Chapter Text
The woods were dark. Big and imposing, they stood just outside a swath of farmland and field. Anyone who wandered in usually didn't wander back out. Legends about fairies and monsters were popular, but there were real wolves that really existed and really did kill livestock. So, that solved that mystery. Most people in the adjacent towns were too sensible to be out in the woods. Especially alone. Especially at night.
However, most wasn't all. As Farz Murphy so expertly proved while he pushed deeper and deeper into the thicket of trees. Moonlight shone down from the spotty canopy and highlighted the twisted up expression of emotion on his face. He cycled through regret, fear, annoyance, and exhaustion one after the other like a looped animation.
Farz stopped dead in his tracks and stared at the marks on a near-by oak. His marks. Three scratches, to indicate that he had come by here before. He groaned aloud and scrubbed a hand down his face. A second later, he froze as a howl echoed in the distance.
It was like the entire universe was having the time of it's life laughing at him.
He hadn't wanted to be out in the darkest hours of the night with just a bag of money and no shelter or easy way home. His only weapon, a pocket knife, wouldn't help for shit if he ran into a pack of wolves. People went missing and then turned up as bare bones in the dirt. If he stayed out in the forest all night there was a good chance that would be him... if the chill didn't get him first.
If it hadn't been for that stupid tree, he could be home in bed already. It was only dusk when he'd tripped on that root and knocked himself out against a jagged rock. It all happened so fast and before he knew it Farz woke up hours later in pitch black with nobody around. Not even the soft twittering of birds up in the branches. Silence wasn't all bad, in Farz' opinion, but there was something about the woods that made it uneasy. A feeling of eyes, on him from every angle and hiding in each bush.
Farz took a sharp left when a second howl broke through the cold night air. One misstep and now he might be on the menu; it was really just his kind of luck.
Not fully seeing where he went, the short farmhand whipped past dozens of trees. Brow furrowed and heartbeat fast, Farz tore past a slew of rocky breaks in the forest floor. A third, long howl sounded behind him. Closer than the other two. He leapt down from a raised plateau and caught himself against something sturdy.
His breath hadn't caught up at all and it was clear in his short gasps for air. When he looked up, Farz found himself leant against a stone wall. He blinked and backed off from the masonry. The short wall stood affixed to a short bridge. Moss clung to it all over and Farz ran his hand over it, transfixed. The small creek that it lead over gurgled in the deafening quiet of the forest.
Farz took a step onto it with some trepidation. There wasn't supposed to be a river here at all, let alone a bridge.
Something up ahead made a noise. Farz stepped off the bridge as quickly as he'd stepped on and stared at the space in front of him where the sound had come from but, somehow, it was just empty air. Empty air in a spooky forest on a bridge that wasn't supposed to exist.
As he watched the trees on the other side of the creek for movement, Farz slowly eased away from the bridge. It was weird enough but the noise had almost sounded like a very real, very human laugh. He was pretty sure he could see a cave, maybe some decent shelter, past those trees. But that laugh wasn't a good sign. If he had... actually heard it at all. Maybe the hit on the head had done more damage than he'd thought.
If he backtracked now he could just find tree to climb into or a hole in the ground somewhere to hide in until sunrise. Honestly at this point he'd even share with a fox.
It sounded like a good plan until a fourth and particularly loud howl rolled off the trees at his back. It was accompanied by a series of growls in steady approached.
Farz didn't look back. He didn't see the wolves approach, nor the shadowy figure of a man that walked amongst them. Mind made up for him, Farz launched forward into a sprint across the strange bridge toward the outline of the cave.
As he didn't look back, he also didn't see the pack and their bipedal guest stop several feet short of the bridge with their own amount of wariness.
The trees on this end of the woods were thinner, with pale bark and knots on them that stared when you walked past. He breezed through them easily, careful of the roots at his feet.
Farz slowed to a jog and then halted at the mouth of the cave. It looked cramped inside, the entrance too high up to be a quick access point for predators. Which was more than anywhere else had to offer. With labored breaths and grit teeth, the brunet hauled himself up onto the boulders and up into the stone hovel.
No sooner than when his hand had touched the smooth inner wall of the cave, there was that laugh again. When Farz whipped around to try to find the source, he almost slid back down the craggy bunch of rocks. There was a figure. A man. Only a few paces away, leant against a tree with a grin on his face.
"Well don't you look lost," the stranger said. His tone was joking, jovial even. It made the knot of irritation inside Farz twist even tighter. He didn't see what was so funny about this, not in the fucking least.
