Tales of a Shifter (P6) - Child of Sun & Moon

Chapter 24 - Found

Chapter 24 - Found

No! Brandon! Brandon!

Panic and pure embarrassment choked the Alchemist's a she marched deep into the dimming woodened areas around her. She had doubled back on her own path twice, and made tree suspicious turns around a rock that she swore looked familiar twenty minutes ago...and now she had no clue where she was....and even more frustrating and heart rending was the fact that Ann had utterly lost all trace of Brandon.

Somewhere along the way she had been convinced that she wouldn't get lost because even after traveling a substantial distance she could still feel the Druids Will shimmering like a flame in the backside of her awareness....but there all of a sudden after she had just been getting prepared to return to him his light had vanished...and the sense of his burning Will had been swept away....almost as if the Druid had been wiped away from the world a well....or died?

NO! He didn't die...hes not dead I just....I'm lost....oh god I'm lost and I cant get back to him if I cant sense him. Please be okay...I mean maybe he is okay! Maybe he just woke up and got spooked? He must have put his Aurora back in place? But...then why didn't he come looking for me...?

Ann tried to not let her racing mind turn to negative thoughts as she thrashed past a suborn group of Firs blocking her travel and reminding her of just how turned around she really was as Ann realized off hand that she had never meant to go so deep into the wilderness.

No....something is wrong...something is wrong...

Came her own negative thoughts as the moments grew longer and longer...and more and more Ann sensed that something had happened to her Novice.

A small part of Ann felt engulfed with worry as she turned around a crop of think first, and she stepped over a thick tangle of dry roots, bursting out of the hard rocky earth, her steps hurried and frantic, and her mind over burdened Ann had the time to register the sheer blind fright that gripped her, when she was smacked dead center of her face with a stench like hot garbage an feces.

Ann swallowed a weak gasp and she nearly fell backwards over her feet as she turned and scrambled off back over the thick twisted roots beneath her. Her slipped and the earth scored her palms, as Ann tripped, then got up and dashed for her life...realizing that she had just very nearly steeped out and into the embrace of two very large Ghouls...sitting just a few feet ahead of her.

Something is wrong.....

Whispered her inner mind once more, all of her negativity and anger bursting free in moments as Anns mind flipped a switch and she knew that....she was about to have to fight for her life.

They've found us...

Ann had only given herself a handful of second to glimpse mustard green skin pulled tight over lean thick muscles, long gnarled faces, with fangs like blades painted in black drool...and large milky black eyes rolling with insanity...and hunger. And the moment she smelled them, she knew they sensed her weak Mana.

The moment Ann's legs picked up and struck he earth at a run, she heard vicious snarls erupt behind her, harsh giggles, violent sniffs and grunts of air being pulled in past nostrils leaking with bile and spit....in moments Ann had no doubt that they would be on top of her.

With no other option Ann let out a defiant scream, as she ripped open her awareness of her Mana and she pulled deep of the burning cold power that made her heart freeze and her muscle want to lock in agony...the thick gaping maw in her soul pulsed with pure tremendous agony as she gashed open the wounds inside, knowing that if she didn't risk death by burn out....she would find death by claw and fangs instead.