Alice in Mirrorwoods

Prologue

"STOP!" One of the two cops yelled as they continued the chase. "Don't force us to shoot you."

The man they were chasing responded by only increasing his speed. Soon the cops could only hear his heavy footsteps and followed the sound. The trees were denser in their surroundings now as they ran along the trail in the woods.

Close... So close... I can feel it stronger now. The man thought as he ran for his life. Any moment now. He thought and pushed himself to get a final burst of speed. He turned with the trail and finally saw it.

YES! Home at last... He thought as he rushed ahead.

Suddenly the cops could no longer hear the heavy footsteps. They turned the final turn along the trail and ran a few steps to reach a clearing. The trail ended there and there was nothing there except for an ancient Oak tree at the centre of the clearing. There was no sign of the man they were chasing.

"Where did he go?" Cop-1 wondered while catching his breath. He was looking around but there was no other trail than the one they had been following, only dense trees surrounding the clearing with the ancient Oak tree in the middle.

"This is so strange." Cop-2 muttered staring at the Old Oak with wonder. "This tree must be hundreds of years old." He said walking towards it. "Yet I've never seen it before today. We must have seen it before, right Mike?"

"No I don't think I've seen this tree before Sam. But I think that's because we have never been this far into these woods." Mike the Cop-1 replied. "Damn that bloke! We must've been chasing him for at least half an hour and now we've lost him."

But Sam the second cop wasn't listening, he was staring at the old tree. It was indeed a very old Oak. The trunk itself would have been at least 3 meters wide and some of its branches were so thick they would have put several fully grown trees to shame. They were bent low, one of them was even touching the ground making a sort of an archway.

"Isn't it weird?" Sam wondered walking towards the arch. "It's fall yet this tree is covered with lush green leaves."

"Umm.. yeah, it is kinda weird." Mike said nervously looking at the arch. "I think we should leave now and come back later with the hounds. Sam? SAM GET BACK..." he almost yelled pulling Sam back so forcefully that both of them fell on the ground.

"W-what happened?" Sam looked around bewildered, as if coming out of a trance.

"That arch... it was... it was sort of... glowing..." Mike said looking wide eyed at the arch which was standing innocently, as dull as ever. "And you were going towards it as if..." he shuddered. "Never mind... let's just get out of here and come back with reinforcements. I'm sure the hounds will be able to track down the bloke."

Few hours later...

Sam and Mike returned back to the clearing with few more cops and a couple of dogs. But the clearing was empty. There was no sign or scent of the man who they had followed nor there was any Oak tree. As if they had been hallucinating about it, the centuries old, huge tree had totally disappeared leaving no trace of it behind...