Post by Orfeo on Apr 11, 2018 5:13:38 GMT -5
((It's kind of thought vomit, really. But.... you know how it is. Bam.))
“H-Hey. Come on. Slow down!” Heathen huffed, doubling over to brace himself against his knees as he fought off the sweat from coming into his eyes with a quick shake of his head. “Fallyn, come on!” He gasped hard, struggling to gain control of his fast and erratic breathing all the while he felt his heart beating hard against his throat. Heathen stretched over backward and groaned as he struggled to find any sign of his girlfriend. Once again, she seemed to have just disappeared.
He flipped a small frown once he’d managed to gain control of his breathing. The massive cedar pines were perfect for hiding among the trees. The fog wasn’t making it any easier to see through the thicket of it all. Just an early morning jog, he was more than sure he’d be able to keep up with her. He hadn’t exercised for what felt like months but… hell. “Fallyn?” he called out, turning in place to try and get a better sense of his surroundings. It all looked the same: trees; fog; dirt; rocks. There was no North or South, left or right. He’d even gone as far as to do the smart thing and leave his phone back at home, because of course he’d be able to keep up with Fallyn. “Hey, come on. Stop…” Heathen gulped, stopping short as a distant howl pierced through the fog, sending a shiver down his spine. “… stop hiding. You know I don’t like that.”
Again, he gulped, holding his hands closer to his chest. “Fall? … shit.” Did she even know he was missing? Must have. Woman hardly ever left his side. Except for when they went out on a run, with how she liked to keep the lead. Still, and as hard as it was to admit, his constant whining must have been missed. Right? Heathen nodded, assuring himself that she’d come back for him eventually. They hadn’t made any sudden turns, as far as he knew. As expansive as the forest was, one only needed to retrace their steps. Something he would’ve done had he not lost his sense of direction. He hoped Fallyn was more competent than he was.
No, that didn’t make sense. Waiting around? Stupid. If she had kept going, they’d only be getting further from each other. If she was backtracking, they’d hit on each other sooner rather than later. Either way, Heathen made up his mind to keep moving, and once he got as best a bearing on where he was originally heading, he took off in a steady pace, no longer caring for the light jog Fallyn had coaxed him into in the beginning.
The fog around him seemed to thicken as the minutes ticked by, just as the cedar trees seemed to close in around him. His eyes fell to the ground as he sought any form of trail or path, though unfortunately he saw nothing. A few rocks here and there, some trampled grass that gave him some slight hope. Panic hadn’t set in yet, no reason to.
The crackling to his left briefly shifted his attention and broke his train of thought. “Fallyn?” he called out, cautiously and lowly as he took one careful step back and away. It was the damn fog. Obscuring his vision, making it nearly impossible to tell what was ahead of him. Trees, and rocks, and a shape. It moved, slowly, in his general direction. Too tall and wide to be Fallyn. The figure stayed just at the edge of the thick fog, remaining nothing but a shadow in his eyes.
“Who’s that?”
“Not your girl, that’s for certain,” returned the masculine voice. Heathen immediately retreated and yet the man made no move in his direction. “Seems like you’re lost, brother.”
“Lost?” Heathen shook his head and bluffed. “What. No. I know where I’m going.”
“In this fog?” The silhouette turned slightly. The man was glancing around, taking in the scenery. “And with all that commotion you’re causing?” Heathen turned his head away, embarrassed. “There’s no need to lie, brother. Had I wanted to hurt you, wouldn’t I have done so already?”
“Uh…” Heathen blinked and stuffed a hand into his pocket, without really knowing why. He had nothing to defend himself with. “I guess that makes sense?”
The figure nodded slightly. “Of course it makes sense. Unlike you, I’m not lying.” The figure stepped closer, causing Heathen to take a step back, perpetually keeping the figure hidden. “So, you’re lost then, brother?”
“Y-Yes,” admitted Heathen reluctantly. “I am. And…” he looked around again, somewhat unsure. “I don’t know where I’m at anymore.”
“Hm. Sounds like you were looking for somebody, huh?” When Heathen turned back to the figure, it was now resting its body against a tree. “Friend of yours?”
“Yeah, something like that.” Heathen sighed. “Seen her?”
“No. Heard you screaming and hollering so I came by. Haven’t seen anyone else all day.” Heathen sighed. “At any rate, I doubt you want to stay lost in here forever, don’t you?”
Again, he looked around. “I think I can figure my way out.” He bit his lip. “I think.”
The man laughed softly under his breath. “Brother, you’re not exactly aware of your situation, are you?”
“Seems like I’m not,” commented Heathen after a few moments of contemplative silence. “What’s wrong?”
“Why, you’re as far from anything as far can get. I don’t personally know what turn you took where, but you really have gone off the trail, much less a sense of civilization.”
“So… why are you here?”
“Me? I come by every day, brother. Pretty much live in these woods. It’s not rare for the odd traveler to get lost in these woods. But you’re lucky I found you.”
“How so.” Heathen bit his lip. “Figure I could find my way out sooner or later.”
“Sure, you could.” The figure shrugged. “That’s if the wildlife doesn’t get to you first.”
Wildlife? Fallyn never mentioned any wildlife.
“Got you there, huh brother?” The figure clasped his hands together. “There’s predators about. The thicker the fog, the worse it gets. That’s if you don’t really know where you’re going. Which you don’t.”
“Oh.” Heathen blinked.
