Spellbound

Chapter 4

A/N: My most extremely humble apologies, I got really distracted in living in the moment. I am currently vacationing in southern Maine at a beach house. Work before now has been really busy, hectic, time consuming, and draining. Here it is though with more coming soon. But seriously. I'm so very sorry. I know how impatient I can get in waiting a day or two for my favorite stories to be updated, but this is really rediculous. I'm SO VERY SORRY. Back to Ian's perspective.

--Chapter 4--

(Ian)

I woke up in the little lean to shelter that I had pieced together. The sun was bright through the leaves that made up the roof of my little shelter. I found it was almost necessary for me to rest, once I learned that animals would and often did come near me without fear on the first night. Deer, foxes, and the smaller predators didn't bother me as much as when I woke up around three in the morning with a pack of wolves surrounding me. It was a small pack, but still, it was rather unnerving. They quietly and respectfully walked away, their alpha seeming to gaze deep into me before trotting off. After that, I quickly set to making a shelter. Years of goofing off in the woods helped me to build it, finding suitable support branches for the ends before digging them into the ground. A stick resting in the crook of each of the two branches made for a suitable roof base. Four long sticks on either side with leaf bearing branches lashed to them, using peeled bark, made for the cover. It looked like a make shift tent.

Anyways, I woke up with the sun filtering through the leaves that made up the roof of my shelter. It was the third day I had been out here. Water was plentiful seeing as there was a clean stream nearby, untouched by humanity this deep in the forest. It was peaceful, a nice respite from the confusion my life had just become. The woman I love had done something to me, something that was a total mystery to me. I felt like I was Alice, lost in the rabbit hole, growing larger and smaller, lost among a world of fantasy. I was feeling totally off.

My senses were heightened. My tastebuds could pick up the faint differences of minerals and other contaminents in the water. My eyes were sharper; I could see further than before and in much greater detail. My sense of smell was better, able to pick out the different scents of the different trees and plants nearby. I could hear much better than before, how much better though, I couldn't tell. And I could feel the shifting pressure of a fast moving storm about to hit.

A storm. That wasn't good. There hadn't been the hunkering down of animals in the background. There wasn't the calm before the storm. The shift in air pressure was too sudden, and looking up now, the cloud cover was coming on too suddenly. The clouds were low and as black as sin. The wind suddenly picked up and was howling above the trees. Hurricane force winds wound up blowing strangely around the clearing, but not through it, almost as if I was in the center of a tornado. Lightning stuck with high frequency just at the edges of the clearing, leaving scorch marks on the grass. Three figures were suddenly in the clearing, not suddenly appearing, but me suddenly noticing them. On the left was a short, tomboyish woman with blonde hair cut to her jawline. In the middle was a typical looking white collar worker with close cropped black hair. On his right was a thin brunette with her curls just past her shoulders. The man stepped forward and the wind and lightning died.

"We would like you to come with us."  He said calmly.

"Why would I come with you?" I retorted.

"You would like to learn about what has happened to you right?"

"Yes, but you can explain that to me right here."

"Not if you want your girlfriend to find you."

 I fidgited at that, taking a moment before I replied."I'm not sure what she is anymore, But leave her out of this."

"Fine. Have it your way." The man raised his hand  and slowly waved it infront of himself, saying a word that sounded foreign to my ears. I melted into unconsciousness.