Lost ...

 borrowed from ArcticFox

  Green vegetation whipped at his face, and Kael had put his arms up to protect his eyes, running blindly away from the gnolls and what had approached them from the other side.  His mouth was open in a silent scream at what he had seen, and every so often he coughed, choking on something that he had inhaled in his panicked run.

  Several times he tripped over something, sometimes soft and squishy, and other times hard.  But he had no curious desire to see what it was as long as he could still hear the dying screams of the gnolls around him.

  Finally, he could hear nothing but the pounding of his own heart and his own rasping and panting breathing.  Even the birds had gone silent.  Kael found a place to lie down with his back against a large boulder and pulled leaves and other forest floor debris over himself.  He thought he would be too afraid to sleep, but his body thought otherwise, and soon his eyes closed, his breathing slowed, and he was sound asleep.

  When he finally woke, it was dark, but he didn't know if it was night of the same day, or several days later.  His body ached from running, falling, and being pressed up against the rock instead of in his own soft down bed.  There were lights in the distance, and he could smell bacon being cooked over an open fire.  Occasionally, the breeze through the trees brought him the sound of harsh laughter.

  In more familiar forests, he might be safe to travel at night, but here among the unfamiliar, he decided it was no time to be gallivanting about without weapons or fire to light his way.  He would wait until morning when the light of the sun could guide him.

  He woke again with the hot sun directly overhead, and hearing no noise other than the birds in the trees, he felt safe enough to slowly crawl out from beneath the leaves and stretch.  Turning, he realized that the boulder he had been pressed against was actually a concrete wall, with an iron gate mounted on it.  In the distance, he could see a large stone house that was unlike anything he'd ever seen before.

It's Words for Wednesday again.