Awakened spirit - chapter 2
#2 of Awakened Spirit
By mornings light, Abby had made her way through the woods dense underbrush and trees following the steadily merging and widening stream. Ever slowly heading downhill, maybe ten kilometers maybe twice that. There was no real way to tell with no visible markers that were in any way visible through the early summer foliage. That changed when she reached the bottom of the valley, as the undescriptive fox called it.
The end of the forest and the beginning of fields or wheat and various weeds that voraciously thrived here. Across the spacious rolling fields she could make out the start of another tree line, but it was thinner than where she had come from. Maybe only a few meters deep then open again on the other side.
"Maybe it's a river, maybe a lake," she questioned the possibilities hopeful to finally have her trek come to some meaning. 'Where there is water there are people. My people.'
Her legs ached, but it was nothing that she could not endure. The bottoms of her feet were another matter entirely. Despite attempting to wrap pieces of bark to her feet with ferns and grasses to soften the ever present jabs of the uneven ground and stones, they didn't survive very long, and required constant replair. Not to mention they weren't a terribly good sure fire solution, as they didn't stop all the breaches. The cuts and bruises had taken their toll and her feet hurt terribly.
Abby matted down a small area of the field near the stream and laid down, dipping her feet into the cool running water to clean out any of the cuts to stay infection. Her hands slipped under her head and she stared upwards at the lightly cloud dotted sky relishing the much needed break.
Eyes closed, she listened to the soft breeze passing in the grasses around her and the trickle of water over rocks. It felt good to know everything would be ok. What happened before, what brought her to this place, and how? She couldn't understand yet. But that could wait a little longer. It could wait until her body was clothed, her feet were socked, and there was a warm cup of coffee in her hand as she returned to the NASA headquarters in Florida.
Thoughts tangented from there. The sight of her son, Thomas, coming home from school to find his mother was home one year early. To be able to celebrate her mother's 50th birthday next month. The articles that would need be written about the accident and the search for a reason that it all happened. It would be a very busy year that would be coming, and she would be engrossed in every little detail.
With the warm sun's embrace, the cool water, and the soft sounds of wind through this field, Abigail drifted deeper into her thoughts.
* * *
She was sitting in her bedroom, warm and comfortable, buried in sheets and comforters. Outside the whistles of conversing birds announced their emotions proudly, and accepted each others intentions honestly. Beyond her sight out the open window, the sun streamed down on the world and everything was right.
The alarm on her nightstand rang aloud. It was time to get up. She rolled over and outstretched a hand to set it to remind her once more after another ten lazy minutes. Hitting the button on top to silence the irritating box, the buzzing refused to stop.
Grumbling that she was doing something wrong, the kind of mistakes that only happen when you are half asleep and half awake on those rare mornings where the comfort of sleep and the promise of dreams subconsciously do not allow one to take on the coming of responsibility, she hit the only button on the alarm again. And again, it continued to blare the most god forsaken noise.
Frustrated, she sat up and reached over to the alarm to take hold of it and press the off switch hidden on the side. Her eyes caught the time on the LED display before that occurred, RUN it said in large block letter.
Abigail was lost in her dream and could not understand the full meaning. She turned off the alarm and the letters disapepared. Replaced with a meaningless hour of the day. But the sound did not end. The repetative bleet of the buzzer rang over and over.
"What's wrong with this thing," she questioned as her fingers switched the alarm on and off repeatedly to no effect. "I'm up! Stop your racket," she yelled at the alarm clock becoming upset.
"Run," a woman's gruff voice from no where came into her room.
Abby froze in place trying to comprehend what was going on in her bedroom. As she looked to the door, expecting someone to be speaking through the door as a joke, but the door was closed. Then she saw it. A small black and gray bubble that came through the door as if it were boiling.
First one, then another came through the white painted door. Another, and another. It grew from the surface impossibly. The blackness was coming. To claim her as the ship had been. As the crew had been. She didn't escape, she only was delayed from the inevitable.
