Read Crow - The Awakening for Free Online

around him seemed to expand rather than contract. The trees, towering up into the sky, surrounded him by the hundreds in his direct line of sight and receded into the distance until they all blended together, giving the impression of an endless space around him. The forest sounds were abruptly apparent to him as well, markedly different from the sounds of the open farmland their homestead sat on. It was almost magical to him. Steven could feel the life in the forest and hear the tiniest rustle of leaves on the ground or the claws on bark as squirrels climbed. He closed his eyes and let the forest soak in. He could sense nearly every living thing in that part of the forest - a hawk picking at a mouse up in the trees, a bear foraging for berries some distance away, even a puma curled up in a den in a rocky bluff nearby. He also found the smell of the forest intoxicating, with the plants and humus enveloping him with an earthy, woody aroma like a comfortable blanket. For him, it was like entering a completely different world.
    But there was little time today for him to stop and experience the forest in greater detail. Though he never became bored with it and his endless discoveries, Steven had a meeting to attend to and an important component of his computer project to acquire. With just the slightest hesitation, he headed quickly to the rendezvous point, hoping Brandon was successful in getting the file for him. He found a comfortable rhythm as he trotted through the forest and covered ground rapidly. No matter how far he ran, in the forest he never seemed to get tired and could run all day if he had to.
    As he ducked branches and ran along deadwood trunks and through the ferns, his thoughts wandered and his playful fantasy world surfaced in his imagination. He saw gnarled, dead branches as terrible monsters reaching wretched claws out for him and he whacked at them with his staff as he dodged, weaved, and swerved through the underbrush. He turned it into a full running, fantastical battle. The landscape transformed around him into a dark, foreboding forest with monsters hiding in the underbrush and behind the trees as he ran by. He jumped up onto a leaning tree and ran along the trunk and onto a branch, whacking at reaching tentacles as he danced his way between the spiny arms that threatened to grab him. Without breaking stride, he jumped off onto a downed trunk that became the back of a massive dragon. He balanced on it as it writhed wildly, trying to knock him off. While at a full sprint he ran along its back, crossing a small ravine over which the dragon lay. Angry trolls reached up from the ravine trying to grab his feet and pull him down. He soundly beat them back with his staff as he jumped from the dragon's back onto the far bank and continued his jog through the enemy territory. A tree thrust its branches out, and before they could trap him he grabbed one of them and swung up into the tangle of the canopy, crawling quickly from branch to branch up high, then jumped from the canopy and grabbed another branch of a neighboring tree and repeated scrambling from tree to tree as he picked up the pace. He found he could travel even faster this way than flat out running. As the forest thinned a bit he jumped out of the canopy and grabbed a long thin branch that bent down low enough for him to drop to the ground. He felt most liberated as he gallivanted through the forest without a care in the world.
    As he landed back on the ground from the trees, he suddenly came face to face with a large, black bear. Not the typical monster he faced, but a real one. For a moment both froze, staring at each other. The bear cocked its head, curious at the sudden intrusion as it rooted around for berries. Steven giggled. "You scared me, silly. Can't play now." He got up and jogged off, with the bear looking at him as he rapidly receded into the thicket.
    The dark forest fantasy faded behind him as he continued on, and his attention returned to