I felt like I was drowning in a bathtub. Or atleast, water. Darkness, all around me. Before I could know it, my feet were on the ground, I was in a dark forest. Giant oak trees filled the darkness, with small shrubs surrounding every few trees. There were two wolves, one sitting on a high rock and another sitting below, in front of the high rock.

"Yes, my queen. He's dead." confirmed the wolf sitting below. It had a feminine voice, dark blue eyes and black and white fur. She had a bushy tail. When she opened her mouth, her large canines were visibly shown. "Killed by his own brother."

The wolf sitting above sneered,"Pity he died that way." She also had a female voice. Her eyes were stormy grey, like a cyclone was raging inside, with black slits for pupils. She continued speaking in a low growl, "But he deserved it. He was a traitor, a double agent, working for no one in particular but himself. He was a-"

A young boy, no older than 5, came running in, yelling "Mom! Mom!", grinning like crazy.

But when he spoke again, Luke's voice came out. "Walker. Oh, Walker~" he said in a girlish way.

Suddenly, I felt myself being pulled up and up, and a feeling of coming above the water after staying in for a while.

I jerked my eyes open and sat bolt upright, "Where- What.." I looked around and saw Luke at my side, eating a spoonful of Nutella. Olivera was sitting right beside me, looking at me with a stoic expression.

"Yes! I knew the fangirlish voice would work." He said, grinning.

I squinted my eyes, "Why the hell do you have Nutella?"

He looked at me with the most oblivious look ever, then went "Oh! This? Yeah, I bought some from that market."

"Whyyy??" I asked.

He gave a fake scowl, then grinned again, "Hey, man, if I'm gonna die, I'll do it after a spoonful of chocolate. Want some?"

I sat up a little straighter. "Where the hell are we? I....And the tornado?"

I suddenly noticed that we were no longer flying haywire. We were on solid ground, and through the windshield, I saw grass and a huge cluster of trees in front of the jet.

Luke helped me to stand up and explained, "Long story short, even though it isn't much of a long story, that stupid washing machine banged into our right wing."

"We survived getting a house thrown at us, how did a washing machine stop us?" I asked, confused.

"Because the damn thing was filled with wet clothes," he continued, "which slopped on the windshield. The force of the washing machine somehow sent us flying out the tornado, but I couldn't control the plane."

"Why?"

"BECAUSE OF THE DAMN WET CLOTHES! Our jet crash landed to this place, and we both got knocked out. I managed to soften our fall before blacking out, myself." He finished, licking his spoon clean.

There was a moment of silence.

"So you saved us?" I looked at him gratefully.

He rubbed the back of his neck, and replied modestly "Hey, you did a good job smashing those meteors too."

I blinked. "What meteors?"

"Oh no, not meteors, um...those big ass rocks."

"Right....Where are we right now?" I asked.

"In Romania." He said, with a sour voice. "Right in front of the famous Illvermony Forest."

"What's that?"

He shrugged, "I have no idea....."

Another moment of silence.

"I did look it up on the internet. It's like a giant maze, with tricks and turns. There's like barely any sunlight in there. Almost like, forever night."

"Like a.... nocturnal eternity?" I offered.

He snickered and grinned, "You're too much, man. Not that dark, though. Supposedly, there is a magic cube in there. I forgot what it was called, but it can help us with our problem."

I paused. "You wanna go in there and get it to fix our aircraft, don't you?" I guessed.

He sighed, "We're not going anywhere unless we fix this bad boy." He gestured at the ship.

"How do you even know this?"

He hesitated. "Just come with me, I'll explain on the way."

***********************************************
After we packed our bags with food, water, a few first-aid and survival kits, and two katanas that Luke insisted we take, we stepped out of the jet, Olivera right by Luke's side. The forest was right in front of us.

"Here we go, Seabell." I said.

"Right after you, Runner." he remarked.

I scoffed and we walked in together.

"That's the best you could come up with?" I asked.

"It's the best you can handle." He said, though he looked unsure. But he also had a worried expression on his face.

I raised an eyebrow. "What is it?"

"What?"

I grinned. "You have that 'I have something worrying on my mind, but I don't know if I should say it' look on your face that you usually do."

Luke chuckled. "How could you possibly know that I 'usually' have that look? We've known each other for, like what, four days?"

I slightly frown. "Wait, it's October 4?"

"Uh, yeah. You might've not noticed, but when you pass out, you tend to stay out the whole day."

"Noted," I said, half jokingly, "If I don't wanna spend half of this journey sleeping, I should try not to get knocked out more."

"Yeah...."

Olivera barked.

We continued walking through the forest. There were oak and cedar trees all around us. Shrubs and bushes were at every turn. The deeper we walked, the darker it got. Even though some sunlight seeped through the trees, it kept getting dimmer. Luke pulled out a GPS and started navigating us through.

