Chapter 224: Smoke & Mirrors
Enzo
When I finally stopped running, I quickly came to the realization that I had taken such a winding path that I had not only gotten Selena and the witch off of my trail, but I had somehow also gotten myself completely lost.
Normally, I would have had no problem traversing these woods. Despite the fact that I could hardly remember anything before a few hours ago, I did remember my childhood, and I remembered spending a lot of time in these very woods when I was young. But even though the moon was full, which would have normally made the whole place so bright it would have felt like daytime, it was incredibly dark. Even with my night vision, I could hardly even see twenty feet in front of me. Anything beyond that was nothing but inky blackness.
Selena and the witch must have cast some sort of spell on these woods. Maybe that was why they suddenly stopped chasing me; maybe they figured it would be better to simply put a spell on the woods to make me get lost. I was sure of it.
But I wasn’t going to give up that easily.
I didn’t know how long I walked like that in my wolf form. I kept my head down, my ears pricked for the slightest sound in the woods, and my eyes focused on the path ahead of me as I slowly padded through the dark forest. Surely I was bound to come to the edge of the woods eventually; they didn’t go on infinitely, so long as I didn’t accidentally walk in circles.
But it felt like an eternity that I walked
out there. And as I walked, I felt as though my mind was playing tricks on me. Every so often I would freeze, whipping my head around and staring into the darkness when I heard what sounded like a twig snapping underfoot, or someone’s voice. But there was never anything. I couldn’t tell, though, if it was just my imagination, if I really was being followed, or if these were more tricks that Selena and the witch were playing on me.
Either way, I had to keep moving. I had to find the edge of the woods and get out.
While I walked, I decided to focus on something else to keep my mind off of the discomforting noises around me. And there was only one thing I wanted to focus on: remembering.
I realized that Selena had some sort of spell on me. But it was still strong, and although the fog was thinning out slightly, it wasn’t enough. Somehow, I knew that that girl who looked oddly like Selena was somehow the key to all of this, but since I was stupid and went with Selena instead of trusting the girl when she said that Selena was a liar, I was now all alone. I should have listened to her, but I didn’t, and now I was paying the price.
I just wished that I could remember more than her name.
Her name was Nina, and she was somehow connected to me, but I couldn’t remember anything else. Even her name faded in and out of my mind, as though I was being teased. It was as if her name, her existence, was attached to a thin string that someone was tugging along just out of reach. Every so often I could get a little glimpse of it, and a few times I felt it in my fingers, but then it would quickly slip away and out of reach. Nina…
How did I know her? She was so familiar, yet so unfamiliar at the same time. She looked like Selena, only with brown eyes and freckles instead of blue eyes and clear skin. If I tried to picture her really hard, I could just make out her appearance. She was beautiful. She looked kind and caring, and she was extremely intelligent, too.
This was progress, at least. I was remembering little bits here and there, and I knew that if I could just break out of this thick fog that was surrounding my brain, then Selena wouldn’t have control over me anymore. I knew that this was her last-ditch effort to
manipulate me, and if I could only get control over my own mind again, then she wouldn’t be able to take over it anymore. Somehow, I knew that I had broken out of her spell at least once before, which meant that I could do it again.
As I walked, I tried to picture other things; not just Nina. I tried to picture my life before just a few hours ago. I had friends… I knew that much. I remembered playing hockey, and I remembered how happy hockey made me. In fact, all of my closest friends were on the hockey team. Yes, I could remember now. I could remember all of their faces. My closest friend was Matt, and I thought…
Matt was my Beta. We had formed our own pack, and thus formed a bond that was nearly impossible to break. I remembered all of that now.
But even these memories were faint and foggy, and I still couldn’t wrap my head around Nina just yet. I wasn’t sure why I was able to remember other things, but she was always just out of reach.
Maybe I couldn’t do this all on my own. Maybe, if I wanted to remember everything fully, I would need to have it in front of me. I needed to see and touch, not just picture it in my mind. I couldn’t quite explain it, but somehow I knew that if I could just see Nina, if I could just touch her freckled face and look into her chocolate brown eyes, I could remember her. I just needed to find her… But I was lost, and I still hadn’t found the edge of the forest yet.
Finally, my legs began to feel weak. All of the running earlier left me exhausted, and I had been walking for ages. I needed to rest.
I decided to stop by a large tree, where I shifted back into my human form to give Fio a rest as well, and then leaned on the tree and slid down to the ground.
Maybe Selena and the witch were still on my trail as I sat here and leaned my head back, closing my eyes, but I didn’t even care at this point. I was exhausted, and I wouldn’t be able to find my way out of here anyway if I didn’t wait for dawn to arrive. It was simply too dark to see anything. I was only going to get myself more lost if I kept trying to find my way out. I was fairly certain that I had already been somehow walking in circles instead of a straight line as intended.
My eyes weren’t closed for long, however, before something suddenly came to my senses. It was faint at first…. A scent. It smelled like campfire smoke.
Suddenly, my eyes shot open. I stood, sniffing the air more intensely; it was, in fact, campfire smoke, and it was lingering. This smoke very well could be real, unlike all of the other things that I sensed around here.
Maybe, if I followed the smell of
campfire smoke, I would find help.