“You know. Wolves and the such. Dangerous predators.”
“Wolves? I… are there wolves out here?” He looked around, some anxiety settling in, suddenly wishing he had eyes on the back of his head. “Never heard of that.”
“Plenty of them, my brother. Plenty. You need to step carefully. Stray into their territory and-“ The unnatural and loud snarl staggered Heathen, who hadn’t expected it to come from the shadow figure of a man. It was… primal. Intense. Like a dog protecting its home. His heart jumped to his throat, leaving him speechless. “So, shall we?”
“I…”
“Great. What’s your name, brother?”
“H-H-…” He gulped, making himself small. “Heathen.”
“Heathen…” The figure shifted slightly and pushed away from the tree, all the while Heathen shivered with the way the man spoke his name. Tendrils of ice teased their way down his spine. “I like it. You don’t meet too many Heathens these days, huh?”
“And… and you?”
“Hm? What about me?”
“Your… your name.”
“Ah. My name. Hmm…”
“…”
“Venshu.”
“That’s…”
“Well, shall we?” Cut in the man. “Keep pace, brother.”
“H-Hold up!” Heathen paused and took one last look around. Fallyn was nowhere to be found, and to tell the truth he wasn’t fully up to following the stranger around. But it’s all he had. There was that, or there was him dealing with is problems on his own. Heathen had no way of knowing what he was going to do. Feeling lost, he clung to the one thing that promised some guidance. If it meant a way out of the fog and back home, then it was a risk he was willing to take.
There was no sense nor reason to the shadow he was following. It walked in a straight light, would pause, took seemingly random turns, sometimes did a complete turnaround. Heathen didn’t feel like either of them were making any progress, and yet he hardly questioned it. He couldn’t question it. If anything, the man ahead of him moved with purpose, a stark contrast to Heathen’s own careful and calculated steps. The gravitas of the situation had finally dawned on him, however. There was no way in hell he was going to find his way out in all this mess, much less come across Fallyn once more. Now on his own. Again, it was all a matter of being guided out, figuring out where he was, and then going back home. They couldn’t be that far either way. Fallyn and he had barely jogged out for an hour.
“Hey, hold up Heathen.” The figure stopped ahead of him. “You see that?”
Heathen stopped quickly and peered around the shadow. “Uh… no. Not really.” The hair on his arms stood on end.
“Really?”
Heathen nodded.
“Remember I said there were predators?”
“Yeah,” stuttered Heathen.
Venshu took a place back, closer to Heathen and yet still as hidden in the fog as he had been before. “There’s this one particular wolf that took up residence a few days back. He’s crazy.”
Heathen struggled to look through the thick of the fog, trying to find whatever it was that the shadow was looking it. “It hadn’t been here before, then one day, poof. There it is. Can’t say why, not exactly sure how. He’s made it really dangerous around here.”
“Hm…”
“We can’t go this way.” The shadow turned and began to walk back the way they came. “We’ll take the long way around.”
“And… how long will that take.”
“Long.” He stopped and seemed to look back toward Heathen. “We’ll last longer than if that wolf gets a hold of us, my brother. He’s not the nice kind.”
Were any of them the nice kind? Heathen sighed softly and reluctantly followed the shadow once more. Their pace had slowed considerably more than before, and the shadow was a lot less talkative than he had been. What little he did speak were warnings of the phantom creature that haunted the fog-covered woods they found themselves in, the way it had made the woods its home with little effort. An apex predator. It wasn’t nearly as interesting a discussion as it would have been had Heathen not felt like the two of them were being hunted. He would’ve been better off without knowing that the wolf was roaming about. With his vision hindered the way it was, all of his senses were on edge. He jumped at the smallest snap of a twig.
The shadow, once more, stopped in his tracks and for a good minute refused to say anything. Heathen kept his silence, hands close to his chest. “Brother,” it spoke softly. “I need you to wait here for a few moments.”
“W-What?”
“I’m sorry, but you must wait here.”
“Why?”
The shadow shrugged softly. “I wish I could have done some more, believe me. Some things are simply out of our hands.”
“W-Wait!” Heathen reached out to the fading mist, too scared to think about how the man was simply fading out of existence. “You can’t just leave me here. The wolf? Predators.” Heathen paused. “You were going to get me out of here, right?”
“I was. Honest.” There was a contemplative silence. “Just… stay here, alright?”
Heathen paused. “You… ah… you’re coming back?”
The figure merely turned away from Heathen and in the next instant it was gone. He felt chills, and at the same time a warmth engulfed him as he turned and looked to the distance as best he could. The fog was beginning to clear up a bit, and in its place a second figure made its presence known. An animal, he saw. As large as a buck, though it was clear by its stance that it was no such creature. It stalked forward, slowly, the fog parting with every step, and it was clear as daylight that it was moving toward him. Heathen turned and looked back in the other direction, the image mirrored as another one of the large creatures stalked toward him, parting away the fog with every step.
He stepped left and to the side, and the creatures adjusted accordingly, keeping pace with every one of his steps. Heathen moved back and they moved forward until, finally, they walked side by side to one another, one creature a perfect mirror copy of the other, each one acting in the exact same way as they paced toward Heathen. It was clear now what the two of them were: wolves. Massive, almost hulking creatures, and not at all natural. The fog parted further, faster, as they quickened their pace. Not quite threatening yet somehow predatorial.
