Dust.

Chapter 4 "Arc"

I run, I believe I'm running in the right direction..

the thought of her just disappearing is thick in my mind, I run fast and true hopping over rocks and sliding across grass wet with a thin layer of morning dew...

"I don't remember sleeping, or night time for that matter".. as I say to myself sprinting through the uncharted forest...

I can always tell places I've been, the tree's, the smell, the feel of the air on my skin. I always remember each part of the Varden, but this place, these surroundings.... Extremely unfamiliar..

Leaves me unnerved, as if something has been taken from me, notice that I didn't have my satchel or coat with me when Jasper shot me into the air, bloody bird..

I stop running just for a time, so I can get my bearings on this wretched place. These tree's I've never seen before, the hold leaves not familiar to my memory, though its as if this place is home to many, yet I see no one or anything for the matter besides, rocks, trees, beautiful flat grass and flowers...

Seems like an ordinary forest, but off somehow.... I notice I've been standing in one place too long, the Professor always said if I happen to get lost, I should always "always" keep moving, no matter what direction I will eventually find the edge of the forest, there are only five sides to the Varden anyway, can't be that hard.

As I'm about to take my next step, I hear a crack a twig beneath a boot... "definitely a boot", because I know when I step on branches with my bare feet, first of all the don't make loud cracking sounds like that, and second, as soon as I hit a solid object I lift my foot right off..

I slowly crouch to an almost prone position along the ground, stay low, stay safe..

I look up brushing the hair behind my ears so I can see, no fan of having hair in my face when I need to focus. I listen the the tree's, the grass howling in the soft breeze flowing through this place, not like other places where the wind bounces from tree to tree off rocks skittering across water making waves of fear... I see a blank figure in the distance, through the files of tree's, gone one minute there the next.

It's a man, very tall man, I'm only about 5 good lengths tall, I'd say this man is around 6 and a half foot lengths... Obviously not the Professor, hes a tall man but also very skinny, just his robe that makes him look puffy.

I lean against a tree in between the opposing rock, trying to get rid of my figure in the light, because it is mid day, the sun is brightest in the sky, beams of sunlight scoring the tops of my brow, and lighting up the water droplets on the grass creating sparkles everywhere... He's gone...

He's no longer moving through the Varden, either that or has had the same idea as me, get down and stay down until you believe its safe, but when there is an unknown stranger in an unknown place you never get up... I know running was now a bad idea, and quite stupid to think about it, though I'm a quiet stalker, not making a sound when I run or walk... 

One of the things I'm actually good at... not being noticed by people I don't want to get noticed by.. Traits few hold these days, people running and screaming everywhere, like that man in the woods before, walking in broad daylight, back straight and no weapon to be seen.. He's asking for it... or "her" shall I say.... 

Somehow I know this must be "her" doing, shes very gifted in the arts, she knows how to bend the will of others... bloody creature, I shouldn't have run before, she deosn't deserve my fear... Next time she'll have no such thing...

I've been sitting here for a good long while, not moving, barely breathing, still covered in what seems to be that girls blood, thought it didn't seem to be her blood at all... 

On the way out of the Varden, or deeper into it "I don't know", I found a shard of glass, nearly stepped on it to be frank, by itself, very unusual to have a man made object this far into the Varden, with no sign of beings, animals or those who know how to bend glass... I pick it up, might be use full..

I slowly walk along, staying close to tree's and large rocks, sifting through the grass to see if anything else is worth taking....

In the corner of my eye, and especially at this time of day, a flicker of light, scrapped the very tip of my eye, almost blinding me... I've been caught out in the open.. Next to a rather large cliff around three house lengths high, The sun just behind a figure, I cannot properly look at this creature, the sun is right behind it... It is not moving, or that I can see.. No tree's for a good four to five meters, as if a circle has been cleared just for me.

I stand there not knowing what's going to happen next.. The figure, very obvious to me now that it is on all fours, probably a large wolf, can' see any claws or jaw movement, just a silhouette of a tail flicking back and forth....

"hello Jack....." the creature responds out of nowhere...

no....no, no... Such a soft beautiful almost sadistic tone, buzzing through my mind "hello Jack, hello Jack, hello Jack"....

It's "HER!!!"....