing outranks Amelia when it comes to the forest of the dead.

The worst thing Amelia has seen in the existence of mankind is when they manage to get lost in the forest. Watching the human become disoriented and dehydrated to the point of hallucination. Not saying that folklore and myths don’t have some truth to them. But how much truth do they have? It does help to have the victims become dehydrated and disoriented. This makes it easier for them to become prey.

Since the beginning of mankind, Amelia has seen the human species sacrifice for many different reasons. Usually, Amelia stays out of it and doesn’t interfere. For some reason this time is different. There’s something about Luna that she was intrigued by and save the child sacrifice.

Luna started to become cranky. Amelia figured the child would eventually need to eat.

“Are you hungry, child?” Luna wiped her face of tears and stumbled to Amelia.

What do I even feed the child? In that, though Amelia thought of Jasmine. Jasmine is a Wiccan who lives deep in the forest and generally keeps to herself. She moved out into the forest about a decade ago to get out of civilization and live off the land. Why she picked the forest of the dead to do it, who knows. But considering that no one comes out here to adventure let alone live. It does allow her to just live out her life.

It was a two-hour walk to get to Jasmine’s cabin. When Luna and Amelia walked insight of the cabin Jasmine greeted them; “Hello, Amelia! Who do we have here?”

“This is Luna, I heard her cries earlier this morning. I couldn’t help but pity the child and bring her with me.”

“But she’s just a child. They seem to be getting smaller and smaller. When will they ever learn? Sacrificing at all, let alone a child isn’t the way to go and never works out a long way anyways,” Jasmine helps Luna down off Amelia.

Luna reaches up for Jasmine; “Mama!”

Jasmine beds down to Luna’s level; “No sweet child. I’m not your mama. I’m Jasmine.”

“J-j-a-a-s-mi-n-e?” Luna tried hard to say her name.

Jasmine picks up Luna; “What do you plan on doing with this child, Amelia? It’ll be a little hard for you to take care of her since you know, you’re kind of a dragon.”

“Really? I haven’t noticed,” Amelia sarcastically replied.

Amelia and Jasmine laughed as they took Luna to the garden.

“No, but seriously Amelia,” Jasmine starts to be more real with Amelia and cutting up fruit for Luna. “What exactly is your plan with this child? Raise her like your own.”

“I wouldn’t have used those words per se but I was more of looking at it as a human gatekeeper,” Amelia didn’t exactly have a plan for the child.

“Well, you can’t do it yourself,” Jasmine sighed knowing at some point she’ll regret this. “I’ll tend to her basic human needs until she’s old enough to tend to herself. Otherwise, she’s your responsibility, Amelia. I mean it.”

Amelia couldn’t tell if she was being scolded or not; “Wouldn’t ask for anything else.”

“First things first is to clean this poor child up,” Jasmine took the child inside to wash her up.

*End of chapter One*