The next morning I forced myself up and out of bed with such little determination, it took a lot of willpower not to fall straight back into the soft cushions.

Gargling some water and finishing up shortly later in the bathroom, I headed out without notifying anyone. 

I didn't feel like any company today.

I knew Emmet was still getting ready, the bang his head made when it connected to the corner of the mirror again resounded through the hall. He'd manage to find the Iarhus on his own, despite his incapability of closing the mirror-door.

Walking down the streets and onto the little path leading through a small section of the forest, I hummed with the birds that chirped their melody.

I enjoyed the soft sun rays touching the skin of my face as they shone on the path before me. With each step I took, more and more thoughts formed in my mind. All of them circled around leaving the place I'd only ever been to before. 

Maybe that was exactly why it would be a good thing to leave here. 

Maybe...

As I was about to turn right onto the way leading to the other end of the forest's opening, I felt a familiar pull in my chest, moulding into a fiery hot flame burning right through me. A storm suddenly waged inside of me, bustling and crackling like a fireplace in the night.

Subtly—and then, everything caught fire, all at once.

I looked around to see what could have been the cause of it but couldn't find anything. The fire inside of me was burning hot and I nearly lost my balance.

What's going on?

Then, when I squinted my eyes, I spotted a man with a black mane of hair, standing with his back towards me. He stood proudly at the other end of the opening. His hair—curled at the tips—shone in a distinct brown-golden glow in the sun.

It almost reached down to his broad, bulky shoulders. His black shirt stretched over all his abs, defining them and making them extremely visible. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw him, even though it was only from behind.

I knew it was him. I knew it was him because I could feel all those feelings rushing to the surface that had sparked inside Kendra when she'd seen Mr. Angrypants for the first time.

They were suddenly so intense, that my body couldn't take it. Excitement rushed through me like adrenaline, causing my hands to shake and my knees to buckle.

What is happening to me?

I tried calming myself, but my attempt to control all those emotions failed and caused my stomach to churn. I felt sick. Then interest flared up and all my organs and insides seemed to catch fire, so burning hot that it pained me.

The pull to this man was so hard, unnatural forces were literally moving my body closer to him. Without deciding to move, my arm stretched out for him while my body turned towards him. As I stood there, barely keeping myself upright, his back remained the only thing of him I could really see. 

Though hurt cut through me at his ignorance of my presence, my body was completely controlled by the bond rather than myself.

My legs moved. Following the interest, there was a needy attraction that only intensified the ignited fire within me, causing it to go up in the highest flames. It tingled through me, making my knees wobbly.

It soon got overruled by my instincts; worry and confusion built up and formed a wall, trying to keep all those stormy emotions at bay.

As I was standing here, shaking from head to toe as if someone had thrown an ice-cold bucket of water on top of me, or as if the biggest war raged inside me, the man slowly turned around.

Finally, finally he noticed me.

I had been so caught up in this hurricane that I hadn't realised he shook just as bad as I did. The leaves of the trees whirled around all over the place, as though it was being controlled by someone, leading and dominating the laws of physics, bending wind, air and earth.

Even the ground beneath my shaking feet felt like it was moving. Before I could see his face, my vision blurred. Quickly, my eyesight left me again.

Then, crashing down on me, darkness filled my vision. Losing my balance, I fell onto the soft, forest floor.

☼

A sweet, honey-tasting smell entered my sensitive nostrils once I finally regained consciousness again. I had never smelled something so good before. I wanted to eat it. 

What is that? 

Placing my weight on my elbows, I tried to make out my surroundings.

I jolted awake and calmed myself down enough not to break out in a panic attack.

"Where am I?" I spurted, confusedly opening my eyes.

I was in a room which was completely covered in one horrible colour: everything was pink. It painfully reminded me of Kendra's room.

Even the window-seals were a soft baby pink, the curtains, the wooden chairs that stood around a little pink coffee table, the vintage dresser placed beside the window, the tapestry, everything.

Before I dared to move out of the surprisingly also rose-coloured bed, I stopped to listen. It seemed like the walls were soundproof, I couldn't hear any birds chirping. There was not a sound I could hear. Realising this made me uneasy. 

What was I doing in a pink-splattered room with soundproof walls?

I scanned the room more closely, trying to memorise every detail to figure out if there was anything out of place. The picture of a little kitten hung evenly over the coffee table, the cat's eyes staring right back at me.

Even the desk at the opposite end of this square room was symmetrically placed directly in front of the bed I was lying in.

I could not, for the life of me, find a single thing out of place.

But when I saw the pencils on the desk perfectly placed just one or one and a half centimetres from the edge of the desk, I knew. This wasn't a real room that actually belonged to someone. Unless it was the biggest nitpicker-freak that existed and had a ghastly taste in furniture and colours. 

It would be the last person in Espheros I would ever want to meet.

But my gut couldn't untie its knot as I thought about where I could be. As perfect as this bedroom seemed, it was too perfect to be one that was used. This room must have had the purpose of either decoration or some kind of confinement. But that didn't answer the question—why would I be in confinement to begin with? 

What had I done? I tried to concentrate on recollecting my memories; what was the last thing I remembered? It took me a few moments until it finally dawned on me.

That guy.

In the forest.

I remembered how his hair shone like golden thread in the sun—his broad shoulders, the incredibly muscular back. And that pull towards him. That unearthly, strange and immense pull.

My hand hovered above the doorknob while the memories flooded through my mind. Before I could push it down, it already moved on its own. 

And then a very familiar face stepped into the room as I took a startled few steps back.

Oh god.

Chapter Question: Who's behind the door?

Reader Question: Do you write books too? If yes, what are they about?

Aside from The Promised Series I wrote a stand-alone in the same series titled "Fragments" which is available to read on Watty at the moment. I wrote a few others too, but nothing worth mentioning yet