Yellow eyes, fur that he made out to be a mix of black and dark brown (though with his colorblindness, he may as well have been guessing) and which bristled. Their massive size only served to betray the malnourished nature to them, mostly skin and bones, yet there was an aggressive power to them that he did not wish to face.
They growled lowly and his only thought was of escape. Heathen risked a glance back, gasping, and stumbled forward toward a cabin he had not seen before. He didn’t question its origins, he just needed the safety of its four walls. So he ran, hitting every rock along the way and stumbling between the trees. Every second he glanced back and saw the wolves were not bothering to keep up pace with him, though that did not stop them from slowly stalking in his direction. Whatever safety the cabin could hold against such beasts depended on their determination to get to him.
All would be well, thought Heathen to himself as he stumbled through the open door and slammed it shut behind him. All he needed was a moment, a short moment to gather his thoughts and think. He felt his breath hot and caught up against his throat.
“Heathen!”
He looked up to a woman he hadn’t noticed before. He couldn’t make out what she was dressed like, or who she was, since she sat in the shadow of the small cabin. “Who?” He paused, looking around, eyes finally adjusting to the darkness of his surroundings. “Wait… I.”
“You finally found your way back. Good.” The woman stood and quickly paced her way over to Heathen, who was too distracted by the small cabin to care about her sudden proximity right up until she was on his face, gazing deeply into his eyes.
She had a cold aura about her. Almost as tall as him, if not a bit more, and with skin pale as paper, her hair white as snow. Her gaze was cold and almost unnatural, and although Reaver couldn’t place a name to the face, he did not feel as panicked as he had been before. “
She placed an ice-cold hand on his shoulder and guided him inside, urging him to move faster while locking up the cabin behind them. “You had me worried there, Heathen.” She quickly waltzed her way around him and pushed him to a stop. “You remember me, right?”
“I…” Stammered Heathen, pausing and gulping. He shook his head and frowned. “But I’ve seen you before.”
The pale woman smiled wide and pulled away, her eyes darting a little over his shoulder to look toward the door, then back at him. “Good. Better than last time.”
“What?”
“Listen, I’ve not much time to explain, but you have to listen, Heathen.” A loud thump against the door cut her off for a second, with Heathen trapped in her vice-like grip. “I need… I need you to tell me what you remember.”
“Remember?” He blinked. “I don’t… I don’t understand.” He struggled to pull away but the woman gave him no quarter. She stared, intensely, with a cold fire in her eyes. “Remember what?”
She turned him, jerking his body hard to the side. “Take a hard look, Heathen.”
“How do you know who I-”
“Hard. Look.” She commanded. “You recognize this place, right?”
“I…”
“Just do what I say. We don’t have much time.”
He nodded and watched closely, his eyes following whichever way the woman directed him. The cabin was unexceptional at best, though he could make out a familiarity to the simple furnishing and minimalistic look. Heathen knew he hadn’t been there before, but he could have sworn he’d seen it somewhere before. “It’s familiar,” he admitted.
“Good enough. Now, listen. Those wolves out there,” she pointed out the door after spinning him back to face her, “they’re out for you, Heathen. They want to get you and it’s my job to keep them from doing so. But I need your help. Most importantly, I need you to absolutely, one hundred percent, trust in what I’m going to tell you and do exactly as I say.”
“But I…” He gulped, that intense stare overpowering whatever thought he had.
“Heathen, you are never going to make it out of these woods again if they catch you.” She hesitated, then smiled. “Don’t you want to go see your girlfriend again?”
He stopped, brow perking up a little at her words. “But I was with her just…”
“Yes, yes, you were,” murmured the cold woman under her breath, exasperated. “You just… have to listen to me.” She gasped loudly at a strong pounding against the door, followed by a series of power growls. “Shit. They’re here.” She rushed him past the living room and toward the kitchen. “Heathen. Trust me.” Her tone shifted to a low whisper. “Please.”
“I…” he gulped, hearing a heavy breathing coming from just outside one of the nearby windows. “I trust you,” he whispered. “I’m just… confused.”
She nodded and quickly rushed him away from one of the windows, and though its blinds were cold a gust of cold air somehow made its way through and chilled the two of them to the bone. “You have been here before, Heathen. Many, many times. And… Fuck. I wish we had as much time as we did last time. Time to explain to you what’s happening, and why you keep coming back. I hate to send you out there in your state, remembering so little, but,”
“Wait, wait.” He pushed away. “There’s no way you’re sending me back out there.”
“I am,” she confessed. “You have to.”
“No. No. No, no, no.”
“They’ll get you in here.”
“They’ll get me out there,” he almost screamed, shushed only by the desperate look in her eyes.
“Not if you listen, they won’t. They haven’t got you before, they won’t get you now. You wouldn’t be here if they’d gotten to you before.” The woman sighed, her cold fingers losing their grip on his shoulders. “Before we start, I need you to tell me what you know about yourself.”
He blinked and, sighing, he answered without really knowing why. “I’m Heathen. I’m a werewolf.”
She smiled. “Good. Hold those that close to your heart, Heathen, lest you forget yourself.” Her voice fell to a low whisper. “If that happens, you’ll find no way out of this forest. Even I won’t be able to help you there.”
“Okay,” he whispered.
“We’ll wait for the wolves to go around the house, then you leave out the back door.” She paused. “It won’t take them long to catch your scent. Maybe a minute at best. I need you to run as hard and fast as you can go, and then some. Okay? They’ll know what you’re up to, and they’ll stop playing around. Those wolves, they’re going to chase you down, Heathen. They’ll try to stop you.”