He took a deep breath and said, "I hacked a few air traffic controls today, and got the destinations of several dozen planes."

"Okay...." I couldn't see where this was going.

"And all of the planes' final destination was the Black Forest, Germany."

My eyes widened. "What?"

He continued, "And the last of the planes reached their destination somewhere near the end of September."

"That means-" I started.

"We're currently on the right track." Luke finished.

My mind buzzed with the lines from the prophecy. "Go to the home of the wolf."

"And save all, darkness could engulf." Luke completed.

There was a short pause. "So, we're safe to assume that every single human on the planet went to the Black Forest." Luke stated.

"And the whole of this trip must've happened in September." I guessed.

Luke nodded. We continued navigating through the forest.

"What about the animals?" I asked.

"I don't know.."

There was a moment of silence as we both thought it over. My mind snapped to my dreams for a second, as Luke stopped walking and took out his phone, taking a picture.

"Hey, Seabell?" I rolled my eyes.

"What?" Luke grinned, getting used to the name now.

"Not a sight-seeing tour."

"Speak for yourself, this place is cool."

I paused. Then I blurted out, "I've been having some... interesting dreams lately."

It's weird, but I felt like Luke deserved to know. Since we were kinda the only ones on this quest, aside from Olivera (who still gave me the creeps), I should trust him. I explained about my wolfish dreams.

When I was done, Luke's face was filled with worry, but it was like a sort of 'I can relate to you' worry. "That's bad. See, I've been having similar-"

Suddenly, something rustled in the bushes. I thought it might be a deer before remembering, again, there were no animals. Something emerged from the bushes, and my shoulders tensed.

The monster almost looked exact to the one I saw in the Cave of Horror (Insert trauma). It had four thin arms and a pair of equally thing legs. It had no visible eyes or ears, and it had a weird looking mouth. Add that to the fact that it had an armored body, and it looked similar to an Outrider from Marvel (Yes, I'm a Marvel nerd. Sue me.)

The monster screeched and lunged at me. I stumbled back, and my hand flew towards the monster. I accidentally punched it to a tree, and fell back.

"What the hell is that?!" Luke cried.

I struggled to my feet, and Luke and I bolted. That thing roared again, before tackling Luke.

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh...." I took out a katana from the sheath hanging on my shoulder, but since I didn't know how to wield it, it slipped from my hands, and the blade cut my hand.

"Ahh!" I winced, as I shook my hand in pain. "Damn it!"

I looked towards Luke, who was trying to shake off the Outrider-looking thing while also trying not to get eaten. He was pretty much fighting a losing battle.

I grunted, and took the katana with my left hand, and charged the monster. I hit its armor with the blunt of the blade but it didn't even react. I kept banging the katana weakly on its body, but then it screeched and turned towards me, and punched me.

First of all, that thing was a lot stronger than it looked. I slammed into a tree a good few feet away. Second, Luke was fighting a losing battle. He had what looked like minor scratches, but he looked deathly afraid, still trying to shake the monster off.

My vision was blurry and I was as scared as Luke was, but I managed to crawl forward with the katana in my hand, and stabbed it to the monster's leg, which wasn't armored. The monster howled, and Luke kicked it off of him.

I helped Luke to his feet, and he winced.

"Ah!" He clutched his leg, which was bleeding pretty badly. A giant slash was pretty visible across his leg.

The monster screeched yet again, before jumping from tree to tree like a maniac, used Luke as a launcher pad, and slashed its claws at my arms.

I shrieked. I gripped my arm tightly, which started dripping blood, and collapsed. The monster approached me, hissing. Yep, I was dead.

Suddenly, Olivera leaped out of nowhere and tackled the monster. For a good few moments, they rolled on the floor, scratching and biting eavh other. Olivera was strong, way stronger than a regular dog.

My eyes wandered over to Luke's bag, and I quickly crawled towards it. My vision started getting blurry, my pain was hotter than ever, and I was losing a lot of blood. I got the first aid kit out of his bag slower than a snail before realising I had no idea how to use it.

"Barbecue...That thing looks like barbecue, why does it look like barbecue?!" Luke rambled on.

But the word barbecue stirred something in my mind. I got something else out of Luke's bag; a 10 inch stick. With my good hand, I aimed it at the monster, which had started to overpower Olivera.

Then I yelled, "INCENDIO!"

If it hadn't worked, my last words would've been a fictional, magical incantation. But it did. The fire must've been really strong, or the monster really flammable, but when the small ball of fire expelled from the wand and hit its skin, the flame multipled by five times, and knocked the monster off Olivera, howling.

"Fire...Luke, it's prone to fire! Get the other wand!" I yelled.

