Empowered awakening

Unusual Circumstances

Chapter 3

"No way!" I exclaim as I sit down heavily. I'm shaking from the shock of watching myself heal so fast. It takes me a little while to process what has just happened, I reach up and grip my dice with my left hand as i continue to stare at the part of my right hand that was bleeding only moments before, the feel of the dice in my hand helps me to steady my mind even it if is currently surrounded by silver.

"Okay Naomi lets review all the strangeness so far since you woke up here shall we? First off you've woken up and that is a shock in itself due to how badly you were hurt, but you also woke up dressed in your favorite clothes. Second your dice has been restored to a brand new quality and is has been turned into a necklace, not complaining but that is still weird. Third you woke up in this strange forest full of trees you've never see the like of before. Fourth the water here is sweet and unusually cold even though it's not winter and from what you've seen there aren't any mountains nearby. Fifth there are no signs of animal life at all so far that you've seen but there are bushes that have fruit. Sixth the fruit on those bushes is unlike anything you have ever seen, heard of or tasted before. And last but not least you can suddenly heal as fast as a comic book character. Again that's not a bad thing but definitely not normal." I tick each thing off with a finger as I list it. 

Even though I now have a definitive list of the things that are bothering me I honestly don't know what to do about it. One thing is certain however and that is that sitting here trying to reason it out isn't really achieving anything other than making me more confused about the situation. "Well sitting here isn't going to help me understand what's happening to me so time for me to keep moving." 

I take a look at the sky and notice the sun has started to descend towards the horizon slightly to the left of the direction I traveled from. "Alright, assuming that this place follows the same rules as home I now know which direction is west. So i have been traveling from the north-west heading towards south-east. It also looks like I only have another hour or so of light, if that, before it gets too dark to see well. Time to look for some shelter for the night"  I let out a slow breath and stand back up. 

Once i'm back on me feet I start walking along the river bank again but I notice the sun light is getting dimmer a lot faster than I was expecting, and the gentle breeze that was blowing before has started growing in intensity so that before long it has developed into strong gusts of wind that buffet me around almost knocking me off my feet. I take another quick glance at the sky and I notice that dark threatening looking clouds have rolled across the sky. A low rumble of thunder rolls in from the distance in the direction the wind is blowing from followed by the smell of rain. 

I start to hurry along as fast as I can in the rapidly receding light stumbling repeatedly over hard to see stones and raised tree roots. As i hurry I take note that the ground to the left of me has started to rise fairly steeply when there is a flash of light from behind me followed by another low rumble. It sounds really close this time giving me a start that causes me to twist around to try and see how close the storm is, but as I turn my foot slips on some loose dirt. I fall forward, just managing to prevent myself from completely face planting the ground by catching myself on my arms. I lay there for a couple of seconds listening to the sounds of the storm rapidly creeping up on me.

I drag myself up to my hands and knees and take a moment to look at my surroundings. In the dim now almost non existent light the forest seems to thicken further up along the river bank with the trees now reaching their branches over the river itself and the river banks look they they drop away sharply towards the water which has gotten choppy and appears to be rising, probably due to rain from the coming storm. To the left of me there is a steady incline and the trees seem to thin more as you get further up. I don't really want to leave the waters edge but with the rate the water level is rising I would be better moving to higher ground so I turn left and start to struggle my way up. 

The hill side I am climbing isn't steep and feels rocky under my feet, regular flashes of lightning are now the only illumination available so I regularly trip and fall making for slow progress and also making me very glad for me new found speed healing. As i finally reach the edge of the tree line there is another bright flash of lightning followed by an immediate crack of thunder so loud that I can feel it vibrate through the ground under my feet. This is followed by the start of fat, cold drops of rain beginning to fall around me, at first it is just a few here and there but soon it steadily builds up until there is a heavy rain drumming the ground around me. 

I'm soaked to the skin in mere moments but thankfully that last brief flash of light revealed a dark shadow on the hillside that looks like it could be a cave hidden among a collection of large boulders beside a stand of stunted and twisted looking trees. I stumble wearily toward the jumble of boulders and discover that the shadow was indeed a small opening in the hillside just big enough to squeeze my way in through without much difficulty. 

Once I make it about two meters inside the stone and earth walls of the cave open up to a chamber but it is pitch dark aside from the faint illumination from the entrance so I can't really make out any details on the size or shape. However I couldn't really care less at the moment because it is dry and certainly warmer in here than out there in the rain. I walk in a little way to the right keeping my hand on the wall to guide my way before sliding down to sit with my back against it for support and my legs stretched out in front of me. I'm so tired all I want to do is sleep. 

My legs ache from walking for hours and my head is spinning from everything that has happened since I walked into school that morning. "Just think. It may feel like the Graduation ceremony was years ago but it was actually only just this morning!" I mutter as I reach up and grip my new pendant tightly in my fist. I shiver from the feel of my cold, wet clothes so I strip out of them and sit in my underwear while I lay them on the packed dirt floor next to me to hopefully dry a little by morning. The sound of the rain pelting the ground outside is making me nod off and not even the flash, bang of the the lightning and thunder are enough to keep me from drifting off to restless and uneasy sleep.