“And… and where exactly am I running to?”
“To the edge of the forest, Heath. You need to get out.”
“Which way.” He felt his heart quicken.
“Straight as you leave the door, and do not deviate. The fog is thick, but head down the right path and you’ll see it start to fade.”
“How far? I… I don’t know if I can escape them.”
“You can.” She smiled though he could not discern if she spoke with honesty. “You have before, you will again.”
“And if I don’t make it?”
“I…” She gulped and shook her head. “No need to think about that, because you will make it out this time. I know you will.”
Heathen paused, unsure.
“Heathen, I promise you’ll make it out of there. You just need to run. Run fast.”
Heathen nodded and waited with the ice lady by the back door. He could hear the loud sniffing of the wolves outside, their heavy footfalls thudded by the foliage underfoot. He waited, watching her intensely, and when she pushed the door open, Heathen ran.
The fog had grown intense, so much so he needed to keep his eyes cast between his own two feet lest he wanted to trip and fall. Heathen held his course straight and through panting breaths he counted out the seconds. True to the woman’s word, a piercing howl cut through the trees a minute after his escape. He forced the thought out of his mind, running instead. Running hard. Fast. He could hear them, the mirror twin wolves falling in behind his every step, snapping their massive jaws at the air as they trailed his scent. They seemed unwilling to let him escape.
Escape? Escape from what? Heathen did not even know why the hell he was running, where he was escaping to, or why he needed to leave. He didn’t understand a thing of what the woman said to him, yet the genuine nature of her voice had been more than enough to convince him.
He was escaping from the wolves. He was going to survive.
*~*~*~*
The wolf Ori whimpered lightly and stretched out with a soft yawn, yet did not feel compelled to get up. Not while he was under the careful and relaxing massage of the only human he had not bothered to bite. While Ori hadn’t cared much about the way she pressed her feet against the side of his body, it all fell to a comforting rhythm that had sent the wolf to sleep.
He turned his head and looked up at the woman, who sat on a chair and calmly read a book, not at the very least bothered with how close he was, and at the fact that he was both unleashed and without a muzzle. Not that there was any more reason for her to be afraid of him. Ori whimpered lightly and growled lowly, feeling a sudden warmth wash over him, deeply, to his heart. Something inside him triggered and where the wolf once felt some slight urge to rebel against its master, it was instead satisfied with where it was.
Such anger that the creature held against people, against anything that wasn’t itself, really. And yet this one person came to be the pure exception. Sometimes the urge hit him, and yet every time he found himself being paraded around town, on a leash, kept under considerable control by her. More control than anyone else had over Ori. More control than Ori had over himself.
He met her gaze and growled lowly. The two shared some unsaid words, Ori breaking the gaze first to settle its chin between two front paws. Nothing worth doing. Not with the massage he was getting. Slow, quiet, comfortable. In the back of his mind, there was a small thought to a small dream the wolf had, or thought he had. It didn’t bother him, not necessarily. A dream of a man trying to escape, though who this man was Ori could not tell.
Again, it hardly bothered him. The wolf knew it had better things to concern itself over, like catching up on sleep. Night would fall soon, and Ori wasn’t about to let his territory go unguarded.
She spoke something that didn’t quite register, but he watched nonetheless when she stood and stretched out. A snap of her fingers called Ori to her, and he followed close. Once more the thought of attacking crossed his mind, and once again it was extinguished as quickly as it came.
~*~*~*~
“You didn’t make it out…”
Heathen closed the door hard behind himself, panting, sweat dripping down the side of his head. “Lady, listen. You gotta help me. There’s,”
“I know, I know,” she whispered. How many times had it been now? How many more attempts would it take? The wolves had become cunning. They had learned. They weren’t letting Heathen leave, not even for a small minute. They were in control and she was quickly running out of options.
Heathen was remembering less every time.
“How close are the wolves?” she whispered, tired, exasperated. She’d grown colder. Could barely feel her hands now.
“Close. I… They’re monsters!”
“They’re guardians,” she murmured, “and they’re not going to let you go.”
“What? Why?” Heathen peered out the window and gasped at the sight of fur. He reeled back, falling on his ass, and looked up to the woman. “Why me?”
“I don’t know, Heathen.”
“You… you know who I am?”
“I do. But that doesn’t matter now.” She somehow managed a small smile. “I’m here to help you.”
“How?”
“To get out of these woods, of course.” Her smile faltered. “Don’t worry Heathen. The fog will part and give way to the path. You’ll make it out of these woods.” She paused, hesitating, feeling like she was lying. “You’ll be okay.”
“I…”
“I promise, Heathen.” She got down low and pressed a hand against his shoulder. “Heathen, do you trust me?”
Heathen didn’t know why, but somehow, he did. Her words rung true in his ears. Anything was better than nothing. The promise of escape was too tempting. The stranger in the cabin was his best bet. “I trust you.”
“Okay, first of all, tell me all you remember. Your name, what you really are, and anything else that comes to mind. The more, the better.” She paused and stood, smiling somewhat once more. Why did she even bother trying? “And then I’ll tell you exactly what you have to do.”
“H-Hey. Come on. Slow down!” Heathen huffed, doubling over to brace himself against his knees as he fought off the sweat from coming into his eyes with a quick shake of his head. “Fallyn, come on!” He gasped hard, struggling to gain control of his fast and erratic breathing all the while he felt his heart beating hard against his throat. Heathen stretched over backward and groaned as he struggled to find any sign of his girlfriend. Once again, she seemed to have just disappeared.
