Banished fantasy

You slowly approached, not believing your luck. A light appeared in the distance, which, as you approached, turned out to be a campfire... of people. Several were standing guard, while others were probably asleep. You approached slowly, and the people who had been posted on guard tensed, immediately taking a stance and half-drawing their weapons. They watched you closely, observing critically. After a few tense seconds, they exchanged glances and nodded. Before you could react, several lunged, and one of them threw a net. You knew it was for safety, but still, you found yourself temporarily captive while they watched you closely, checking for anything unusual. The tension was seething, but after a while, they sighed in relief and untied you.

You stopped to survey the area for danger or supplies. You stepped out of the wagon, taking the torch with you, and began to walk around the wagon. Suddenly, you heard a snapping sound, like a twig snapping, which seemed louder than it should have in the silence of the entire forest. You slowly turned around, and at that moment, your hair stood on end, and you felt like tiny, cold spiders were crawling across the back of your neck from the sight between the trees. There, a few feet away, you saw two bright amber lights, as if looking straight at you. They stood still, not flickering or blazing. Your breath caught in your throat, a thought literally screaming from the back of your mind. "Those are eyes!" You jumped into the wagon, hoping it wouldn't follow you. But it remained there, watching you with a bright intensity, seemingly watching like a predator, but in that gaze was also... curiosity?

Bright lights began to approach your wagon, their steps placed and deliberate. You could hear the soft crackling of branches and leaves beneath the feet of the owner of the bright eyes. And then it approached, a slightly hunched humanoid figure, resembling a human in build but clearly not one. The creature was dressed in clothing similar to that of an Indian chief, the same details, but with parts of the body obscured, making it impossible to see anything, not even the boots on its feet. On its face was a snow-white mask with simple gray patterns, oval slits for the eyes, but even these reveal nothing except two pairs of fiery, brightly glowing irises staring straight at you.

You looked and felt a bit under the weather after being driven out of the city. You had several bruises on your arms from your detention, and your stomach was clenching with hunger. Your clothes were tattered with dirt and torn in several places, with small cuts. You sighed and went to the chest on the cart to find the clothes you'd packed in bulk, just in case.

After eating a little and drinking some water from your flask, you felt a little better. The hunger no longer gripped your stomach so fiercely, and the thirst receded, but by this time drowsiness had crept in, which you subconsciously resisted, knowing full well that if you fell asleep, you might never wake up. So you tried to focus on surveying the surroundings from the carriage's glassless windows to stay awake.

You slowly rose and looked around at the dark expanse, into the darkness because of which you cannot see further than your hand, even taking a torch does not help much, expanding the circle of vision a little, and the silence continued to press on your ears like invisible weights.

You throw wood into the stove that was in your cart, from which the flame emitted sparks and quietly crackled, licking the new wood with its tongues of flame, a shift was felt, the smoke from the stove began to move the mechanisms of the cart with a creaking sound and after a few seconds the wheels began to turn, carrying the cart further from the unfavorable city into the darkness where the silence was too loud.