Forgetting if for a brief time the unatural quiet and the noise that had preceded it he walked up the the beginning of the path.
Unlike the shrine and most everything else the path was clear of small plants and rocks. In fact......it looked like he remembered it when he had been here last. Though he didn't walk the path he could clearly remember how wide the path was. Someone....or something had to have tended this path and kept it clean of stray plants and rocks otherwise it would've been overgrown. It couldn't be animals cause loking down he could see no tracks of any sort.
But that begged the question of who would take the time to come all the way out to this (now?) delapidated shrine just to keep a path clear?
Then when he couldn't sleep on the bus coming here he just looked out the window and if he guess correctly the nearest town was thirty miles away. But just cause the path here was clear didn't mean that the culprit was from the nearest town. Maybe....maybe it was a drifter of some sort? That made some sense since the path lead up to the cave and the cave could serve as shelter then the path might have been cleared to afford easier access to the lake close by for water and fish.
The idea was still flimsy though cause why would a drifter use a cave instead of the shrine office? Sure there were holes in the office's roof but nothing a bit of work and scrounging couldn't fix, it certainly would've been easier then clearing a path that extended about a 1/4 of a mile into the forest and keeping it cleared.
Starting down the path the hairs on Ranma's neck stood up and his shoulder mucles tensed as he felt something looking at him. Though this time there was no noise like when he was in the Shrine office he was dead certain that someone/something was watching him from within the cover of the trees. The mere fact that the birds and insects had stopped with their various sounds/noise as if trying to avoid some dark menacing predator amongst their them only leant credit to Ranma's gut feeling.
As he tried to listen for whatever it was that was watching him he had to fight the impulse to be as silent as he could. If he was obvious about his steps without trying to conceal their sound then who/whatever might be lulled into a false sense of security and then it might make a mistake. He began to feel less certain of that idea when he noticed:
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(Posted Mon, 02 Jun 2003 08:26)
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