Absorption Distortion

Chapter 3

The early warm morning sunshine pours through the breaks of the Fernbrooke Forest, hitting Nick's face and waking him up. He opens his eyes slowly, feeling like a tonne of bricks and rubs his blue eyes. He looks down and he is on top of his sleeping bag by the camp fire. The fire has burnt out and he can hear Nathan and Finch snoring in their tents. He combs his brunette hair out of his face with his fingers and looks around the camp. He looks back at the forest and can't see any fallen trees from where he is, but he remembers a tree falling form last night. He looks around, not panicking but quickly and see's his backpack, grabbing it and a water bottle out of it. He sits down on a nearby log and notices his throat is almost burning in thirst and quickly downs all the water, just as he recalls Luna. He leans his arms on his knees while sitting and remembers her weary brown eyes staring back at him. "Luna.." he mumbles and looks around thinking hard about what happened. The night is such a blur for him and he lets out a little laugh seeing a Jack Daniels bottle nearby. He shakes his head at his stupidity to think it was real and presumes he passed out after drinking too much and having a crazy dream. How could someone glow, how could lightening come from the forest and split a tree in half.

Nick gets up, and puts his water bottle back in his bag. He looks and can see his torch is missing and recalls the 'dream' of him dropping it. He stops, questioning whether or not it was a dream. He looks around the camp and can't see it, but he notices his foot prints leading into to the forest from the clearing behind his tent. With the guys still snoring, Nick figures he'll have plenty of time to investigate, look for his torch and come back. With early daylight on his side, he moves back through the forest, but notices a large fallen tree in the way. As he makes his way over, using a nearby branch to jump it, he notices it as the tree that had split during the night. "Okay...." he says to himself, still puzzled whether or not it was a dream. As he moves forward, he can see the torch lighting up a shrub in the shadows. He grabs it and turns it off, the torch light battery must be dying. He checks the batteries but keeps it turned off and pats the torch in his hand out of boredom, preparing to head back to camp when he feels a cool breeze blow by. He shivers, noticing his jacket is missing. He recalls giving it to Luna, but can't see a sign of her anywhere. As he heads back he can see a white shoe, covered in scuff marks. He reaches down and grabs it, he recalls Luna had white shoes on and looks around the forest for her. Without thinking he calls out, "Luna?!" knowing she wanted to get out of the forest. He scratches his head and can't help but let out a big yawn, still feeling tired and calling out made him feel exhausted. He decides to leave the shoe and head back to the camp site. He still isn't really sure if last night was real, but he hoped if it was, Luna was alright.

Once Nick returns, Nathan and Finch are already packing up the tent. "Hey man," Nathan calls out, seeing Nick appear from behind a tree. "Oh finally," Finch says, able to conclude where Nick when they woke up. He looks up at the guys, "Hey, did you guys see or hear anything last night?" Finch lets out a laugh, "Yeah Nathan's snoring," Nathan whacks Finch in the arm, "What?! You were pretty bad man," they muck amongst themselves and Nick packs up his gear, not mentioning anything further to the guys. They make their way back into town, Nathan drops Finch at home and then Nick around mid morning. He stops his truck at the front of Nick's house, and turns it off. Nick jumps out to grab his things and Nathan jumps out of the drivers side. "You okay man?" Nathan inquires, he could see something was off with Nick since they woke up. "You get scared last night or something? You look like shit man..." Nick laughed, "Thanks man," he replied, slightly insulted but taking nothing from it. He pulled his bags out of the back of the truck, and looked up to see Nathan move his eyebrows up, gesturing Nick for a response. "Naah man, I think I just had a weird dream," Nathan doesn't push it any further and shrugs, "Alright man, i'll talk to you later," Nick nods and walks inside, he waves as Nathan beeps the horn driving off down the street.