Hunted

Chapter 22

Audra's P.O.V. 

"Great, I don't think I'm on the same path home," I mumbled while trying to figure out my surroundings. The forest didn't seem to be the same as when I was last here, but maybe I strayed from my normal path and came across something else. 

"No, that's not right," I whispered while trying to figure out where I could have made a wrong turn. I entered the forest next to the same exact building from when I first entered town and I've been heading straight in the same direction. 

I could hear a river nearby and grew even more curious for the simple reason that there was no river I passed by on my way to town. My phone also did not have a river on the map in the forest, so where could this have come from?

I placed the bags down while deciding to take a seat on a rock. 

"This is so depressing, even with a map I have no clue where I even ended up," I mumbled to myself while looking at the water, unsure of what to do or where to go now. 

I looked up and noticed something odd. I leaned over the river and made sure that no one was near me before reaching in and trying to grab something that looked like a phone out of the water. 

"That's weird," I mumbled, still talking to myself. I looked up and noticed that there seemed to be a lot of blood across river. There was no body lying around and I wasn't sure what to do. A chill went up my body when I recalled all the animal attacks going on. 

"I'm surprised you found this place," a voice said. I quickly turned around and noticed the same ghost that I had seen before. 

"Is this the place you warned me about?" I questioned, scared to go anywhere across the river for fear of an animal waiting to attack me and chew me up. 

"Yes, it is impossible for humans to enter this part of the forest without a mythical creature with you," he replied. He thinks that I'm human, but is that how I appear to everyone else, as just a human girl? 

I felt my chest growing warmer and took the necklace out from underneath my shirt and noticed that it was still glowing brightly. 

"Whoever gave you that wanted you to enter this forest," he said. 

"Why do you say that?" I questioned, unsure of what he meant. 

"That necklace seems to contain magic from a mythical creature and can only be activated by a mythical creature. Someone must have stored energy in it in order for you to enter here. Humans don't have the power to make this necklace glow, their spirits and magic level are too low," he explained to me. 

"I don't understand why someone would want me to find this place?" I mumbled to myself while the necklace continued to glow. 

"I'm not sure either," the ghost replied. 

"What is this section of the forest?" I questioned, figuring he knew at least where I was. 

"This is the spiritual world, we kind of have two worlds, but only when mythical creatures don't want humans to cross over," he explained. 

"That doesn't make sense, two worlds are combined in one but mythical creatures control everything?" I questioned, not functioning on how there were two different worlds in one. 

"Technically mythical creatures have been becoming humans more and more making the worlds come closer together. It all started when there was a love interest between a mythical creature and a human. It was always forbidden and yet they still snuck away together. No one knows how long ago it was, but they were the first ones to start combining our worlds," he explained to me. My head started spinning with all these legends and stories that I was hearing. This was a little too much for me to handle.