He flipped a small frown once he’d managed to gain control of his breathing. The massive cedar pines were perfect for hiding among the trees. The fog wasn’t making it any easier to see through the thicket of it all. Just an early morning jog, he was more than sure he’d be able to keep up with her. He hadn’t exercised for what felt like months but… hell. “Fallyn?” he called out, turning in place to try and get a better sense of his surroundings. It all looked the same: trees; fog; dirt; rocks. There was no North or South, left or right. He’d even gone as far as to do the smart thing and leave his phone back at home, because of course he’d be able to keep up with Fallyn. “Hey, come on. Stop…” Heathen gulped, stopping short as a distant howl pierced through the fog, sending a shiver down his spine. “… stop hiding. You know I don’t like that.”
Again, he gulped, holding his hands closer to his chest. “Fall? … shit.” Did she even know he was missing? Must have. Woman hardly ever left his side. Except for when they went out on a run, with how she liked to keep the lead. Still, and as hard as it was to admit, his constant whining must have been missed. Right? Heathen nodded, assuring himself that she’d come back for him eventually. They hadn’t made any sudden turns, as far as he knew. As expansive as the forest was, one only needed to retrace their steps. Something he would’ve done had he not lost his sense of direction. He hoped Fallyn was more competent than he was.
No, that didn’t make sense. Waiting around? Stupid. If she had kept going, they’d only be getting further from each other. If she was backtracking, they’d hit on each other sooner rather than later. Either way, Heathen made up his mind to keep moving, and once he got as best a bearing on where he was originally heading, he took off in a steady pace, no longer caring for the light jog Fallyn had coaxed him into in the beginning.
The fog around him seemed to thicken as the minutes ticked by, just as the cedar trees seemed to close in around him. His eyes fell to the ground as he sought any form of trail or path, though unfortunately he saw nothing. A few rocks here and there, some trampled grass that gave him some slight hope. Panic hadn’t set in yet, no reason to.
Heathen slowed to a slow walk after a few more minutes, and finally stopped dead in his tracks. Visibility had dropped to just a few feet ahead of him, making it almost treacherous to move about the forest if he hadn’t kept his eyes down on the ground. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that he’d completely lost his way.
“Fallyn, babe!” He sighed, turned on his heels, and looked back over his shoulder. Had he somehow passed her? The fog had become so thick, maybe he took a wrong turn. He swore he didn’t turn but… maybe she had? He couldn’t quite remember the path they had planned out for the jog, mostly because he’d figured that he would keep up with Fallyn. It must have been a mostly straight path forward, he was sure of it. He thought he was sure.
The crackling to his left briefly shifted his attention and broke his train of thought. “Fallyn?” he called out, cautiously and lowly as he took one careful step back and away. It was the damn fog. Obscuring his vision, making it nearly impossible to tell what was ahead of him. Trees, and rocks, and a shape. It moved, slowly, in his general direction. Too tall and wide to be Fallyn. The figure stayed just at the edge of the thick fog, remaining nothing but a shadow in his eyes.
“Who’s that?”
“Not your girl, that’s for certain,” returned the masculine voice. Heathen immediately retreated and yet the man made no move in his direction. “Seems like you’re lost, brother.”
“Lost?” Heathen shook his head and bluffed. “What. No. I know where I’m going.”
“In this fog?” The silhouette turned slightly. The man was glancing around, taking in the scenery. “And with all that commotion you’re causing?” Heathen turned his head away, embarrassed. “There’s no need to lie, brother. Had I wanted to hurt you, wouldn’t I have done so already?”
“Uh…” Heathen blinked and stuffed a hand into his pocket, without really knowing why. He had nothing to defend himself with. “I guess that makes sense?”
The figure nodded slightly. “Of course it makes sense. Unlike you, I’m not lying.” The figure stepped closer, causing Heathen to take a step back, perpetually keeping the figure hidden. “So, you’re lost then, brother?”
“Y-Yes,” admitted Heathen reluctantly. “I am. And…” he looked around again, somewhat unsure. “I don’t know where I’m at anymore.”
“Hm. Sounds like you were looking for somebody, huh?” When Heathen turned back to the figure, it was now resting its body against a tree. “Friend of yours?”
“Yeah, something like that.” Heathen sighed. “Seen her?”
“No. Heard you screaming and hollering so I came by. Haven’t seen anyone else all day.” Heathen sighed. “At any rate, I doubt you want to stay lost in here forever, don’t you?”
Again, he looked around. “I think I can figure my way out.” He bit his lip. “I think.”
The man laughed softly under his breath. “Brother, you’re not exactly aware of your situation, are you?”
“Seems like I’m not,” commented Heathen after a few moments of contemplative silence. “What’s wrong?”
“Why, you’re as far from anything as far can get. I don’t personally know what turn you took where, but you really have gone off the trail, much less a sense of civilization.”
“So… why are you here?”
“Me? I come by every day, brother. Pretty much live in these woods. It’s not rare for the odd traveler to get lost in these woods. But you’re lucky I found you.”
“How so.” Heathen bit his lip. “Figure I could find my way out sooner or later.”
“Sure, you could.” The figure shrugged. “That’s if the wildlife doesn’t get to you first.”
Wildlife? Fallyn never mentioned any wildlife.
