A couple days passed after my arrival, and I’ll save you the details because it was pretty damn boring.

First of all I found out that I did sleep, well sort of. After puppeting my servant around for long enough I began to grow woozy, and my strength started to fail. Then I entered a sort of meditative trance where I stopped paying attention to my surroundings. Though not true sleep, it helped pass the time before I could recuperate and I got the feeling that this wouldn't be necessary if I wasn't so hungry.

For the most part I explored my surroundings, though my tiny horse servant couldn't go far before the connection started to become weak. I started with the rock wall which stretched on as far as I could see, even after climbing to my very top branch. The other trees were also just as thickly packed as I had assumed, though thankfully my tiny body easily maneuvered through them.

There were a few dips, a couple of standing pools, and some dead trees littering the area I could reach but that was about it. At one point I could hear a stream, but I couldn't even get close before feeling began to dull, and my vision grew fuzzy. After that I pulled the horse thing back, exploring what little I could manage without losing the only defence I had.

I also noticed a few other things, such as the fact that there were very few animals around. Sure I could hear them, and sometimes I could even sense them, but they continued to avoid me for some reason. Even the birds which flew overhead gained altitude when crossing over my putrid grove.

I also found out that I could not fly, no matter how hard I flapped these tiny, pathetic wings of mine. Even getting a bit of a jump from one of my lower branches did nothing to assist me in this matter. I tried for hours, attempting to figure out some manner of technique I didn't initially grasp, only to end up empty handed.

It was depressing, though I suppose it made sense as the horse's wings were tiny things which shouldn't be capable of creating enough lift anyway. Still, I found myself irritated, and feeling rather trapped despite the fact that I could at least walk around. My cage may have been a bit larger then I had first anticipated, but I was still contained to a single small area.

Thankfully I was able to find a narrow opening in the mostly blocked off cave which gave me something to do. Exploring the mostly collapsed caverns, I had worried that I would need to bring some manner of light along with me. Thankfully that didn't seem necessary as no matter how dark it got I was still able to see as though everything was illuminated by the evening sun.

Wandering through the winding caves, I was surprised to find that they felt vaguely unnatural in a way. They were too wide, too tall, and were oddly smooth, as if they had been worked by tools at one point. They werent perfect though, as they had clearly been uninhabited for a very long time.

So long in fact that stalactites and stalagmites had begun to grow, as had a good number of strange mushroom varieties. Some were small, and grew near what little water managed to seep its way down here, but others were different. These strange ones took root on wherever they could find, spreading up walls and even across ceilings in great green carpets.

The first, less numerous ones were short, and brown, with black spots and short fruiting bodies that resembled arrow heads. The more numerous variety had large bulbs with a dark green top and a bright emerald underside to them. They looked large enough to serve as a single meal for one of these horse things, and though I was tempted to take a bite, I resisted that urge. Though I wasn't worried about poison, I was quite aware that spreading them accidentally might be a bad idea.

For all I knew, they might very well eat living trees given the chance, and I didn't want to find out if I could feel pain. For that reason I gave them a respectful distance and continued deeper, eventually getting close to the cavern I had detected a few days ago. Only for my signal strength to fade, and my servant to start growing distant from me.

Drawing them back, I made my way back to the surface once more, a bit of disappointment festering at the back of my mind. I had sensed more caves, more potential discoveries, but they were just out of my reach despite being directly under me for the most part. It was at this point that I started to become rather annoyed at my circumstances, and by extension the one who had caused them.

Sure my old life might not have been great, and most of my family might have passed but I still had a sister I loved dearly. Not only that but I had friends, a couple close cousins, and a few gaming buddies I missed intensely. And as I crawled back into my oaken shell I felt the first gust of a deep sadness.

These were the kinds of circumstances that eventually drove a man mad, a fate I deemed worse than death.

You’ve only been alone for like two days, get a grip. I reminded myself, attempting to shake off the gloom which threatened to envelop me.

Brushing off the cold grip of a looming depression I crawled out of my trunk and began to look around once more. This time I turned my mind towards something productive, something I could do to improve the life I was now stuck living. Then it struck me.

