The Stranger
1689 Words
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE STRANGER
Lyra
I slowly blinked my eyes open.
Darkness.
Pain.
The smell of smoke drifted through the cold night air.
Someone had set a campfire.
For the first time since entering this godforsaken forest, I felt warmth.
I looked down at my leg, it still hurt but now it seemed properly bandaged.
I looked around me, and suddenly noticed I wasn’t laying on leaves anymore.
This wasn’t my backpack.
My fingers curled around thick wool.
It was a cloak.
Someone had moved me.
I instantly panicked and reached for my pepper spray.
It was gone.
I tried to get up, but I sat up too fast.
Pain shot through my leg.
“Owww” I grimaced in pain.
Then I heard someone rushing to my side.
He was already beside me before I realized he’d moved.
“Don’t try to stand yet.” The stranger said quietly.
I froze.
“Who are you?”
He slowly raised his head to look at me.
And those golden eyes met mine for the first time.
Gold.
Not hazel.
Not amber.
Gold.
His eyes couldn’t be real.
Everything else came later—the dark hair
brushing his forehead, the sharp line of his
jaw, the leather armor that looked too real to
belong at a costume convention.
He looked like he was carved from stone.
But my fear won.
Raising my hands, I pushed him backwards, watching as he stumbled.
I quickly tried to get away, but he recovered just as quickly.
“I’m not trying to hurt you, please just relax” He stood with his hands raised.
I calmed down a little.
“You drugged me?”
“No.”
“You kidnapped me?”
“No.”
“…You look disappointingly calm for someone
accused of kidnapping.”
“I get accused of worse.”
“…Should that reassure me?”
“No.”
“Okay, so what were you doing out here?”
“I should be asking you that, what were you
doing out here without protection.”
“I was following something, and besides I had
protection.”
“You mean this is your protection?” He held
out my pepper spray, closely examining it like
he had never seen it before.
I frowned.
“It worked.”
“It didn’t.”
“I would’ve been fine.”
“You were unconscious.”
“I was…resting.”
He blinked once.
“You call that resting.”
“I call it strategic napping.”
For the first time, the strange man had a
different expression on his face.
The corner of his mouth twitched.
Not quite a smile.
Just enough to make me smile too.
“You have a pretty almost smile.” I told him.
“An almost smile?”
“Yes.”
He turned shaking his head, and gets a log to
sit opposite me.
I took my time to really study him.
The rest of him wasn’t any less distracting.
There was no fat anywhere, he was all muscle.
“Your eyes.”
He said nothing.
“They’re contacts?”
“…Contacts?”
“The colored thing people wear.”
He looked genuinely confused.
“I don’t know what that means.”
I stared at him, my mouth open.
“You’re telling me those are real?”
“Yes.”
“…Lucky.”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Lucky?”
“I’d kill for eyelashes like yours.”
He squints his face looking like I’d grown an
extra head.
“I’ve never been complimented for…
eyelashes.”
I shrugged.
“There’s a first time for everything.”
He gave me that almost smile again, staring
into space as though remembering something.
I scrambled to fill the silence again. For some
reason, I liked it when his attention was only
on me.
I looked at the perfect bandage, much better
than what I’d done.“You bandaged my leg?”
“I did.”
“So you know first aid huh?, where’d you learn
that from.”
“Let’s just say I’ve done it a few times before.”
“A few?”
“More than a few.”
“What’s your name?”
His mouth opened then
Closed again.
“…”
I folded my arms looking at him.
“I feel like that’s a normal question.”
“It is.”
“So?”
More silence.
“I can’t tell you.”
I laughed.
“Oh.”
“So you’re definitely a serial killer.”
“What?” He asked incredulously.
“You refuse to give me your name.”
“I have my reasons.”
“So did Ted Bundy.”
“…Who?” He frowned harder.
I stopped.
“Shut up, you’ve never heard of Ted Bundy?”
“No.” He said, leaning on his elbows to stare at
me more in that strange way.
I narrowed my eyes.
“How old are you?”
“I…”
“You can’t tell me that either?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to but…”
“It’s okay, I’ll tell you my name, It’s Lyra.”
