Who Is Your Leader?

He awoke, face down on the ground. As he began to move, he could hear and smell the crumbled dried leaves underneath him. Kirk, making his way to his feet, could easily be mistaken for a lumber jack. In the wooded light of the full moon, you can see his broad shoulders fill the red flannel long sleeve he is wearing. His whole front side looks like he had been playing baseball and had attempted sliding into home face first except for one obvious addition. As he tries to dust himself off, he lets out a grown. A shot of pain shoots through his left shoulder. The moon light is enough to illuminate, the deep gash to the front of his shoulder with a hatchet still imbedded in it. He has no idea how that happened, nor where he even was. He had seen enough medical shows to know, he probably should keep that in place. He appeared to be just off a well-traveled path.

As he is investigating the tool dangling from his arm, he notices that he is just off a well-worn path. Kirk steps out into the middle of the path. He looks up and down the path, and there is nothing, just darkness. The light from the moon causes the shadows of the trees to appear on the ground. From where the moon is positioned, he can determine that to the left is North, and to the right is South. He stops to look each direction over, as if checking an intersection for incoming traffic. As he stands there, in absolute silence, he hears a high pitch scream like sound, clearly coming from an animal. It sounds slightly terrifying in the darkness. The sound originated from the South. Kirk decides to go North.

As Kirk walks, he is met with the constant crushing and rustling of the dead leaves with the occasional branch snapping. This is the only sound he can really hear. He has been on trails similar before and knows there is the occasional root sticking from the ground, waiting to grab his foot. He walks quickly, but carefully. Every 30 paces or so, he stops to try to listen for any sign of, well, anything, even that awful screech. This goes on for quite a few minutes. The feeling he is lost is starting to settle in. Slight panic, wanting to get out, find something, find a source of sound, of light, of everything, starts to fill his anxious mind. This causes him to speed up his pace and take less heed in his foot placements. He stumbles, almost toppling over, but instead manages to meet a tree. He smacks the tree just so he slightly hit the handle of the hatchet. Searing pain fills his shoulder again. Instead of a groan this time it is a fully audible cry of pain, which brings him to a halt. He manages to find a downed tree to fall back on, as the stars in his eyes from the pain blink away. Blood starts to trickle out of the wound. Kirk decides to rest for a moment.

After 10 minutes or so, Kirk regains his composure. He starts to get on his feet when, a bird like thing comes flying from the trees, screeching and scaring the living crap out of him causing him to stumble back onto the log again. Its 3-foot wingspan was enough to put any man in awe and disarray. The screaming is identical to the sound he had heard earlier. The creature had landed in the middle of the pathway. Kirk’s heart rate is through the roof as he manages to locate the thing in the middle of the path. He can make out a bird like shape. The bird flutters its giant wings and screams again. Its screaming directly at Kirk. “What do you want from me Bird?!”. He then noticed other feature from the “bird”. It’s white face, with black eyes. The bridge of the beak that looks like a nose that leads into the point. This is no bird. This is an owl. The own screams again, lowering its wings. The owl rotates his head 180 degrees to face behind him, then returns its gaze to Kirk. The owl repeats this a few times. The owl hopes a few times towards Kirk, startling him a little bit. The owl becomes parallel with him and the path. The owl looks at him, then looks south down the path, again and again, as if to signal to Kirk, he wants him to continue down the path. Kirk, slow to realize, says “Y-you want me to keep going?”. The owl screeches. It then turned south, spread its wings and took off in a majestic fashion. It perched itself on a branch a little way up the path, screaming once again. “Yea, yea, I’m coming, I’m coming.” Kirk puts his hands on his thighs to stand up, and notices his shirt is now wet with blood.

The scene plays out for about 20 minutes. The owl would be up on a branch, scream, wait for Kirk and then fly to the next branch, rinse and repeat. It was about this time that Kirk noticed a flicker of light a way up the path. “Well…. You are a smart little creeper, aren’t you? Trying to help me out of here huh?” The owl looked at him, as if to not give an answer at all, turned and flew away.

Kirk started going toward the light. As he made his way closer, he could hear what sounded like a chanting. He was not close enough to understand what was being said. He hurried his pace, in excitement and intrigue as to what is ahead. As he closes in on the light, he can clearly see it is fire flickering in the night. There are 2 big torches, with 6 smaller torches creating a brightened area in the woods. There is a pedestal between the two big torches with various carvings in it. He could also now see the shapes of 6 adults in hooded robes looking in the direction of the pedestal. On the pedestal is…The owl!? It is facing away from the group. All of this in a little clearing. The chant is a little more audible now, or at least the cadence is. “Duh-Duh-Duk. Duh-Duh-Duk.” Kirk had, again seen enough TV to know this is not an ideal situation to be stumbling upon, at night, during a full moon, in the woods. However, he can now feel the blood dripping off his left hands fingers and is hoping these fine people have a way to assist him.

Kirk approaches the clearing. As he crested the little hill leading to the area, he can now hear what they are saying. “Come, Here, KIRK! Come, Here, KIRK!” with emphasis on the KIRK. Now but 25 yards away from this…meeting. Kirk, after hearing the words about 15 times, just to verify the loss of blood was not messing with him, was extremely weirded out. He thought that he probably should not approach the group of people, in the woods chanting his name. Common sense says that is a bad idea. He slowly starts to back away. In his less than 100% state, he loses his footing and falls, making noticeable sound.

The owl abruptly turns its head 180 degrees again, makes eye contact with Kirk, and lets out another scream. This silences the group. The owl then makes a second sounding, more repetitive sound. Not so much a scream as before. All 6 bodies at once turn around and face Kirk. They all identify Kirk now on his butt, in the middle of the walkway. As they turned around, Kirk noticed a peculiar item in one of their hands. It was a hatchet. After looking down at his shoulder, he noticed it was the exact same hatchet that he had been “carrying around” in the woods. He then noticed hatchets in all their hands, all their hands but the 3rd from the right. As they looked at him, Kirk stood back up. “Well guys! Looks like I am here. I’m Kirk!” The group makes grunting sounds. The owl makes yet another different chirping sound. The 5 men brandish their hatchets. The 6th man, the one without the hatchet, speaks up. “I’m going to need my hatchet back.”

Kirk stands up straight. The group start to march towards Kirk. Kirk says “Oh yea? You want this back??”

The light from the flame flickers across Kirks face, as he makes direct eye contact with the speaker. As Kirk says, “You can take it from my cold dead hands!!!” he rips the hatchet from his shoulder, and holds it, ready to defend himself.