He began to move again, slowly, every sense alert. The rain drummed harder now, a slant grey curtain that blurred the trees and muffled sound. He had gone only a few steps when he felt it — the same certainty as before — that he was not alone.
He stopped. Perfectly still.
From somewhere behind him came the faint crack of a branch. He did not turn at once. His heart hammered, his mouth dry, and the cold crept up his spine. When he finally twisted around, there was nothing to see. Only the rain, the dark trunks, and the empty wood watching him back.
The wood was no longer empty.
It was full of watching.
At the edge of the clearing stood several shapes now, not unlike him, though thinner somehow, paler, less defined. They kept their heads low, their movements careful. All of them were facing the same direction.
Towards the horse.
It stood exactly as before. Perfectly still.
Its ears were pricked, not listening, but measuring. It did not move, because it did not need to. The watching was done for it.
He noticed then that whenever someone shifted their weight, the horse lifted its head a fraction. When someone hesitated, it stamped once — not in anger, but as a reminder. The sound travelled quickly. Faster than sense.
No one challenged it.
No one even named it.
Instead, voices rose around him — confident, loud, oddly empty. They repeated the same words again and again, polishing them with use until they shone. Strength. Experience. Authority. The horse said nothing, yet every word seemed to come from it.
He stepped forward, absurdly calm, and spoke once. Not loudly. Not cleverly. Just clearly.
The effect was ridiculous.
Faces turned away. Eyes avoided him. His words landed and slid, leaving no mark. Truth here had no weight; it did not intimidate, and therefore it did not matter.
The horse shifted at last. Only slightly.
That was enough.
Someone near him whispered a warning — friendly, almost kind — about consequences, about how easily a man might be mistaken for a problem in this wood. Another smiled and suggested he learn how things were done here.
He felt the cold then, sharper than fear. Not the cold of attack, but of exclusion. He realised that the horse was not powerful because it was strong, but because it convinced others it could decide who stayed standing.
He looked for a weapon and found none.
There was nothing to fight. Nothing solid. Only a posture. A performance. A belief endlessly repeated.
Rain began to fall again, slant grey, washing the clearing clean of edges. The horse blurred, enlarged, became more than it was. Around it, the others held their ground, soaked, obedient, relieved.
He turned away at last.
Not defeated — but unwilling to become still.
Behind him, the wood closed in, busy with watching.
Ahead, the rain offered no shelter — only movement.
He went away.
Bonus 1
@Yolanda Muriel Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)
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