The Innocent Rose

Chapter 1: Mr. Mysterious

Rose’s P.O.V.

It is March 8, 2120. It is still chilly here in Oakland, North Carolina. I am a traveling photographer and just moved here to get some amazing landscape and wildlife photos of the area. I have been here for a couple weeks now and just been focusing on settling in. I am renting a house that butts up right next to the Oakland National Forest. 

I have been on a few hikes just getting a lay out of the land, and it is so beautiful. At night I can hear the wolves howling just behind my house and can not wait to get some amazing pictures of them. I haven’t seen any yet but I can almost feel like they are watching me.

It is dinner time and I am on my way to the diner down the road. I pull up in front of the big neon sign that reads Crescent Diner. I get out of my forest green 1980 CJ5 jeep and walk in the front door. I am greeted by a girl about my age with dirty blonde hair and grey eyes. 

“Hi, welcome to the Crescent Diner. My name is Lily. I will be your waitress this afternoon. Just follow me.” She leads me to a table right next to a window. She handed me a menu. “What would you like to drink?” I look at the options. “I will take a large sweet tea.” “Okay I will be right back with that and to get your order.” 

I give her a polite smile as she leaves. “Well she is happy.” I chuckle to myself. After a minute she comes back with my tea. “Are you ready to order?” “Yeah. I will get your turkey and avocado sandwich with fries.” She writes on her notepad. “Okay I will have that right out.” Five minutes later she sets my food on the table along with a vanilla milkshake. 

She turns to leave. “Oh wait Lily. I didn’t order a milkshake?” She turns back to me. “I know it's on the house. You are new here and the milkshakes here are fantastic. Plus I love your hair. Is it natural?” As an instinct I grab a stand of my snow white hair. “Yes it is natural.”

With that she turns and leaves. After I finish eating I put some cash on the table and leave. As I am walking out I accidentally bump into a very tall man with black hair. “Oh my gosh. I am so sorry sir. I didn’t see you.” I look up into the most beautiful honey colored eyes I have ever seen.

“No it's my fault I was not watching where I was going.” They guy said quickly then rushed into the diner. Well that was weird. As I am walking to my jeep I feel like someone is watching me and I turn around and see the mystery guy watching me. The most weird thing is that I do not feel scared. I feel kind of safe in a way. 

When I got home I went straight to my bedroom and changed into some jeans and a t-shirt and grabbed my jacket. I walked across the hall to my photography room and grab my camera then walk down stairs and out my back door. 

I walk towards the path leading further into the woods. The sun is fixing to start setting with just the faintest pastel colors starting to show. I walk around for thirty minutes stopping every now and then to take a few photos. The sun was almost completely set by now. I had got a few shots of some bunnies playing and the sun setting. 

I was hoping to find one of the wolves today, but I couldn’t seem to find them or hear them today. I started to walk back to my house just wanting to get back into my warm house and under my cozy blankets. I hear a crack and turn around and see a brown wolf staring at me. He looked very skinny and smelled pretty bad. He had saliva dripping from his snout. 

Putting my hands out I start backing away slowly. “I am not going to hurt you.” The wolf started slowly stalking towards me. I tried looking around for a tree to climb but didn’t see any. I hear a howl in the distance. 

The wolf looks towards it and I take it as my opportunity and run. Which was a bad mistake. In seconds the wolf was at my legs and knocked me down. With it closer I could see its red and feral eyes. Without even a thought it looked down at my leg and bit down. 

I scream out in pain as everything goes black. I woke up in my house on my couch. I looked around, I was covered up and my camera was on the table. I moved the blanket and saw my leg was wrapped up in a bandage with a faint red tint from my blood.

“How did I get home?” I questioned myself while looking around. I got up and tested to see if my leg was okay to walk on. After confirming that it was not broken I walk upstairs to my room and walk into my shower and turn it on while I undress and carefully unwrap my bandage. The bite was pretty deep. I am very lucky it didn’t break any of my bones. I carefully get a shower and get out and clean and wrap my leg back up and go to bed.