Somehow, the moonlight seemed brighter here than in the rest of the area. It afforded him a good look at the other guy, but not enough to gauge if he was a threat.
The man couldn't be older than Farz and had a look about him that could have sent anyone on edge. The two-toned hair and the tattered vest, the sharp tooth-strung necklace and the bright amber eyes. He wasn't the kind of person you just ran into on the street. But then again, this was a forest that people went missing in, so it made sense that anyone in it wouldn't be exactly your average civilian.
Wait... that's right, this was still the woods.
Farz glanced briefly down at the leaves he had crunched through himself, all around the guy's feet. Even in the thick silence he hadn't heard the guy approach...
Abruptly, the stranger snorted. "Holy shit I can literally hear your brain, if you keep thinking that loud you're gonna wake everybody up." He shook his head and put his hands in the pockets of equally ripped trousers. They had maybe been fancy slacks at one point. Why was everything so fucking weird?
"What the fuck do you mean everybody, we're in the middle of the woods." Were there more people like this asshole hiding in the forest? Farz slid a hand to the bag on his hip and hovered there; if he had to draw his knife he'd be ready.
"I meant exactly what I said," the man took a step closer and then gestured to the trees, "You don't know what kinda shit lives here, don't be fucking rude." He smirked at Farz as the brunet's hand rested on the satchel anxiously.
"But forget that, what really matters here is that you look hilarious right now." The stranger snickered as he pointed and Farz went red in the face.
"I was running away from a pack of wolves," he stressed, lip curled into a frustrated snarl, "Is that really something you think is hilarious?" Farz glanced at the trees like he expected the pack to come running out of them at any minute.
The guy raised an eyebrow, smirk still very much in place. "Kinda, yeah."
Farz glared at him, very clearly wishing him dead. "Fuck you."
The grin on the other's face only widened. "Hey, nice to meet you, too. I'm Sid. And you are?"
Farz fumed. "Not happy to have company."
"Wow, that's a mouthful. What were your parents even thinking?" Sid tilted his head to the side, clearly delighted as Farz huffed out an annoyed sigh.
"What are you doing out here anyway? Do you... live here, or something?" Farz stared around at the natural landscape in confusion like he expected to spot some kind of shack or cottage. Maybe this guy was why the bridge was here?
"I live where I want," Sid shrugged. The vagrant bent suddenly and Farz tensed until he saw it was just to pick up a discarded twig. Sid tossed it back and forth between his hands. "It really depends."
Farz breathed out through his nose and rolled his eyes. Slowly, the adrenaline from before had ebbed. "Nice, thanks for the cryptic answer." He pressed against the cave wall and his voice trailed off to a grumble. "This conversation I didn't want to have has been truly enlightening." Farz slid down the wall to curl up into a ball at the mouth of the cave.
With his face buried in his knees, he heard Sid give a low whistle. "Aren't you a ray of sunshine."
Farz lifted his head to give a biting retort but instead all that came out was a yell of surprise. Sid was now sat on one of the boulders at the base of the slope. Once again, Farz hadn't heard him move. He raised a brow at the brunet, expression genuinely confused, "What?"
"You were just—" Farz stopped. Sid's expression had morphed back into that same grin. He sighed, angry, and rubbed a hand down his face. "Nevermind."
"Aw, that's no fun," the strange wanderer intoned.
"I don't care what's fun, I'm trapped in a forest talking to a guy who looks like he crawled out of a fucking ditch," Farz bit out with no small amount of acid in his tone. He didn't even know if this asshole knew how to get out of the forest, but he knew it was a bad idea to risk a run in with the wolves again.
"Wow, rude," Sid sneered. He glanced Farz up and down. "You're not the most well dressed guy in the kingdom either, but you don't see me making judgments. You haven't even told me your name! What, were you raised in a barn?"
"Actually, yes," Farz retorted. He glared harshly at Sid and then looked away as his tone became more sheepish. Uncertain. "And... My name's Farz." When he looked back, Sid had an odd expression. The moonlight caught against the strange man's smooth, rather handsome face for a moment and it almost looked like his eyes shone gold.
"And your last name?" The question hung in the air as Sid leaned forward, curious and careful. His whole demeanor had shifted like a cat about to pounce.
The brunet's face scrunched in confusion and he hesitated. "It's... Murphy, why does that mat—"
The very last thing he knew was Sid's grin as it returned to his face and then the world around him went black.
Words drifted by in the other's joking tone as he felt his body go limp.
"Nice to meet you, Farz Murphy. Have a good nap!"