A strange sight

I woke up suddenly in the night, the absence of a familiar weight on my chest told me Ava had left for her room already.

I was refreshed and the exhaustion of the previous day was gone now. I got up from the bed and stretched.

From the pale moonlight streaming through my window, I knew it was midnight.

The cold wind outside seemed to call my name. The winds hummed a steady melody that resonated with the thrum of energy in my body and I stepped out of the room into the field.

Emily's words came back to me as I stood in the front yard. "I know you won't listen to me but please don't practice magic anymore till tomorrow when I come back from school. I'll have answers for you by then".

I thought about it deeply and considered how if anything went wrong again, I wouldn't have anyone to protect me this time. The wisest course of action was to avoid practicing magic till Emily came back with answers.

I decided to practice magic regardless.

I planned to become the strongest mage in the world, I couldn't be achieve that if I was scared of my own powers.

I ran back to the room and grabbed my knife, then I went back outside and sat.

I held the knife steadily and focused on the mana ring around my heart, this time the energy running down my arm didn't feel cold so I felt it was normal. I forced it into the knife and… nothing happened.

I sighed in frustration and let the knife drop to the ground.

What was I doing wrong? What was the missing key that would help me unlock my mana control?

Determination, maybe? A voice in my head taunted.

I grabbed my knife off the ground and focused on the ring of energy thrumming around my heart, I pushed it down my arm and goosebumps traveled down my spine as I felt that familiar chill travel with the energy. I didn't back down though, I forced it into the knife.

The knife flew from my hand and landed in the street outside the fence.

I let out a loud frustrated sigh and got up to go pick the knife.

The moon smiled down on us, me, the plants in the farm and the knife that now lay on the ground before me, reflecting the smile back to the moon.

I picked it up and dusted it, I was about to turn around and head home when a sudden movement caught my eye.

I peered closely and saw a human like figure walking down the street.

Something was however peculiar about this figure, it seemed to have a lot of fur around its body, also it's gait was inhuman, it walked like stiff-legged, like it had no joints.

A tingle of fear traveled round my body and I wanted to run back into the farmhouse, head straight to my door and lock it.

But something in me made me stand there, made me curious about the being, made me want to trail it to see where it was going.

So I walked quietly behind the figure, my knife in my hand, my heart in my throat pounding loudly. I didn't know which the figure would hear first, my footsteps or my heartbeat.

Whoooshh!

The wind blew loudly around us and the figure stopped, it sniffed the air as if it detected something that shouldn't be there.

I immediately ducked behind the nearest tree, I held my breath and mentally counted to ten, when I was done, I peeped out at the street, the figure had continued its stiff-legged walk.

I let out my breath and continued trailing it.

The hairs on my skin stood up as I followed this figure, all my senses were at alert and I was hyperaware of every sound, my eyes scanned the area intently, ready to catch any slight movement.

Every twitch, every sound made by birds or crickets, every sound made my leaves in the air, my ears picked up everyone as I stalked the figure ahead of me.

The figure didn't stop walking and we soon reached the forest.

I stood outside the forest for a long while, debating if I should go in or not.

I had come to far to go back empty handed, yet following a strange creature into the forest alone at night didn't seem like a sensible choice to make, it was like singing a death wish.

I stood in front of the forest and considered every possibility. The figure could be aware of me following it and decide to lure me into the forest where it would attack me.

Even if that wasn't the case, the forest was crawling with beast monsters and I wasn't in the mood to fight any.

I turned back and decided to go.

However I felt myself unwilling to leave, it was like there was a hand on my shoulder guiding me towards the forest.

I sighed and stepped into the forest.

The figure was nowhere to be found and I increased my speed so I could catch up with him.

After a few minutes of walking, the figure appeared in my line of sight again and I slowed down.

We continued this steady pace till I started to see a large pool of light in the front.

The closer we got, the brighter the pool of light got until eventually the figure got directly in front of the light.

It was still too far for me to see it clearly so I stalked closer and what I saw nearly made me scream.

The light source was a portal, and by the portal stood two identical figures, one of them was the figure I stalked.

The two figures were hideous, they stood tall like humans but they had grotesque faces, the faces of beasts, fur coated every part of their bodies and when they stood, they bent at the waist slightly at an unnatural angle. They stared into space with eyes redder and deeper than any eyes I'd ever seen, they seemed like beast animals themselves, just more human looking.

They were standing by the portal, obviously guarding it, but they were doing more than that.

From the portal came out all sorts of beast animals, small and large, slow and fast, harmless and harmful, they all poured out of the portal and ran into the forest.

So this is how beast monsters get into the forest. I thought to myself. I wonder if anyone else knows this.

After a while, no beast animals came out of the portal again, the two figures grunted in communication, they stepped into the portal and it closed behind them.

I turned on my heels and ran out of the forest.