Don't trust the Forest: part 4

"I have no idea why it's blood isn't drying, but I can tell you what I know. We may be able to piece together something."

"You don't? But didn't you fight the bear?" Sarah held up the stone, the crowd that gathered around saw how un-dried.

Mike rubbed his temple, on top of all the things he knew about the bear, they wanted to know about the most useless bit of information.

"Let's get one thing straight here Sarah, you have no idea what the bear is capable of. It shot a fucking water-ball at me, it can heal for crying out loud! Heal! That's so unfair!"

"Wait, how? Does it heal big wounds or just small wounds but faster?" Sarah got curious now, this was something they needed to know.

"I gouged it's eye out with an arrow, I bet you found it with both eye's so that should tell you enough." Mike sighed, and continued.

"I can tell all of you the fight in detail, but that's not what I'm here for right now. So shoo!" This was directed at the crowd, everyone but Sarah and James stayed, they sat in a circle as Mike continued.

"Who did you guys send to find the end of the forest?"

"Tom's been out since morning, he should be back soon, I think." James replied.

"He's going to tell you that the forest doesn't end with just these fruitbearing tree's." Mike's voice changed from annoyed to serious and sultry.

"What do you mean?" Sarah joined in on the talking "is there more to the forest? Like a second layer?"

Mike snapped his fingers "Exactly that, and there's no fruit, sunlight, water or life there. I suspect we are also inside a circle-"

James held his hand up, gesturing Mike to pause "Wait, but how do you know this?"

"After I fought the bear, I tried to find it's cave. Earlier this morning I found a second, empty forest. So I came here to check if the entire forest is inside a bigger one." Mike was sweating, he had ran all the way back.

"So that means if Tom finds the empty woods, then this place is a forest inside a forest? So how is it a circle then? I mean, where did you get that from?" Sarah was pretty curious, since the clearing where they arrived in was also a circle.

"Few things, one, I ran around the edge of the 'inner ring' or a while and it felt circular. Two, the place we came in is a circle, it would make some level of sense if the entire place was just circles upon circles. Want me to continue?"

"Wait, just wait, both of you. The forest being a circle or not doesn't matter at this point. We will cross that bridge when we get there. Right now, I want to know your plan for when Tom comes back with the news." James interrupted.

Mike raised an eyebrow "Why me?"

"If you're set on killing the bear, then you would only come to us if you needed help. I assumed that much." James calmly explained.

"Fair enough." Mike shrugged "I can't kill it because it has just too many factors to consider. And I know none of you will leave the inner ring for good, so I thought I'd warn you and help you all kill the bear with me."

Sarah held her chin and thought to herself, she likes to pretend she's a philosopher sometimes.

I can't tell whether he's telling the truth or not, and I don't mean about the 'rings' or the bear's capabilities.

He definitely needs help killing the bear, his intent is clear. But his way of convincing James and I seems too convienent.

I feel like he's going to leave our some details from now on and have us tunnel vision on the bear.

If that's the case then I'll confront him. But for now, we must exchange details.

"Mike, we can tell you what we know about the bear and you can tell us your info."

Sarah explained her theory of the "Bear's formula" to Mike and James.

Now it started to make sense to Mike, this bear's energy saving behaviour and modes.

"It can use magic, maybe it uses that to locate us. That would explain its knowledge of the groups location at all times."

Mike was threading on thin ice right now. He should be careful not to give James or Sarah any non-violent ideas to escape the bear.

Since I escaped the bear, ran to the edge and back through the center, past the bear again.

It's safe to say, if the group ran around the edge and set up camp, we could leave within the next few days without worry of an attack.

But if that were to happen, I wouldn't have the firepower or manpower to break through the healing.

Sarah seems to have noticed that something is up, so I'll have to be absolutely unreadable.

Mike thinks he's hiding his superhero identity, bro is NOT Peter Parker!

Sarah almost instantly saw through him.

But she would bring it up later, right now she was waiting for confirmation from Tom and the new info from Mike.

They continued until the three of them were on the same understanding when it came to dealing with the bear.

"Wooden spears don't work, how did you make the rope again? We can use rope for stone tools." Sarah directed Mike to meet with Marie and have her change the production of weapons completely.

"She's not going to like that you know." James helped Sarah get up and walked towards the others.

"If I cared, I would have let her down slowly." Sarah ran her hand through her own hair and posed "This isnt working, we lost our original spark! I-I think we should be seeing other weapons..."

The two of them laughed. Dumb kids, cracking jokes at a time like this, surely nobody would make jokes at another person's expense right?

Wood shall now get cucked by stone, just as it should be.