Her eyes drank in the horror of the return of this living thing. It, in a matter of a moment, had already coated the entirety of the only exit from her bedroom to spread along the walls and ceiling and floor as a tipped over glass that ignored all rules of gravity.
What was once wall papered bright walls changed into the cabin of the ship she had somehow managed to survive. And like before, the cabin began to feed the blackness and the gray till all that was to be left was her. It was coming closer and closer, coating over and disolving everything in a boiling black and gray wave that was soon to claim her.
As the first reaches of the substance came upon the bed she was trapped within, her heart could no longer take the sight of the inevitable. She screamed aloud in fear and all turned black instantly.
* * *
She sat up with a sudden rush of panic and her throat emptying her lungs into the air. The cry of fear was released into the field she fell asleep in, and the blackness was gone. Replaced with the sight of red hued grasses and wheat stalks along the small stream.
"Oh, god," she wheezed in acceptance that it was only a nightmare, and laid back down on the grass slowly gathering how much time she had slept.
The sun was setting. It was almost dark again, and she had slept through the whole day. The exertion of crossing the woods to arrive here had taken more out of her than she had thought. But at least there should be a road or a home nearby. 'Surely there is one around this old abandoned farm field. Or at least I think that is what this is,' she considered internally and started to stretch and ready herself to begin her hike where last left off that morning.
A low muffled bark came from the field far away. "People," she asked the field hopefully, "then again maybe it's just a stray dog exploring."
Another bark followed and a soft shout of what was definitely not a dog sounded as well. Abby sprung to her feet in pure delight. "Someone's coming for me. They heard me and someone's coming!"
Over joyed she cupped her hands to her mouth and screamed at the top of her lungs, "I'm here! Over here!" She scanned the tips of the grasses to see where the rescue would arrive from, and a good distance out, the sight of a flickering glint of light from the sun off what the person was wearing revealed the direction.
Hands waving in frantic gratitude, she continued to yell and encourage the stranger to her location; to walk her to a warm bed, a phone to call to her loved ones, and soon, home once more.
First came the two dogs who were far faster on the ground than the man who lead by them. Somewhat smaller than your average dog at a couple feet high, she could only guess they were some kind of hunting blood hound or such with a large nose and floppy ears and lips. Browns with white speckles covered their short coats.
They growled and sniffed at her strangeness then circled around to examine and catalog all they had found. If they could speak, Abby had no desire to test it. She was more than eager to forget the entire incident with the fox last night and just pretend it was a delusion of the greatest magnitude.
The man finally strode near her and stopped in his tracks when the realization of her unclothed appearance caught his sight. Wearing a crude handmade leather vest over top rough undyed wools held closed by large wooden pin buttons, he let his engraved wooden bow down to his side to take in her thin body's shape, "Tha... thakalan?"
"I'm sorry, what was that," she responded not understanding, then recoiled with her nakedness being forgotten in all the excitement of another person to speak to, "oh yes! My clothes. I.. Well.. See I was in an accident and." her words slipped out clumsily and her hands quickly tried to cover her form with hands and arms and sudden regret.
The man took a moment and came to his senses in a small degree, "I thakayan. Jey das Nifite sil?"
"I don't understand. I don't speak," her mind raced to try to identify the accent and guess the language that this man spoke, but nothing would come. It was like a mix of French and American street slang. Fluid and filled with over emphasis. She tried to move her hands like a putting on a jacket, hoping he could couple the charades attempt with her foreign tongue, "coat? Do you have a coat?" She made her body shake like shivering to emphasize the point, "coat for me?"
The man settled back on his heals and his mind calculated something. She was not certain until that smile crossed his lips. An evil smirk of absolute power. 'Run,' a gruff female voice cried at her. Instincts that spoke volumes, unfortunately, now that were blatantly obvious.
She took a step backwards and he a step forward, "Istil. On asdaliz. En on asdaliz mod vekt." He laughed along with his assured visions of her under him equally unclothed. The two dogs that were with the man were starting to circle her and control her movements from an arms length. Each growled and held themselves low mimicking the posture of their master.
