Falling into the Beast World

Chapter 1: Falling down the rabbit hole

Tonight was supposed to be fun and unforgettable. I spent weeks creating my costume and planning my makeup to be the best dressed at this party. I was supposed to arrive on time and spend the whole night celebrating the fact that I was a free woman; free to be myself and free to do what I love. So can someone explain to me how I wound lost in the middle of the freaking woods with no freaking clue as to where the dang cabin is located!

The party started hours ago! I followed the GPS once I parked at the forest entrance with all the other vehicles parked for the party. I even started on the obvious path made in between the trees, so once again how did, I ended up in the middle of freaking nowhere! I sat on a down tree to rest as the boots I was wearing were starting to blister my ankles.

Sighing, I looked around and tried to produce my next move. The Forest was not that dark due to the full moon hanging above my head, but the shadows still gave me the heebee jeebees. I thought of transforming into my bunny self to see if I could pick up a trail leading to people, but I put a lot of work into this costume and honestly did not want to ruin all my hard work.

After resting for about ten minutes, I got up and started heading toward the direction of the moon. Hopefully, I will run into some form of civilization. About thirty minutes after I started walking again, my stomach gave a loud growl that started me off from the silence that surrounded me. I was starving, there was going to be a fully stocked taco and margarita bar at the party! I was craving some veggie tacos!! As a biologist and agricultural scientist, I was not much of a meat eater. I liked eating fish and sometimes chicken but never red meat. I needed to eat, or my stomach was going to eat me.

Crouching down I sniffed for any kind of edible food, hoping to find something to hold me over till I found the location of the party or even a person at this moment. Right now, I just wanted to be able to go home to live the next day. Carrots!!! I just caught the smell of carrots! Cliché as it is, carrots were my favorite food. I followed the scent to a huge tree in the middle of a wide-open area. If I were not so tired or hungry and desperate for substance, I might have questioned why there would be carrots coming from a tree given the carrots are a root vegetable. The tree was a huge willow tree with millions of white flowers swaying on its vines. It was very pretty. Not being distracted from my hunger and not caring about my manicured nails done for the party, I bent down to dig through the roots of the tree to find the orange goodies. I could almost taste them the scent was that strong. As I dug deeper and deeper, I did not notice the moon above me shining brighter and brighter. Just as I was going to give up and go to a different spot to dig, I hit an air pocket and fell right through the hole!

I screamed in surprise as the air pocket was deeper than I thought. I kept falling and falling. It seemed like I was falling for hours but could only have been seconds. I have become the real Alice from Wonderland! I was worried about what was waiting for me at the bottom of this sinkhole. No sooner as I thought that I slammed into the ground and the next thought was nothing but blackness.

I groaned and sat up rubbing my left shoulder and hip as I landed on my side. I looked around to see where I was and then looked up to see how far of a climb I would have to make.

"What the- "the hole was only a few feet above me! There is no way! I fell for hours it seems like. There is just no way! What kind of hocus pocus was this? I fiddled with the tips of my ears and nibbling the tip of my thumb trying to calm myself down. It was a nervous tick I had had for a long time before I could remember. I took deep calming breaths and stood up slowly, wincing slightly from the pain radiating from my left side. I looked up and tried to plan a way out of the rabbit hole. I grabbed a vine and began to pull myself up. Again, wincing as I had to use my left shoulder. Gritting my teeth, I kept going till I was outside. It only took me about five minutes given that my left shoulder was getting more painful the more I used it. I rolled onto my side and took deep breaths again to fight the pain. Once the throbbing calmed down, I opened my eyes only to lose my breath. The sun was out. The sun was out when it was most likely around 2am when I found the tree. I did not fall for hours when it only took me five minutes to get out of the hole!

I looked around and was speechless again, this is not the same forest. Where was I? How do I get home? I looked towards the tree, only it was not a Willow tree, it was an oak tree now!! What the hell is going on?

"Hello?" I yelled out into the forest, hoping someone was close enough to hear me. I straightened my ears to see if I could notice any sounds at all. About a couple minutes later I heard something moving towards me and it was coming fast. I was not sure if it was friend or foes at this point, so I tried climbing the tree with the black hole attached to its roots and hid in its leaves. I stayed absolutely still and waited for whatever was coming.

A few minutes later a giant white tiger came stalking out the trees. He was majestic to say the least; strong, lithe, quiet, and very handsome. He had beautiful blue eyes the color of sky, one had a scar, but it added to his cham. I was in awe of the creature coming towards my tree. It stopped at the base and sniffed around the tree till it stopped under me and looked up. I was covered by the leaves so it could not see me clearly. It tilted its head, and if it were any other situation I would have swooned at his cuteness. But I hid deeper into the trunk, hoping that he maybe friendly. The tiger chuffed at me and waved his paw to the ground in front of him. No matter how cute that was, I was not going down.

The tiger stepped back and stood up. I gasped as the tiger shifter into a man as he did so. He was a tiger hybrid! A person! Help has arrived! .... Naked. Well, beggars cannot be choosers and I am not complaining.