The Secret World

Sean also had a bad feeling, but he blamed it on paranoia due to lack of sleep.

“Alright, you shower. I think I’ll lay down for a bit.”

He jumped, back first without looking, onto the large bed. The fabric was smooth and cool, while the mattress soft and inviting. Sean felt his eyes began to grow heavy almost instantly.

From the forest where the Snow wolves were finishing up their ritual, and about to set siege, the little village was barely visible. Only a few lights could be seen burning in the windows. The people here spent most of the long winter nights asleep, but some stayed up reading by candle light or drinking some winter spirits in an attempt to drown out the cold. The Snow wolves would attack these houses first, those awake would offer the most resistance. With nothing but blood lust in their veins they left their brightly burning bond fire and approached the town. Their orange eyes looked like floating orbs in the darkness and snow.

Tomlin sat in a chair by the fireplace, smoking a pipe and staring absently into the flames. The day had been long,the winter days always were. Then there was a faint clawing at the widow, he didn’t even have time to sit up as the window frame exploded with glass and wood across the room. Three huge wolves were upon him. Tomlin had seen them before, but never this close and never during the winter months.

The Snow wolves were vicious beasts, and as strong as 10 men. Their bodies were covered in a thick gray fur, that was flecked with snow and ice. Their facial features rested somewhere in between human and wolf, although a little more towards the latter. Except for the eyes they could almost pass for human, as long as they were fully dressed to hide their furry bodies.

They ripped Tomlin limb from limb. Arterial blood sprayed across the walls as his throat was completely ripped out. He didn’t even have time to scream. The wolves, for the first time taking to all fours, feasted on his still warm body. Their razor sharp teeth sank into meat and tendon, tearing in apart with strong jaws. Then something was heard from upstairs, and their attention was momentarily diverted. With a flick of his head, the apparent leader of the group signaled for the other two to check the upstairs bedroom. They tracked bloody foot prints up the stairs, then stopped right in front of the room where Sean was laying n the bed and Kaeli was soaking in the bath.

They kicked the door in.
 
Kaeli had just dozed off in the tub after washing herself clean, when she heard the door kicked in. Instantly afraid something had happened, she dressed in a flash, not bothering with her dripping hair, and bolted into the bedroom. There she saw the wolves, circling Sean like he was the new beef of the day.

"Sean! Wake up!" She cried, her magic flaring up in her palms as blue flames. She tossed a sphere at one of the wolves, trying desperately to incinerate the beast while distracting the wolves from her boyfriend at the same time!

She'd never heard of these huge wolves before, and had a horrible feeling about the fate of Tomlin. "Sean! Please! We have to get out of here!" She cried, even as the massive wolves began changing their minds about him, only to encircle -her!- Their fangs were bared, their eyes glowed mean, and she knew she was about to be ripped to shreds.
 
Sean was so exhausted that he fell into a deep sleep within seconds of his head hitting the pillow. He had a short, but frightful dream of chasing Kaeli through a forest. There was snow everywhere and the trees that surrounded them had demonic faces that screamed obscenities. Just as Sean began to question why he was chasing her, he was jarred from sleep by yelling. It was Kaeli, she was telling him to wake up. It took him a minute to navigate his way through the fog of sleep, but as soon as he was aware of what was going on, he was ready for action. He jumped off the bed, luckily still wearing his boots, right hand ablaze with scalding heat. He had no idea what the hell these creatures were, but they were killers, that much was certain as blood dripped from their faces.These thoughts were out of his mind in seconds as he noticed that the beasts were surrounding Kaeli. Sean, arm outstretched, shot a stream of fire at the wolves. The flames coughed all around them, the smell of burnt hair instantly filled the room. Sean lunged and grabbed Kaeli by the arm.

"Let's get the fuck out of here!"


As they ran past the torn, disemboweled corpse of Tomlin and into the snow drenched land outside, Sean turned and set the house on fire. He took a second to look around and saw that the Village was under siege. The Wolves were upon the village.
 
Unfortunately, one of those gigantic wolf-beasts managed to tear a chunk out of Kaeli's right elbow! she gave a pained cry, but was already out of the inn, fleeing for her and Sean's lives as the beasts howled, tracking them down. She was all for running, but they had -four- legs, there were more of them, and two people wouldn't be able to out run them forever!

