Tracked

Chapter 1

It's cold. Uncontrollable shivering takes over my body. My eyes are wide open but I see nothing. All my senses are numb.

Floating in a space of pure nothingness, curling in to the fetal position I feel a wall as cold as a block of ice on my back. "Hello is any one there?" I try and shout but the sound stops at my throat and only a squeak comes out. I finally feel a floor beneath me and I start to stand, at first clumsy like a new born calf but stronger as I go. Feeling around what seems to be a wall a door knob appears in my hand. Slowly turning the knob the door reluctantly opens. A flash of light blinds me.

Tumbling through the door I land on freezing ground. My eyes adjusted to the sparkle of sun on what seemed to be... snow. Lifting my self up off of the ground I look around. It's bright but sultry. Snows falling gently and the trees creak with the weight. I hear an owls hoot to my right. Looking to it, its big wings unfurrow and expand 3 feet on either side. What a magnificent bird. As I watch it, its wings begin to flap and within seconds it swoops to a nearby branch almost hitting my head. Trying to avoid its talons I throw my self to the ground, hot pain seeps in to my palms, I look down to find them bleeding.

After making sure the bleeding stopped I got up off the ground again and walked over to a near by tree, looking around every things seems so magical, but yet so real. I hear a snap to my left jolting me out of my daze. I whip my head to the noise and see a figure of a man. He is tall, wearing all black leather. Each piece slim to his body. I can hear the crunch of the snow under his boots. His lean body makes him look youthful.

Staying behind my tree I try and see his face but it well hidden under a large hood. His head is bowed trying to break freezing wind that whips through the forest. He seems to only see his destination his strides sting and full of purpose.

His movements are beautiful, graceful yet masculine.

He slows when he reaches a tree about thirty feet away from me. Stopping he takes off his stiff leather gloves and places a hand on the tree, the wind seems to slowly pick up, makes sense for November.

Looking around the trees seem to shudder, as if wanting to get away from the wind themselves. The ground around us starts to tremor and shift. Grabbing on to the tree I try and balance myself. Looking back to him sink in to the ground and a hole appears in its place. It shines a bright yellow, almost too bright to look at. I close my eyes to stop the sudden explosion of pain. After a minute I open my eyes again blinking away tears, I look back to the spot where the mysterious man stood but he is gone and the tree is back where it was. Letting go of the tree I ran to the tree. Hastily I put my frozen blood incrusted hand on the trunk but nothing happened. I look around to see if I can find anyone else but it was just me and the owl from before. I hear a screech from behind and before I know it I am whirling in to a black abyss.

I open my eyes in a panic. My vision clears and I see my ceiling. I take calm breaths trying to control my heart beat. Its dark in my room, as I sit up I look at my alarm clock on my bed side table. It reads 4:35 in the morning and I sigh in relief. I had this dream every night this week. I take another deep breath and lay back down, my pillow is soft and the sounds of the outside world lull me back to sleep.

**

"Good morning River Bank! Today's forecast is sunny but prepare to bundle up because it's going to get cold! In other news the commute down Crowfoot might be a parking lot." A voice floods my head. Ugh stupid radio station. I think to myself.

I roll over and slam my hand in to the alarm clock. 6:30, groggily I get up and head to the bathroom. I try to dodge all the clothes on my bedroom floor. I haven't cleaned my room in a week and it's gotten bad.

My room is at the end of the hall so I have to walk past my parent's room to get to the bathroom. My house is small but it's nice. I have no siblings so buying a two bedroom house was a pretty easy choice.

I walk past pictures on the walls of my family and friends trying to rub the sleep from my eyes. As I get to the bathroom I look in the mirror and my black curly hair is one knot at the side of my head. "Ugh really hair can't you cooperate with me for once." I sulk to myself while pulling a brush through it. The thought of looking like crap at school won't do. My friends would question and I am in no mood to explain my weird dreams. Also I may not be the most popular girl in school but I'm not hated so being in a grumpy mood can change that drastically. I have heard stories that a girl named Sally (generic I know) yelled at the most popular girl at school one day because she questioned why she looked like crap. Needless to say she got turned on by every single person, even some of the teachers. She moved away the next week and no one has heard from her since. Its absurd I know, but things like that can happen.

After having a quick shower I go straight in to my closet and pull out blue jeans and grey long sleeve shirt and a pair of mismatch socks. As I wait for my flat iron to heat up I start to look back at my dream. I have never really felt cold in my life let alone that cold. It was as if someone put ice down my shirt and it froze to my skin. I can't stand thinking about it; a chill runs down my spine making me shiver violently. I remember what happen to my hands and I slowly rotate them looking at my palms. They are fine but I can still feel the burn of the cuts.

After flat ironing my hair, which took a half hour, I go down stairs and find my mom making me a bowl of cereal.

"How was your sleep?" She asks as she pours in the milk. Her jet black hair was pulled in to a messy bun and she was wearing her work clothes which include a tee shirt with their logo, and cargo pants. My mother and father own a bakery on Fourth Street next to the laundry mat. I work there some times on the weekends but because of school and since I am a senior now I haven't been there much.

"It was ok." I sigh "I had the dream again." I say looking at my mom solemnly.

"No, not again how many nights has it been five, six? Really, have you gotten any more information out of it?" my mom asks sincerely. Her mossy green eyes were sketched with worry.

"A little bit, I felt cold. You know how I am with the cold and like I really felt it. It was right in my core, if I wasn't moving I would have thought I was an ice sculpture." Again I sigh, this dream was making me more stressed then it should. "I don't know, this dream was different, this time instead everything blurred I saw everything that was going on. Well tried, really all I saw was the person, and I didn't even see his face. All I saw was his hand nothing special really. I don't know tonight I may try and talk to him, if I can." I rub the palm of my hands against my eyes. The first time I had this dream I could only see shadows. The last three dreams I was like a ghost and could see trees but everything was blurry and wouldn't come to focus. So this dream was bit of a shock. The last three nights I have analyzed to the point I memorized it the guy walking out, the owl, so I was glad to see everything clearly.