Zack’s mind returned to consciousness slowly, gingerly; it reached tentatively out along his body, prepared to beat a hasty retreat at the first sign of pain. It found none, and ventured farther. Zack’s body sent signals that it was actually comfortable, warm and lying on something soft that felt not quite like a feather mattress and not quite like a hammock —
Zack woke up. He was lying on the ground, on a soft mat made by a thick layer of long grass. He was still fully dressed: breeches, vest, shirt and boots. Tall trees sprang up around him on all sides, cutting off the view at just a few meters.
Zack shook his head in confusion, and could not find even the memory of pain. He stood up, pulling himself up on a tree, leaned his whole body against it, and tried to think. His mind kept going back over the strange events of the day, over and over, beginning at the point where he’d woken up in the pasture with the bump on his head and refused to go back any further. It was funny, he mused, that he could remember pulling on his shirt that morning but couldn’t remember the act of leaving the house. Weird.
Not as weird as the thing happening to his arms, though. The fine gold hairs were still there; upon closer examination, there seemed to be small patches of ink-black hair. His fingernails were definitely much too thick and were developing distinct points along with an odd fold of skin at the quick. Since his head no longer hurt, allowing him to indulge his curiosity, Zack pulled off one boot and examined his toes. Sure enough, his toenails were getting along in a similar manner.
Zack suddenly could not stand to be unable to see past the trees. He looked up; a lifelong tree-climber, he had an expert eye for paths to the canopy. In this tree-filled space it took but a few moments to spot a suitable trunk with low-hanging branches. He put his boot back on and clambered up, finding plenty of good strong branches. He reached the canopy easily. The height exhilarated him; there, at the bottom of the canopy, he could see a long distance in almost any direction. He could see the small clearing where he had awakened, a pool of light green in an expanse of darker greens, blacks, and tiny dots of rainbow-colored flora. He seemed to be alone.
His ear caught the faintest of sounds somewhere to the right. Zack held still, waiting for the sound again; it came, and he turned his head in search of its source. It seemed to come from several places at once, distorted by the forest. From his perch he glanced around at eye level, sizing up branches and deciding which ones would hold his weight. Unhurriedly, he crawled across the branches of his tree; he paused at a likely spot and leaped. From there the canopy only grew denser; he was able to move past three or four more trees this way, their branches interlacing handily. He was moving on when the sound came from directly below him. Turning, he securely wedged himself between two branches to look down.
Ten meters below he saw a pale-haired figure pressed against the trunk of the tree, savagely kicking at an extremely ugly and grimy black creature and fighting it off with only moderate success.
A few moments before Zack had risked a fall; now that he had something to land on, he jumped down without a second thought. He landed at sixty kilometers an hour on the black thing with arms extended, his velocity crushing it against the ground. Zack heard a disgusting crak from under the creature’s body before he jumped backward, the thing’s jaw snapping shut on air where his leg had been a second before. Zack landed next to the tree and faced it off, his body taut in a fighting stance, hissing. Zack had not expected to hiss, but it seemed to unnerve the black creature, so he hissed again. It growled at him in return and crouched to spring. Unexpectedly his field of vision was crossed by a wide black line. Mentally jerking back, Zack saw a stout branch being handed to him. Reactively he grabbed it and swung one end at the black beast, catching it across the muzzle just as it leaped and knocked it sideways. It rolled, got up, shook its head and, with a positively terrified whine, limped away as fast as its broken leg allowed, jerking its head in pain. Zack watched it until it disappeared and waited long enough to make sure it wasn’t coming back. Then he turned to look at the creature’s unwilling victim.