Into The Woods(Chapter 8)

Maldavo’s Lair

It was early in the morning when Lía woke up to the sound of thumping footsteps, a fire crackling, and the pitter patter of little feet. She peeked out of the tent and had to hold back a scream. They were in a dark cave, and worse, she was looking at the ugliest thing she had ever seen. She scrambled back inside the tent and shook Aríana violently. Aríana was about to yell at Lía when she saw Lía’s expression. 

She whispered violently to Lía saying, “Why did you wake me up.” Lía put her finger over her mouth and pointed at the tent flap. She gestured for Aríana to look out the flap. When Aríana came back she quietly screamed into her pillow and gave Lía a look that could kill. 

They heard loud footsteps coming toward the tent, and a big booming voice said, “Come out and play, humans!” The twins needed to know what the monster wanted, so they headed out to meet him. They creeped toward the big, roaring fire that the monster was sitting around. 

They tapped the monster on the shoulder and the monster jumped up. 

“Slaves, stop hanging out and get to work! Dinner’s not going to make itself,” the monster shouted. 

“What is going on,” Aríana mouthed to Lía.

“I have no idea! I don’t even know how we got into this mess!” Lía responded. They looked around, stunned. No one said this cave was a prison. They looked around and saw a small peep of light. They looked at each other and knew what to do. They sprinted toward the exit and they were almost out the exit when they felt two hands wrap around their waist. 

“Did you forget I am 10 times bigger than you?” The monster asked. The twins sighed in defeat as they were slowly pulled away from the freeing light of the outside world. They had to work their hardest to avoid being whipped, and saw quite a few other slaves. When the twins talked about escaping, the people who looked like they had been in there the longest shook their heads in defeat. That night, they were walking along the servants quarters, when they saw a boy, about their age, milling around with what looked like his parents. 

Lía walked up and tapped the boy on the shoulder. He jumped out of his skin and turned toward the twins. He sputtered at them and in his head he was wondering, who are these people? The boy had curly brown hair and brown skin, and a button down shirt that looked like he had worn it forever. 

He walked over to them and Lía said, “Hi, my name is Lía and this is my sister Aríana. We just got captured and we want to escape. What is your name?” He told them his name was Christopher and he wanted to escape too, but he didn’t know how, and he didn’t know what the outside world was like because he had been born into slavery. Lía and Aríana were stunned. They didn’t know you could be born into slavery! All three of them cooked dinner together and the twins told Christopher about the outside world. They cooked the monster fried skunk while plugging their nose. They joked that that was probably where he got his smell. 

That night, Lía and Aríana dragged their tent over to Christopher’s bed. 

Aríana said,” is it okay if we sleep here?”

“Sure,” he said.

They had a nice night of sleep. The first good night of sleep they had had since they went into the forest.