Jarden Brown was a boy most peculiar and naughty.But today he was no more the anti-social brat who wanted everyone to hate him. For the first time toda, he wanted people near him, to protect him and help him. This all started on a normal day, well as normal as it can get when you are Jarden Brown. He was thrown out of English, thrown out of Mathematics and even thrown out of the library. As per Jarden today was going just fine. Till he went home. His mother, a town healer who was normally cross with him, was in a particularly bad mood today. She scolded the poor ( for extra sympathy points) boy for not completing classwork , not milking the cow and not polishing his shoes. He knew what was coming next .
A punishment.
The punishment was scary . Go to the Raven’s Mire( the creepiest place in town , this town also had an actual haunted house and a cursed castle which brought bad luck to the descendants of its residents) and collect the leaves of The Ancient Baobab tree which was at the centre of the desolate place. Another thing, he had to go at night, in the dark which ( as per the elderly townsfolk) was ghastly.
Jarden’s day had gone from good to bad and bad to worse.
At dot 7:30 he left his house and trudged his way to the forest. Dense and age-old cloaked in mist strangled the paths. After passing thick, gnarled trunks like ghostly, stooped figures and spidery knots of trees and bushes he had finally reached the epicentre of the cyclone, the creepiest and spookiest part of the forest. The Old Baobab Tree. Bleached skeletons of dead trees. Roots like enormous, wooden tentacles . The closer he went to the baobab tree the eerier it felt, thump….thump…, went his heart beat. His anxiety at an all time high. Finally he had reached the ghastly, old thing . He stretched out his hand and plucked out an ancient leaf ruffled like pages of an old tome. Just as he put the leaf in his pocket and began walking he heard a thump . He looked back. Nothing, just the dense canopy . He walked forward . Thump. HIs walking made way to a sprint as the thumps also began to get faster. Freaked out he looked back and saw a weird creature.
A soltl. As per ancient myth it was a creature that would protect the tree. If anyone took any part of the tree the soltl would act like a guide to the human but that was all tricks. It would make that person disappear forever. The soltl began to act like a guide to Jarden . While it spoke the boy noticed and ate up all the details of this weird organism. A scaly green tail, body of a kangaroo except covered with crocodile skin and eyes, oh its eyes, most scary which pierce into your soul like invisible knives. The soltl acted hospitable and tried to make Jarden follow him but Jarden did not. Every time the soltl spoke it licked its lips ever so discreetly while looking at the boy. At last Jarden was given an offer by the soltl to follow him. Jarden did not answer him but chose to run away. He ran and ran as fast as fast as he could. Behind him the thumping got louder. THUMP THUMP THUMP. Jarden not looking forward, ran straight into the roots of a banyan tree which spread and twisted together like a prehistoric beast.
He passed out. Finally when he woke up he saw a silhouette of the soltl over him.
And then came the darkness………………