Real Love (On hold indefinitely)

Chapter One-Chance Encounter

"'Don't go near the mountain, those demons will eat you!' Yeah, right, stupid crone. I need to get your  ingredients or else you won't have a lesson tomorrow! ..What a life.." As a young assistant teacher, Isabella Rodriguez  was constantly doing busywork that her superior's were too busy or lazy to do themselves. Mostly it was filing paperwork, grading papers, serving detentions for kids, normal things. This 'assignment,' however, was one of the more uncommon ones she had to do.

 Every other adult was terrified of the Mount Ebott ever since one of their friends disappeared on top of the mountain. Supposedly that kid had some amount of natural magic in them and decided it was a great idea to practice at the peak. "Well I'm not going near the top, so I'm in no danger," Isabella muttered as she shifted her basket of wild herbs. She then squatted to grab some basil flowers. It was so late she could hardly make out the tiny white petals. "Heh, I don't even have any magic!" she said to the basil.

Something made Isabella stop just before taking a fist full of them. Her hand hovered in midair as she looked clocer at the flowers. Squinting through her glasses, Isabella could just make out the faint edge of red on the leaves. Her eyebrows furrowed as she counted the leaf clusters, "One.. two..

".. three?!" That's poison Ivy! Isabella stood up and stepped back abruptly, there was no way she was touching that. She pushed her glasses back on her face and glared at the ivy. Turning her attention to the thin canopy above her, she looked for the North Star. "Well that's just great." she thought. the sky was breathing it's last hues of orange and pink and many stars were already visible. With a grumble, Isabella began trotting home. 

Almost an hour later, she was still at the base of the mountain. "That's what I get for pushing this off so much." she said. There was no time to stop, so she looked up through the trees to use the stars to guide her home as she walked quickly. Suddenly she heard a POP to her right and was yanked back roughly.

Isabella yelped  as her glasses swung wildly from one ear. She landed. She heard a grunt beside her from whatever yanked her back. In a panic she swung the basket around to her right meaning to hit whatever grabbed her.

The attacker grunted again as it connected with his face. Then a flurry of leaves and flowers were spat towards her.

"Augh! Get away from me, you deamon!"Isabella said.

"'Demon?' The hell are you talking about? I just saved you a trip to the hospital!"

"You grabbed my arm and threw me to the ground!"

"You would've rather broken your leg instead?"

Isabella turned from the direction of the voice to peer before her. Suddenly a fuchsia-yellow light illuminated the sharp ravine not two feet from where she had been pulled back.

Isabella gulped. The stranger was right. She could've easily broken something if she had fallen down the wrong way. She looked in the direction the light was coming from, meaning to thank them, but the light disappeared before she could see what It looked like. She blindly stared in the correct direction and said, "Thank you, whatever you are."

"First, it's he, and second, my name is Sans." It said. It sounded like it was speaking through clenched teeth. 

Flustered by the gritted sound, she replied "Sorry, I'm Isabella," and awkwardly thrust out her hand in greeting. She peered into the darkness, her eyes squinting to see who had helped her. She saw two dim pricks of light shining back at her as tiny as stars in the sky. An icy chill shot up her spine at the bony hand that slid into hers. The pinprick lights grew large enough to show that they were contained in a man's skull. It grinned as it said, "Isabella, nice name. As I said, the name's Sans. Sans the skeleton," through it's grinning, unmoving jaw. Isabella screamed and wrenched her hand out of the dead deamon's grasp and stumbled back. Her hip hit a large rock as she scrambled to get away from him and limp-ran through the trees

Sans shouted at her to stop and watch where she was running, but she paid him no mind. She just wanted to get as far away from it as fast as her legs could carry her. Se kept hearing a faint popping sound coming from around her as she flew through the pine trees. Then one of her feet stepped wrong, nearly sending her to a dirt nap. As Isabella stumbled forward she heard two *POP*s in quick succession: one somewhere off to her right and the other all around her. Her vision flashed a deep purple and she squeezed her eyes shut.

Isabella took a few more faltering steps before stopping and opening her eyes to see where she was. It was the small forest clearing near the street she lived on.

"What?.." she breathed out. This didn't make any sense, she was neck deep in the woods just moments before! Before she could entirely process what just happened, there was another *POP* from directly behind her. She flinched and spun around her to see what it was. But there was nothing she could source for the noise. 

With nothing but woods behind her, Isabella picked her way back to her village and went home.