The Adventures of Melanie Marie (A Garden Gnome) ... Part Three

Gazing at the new, unexplored world around her, Melanie Marie trampled through the forest in fear of every next step she took. This was all new to her, everything was so big and unfamiliar, yet she knew that the only way was to swallow her fear and go forward into the unknown. So forward she went, deep into the forest, where the trees towering over her head seemed to engulf her and the tall grass hid her from view, and not once did she look back.

For days on end she traveled through the woods, not knowing what she would encounter. After traveling for what seemed like forever, she thought she could faintly hear people talking in the far off distance.

"Am I hallucinating, or is there really someone out there?" she said quietly to herself as she stopped dead in her tracks. She didn't know what to do, but she had to think fast.

She decided to make her camp early that night so she could listen in on the conversation she thought she heard from off in the trees. Besides, if she really did hear voices, how would she know if they had friendly intentions? For all she knew, she could be overhearing the bellicose war cries of the cannibalistic monsters she was warned about in the fairy tales of her childhood. She had to know more; there was no chancing anything while she was all alone in a foreign land. After she had made a fire, and piled some leaves up to sleep upon, she settled in to listen more intently to the voices. She couldn't make out if they were woman or man, gnome or monkey, as a matter of fact she could hardly make out what they were saying.

"Have you heard of the little gnome who forsook her tasks of randomness and fled from her city?" she strained to decipher. "It is said she is travelling this way, and that she has come as a threat to over-throw any sanity she stumbles across."

Melanie Marie giggled softly to herself, when the voices seemed to get louder. She hurried to put out the fire that might foolishly give her away, but she was too late. She had only heard two voices but somehow she seemed to be surrounded by a multitude of humions! These half-human half-lion beasts closed in on her while they gnashed their terrible teeth, and flexed their terrible claws, and shook their terrible manes! She sat there, dead in her fear, not knowing what to do...