Heroes and Wolves [book 1]

Chapter twenty-eight

Layla

Nearing the exit of the alley, I pass two more shops when a large, tall tree comes into view. That's weird. The tree absolutely dwarfs me and is so out of place for Lakeintown. Its planted straight within the ground with no roots cracking the concrete.

I can only manage a few more steps toward it before a thundering headache comes across, making me clutch my hands around my head.

My surroundings are smothered in darkness until more trees show around me. I know exactly where I am; the Folklore woods. How am I in the Folklore woods!  My breathing has raised a couple of notches from the realisation.

This doesn't make any sense. How was I in Lakeintown and now in these woods? Even though my anxiety levels have grown to an extreme, I don't think this is real. It can't be. Something just isn't right and what the ground looks like puts justice to my assumptions as it's concrete and not muddy with sticks, leaves and stones. I am still in Lakeintown?

     "Maylock?" I call but then think better of it since he is a Guardian and I am still in Lakeintown even though it doesn't look like it.

I also don't know who is around me so I'll have to play it safe because I don't think being at the front of the newspaper with the information of his identity is the thing he really wants. To be honest he probably would have a go at me if I carried on because he has been acting extremely off. I don't really know what he is truly like anyway as I have only been with him for a short amount of time but what he's said, behaved and acted like is a lot different to what he was like to me before we came to Lakeintown for this fight.

I try to think of what triggered all of this. We all flew to Lakeintown, Maylock and I fought the mavlins and then there was that sphere in the sky. The sphere. When it smashed my vision was taken for a moment and my armour had gone. It was from then that Maylock started to act this way. The sphere did this, it must have. This is why I am still in Lakeintown with Folklore woods characteristics.

It's hard to see anything familiar to the city because of the gloomy surroundings hampering my vision of the distance. I know that I need to head for the Spire and since it's the tallest skyscraper, I don't need to look ahead of me, I need to look up. 

I locate the building. The antenna is poking out from the cloudy darkness but the blue sky and the beaming sun are still present which further justifies that this place isn't right nor real. 

As I walk towards the Spire, the trees beside me disappear and colour begins to seep out of the shadows, evaporating them slowly. With each step comes an increase in normality, at least I hope that is the case but I'm still on guard for anything.

Colour is completely back within my environment and the only trees left are ones in the mini gardens. The darkness might have all diminished but Maylock isn't at the Spire.

     "What the hell did I tell you?" I then hear his voice and shadows of people show on the floor.

I look up to see Zack and Abbey with broad grey wings keeping them afloat and next to Maylock.

     "I am at the Spire" I frown.

     "Does that look like the Spire?" Maylock's voice has a wicked curl of sarcasm to it.

Confused, I glance behind to still find the tallest skyscraper looming over me but then it suddenly starts to flicker and change shape. What? I blink rapidly because it may have just been my mind playing up on me. After all, I seem to have a knack for that but the building does it again. It looks like a glitch you would get in a video game. The building is bulging in and out, changing colour, getting smaller and fluctuating up and down.

I walk to the door, seeing my reflection in the glass as I put my hand out to touch it when it flickers again but this time the glitch seems to have contorted the whole skyscraper into a totally different building. It's now a house but it's not just any random house and I back away in shocking realisation to try and grasp how this can be possible but I fall backwards, having misstep off the rotten wooden decking.

The sound of sticks and leaves crunch my landing and the sky is pitch black. This bleak colour continues to surround me once more and a mass of trees have sprouted from the ground. 

I'm in the Folklore woods again? 

But it's what I am looking at, what the Spire turned into which really sets it in stone as it is the old house. The one house I hid in the curtain and where I followed Maylock through that secret picture door.

     "I knew you were not a Guardian, you're too weak" Maylock's words wound me. My heart dips and sinks heavily.

"Yeah she is just like her father" Abbey adds.

     "Come on, let's celebrate the disappearance of Layla" Maylock grins and they all laugh while they zoom off in a blink of an eye.

What is happening! I am so confused! 

Just as I try to get my thoughts in order, a white sphere shows in the sky, suspended mid-air. Oh no. Even with my mind frazzled from the Guardian's bizarre behaviour, I'm alert enough to react, so I run because I know that when the sphere hits the ground I am going to go blind. 

I'm hurtling through the woods, pushing myself to the limit and ignoring all urges from my body to stop. My lungs burn, my legs ache but then the environment around me goes bright and blank.

++++++++++++++++

I'm still standing when my sight comes back to me. All previous exertion has lifted from me and I feel better for it, but I'm still surrounded by trees and in the Folklore woods. Or am I? What the hell is going on?

Cold sharp air reverberates through my lungs, chilling my core and I shiver. Each tree stands grand as branches sway in the tense flowing wind. It's so dark and eerie. This atmosphere is soon exaggerated when growls thunder around me.

     "Looks like you're alone" a low voice echoes around the forest and I go ridged. 

Who was that? 

     "Don't you usually check behind you?" the voice causes my heart to pound and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

I don't want to turn around.

     "And what if I run?" I state defiant which surprises me but the fuel of all my confidence was put in those five words. Now I'm breathing incredibly deeply to try and calm my fear and replenish my poise but it's a losing battle.

     "You can't" the voice responds. 

Can't?

Before I can even consider why that word was said, my legs are suddenly impacted upon and I fall on my side, landing on my left wrist. Pain rises from it and I sit up to hold it but its then that I see two legs. Two rippling muscular legs stand in front of me and I trace upward to meet piercing red eyes.

The Monster of Folklore.