Kaeli was too freaked out just then to really notice how bad off her wound was, or the fact it was leaving a scarlet colored blood trail a mile long, easily traceable by the wolves' hunting noses. She was also scared of how freezing cold it was outside. If they didn't get eaten alive, they'd freeze to death!

Already her lips were blue, while her face was deathly pale. "Sean..." She called. "What the hell can we do?! I want to go home!" She cried out, suddenly feeling hopeless about this world in general. Nothing but evil seemed to exist here!
 
As soon as Sean saw Kaeli's blood he lost it. He felt a rage boil up inside him. Even standing in the freezing weather he began to sweat and his hands felt like a red hot stove top. He wrapped on arm around Kaeli's waist and the other was outstretched in front of him. He sent a thick cord of flame out from his open palm. It was so hot that it ignited the snow covered ground, the surrounding trees, the wooden structures and the snow wolves. The wolf men had only moments ago been fiercely perusing them were now engulfed in fire, they writhed on the ground and ran hopelessly in all directions. They cried out, screaming so loudly that Sean temporarily had to cover his ears. It was a small victory, but a problem still remained: They were now completely surrounded by fire. Sean again wrapped his arms around Kaeli. He was sure this was the end.

Just then, Kaeli said she wanted to go home and at once they were surrounded by a purple light. it seemed to pick them up and carry them away. They flew through the sky at the speed of a high powered jet, all the while the purple light shone brightly. Then, all at once they hit solid earth. It was sunny and they were laying in an open field with green grass all around them.

Sean crawled to where Kaeli lay, he elbow soaked with blood. He ripped off a piece of shirt and wrapped it around her arm, just above the wound.

"Where are we? What happened? Did you do that?"
 
Kaeli's arm was throbbing so bad when she woke up, she feared she might need stitches. Dazedly, she looked around at the bright sunlight, familiar trees.... with side-walks and concrete roads! "Sean.. no! Not unless I can transport us home when knocked out?? It's Earth...! It has to be!" She exclaimed, wide eyed. Good god she hoped it was Earth..

If she never saw another weirdo planet like the one she and Sean fell into, she'd live quite happily, not being a goddess, but just a girl with powerful magic, and a damn hot boyfriend with fire at his command.~

"Let's look around to be sure. If my magic -did- teleport us; we might not even be on Earth, but a different part of the other world."
Kaeli suggested, sounding fearful of getting her hopes up.
 
Sean also noticed that this place looked a lot like earth. The sky didn't have that unreal quality that the other world had. Everything looked normal again, Sean could't think of another way to put it. The fact that he noticed it put him at ease though, at least for the time being.

"Earth…" Sean mused, taking a moment to tear a piece of his short to wrap around Kaeli's arm "I think you might be right. But where on earth are we? I don't see anything, or hear anything."

They were in a field of the greenest grass Sean had ever seen. It looked like one of those digitally enhanced pictures on car commercials or internet adds. He reached down to pick some when he saw something that nearly made him jump. Across the field, smoke was rising in steady plumes on the horizon, and the distance chugging of a train could be heard. The train! Sean pulled Kaeli by the arm

"It's another Train, like the one we took when we first got here? Hurry let's catch it."


Sean half pulled, half ran with Kaeli when A small translation came into view. It looked nothing like the train they had taken before, but never the less, it was a train. It looked to Sean that they were in the middle on nowhere, so going anywhere would be better than here.
 
"I'm definitely all for catching this train!" She told Sean, hurrying to board it with him. The conductor let them on, handing them both a ticket of bright silver.

"I don't know where this train goes, sir, could you tell us please?" Kaeli asked, a feeling of hope starting to form in her chest. She held it back, just in case they would only be transported right back to that evil little village with all those killer wolves! She hadn't seen what happened to Tomlin, the inn keeper, but she knew they'd killed him too.

She just wanted to go back to the normal real world. Not some freakish alternate-reality, or different planet. She wanted a chance to get caught up on sleep, and maybe have simple worries of homework, and graduation parties. She wanted to marry Sean someday, maybe even start a family.

This whole adventure was -really- starting to annoy her! She wanted out of crazy-ville!