ѕуԃηєу ηαтιση: вσσк тняєє

Chapter Three

When Glory yawned and woke up from her surprisingly peaceful dream, she stretched her arms up over her head and immediately climbed out of her hammock. She normally would've just tried to go back to bed and wake up in the morning with her friends, but even when it was the middle of the night, she was full of energy and was in desperate need of a drink of water. She bounded down to the kitchen and grabbed a little tin cup from the cabinet, then she grabbed a jug of freshwater from under the sink and poured it into the cup. She filled it up to the top and lifted the cup to her lips, then she drank a mouthful and swallowed.

She set the cup back down and filled it up again. She lifted the jug of water up to pour another splash into the tin cup. When she smiled and sighed in refreshment, she began pouring more water from the jug down into the cup. She watched the water dribble down into the cup, but then she looked up for a second, and was immediately so shocked at what she saw that she nearly dropped the jug of water.

Outside the kitchen, she saw a glowing white timberwolf that stood at the mouth of the forest. At first, she thought it was just a figment of her imagination, but it glowed mystically with fog and looked entirely made up of nothing but smoke and glowing energy. It stared right at Glory, blinked, and turned around to run back into the forest's depths. Glory snapped out of her reverie and gasped when the jug of water was pouring the entire time. The water that fell down into the cup started overflowing and escaped over the top, wetting the counter top. She instantly capped the jug back up and put it back under the sink. Then she grabbed several towels and wiped up the mess on the counter.

She sipped up a couple gulps from the cup, eliminating the closeness of the water near the top, and she picked it up to drink the rest. When she gulped three times and set the cup down, she put it in the sink and wiped her mouth free of water. Then she looked back outside toward where she saw the timberwolf. It had stared so hard at her. And it gave her a chilly feeling. It spoke with it's eyes, like it was saying that it was waiting for her, or at least it expected something from her. It chilled her bones, and she shuddered uncomfortably. It would most likely give her nightmares, but she couldn't go back to bed yet since she was still well rested and she had loads of time to kill.

She grabbed her boots and sweater from her room and put them both on over her pajamas before she ran back downstairs and opened the door to go outside. There was a crisp chill to the air that made her put her arms around herself, and she continued out closer to the forest. She remembered the mouth of the forest where the wolf disappeared to. Then she blinked hard and sighed when she put one foot in front of the other. She walked quickly over closer to the exit of the forest and squinted to look into the dark pathway. She couldn't see anything in the snowy darkness, except for the distant glow of the portal.

But as she looked harder for the wolf, it never showed, and she huffed in confusion. Right when they finally get a few days of peace and safety, more weird crap starts happening again. Just peachy. Something that will absolutely brighten her day is the reoccurring events of danger and mysterious changes. If the wolf was created by magical energy that looked just like her's, and she wasn't the one who created it, then it must have been a calling of some sorts. She needed to find out what it was and where it came from, but she really wasn't looking forward to another adventure, especially when her hardest one yet had just ended.

Glory looked harder into the mouth of the woods and leaned forward a little before she felt a hand being placed from behind onto her shoulder. She gripped the hand and twisted around to look at who startled her. The source squeaked in pain from her holding his hand in such a tight way. It was Ember again. Glory let go of his wrist and crossed her arms when he pulled his arm back to rub it.

"Do you really need to sneak up on me in the middle of the night?" Glory asked.

"Do you need to give me another death grip?" Ember stopped rubbing his wrist and let it fall to his side. "What're you doing out here in the middle of the night anyway?"