If I couldn't go to the people, then I would bring them here, simple as that.

That would mean taming the land around me, cutting a path and perhaps even constructing a small place for someone to stay. I would also need to build up my own defences as well, just in case they arrived with foul intentions. I refused to become some experiment or freak show paraded around against my will by some enterprising douche nozzle.

And to start all of that off I needed to get a better lay of the land around me. Taking stock of the creatures, and plants that I found myself as a neighbor too would help immensely. If I had something worth trading I could procure a revenue stream, and if I had food then perhaps I could aid a weary traveller.

All that assumed that someone would wander into my neck of the woods, but it seemed like a decent assumption on my part. This creature had either been sentient itself, or had owners which obviously were, so either way someone was probably looking for it. I wondered if it had parents out there, but quickly quashed that thought as it was just too damn depressing to think about.

Instead I simply focused on the most present thing I could think of, which was really figuring out what was around me.

Setting my servant to work, I began cataloging the various things that grew within my little grove, only to come to a sudden realization.

I didn't know shit about plants.

I had been an English major who had spent most of his life working as a delivery driver for a cabinet business owned by an uncle. Then after I lost the use of my legs I had become an entertainer of sorts who had somehow managed to leverage his love of games into a career. I was a curious person by nature, and had plenty of random facts about the world, but I was no survival nut.

I knew that if a mushroom bruised purple it was likely the fun kind, that moss didn't actually only grow on one side of a tree and that standing water was bad to drink. I also had a collection of useless knowledge that was vaguely applicable, like how to build a simple lean to but that was about it. I didn't know what anything was called, nor could I recognize the leaves of a dangerous plant, well except for poison ivy.

You only use that as toilet paper once before committing what those leaves looked like to memory.

Still, I wasn't about to let my shit knowledge of botany get in the way of my plan to eventually entice visitors. To that end I decided to start by simply walking the area again, further familiarizing myself with my surroundings. A boring task that I expected to spend the majority of planning for the future and that was about what I did. Right up until I smelled something strange and familiar.

It was the distinct, and unpleasant aroma of death which came from a nearby group of spruce trees. There I was able to locate the mangled remains of a fox which had sought refuge in a burrow only to perish before they could make it inside. It was a sad sight, though my pity for the creature was quickly washed away by a deep, yearning hunger.

It was the kind of hunger I had once gotten when looking at a freshly cooked burger, or a juicy medium rare steak. It was a visceral, and almost animalistic response which didn't make sense for a tree to have given its unique biological needs. For that reason I tried to ignore it, to simply walk past the body, and leave it behind me, but something kept me there.

My servant’s hooves were bolted to the ground, and I could only stand there, barely resisting the urge to bite into the thing. That was until I heard something which startled me from my reverie, and activated my flight or flight response. Namely the rustle of something far larger than my little horse zombie.

I was tempted to stand my ground and try to scare the creature off but I was quickly able to deduce that not only were they bigger but there were several of them. For that reason I decided to scamper off into a nearby bush, where I hid and watched from a much safer distance downwind. The crunch snap of several large animals came closer, and not long after ducking into my hiding spot, I saw them.

Wolves, I realized, but much larger than the ones I knew from earth, and with a hide that resembled bark. It didn't just look like bark, I realized, it was bark, and not only that but the entire creature was made from wood. Dead wood too by the looks of it, which had been gathered into the shape of a wolf, and given the maleficent glowing green eyes of a disney villain.

I was still struggling to imagine what manner of creature was before me when the wolves located their prey. Rather than begin eating the dead fox, the largest of the lot simply picked it up in its jaws, and began to walk away. His packmates were close behind him, and I got the distinct feeling that they were some manner of golem.

Their movements were oddly robotic, and there was no hesitation in their actions. A real wolf would likely sniff around a little more, or briefly scuffle with its fellows over who got it, yet this one did none of that. Rather they immediately fanned out, covered the leader, and followed him out after he had acquired the kill for himself.

The wolf also carried it with a strange sense of reverence, as if it didn't want to damage the creature in anyway.

Curiouser and curiouser. I thought to myself before slipping out from the bush. I had better get back before nightfall. I can keep looking around tomorrow.

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