“Lyra.”
He repeated it so quietly, I almost didn’t hear
it.
The way he said my name…
“Why do you keep looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like we’ve met before.”
“We have.”
Silence.
Then his own eyes widened as if he didn’t
mean to say that.
I frowned ”When?”
He quickly recovered.
“…I meant to say, you remind me of
someone.”
I looked at the fire, his hypnotizing stare
becoming too much, even for me.
My stomach growled loudly.
Heat rushed to my face.
Wonderful.
Of all the moments to be hungry…
“You’re hungry.” he leapt up.
“I’ll be right back, let me go find some food for
you.”
“Wait-“ I didn’t want him to leave me here.
He stopped in his tracks.
“I mean, I’m sure people are looking for me, it’s
only a matter of time, then I can eat.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I snacked on chocolate bars on the way
here, so I won’t die.”
“I won’t let that happen anyway.”
I smiled at him, I had a feeling his words were
true.
Before he could sit down.
A howl rang through the forest.
I sat up.
Every trace of warmth disappeared from the
man’s face.
He turned his head towards me and quietly
said.
“We have to leave.”
“I can’t even walk.”
The sound gets much closer.
The man looked like he could hear what I
wasn’t.
He came to my side and crouched in front of
me.
“Get on.”
“…What?”
“We don’t have time.”
“I am not climbing onto a stranger’s back.”
The muscle in his jaw twitched and before I
could protest again.
The ground disappeared.
One arm slipped behind my knees, the other
around my back.
I gave a started yelp as the ground
disappeared beneath me.
I barely had time to register the shock and
before I could argue again, he shifted me onto
his back with surprising ease.
I instinctively wrap an arm around his
shoulders to stop myself from falling.
He took off running.
Branches whip past us as the forest becomes a
blur in a second.
I had never moved this fast before.
I could feel the strength in every stride
beneath me.
Controlled. Like this was nothing for him.
Gradually, I could see the trees began to thin.
The smell of damp earth gave way to smoke.
Gravel.
Petrol.
Then…
Voices.
Faint at first.
“Lyra!”
Another voice.
“Search over there!”
Flashlight swept beneath the trees.
My heart leapt in my chest.
“They’re looking for me.”
The man slowed.
He gently lowered me to the ground.
For a second, neither of them said anything.
The voices grow louder.
I took one step toward them.
Then stop and turn back.
“What about you?”
“I can’t go any farther.”
“Why not?”
His eyes drift past his shoulder
.
Toward the deeper forest.
The air behind him began to shimmer.
Softly.
“What is that.”
“I need to go back now.”
He placed his hands on my shoulder.
”Lyra…
He hesitated.
“…“If you remember tonight…
Keep it to yourself.”
He paused again.
“…And don’t come back.”
“What?”
“Promise me.” He said with that deep voice of his, while looking at me with those intense eyes.
“Fine, I promise.”
A ghost of a smile touched his face.”Good.”
The voices are closer now.
“Lyra!”
I looked toward them, then back at him.
He still didn’t let go of me.
“I still don’t know who you are.”
“I know.”
“Will I ever?”
His beautiful eyes stared at every inch of my
face as though trying to memorize it.
“If fate is kind…”
He didn’t finish,the little silver light behind him
began to pulse strongly.
He finally dropped his hands from my
shoulder.
His hand lifted again.
Almost as if he wanted to touch my face.
It stopped halfway.
Slowly…
He let it fall.
And took one step backwards.
Then another.
The silver light folded around him.
I instinctively reached out.
“Wait.”
He stopped, looking like he was going to come
back.
Instead he said quietly.
“Go home, Lyra.”
Then he turned and the light disappeared.
The forest became ordinary again.
“Lyra!”
Hands grabbed my shoulders.
“Oh thank goodness you’re okay.” It sounded
like Esme.
Voices began to overlap.
“Shes here.”
“We found her.”
I barely heard them.
My eyes remained fixed on the place where
the stranger vanished.
Only one thought circled in my mind.
“Who…are you?”
- Writer
