VERTEX
chapter 1
The boy felt the scorching heat from around him,trying to melt his body.He opened his eyes and saw bright red light coming from beyond the canopy of black leaves.
It took him some time to gather his senses
and get up from the ground on which he lay.
The boy looked 15-16 years of age from his build, but one could see the maturity of the years on his face indicating what his real age might be.He was wearing a dark coloured tshirt and pyjama at the bottom that had been torn a bit.
The first thing that caught his attention was the source of the bright red light. It was the moon, a bright red coloured moon, illuminating its light below and colouring everything with a tinge of red.
It seemed as though the moon was giving of the scorching heat which he felt. He found himself surrounded by the trees with dark coloured leaves which now had a hue of red.
It was a forest. The boy was not able to recall how he got here or where he was before , his memory was fuzzy and the heat would not let him concentrate.
Suddenly he felt an intense sense of danger,
he looked around and saw two bright red eyes
,having the same colour as that of the moon,coming closer and closer.
It was a wolf,but with dark red fur as though it was made of rocks that were just about to melt.Its height reached till the chest of the boy.It growled as it came near,it looked at his prey with hungry eyes.
The boy panicked for a moment,but quickly became calm.He had to think of a way to escape this situation,he knew he cannot outrun this wolf,so there was no point in running.
His eyes fell on the nearby tree about 2m from him,he looked at the wolf about 50m away.
He could not let the wolf come any closer to him.
The boy looked at the wolf,slowly walking towards him ,as if observing his every move.
Boy took a deep breath and ran towards the tree with all his might.
Wolf saw this and leaped towards the boys direction.Boy climbed the tree as quickly as he could,just barely avoiding the wolf's claw which which was swung at him.He climbed all the way up to the thickest branch he could find and slumped over it.
The wolf did not leave ,it quietly sat on the ground and kept staring at the boy.
Watching this the boy felt a cold chill run down his spine.There was no way he could get down as long as the wolf stayed there.He closed his eyes from the fatigue.
.......
The boy did not know how much time passed, he looked down and found the wolf still sitting there staring.The boy could not get down and he noticed his stomach rumbling.He started looking around him and found to his surprise that there were fruits hanging on the branches of the nearby trees,but the only way to get to the other trees was to go up where the branches of all the trees intersected each other.
He looked down at the wolf still sitting there and staring at him,he did not want to imagine what would happen if he fell down.
He supported himself against the trunk and started climbing up.
.....
After climbing a good distance,he reached the top.At the heights of the tree he found a few empty nests ,having red coloured eggs in some of them.
He wondered which kind of bird lay this type of eggs,the boy reached the other tree by clambering down its branches and finally pluck the fruits it had.
The boy was too hungry to pay any caution to the fruit being edible.
He ate a bunch of them before stopping.The fruits were delicious and after eating them he felt the heat around him lessened quiet a bit.He put some of them into his pockets for later.
From where he was he could get now get a good look at the moon.
The moon looked dazzling,waves of red light could be seen around it .The more he looked at the moon the more he felt his body temperature increasing.He confirmed that the heat was emanating from the moon itself.
He looked around and saw the never ending forest everywhere.The boy climbed higher to get a better view.
From top he could see a wider area of the forest,far off the distance he saw light, it appeared to be coming from the direction from which the wolf first appeared.
'aaauuuuuuuuu'...
All of a sudden he heard a thunderous howl from that area.It startled him,it felt himself shivering. He did not want to face the creature from whom the howl came from.
The boy kept looking for a while in search for something but he could not find anything.
After a while he heard flapping of wings from behind him.He turned around and saw the group of fiery birds coming towards his direction.
The boy was startled again.He quickly analysed the situation and started going down the tree as fast as he could.When he heard the coos of the birds coming closer he misplaced his leg over one of the nests and tripped over it.
The boy was apprehensive,he was still 50 feet above the ground and if by any chance he survived the fall,the wolf would be there to eat him up.
.......................