Abby turned and took a step to flee but from behind the man grasped a fist full of her shoulder length hair and held firm. She screamed as her head snapped with the unbreakable control he gained. A surge of pain ran from her head and spine spreading and echoed in her pounding blood. "Let go," she managed to say between deep breathes and exhaled fear, "stop!"
The man was not one to care. Even if he could understand her, she doubted that that would have even stopped him. His mind was set to this task, and she was going to be taken whether willing of limp, "Anjabayse," he commanded and put his full weight against her back, his other hand grabbing firm her upper arm with a strength that bruised instantly. "Anjabayse jey vekt!"
She was strong and worked out, but there is a large difference between being athletic and being thrown around by someone who was twice her weight and likely was much more accustomed to daily labor. His hand kept her head pulled back as far as her spine would allow, and he placed a knee against the small of her back and kicked her down to the ground unceremoniously.
Abigail was free of his grip for just a moment, but her body crashing into the grass and rough ground had sent out much of the breath she needed to muster. Her eyes looked to the reveling hounds, "Tell him to stop. Please!"
The hounds barked aloud, and then came their response to her words.
One replied in her thoughts, 'Master is going to fill you.'
The other added, 'you'll be pack. Pack never large enough.'
She tried to move, but the man's hand pressed down on the small of her back painfully.
"Please! Stop," Abby screamed at the top of her lungs and swung a hand behind her hitting against some part of him with her closed fist.
'Hurt Master, we may hurt you bitch,' one hound thretened.
"No," She screamed and grabbed a fistful of dirt and threw it at the man in hopes for a miracle.
There was a powerful slap against the back of her head forcing her face into the ground by the man and a renewed force against her spine that felt to be near breaking her bones, "Dathil in halshas."
'Fight,' the voice came over the chorus of dogs and pain.
Abby felt the pain spreading along her bones, her venomous words embraced her only friend and threatened her attacker, "no." Her body began to surge with wracking senses. Muscles twisted on themselves, her bones altered themselves with drive, and she felt her body start to take on a life of its own, "I said no."
The press of the man over her lessened and he shouted out in alarm, "Bischas! Aye jey sathalyse, Bischas!"
The one hound cried foul, 'Witch! You will be Master's bitch.' He charged at her jaws open and teeth bared.
The other responded in kind, 'you will not harm Master, Witch.'
She felt the teeth of one of the dogs sink into her shoulder, the second slapped its paws on her back and let its claws scrape against her skin quickly changing to hide and thick fur.
She embraced the change this time. She would not fear being a monster if the alternative was to be raped or fed to slave dogs. She forced herself from the ground as the last of the magic completed her change to this four legged creature with a long mouth teeth sharp enough to kill a boar.
The blood hounds growled and bit into her, but their size was little compared to hers, and she turned her head to the side and grabbed hold of the first's neck with her jaws and clamped down as tight as possible.
'Kill it,' her instincts ordered and Abby would revel in its aid. 'Get off me now,' her mind sent to the brown and white speckled attacker with the force of a witch's power.
It let go instantly as if her words struck with a physical attack, while her jaws sunk into its neck further, drawing blood that poured into her mouth and across her tongue.
'Let me live, Witch,' the hound begged.
'Kill,' her instincts raged empowered with the taste of warm blood.
Abigail was letting all her fear and hate and loathing for this pack, that would force her and attack her, feed her instincts. She didn't care what would come in the end, she was going to let the future be a concern for someone that has one. The likelyhood of living through this attack was so small, that making sure that there was a price for it, a very heavy price, was all she desired.
The second hound latched onto her side dug deeper into her, but the pain didn't matter. It would be next when this one could never hurt her again. The passion and the drive that coursed through her mind and her body was beyond enthralling.
Her sights were too focused on the last sign of life from the first hound so that the man had been cempletely forgotten. It was then that the voice cried out, "laush uyat!" She felt a sudden powerful crack against her skull and all her vision and thoughts became red hued black.
Chapter 3: http://sofurry.com/page/130728/user