Soulwalker

Chapter 3: Samhain

She was watching little children play a kind of circle game. They danced around and clapped their hands. It was a heartwarming sight, but there was something...wrong about it. In fact, there was something wrong with this whole place, but she could not put her finger on it. It was a creepy feeling.

Cautiously, she got closer to the children. There was definitely something very off about them. What was it? Then they slowed down just long enough for Aisling to notice what was wrong.

Their eyes were all that of animals.

Who are these children, she asked an adult standing next to her. The adult turned to look at her. She could not tell if it was male or female, but its eyes were also those of an animal.

Then she was fixed with another pair of animal eyes, though these actually belonged to an animal. They were the bright orange eyes of a cat. Meow! Meow!

Meow!

Aisling felt a soft paw bat her forehead. She blinked, slowly becoming conscious of her surroundings. The black cat was standing on her chest, mewing and hitting her face. "Kitty, why did you wake me up?"

The cat gave her a frustrated look. It hopped off her bed and walked towards the door. Then it paused, as though waiting for her to follow it.

Curious, Aisling followed it down the stairs and into the living room. It pawed at the front door, as though wanting to go out.

"No, kitty, you can't go out this late at night!" said Aisling.

The cat growled. It walked behind her and nudged the back of her leg. Aisling reached down to pet it, but it sat by the door again, meowing almost insistently. In wonder and confusion, it occurred to Aisling that perhaps the cat was trying to ask her to follow it. This hardly made any sense; cats were not so intelligent as to nudge people in the desired direction, were they? Especially not so late at night, when most humans were sleeping. Aisling sighed in exasperation, realizing that because she had been outside with it the night before, the cat would probably try to get her to come outside every night.

"Meow!" the cat insisted.

"Alright, but no more than an hour, okay?"

The cat gave her another frustrated look as she opened the door. A stunning sight met her eyes. A brilliant full moon shined over the mountains, casting its pale light across the field of wildflowers behind her house, silhouetting the nearby forest against the sky. Aisling gasped. "Thank you, kitty... Kitty?"

The cat was slinking down through the meadow, towards the forest. Aisling suspected he was looking for field mice, but he turned back to look at her expectantly. He still wanted her to follow him.

"You want to go for a walk?"

The cat swished his tail.

Figuring she would accompany the cat as he hunted mice, Aisling followed him out into the meadow. Fireflies danced and blinked around her. It was truly a magical night.

Then Aisling noticed something odd. Despite the lack of clouds, her environment began to acquire the same kind of blurred quality that it had the night before. The nearer she got to the woods, the more distorted it became, as though she were looking at it through a screen. At first she blamed this on her eyes adjusting to the dark, but then it started to unnerve her. Then she felt something brush against her skin, as though she were passing through a film. Aisling blinked, and then gasped again.