“Got you there, huh brother?” The figure clasped his hands together. “There’s predators about. The thicker the fog, the worse it gets. That’s if you don’t really know where you’re going. Which you don’t.”
“Oh.” Heathen blinked.
“You know. Wolves and the such. Dangerous predators.”
“Wolves? I… are there wolves out here?” He looked around, some anxiety settling in, suddenly wishing he had eyes on the back of his head. “Never heard of that.”
“Plenty of them, my brother. Plenty. You need to step carefully. Stray into their territory and-“ The unnatural and loud snarl staggered Heathen, who hadn’t expected it to come from the shadow figure of a man. It was… primal. Intense. Like a dog protecting its home. His heart jumped to his throat, leaving him speechless. “So, shall we?”
“I…”
“Great. What’s your name, brother?”
“H-H-…” He gulped, making himself small. “Heathen.”
“Heathen…” The figure shifted slightly and pushed away from the tree, all the while Heathen shivered with the way the man spoke his name. Tendrils of ice teased their way down his spine. “I like it. You don’t meet too many Heathens these days, huh?”
“And… and you?”
“Hm? What about me?”
“Your… your name.”
“Ah. My name. Hmm…”
“…”
“Venshu.”
“That’s…”
“Well, shall we?” Cut in the man. “Keep pace, brother.”
“H-Hold up!” Heathen paused and took one last look around. Fallyn was nowhere to be found, and to tell the truth he wasn’t fully up to following the stranger around. But it’s all he had. There was that, or there was him dealing with is problems on his own. Heathen had no way of knowing what he was going to do. Feeling lost, he clung to the one thing that promised some guidance. If it meant a way out of the fog and back home, then it was a risk he was willing to take.
There was no sense nor reason to the shadow he was following. It walked in a straight light, would pause, took seemingly random turns, sometimes did a complete turnaround. Heathen didn’t feel like either of them were making any progress, and yet he hardly questioned it. He couldn’t question it. If anything, the man ahead of him moved with purpose, a stark contrast to Heathen’s own careful and calculated steps. The gravitas of the situation had finally dawned on him, however. There was no way in hell he was going to find his way out in all this mess, much less come across Fallyn once more. Now on his own. Again, it was all a matter of being guided out, figuring out where he was, and then going back home. They couldn’t be that far either way. Fallyn and he had barely jogged out for an hour.
“Hey, hold up Heathen.” The figure stopped ahead of him. “You see that?”
Heathen stopped quickly and peered around the shadow. “Uh… no. Not really.” The hair on his arms stood on end.
“Really?”
Heathen nodded.
“Remember I said there were predators?”
“Yeah,” stuttered Heathen.
Venshu took a place back, closer to Heathen and yet still as hidden in the fog as he had been before. “There’s this one particular wolf that took up residence a few days back. He’s crazy.”
Heathen struggled to look through the thick of the fog, trying to find whatever it was that the shadow was looking it. “It hadn’t been here before, then one day, poof. There it is. Can’t say why, not exactly sure how. He’s made it really dangerous around here.”
“Hm…”
“We can’t go this way.” The shadow turned and began to walk back the way they came. “We’ll take the long way around.”
“And… how long will that take.”
“Long.” He stopped and seemed to look back toward Heathen. “We’ll last longer than if that wolf gets a hold of us, my brother. He’s not the nice kind.”
Were any of them the nice kind? Heathen sighed softly and reluctantly followed the shadow once more. Their pace had slowed considerably more than before, and the shadow was a lot less talkative than he had been. What little he did speak were warnings of the phantom creature that haunted the fog-covered woods they found themselves in, the way it had made the woods its home with little effort. An apex predator. It wasn’t nearly as interesting a discussion as it would have been had Heathen not felt like the two of them were being hunted. He would’ve been better off without knowing that the wolf was roaming about. With his vision hindered the way it was, all of his senses were on edge. He jumped at the smallest snap of a twig.
The shadow, once more, stopped in his tracks and for a good minute refused to say anything. Heathen kept his silence, hands close to his chest. “Brother,” it spoke softly. “I need you to wait here for a few moments.”
“W-What?”
“I’m sorry, but you must wait here.”
“Why?”
The shadow shrugged softly. “I wish I could have done some more, believe me. Some things are simply out of our hands.”
“W-Wait!” Heathen reached out to the fading mist, too scared to think about how the man was simply fading out of existence. “You can’t just leave me here. The wolf? Predators.” Heathen paused. “You were going to get me out of here, right?”
“I was. Honest.” There was a contemplative silence. “Just… stay here, alright?”
Heathen paused. “You… ah… you’re coming back?”
The figure merely turned away from Heathen and in the next instant it was gone. He felt chills, and at the same time a warmth engulfed him as he turned and looked to the distance as best he could. The fog was beginning to clear up a bit, and in its place a second figure made its presence known. An animal, he saw. As large as a buck, though it was clear by its stance that it was no such creature. It stalked forward, slowly, the fog parting with every step, and it was clear as daylight that it was moving toward him. Heathen turned and looked back in the other direction, the image mirrored as another one of the large creatures stalked toward him, parting away the fog with every step.
He stepped left and to the side, and the creatures adjusted accordingly, keeping pace with every one of his steps. Heathen moved back and they moved forward until, finally, they walked side by side to one another, one creature a perfect mirror copy of the other, each one acting in the exact same way as they paced toward Heathen. It was clear now what the two of them were: wolves. Massive, almost hulking creatures, and not at all natural. The fog parted further, faster, as they quickened their pace. Not quite threatening yet somehow predatorial.