Then I noticed his leg was covered in bandages. He had patched himself up. He nodded like he understood, and slowly got the wand out.

But, thank me getting distracted, the monster lunged at me and punched me in the face. "Ow.."

It hurt a lot more than 'ow', but that's all I could get out, before the monster pinned me to the ground.

But another small ball of fire hit its skin, multipled and blazed. Luke came forward and kicked it with his injured leg before realizing what he did, and winced.

I grasped my head, it hurt like hell. And I couldn't find the wand anywhere. I got pissed off at that, for some reason, and strode forward and stomped the monster over and over again.

The adrenaline rushed to my head, and my flight or fight mode kicked in. Unfortunately, my idiot body picked fight, and continued kicking the monster. The monster screamed and howled, but not as loud as my mockery at its yells.

Then Luke came in, pointed the wand at the monster, mumbled something that sounded like "Fiendfyre." and finished it off. The flame erupted like a mini volcano, and the monster's screeches came to an end.

Once the adrenaline drained off, I got on my knees and wheezed. My vision started getting blurry again, but I forced myself to stay awake. I looked above, expecting a brick or something to come to knock me out. Guess my name isn't Jason.

I saw Luke staring at something. I followed his sight, and saw a cave I was pretty damn sure wasn't there a moment ago.

***********************************************
I hated caves. I hated magical jim-jams. And I pretty much hated my life right now.

But considering the fact that there was no other mode of shelter nearby, other than fricking trees, I followed Luke into the cave.

"Hey." Luke mumbled, and I jumped. "You're bleeding pretty badly."

I looked down and my breathing shallowed. My arms and clothes were smudged with blood. "Yeah, I noticed."

He bandaged me up, and miraculously, I didn't pass out. But I was very tempted to, just because I didn't wanna see the blood.

"Good thinking, using the fire." Luke said.

"Good thinking, bringing the wands."

He fidgeted with his fingers, looking at the wall, mumbling, "Should've brought the flamethrower."

"We have a flamethrower?" I asked, bewildered.

"Right next to the katanas." He said blankly.

There was a long silence after that, as we tried to process what the heck just happened. A goddamn fricking monster attacked us, we killed it, and found a cave that wasn't anywhere nearby earlier.

As I thought about the cave, a chill ran up my spine. I quickly stood up, but then got lightheaded, and sat back down.

"You shouldn't stand up, you're pretty badly injured." Luke groaned, wincing at his own wounds.

"Luke, man, I don't have a good feeling about this cave. We should get out right now-"

"I know, I know, but-" Luke started.

"-Anywhere but a cave, this place is giving me horrible vibes."

"Check your watch." He said.

"What?"

"Check your watch." He repeated.

I checked the time, and my eyes widened. It was 9:30 PM. Luke showed me his watch, and however, his time was 6:00 AM.

He shuddered, "It was 7:30 PM just a minute ago."

I blinked. "Our watches are fritzing out?"

"Hopefully..."

"Hopefully?" I asked.

"Or time is dilating inside the forest. I know, I know," He said, looking at my expression. "Maybe you're right, its just our watches. But either way, we should get out of here quickly."

Another long pause ensued. The only place where time dilation mattered the most, according to my knowledge at least, was a black hole. If time dilation was as bad here, we'd be in for a ride. And I didn't want any more rollercoasters.

"We should tuck in for the night." Luke stated, and went off to another room in the cave.

Only then did I notice how huge the cave was. Oh, the standard black rocks, and black darkness. But the fact that this cave had other chambers gave me a cold sensation.

Out of the blue, I heard a voice; Luke's voice. Was he.... singing?

I swaggered towards his direction, and peeked in.

"So look me in the eyes
Tell me what you see"

I couldn't believe my ears. He was singing in a majestic voice. I had never heard him sing before, but his voice was almost exact to Imagine Dragons.

"Perfect paradise
Tearing at the seams"

He opened his eyes, and saw me listening in, and his cheeks flushed. I gestured him to go on. He closed his eyes again.

"I wish I could escape
I don't wanna fake it
Wish I could erase it
Make your heart believe"

Suddenly, my bones chilled. Luke's voice turned hollow, like someone else was speaking through him. Dark and deep, he continued singing.

"But I'm a bad liar, bad liar
Now you know
Now you know"

"Luke?" His voice kept getting deeper, freaking the hell out of me.

"I'm a bad liar, bad liar
Now you know," He opened his eyes, but his irises were bright red. He had an evil smirk on his lips. "you're free to go"
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I apologise for the long delay, but writer's block's a demon. Since my school is about to reopen ༎ຶ⁠‿⁠༎ຶ, chapters' timings may vary, depending on writer's block and my free time.

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