Chapter 15: Other Side

They didn't know how good they had it.

Plentiful food. Better resources. Tall, healthy trees made strong by their connection to far-off streams. The vibrant greens of the leaves and grass. Those colors alone painted the picture of lively difference. The human's part of the woods had a vigor to it, a whole buzz of life and possibility that the wolves' side didn't have.

None of this went shared. Stockbrunn owned it. How they decided that, she didn't know. If Ellie and Zinnia were any indication, then their average citizen knew nothing about their claimed land. The people of Stockbrunn were tourists. Disrespectful tourists who killed animals in pathetic, sneaky ways. No honor; no justice.

They took what they wanted and made sure there'd be no sharing. What's theirs is theirs even if what they own is something they only want to take advantage of. Unable to live among nature, they put up their walls and made sure to block it out as much as possible.

If Stockbrunn had cared about their land, they wouldn't have people like Ellie and her friend. Zinnia hadn't come with any supplies. Ellie never struck her as particularly nature-wise, and this third meeting hadn't changed her impression of her on that front. She may have brought a weapon with her this time, but there was nothing about the way she held it that hinted she knew how to use it.

"Shreya, do you live far from here?" The question came from Ellie's friend.

"It's far," she said without turning around. They kept walking forward, Ellie setting their pace. "The distance is so great that I promise we won't run into anyone from there. We're not supposed to leave home."

"What's home like for you? It's not every day that I get to talk to a woods dweller, so I'm sorry in advance if I'm being overly intrusive."

"My home is the woods, an actual part of the woods," Shreya said, unsure if she was using the right words. "The best way to explain it is that we walk with the woods, not through the woods. That belief is in everything we do. It is how we live."

"Do you live with a lot of people?" Zinnia asked.

"Yes, there's many of us, but we keep to ourselves."

"Is your sister the only dangerous one, or...?"

Shreya hesitated. "...She is. There are more like her, yes. Anyone can be dangerous, but we're not the kind of people who would seek to do harm. We keep to ourselves. We're very strict about staying in our own place."

"If they're so strict, then what are you doing so far away from home? What's stopping other people from doing the same thing?"

"Can I say the same thing about you?" Shreya asked. It wasn't like Stockbrunn liked its people wandering around, either.

"Yeah!" Ellie piped up. "We do what we want because we're rebels. Tell us what to do and we say screw that."

Ellie stopped the group. Before them stood a house mid-engulfed in green. The grass was so overgrown that it reached the edges of its first floor windows. Although the glass was smashed, iron bars kept out intruders. Some meager scrapes on the bars showed there'd been some break-in attempts, but whoever had tried hadn't gotten very far.

"Looks like a prime target for an investigation, huh?" Ellie asked over her shoulder.

"We shouldn't go anywhere near it. What if someone's in there?" Zinnia replied.

"No one is in there," Shreya said, maybe a little too fast and self-assured for someone that wasn't supposed to have heightened senses. "Do you see any signs of life? Look at the grass. It is not laying down. Look at this dirt. Smooth. No tracks." She stepped forward and turned around to face them both. "The grass is the most telling, but I can go in first if you want. Someone skilled at hiding their tracks would know to stand the grass up so I can look first for you."

"We'll look together. There's some gaps in the bars where we can peek through," Ellie suggested.

"And get caught?" Zinnia shook her head. "No, what we should do is throw a rock at the house. If there's someone in there, they might come to the window to investigate or even open the door. We'll leave if anyone's there."

"Let's just go with what Shreya said. There's nobody here because of the grass."

"But she said you can't always trust that."

"Go find a rock, then. I'm gonna check the door." Ellie went up to it, Shreya making sure to stay by her on the off-chance something bad happened. She turned the handle. Nothing happened when she pushed or pulled. Eyes lit up with excitement, she tapped her finger against the hole beneath the handle.

The hole looked like a funny person with a big head and a slim body.

"Ellie... Even if there isn't anyone inside, this could still be a trap," Zinnia warned.

"Mind holding this?" She passed her hatchet to Zinnia, then rummaged through her bag. "Why lock a door if you're going to put a trap on the other side? You'd want anyone to walk in and get taken care of by it." She took out a couple of metal pieces, one of them with a curved hook at the end.

"We can break it open with that," Shreya said. A few well-placed strikes with the hatchet would do the trick.

"That'd be too easy," Ellie said.

"Ellie doesn't want to pass up a chance to show-off," Zinnia mumbled.

"Hush you. I need to concentrate." Ellie pressed her ear to the door as if it could whisper to her. She then pulled back, and got to work on the lock. Not being able to see through her, Shreya was blocked from seeing exactly what she was doing. A lot of trial and error to find the proper combination of metals to unlock it. Muttering under her breath. Some angry sounds, and then a triumphant cheer of "got it!

"Luckily it was only a warded lock. Nothing too bad," Ellie said after dropping her tools back into her bag. She hovered her over the door handle.

"Open it slowly. Test it for any odd weight on the other side," Zinnia said.

"What do you think will happen? Can there be a trap?" Shreya asked her.

"There could be one," Zinnia answered. "We shouldn't be so trusting."

"I will go first. I will make sure it's safe. Please move to the side." Shreya held out her hand for the hatchet Zinnia held. "Would this be okay for me to throw or should I find a rock?"

"Throw it. It won't break," Ellie said.

"I'll do it." Zinnia kept the weapon away from her.

Shreya opened the door inch by inch. When there was enough of a gap, she got out of the way for Zinnia to throw the hatchet inside. Something reminiscent of glass crashed to the floor. If there'd been a trap, the hatchet must've set it off.

Not finding any resistance, Shreya pushed the door open the rest of the way.

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A/N: The next RRL update will be Chapter 15.2. Voting is open now on the main site for the latest chapter (Chapter 26).