Yellow eyes, fur that he made out to be a mix of black and dark brown (though with his colorblindness, he may as well have been guessing) and which bristled. Their massive size only served to betray the malnourished nature to them, mostly skin and bones, yet there was an aggressive power to them that he did not wish to face.
They growled lowly and his only thought was of escape. Heathen risked a glance back, gasping, and stumbled forward toward a cabin he had not seen before. He didn’t question its origins, he just needed the safety of its four walls. So he ran, hitting every rock along the way and stumbling between the trees. Every second he glanced back and saw the wolves were not bothering to keep up pace with him, though that did not stop them from slowly stalking in his direction. Whatever safety the cabin could hold against such beasts depended on their determination to get to him.
All would be well, thought Heathen to himself as he stumbled through the open door and slammed it shut behind him. All he needed was a moment, a short moment to gather his thoughts and think. He felt his breath hot and caught up against his throat.
“Heathen!”
He looked up to a woman he hadn’t noticed before. He couldn’t make out what she was dressed like, or who she was, since she sat in the shadow of the small cabin. “Who?” He paused, looking around, eyes finally adjusting to the darkness of his surroundings. “Wait… I.”
“You finally found your way back. Good.” The woman stood and quickly paced her way over to Heathen, who was too distracted by the small cabin to care about her sudden proximity right up until she was on his face, gazing deeply into his eyes.
She had a cold aura about her. Almost as tall as him, if not a bit more, and with skin pale as paper, her hair white as snow. Her gaze was cold and almost unnatural, and although Reaver couldn’t place a name to the face, he did not feel as panicked as he had been before. “
She placed an ice-cold hand on his shoulder and guided him inside, urging him to move faster while locking up the cabin behind them. “You had me worried there, Heathen.” She quickly waltzed her way around him and pushed him to a stop. “You remember me, right?”
“I…” Stammered Heathen, pausing and gulping. He shook his head and frowned. “But I’ve seen you before.”
The pale woman smiled wide and pulled away, her eyes darting a little over his shoulder to look toward the door, then back at him. “Good. Better than last time.”
“What?”
“Listen, I’ve not much time to explain, but you have to listen, Heathen.” A loud thump against the door cut her off for a second, with Heathen trapped in her vice-like grip. “I need… I need you to tell me what you remember.”
“Remember?” He blinked. “I don’t… I don’t understand.” He struggled to pull away but the woman gave him no quarter. She stared, intensely, with a cold fire in her eyes. “Remember what?”
She turned him, jerking his body hard to the side. “Take a hard look, Heathen.”
“How do you know who I-”
“Hard. Look.” She commanded. “You recognize this place, right?”
“I…”
“Just do what I say. We don’t have much time.”
He nodded and watched closely, his eyes following whichever way the woman directed him. The cabin was unexceptional at best, though he could make out a familiarity to the simple furnishing and minimalistic look. Heathen knew he hadn’t been there before, but he could have sworn he’d seen it somewhere before. “It’s familiar,” he admitted.
“Good enough. Now, listen. Those wolves out there,” she pointed out the door after spinning him back to face her, “they’re out for you, Heathen. They want to get you and it’s my job to keep them from doing so. But I need your help. Most importantly, I need you to absolutely, one hundred percent, trust in what I’m going to tell you and do exactly as I say.”
“But I…” He gulped, that intense stare overpowering whatever thought he had.
“Heathen, you are never going to make it out of these woods again if they catch you.” She hesitated, then smiled. “Don’t you want to go see your girlfriend again?”
He stopped, brow perking up a little at her words. “But I was with her just…”
“Yes, yes, you were,” murmured the cold woman under her breath, exasperated. “You just… have to listen to me.” She gasped loudly at a strong pounding against the door, followed by a series of power growls. “Shit. They’re here.” She rushed him past the living room and toward the kitchen. “Heathen. Trust me.” Her tone shifted to a low whisper. “Please.”
“I…” he gulped, hearing a heavy breathing coming from just outside one of the nearby windows. “I trust you,” he whispered. “I’m just… confused.”
She nodded and quickly rushed him away from one of the windows, and though its blinds were cold a gust of cold air somehow made its way through and chilled the two of them to the bone. “You have been here before, Heathen. Many, many times. And… Fuck. I wish we had as much time as we did last time. Time to explain to you what’s happening, and why you keep coming back. I hate to send you out there in your state, remembering so little, but,”
“Wait, wait.” He pushed away. “There’s no way you’re sending me back out there.”
“I am,” she confessed. “You have to.”
“No. No. No, no, no.”
“They’ll get you in here.”
“They’ll get me out there,” he almost screamed, shushed only by the desperate look in her eyes.
“Not if you listen, they won’t. They haven’t got you before, they won’t get you now. You wouldn’t be here if they’d gotten to you before.” The woman sighed, her cold fingers losing their grip on his shoulders. “Before we start, I need you to tell me what you know about yourself.”
He blinked and, sighing, he answered without really knowing why. “I’m Heathen. I’m a werewolf.”
She smiled. “Good. Hold those that close to your heart, Heathen, lest you forget yourself.” Her voice fell to a low whisper. “If that happens, you’ll find no way out of this forest. Even I won’t be able to help you there.”
“Okay,” he whispered.
