Shadowveil - The Forgotten

Chapter 2: A Distant Heart

"Where... am... I?" Patrick mumbled incoherently as he awoke to the eerie sound of a bell ringing in the distance. He slowly opened his eyes and realized that he was lying face down on a dusty road. "Argh, fuck!" he clamored as severe cramps suddenly coursed through his right leg. With some effort, he put pressure on the throbbing area and pulled himself up to a sitting position. At first he thought his leg was fractured, but as he carefully stretched it out he realized that it was probably just sprained. He considered himself lucky, thinking back on the shocking nosedive from the train; an event he still couldn't wrap his head around.

After regaining partial control of his still aching body, he scurried over to a two-meter high tree stump and used it to support himself as he stood on shaky feet. He swayed his cramped-up leg to and fro and as blood started to circulate around his system, the throbbing pain gradually receded. His vision was still somewhat blurry from the incident. He peered around for any signs of his shoulder bag, but it was nowhere to be seen.

"Ah shit. My case files were in there! Not to mention all the other stuff," he grumbled and continued surveying the immediate area, concluding that he'd ended up in a coniferous pine forest. Accompanying their high-standing brethren were smaller trees whose names Patrick didn't know. Their twisted, gnarly branches and roots combined with the eerie silence between the ringing bell were more than enough to send chills down his spine. There didn't seem to be any snow in the region either, adding to Patrick's general confusion. He scoured his surroundings and grew more nervous when noticing that the strange fog he'd seen from the train earlier was taking over the forest, transforming the area into a different kind of wonderland; like something taken straight from a lucid dream. "What's going on? What's the deal with this fog? How long have I been out and most importantly, where am I?" Those questions plagued his mind, but he'd overcome much more difficult things in his life. Or so he thought...

*

The fog's heavy density prevented him from orienting himself clearly. With no particular landmarks to guide his way, Patrick started walking down a heavily neglected gravel road overgrown with thick roots and undergrowth. He started following a blurry light that suddenly caught his attention, some ways off in the distance. Perhaps there was someone down there who could tell him just where he was and how he'd ended up there. The entire landscape was under the spell of the deep fog and its haunting influence seemed to somehow distort the world; both Patrick's own senses as well as the natural flow of things.

Adding to the nuisance of his current predicament, a small stone hopped into his shoe. "Shit!" he thought to himself before crouching down and pulling off the shoe. He bitterly tried to shake out the disturbance lurking within. The stone popped out and fell to the ground, making only the slightest of thuds. When he looked up again, he was caught off-guard as a dark shadow suddenly flew by from right to left only to disappear the next second. At first he was mostly startled, but fear soon crept up on him.

"H-hello? Is-is anyone there?" he asked into thin air. After a moment of silence, the shuffling of leaves suddenly broke the tense ambiance. The sounds came from the left and grew closer with each second. He turned in the direction of the noise, but couldn't see anything except for the fog and the woodland's misshapen trees stretching skyward. Just as he thought it was safe to continue, a young girl dressed in a black school uniform emerged in front of him from out of the dense fog. She was chuckling as she skipped across the forest path with a distinctive pink ribbon in her hair that bounced around wildly.

"Hey! Hey you!" Patrick cried to get her attention, but the girl didn't respond, and didn't even look his way. She just kept jumping across the gravel road like no one's business and continued into the sea of forebodingly twisted trees. Patrick called out again: "Hey, wait up!" but she was still completely oblivious to his voice. An impulse rushed to his head and he stepped off the beaten path in an attempt to follow the girl. He didn't get very far until a blustery wind violently rustled the forest, brewing up into a storm before he knew it. An intense sensation akin to what happened before on the train welled up from within. Still shocked from that previous ordeal, Patrick simply froze up and couldn't move an inch. Even though his mind urged him to go on, something primal stopped him dead in his tracks. He watched helplessly as the girl's silhouette merged with the scenery, unable to follow her and ask about where he was.

*

The entire situation made him more uneasy with each passing moment. He grew ever more tense upon continuing forward and not seeing any people, cars or animals in the vicinity. The only thing he felt was a light breeze coming and going through the region. Even though feelings of confusion weighed down his mind, he had little choice but to carry on. After returning to the gravel road, he picked up the pace on his trek towards the mysterious light source that somehow managed to penetrate the deep fog. A growing sense of dread made him feel like he was being watched. He threw some quick and nervous glances around the area to see if anyone was following him. The more he thought about it, the more paranoid he got and as if by instinct, he'd actually begun running down the now sloping path.

Before long, the gravel road ended in front of a circular tunnel. As he walked into the darkened passage, faintly lit from above through cracks in the ceiling, he caught a faint smell from some red and blue flowers dotting the tunnel floor. Their colors stood in great contrast to the otherwise bleak dreariness enveloping the area. Aside from Patrick's rustling feet, the only sound breaking the stillness was the dripping of water from the ceiling.

On the other side of the tunnel stood a ramshackle wooden fence that had surely seen better days. Patrick clambered over the fence and came onto a dilapidated tarmac road, cracked in several places from what seemed like years of neglect. Through the fog he learned that he was closer to some form of settlement. The light was still there, and he could now see that it originated from a building farther down the street. He continued forth hoping to question some local residents about where he was and how he'd ended up there.