“We’ll wait for the wolves to go around the house, then you leave out the back door.” She paused. “It won’t take them long to catch your scent. Maybe a minute at best. I need you to run as hard and fast as you can go, and then some. Okay? They’ll know what you’re up to, and they’ll stop playing around. Those wolves, they’re going to chase you down, Heathen. They’ll try to stop you.”
“And… and where exactly am I running to?”
“To the edge of the forest, Heath. You need to get out.”
“Which way.” He felt his heart quicken.
“Straight as you leave the door, and do not deviate. The fog is thick, but head down the right path and you’ll see it start to fade.”
“How far? I… I don’t know if I can escape them.”
“You can.” She smiled though he could not discern if she spoke with honesty. “You have before, you will again.”
“And if I don’t make it?”
“I…” She gulped and shook her head. “No need to think about that, because you will make it out this time. I know you will.”
Heathen paused, unsure.
“Heathen, I promise you’ll make it out of there. You just need to run. Run fast.”
Heathen nodded and waited with the ice lady by the back door. He could hear the loud sniffing of the wolves outside, their heavy footfalls thudded by the foliage underfoot. He waited, watching her intensely, and when she pushed the door open, Heathen ran.
The fog had grown intense, so much so he needed to keep his eyes cast between his own two feet lest he wanted to trip and fall. Heathen held his course straight and through panting breaths he counted out the seconds. True to the woman’s word, a piercing howl cut through the trees a minute after his escape. He forced the thought out of his mind, running instead. Running hard. Fast. He could hear them, the mirror twin wolves falling in behind his every step, snapping their massive jaws at the air as they trailed his scent. They seemed unwilling to let him escape.
Escape? Escape from what? Heathen did not even know why the hell he was running, where he was escaping to, or why he needed to leave. He didn’t understand a thing of what the woman said to him, yet the genuine nature of her voice had been more than enough to convince him.
He was escaping from the wolves. He was going to survive.
*~*~*~*
The wolf Ori whimpered lightly and stretched out with a soft yawn, yet did not feel compelled to get up. Not while he was under the careful and relaxing massage of the only human he had not bothered to bite. While Ori hadn’t cared much about the way she pressed her feet against the side of his body, it all fell to a comforting rhythm that had sent the wolf to sleep.
He turned his head and looked up at the woman, who sat on a chair and calmly read a book, not at the very least bothered with how close he was, and at the fact that he was both unleashed and without a muzzle. Not that there was any more reason for her to be afraid of him. Ori whimpered lightly and growled lowly, feeling a sudden warmth wash over him, deeply, to his heart. Something inside him triggered and where the wolf once felt some slight urge to rebel against its master, it was instead satisfied with where it was.
Such anger that the creature held against people, against anything that wasn’t itself, really. And yet this one person came to be the pure exception. Sometimes the urge hit him, and yet every time he found himself being paraded around town, on a leash, kept under considerable control by her. More control than anyone else had over Ori. More control than Ori had over himself.
He met her gaze and growled lowly. The two shared some unsaid words, Ori breaking the gaze first to settle its chin between two front paws. Nothing worth doing. Not with the massage he was getting. Slow, quiet, comfortable. In the back of his mind, there was a small thought to a small dream the wolf had, or thought he had. It didn’t bother him, not necessarily. A dream of a man trying to escape, though who this man was Ori could not tell.
Again, it hardly bothered him. The wolf knew it had better things to concern itself over, like catching up on sleep. Night would fall soon, and Ori wasn’t about to let his territory go unguarded.
She spoke something that didn’t quite register, but he watched nonetheless when she stood and stretched out. A snap of her fingers called Ori to her, and he followed close. Once more the thought of attacking crossed his mind, and once again it was extinguished as quickly as it came.
~*~*~*~
“You didn’t make it out…”
Heathen closed the door hard behind himself, panting, sweat dripping down the side of his head. “Lady, listen. You gotta help me. There’s,”
“I know, I know,” she whispered. How many times had it been now? How many more attempts would it take? The wolves had become cunning. They had learned. They weren’t letting Heathen leave, not even for a small minute. They were in control and she was quickly running out of options.
Heathen was remembering less every time.
“How close are the wolves?” she whispered, tired, exasperated. She’d grown colder. Could barely feel her hands now.
“Close. I… They’re monsters!”
“They’re guardians,” she murmured, “and they’re not going to let you go.”
“What? Why?” Heathen peered out the window and gasped at the sight of fur. He reeled back, falling on his ass, and looked up to the woman. “Why me?”
“I don’t know, Heathen.”
“You… you know who I am?”
“I do. But that doesn’t matter now.” She somehow managed a small smile. “I’m here to help you.”
“How?”
“To get out of these woods, of course.” Her smile faltered. “Don’t worry Heathen. The fog will part and give way to the path. You’ll make it out of these woods.” She paused, hesitating, feeling like she was lying. “You’ll be okay.”
“I…”
“I promise, Heathen.” She got down low and pressed a hand against his shoulder. “Heathen, do you trust me?”
Heathen didn’t know why, but somehow, he did. Her words rung true in his ears. Anything was better than nothing. The promise of escape was too tempting. The stranger in the cabin was his best bet. “I trust you.”
“Okay, first of all, tell me all you remember. Your name, what you really are, and anything else that comes to mind. The more, the better.” She paused and stood, smiling somewhat once more. Why did she even bother trying? “And then I’ll tell you exactly what you have to do.”