My Hockey Alpha novel Chapter 223

Enzo

When I finally stopped running, I quickly came to the realization that I had taken such a winding path that I had not only gotten Selena and the witch off of my trail, but I had somehow also gotten myself completely lost.

Normally, I would have had no problem traversing these woods. Despite the fact that I could hardly remember anything before a few hours ago, I did remember my childhood, and I remembered spending a lot of time in these very woods when I was young. But even though the moon was full, which would have normally made the whole place so bright it would have felt like daytime, it was incredibly dark. Even with my night vision, I could hardly even see twenty feet in front of me. Anything beyond that was nothing but inky blackness.

Selena and the witch must have cast some sort of spell on these woods. Maybe that was why they suddenly stopped chasing me; maybe they figured it would be better to simply put a spell on the woods to make me get lost. I was sure of it.

But I wasn’t going to give up that easily.

I didn’t know how long I walked like that in my wolf form. I kept my head down, my ears pricked for the slightest sound in the woods, and my eyes focused on the path ahead of me as I slowly padded through the dark forest. Surely I was bound to come to the edge of the woods eventually; they didn’t go on infinitely, so long as I didn’t accidentally walk in circles.

But it felt like an eternity that I walked out there. And as I walked, I felt as though my mind was playing tricks on me. Every so often I would freeze, whipping my head around and staring into the darkness when I heard what sounded like a twig snapping underfoot, or someone’s voice. But there was never anything. I couldn’t tell, though, if it was just my imagination, if I really was being followed, or if these were more tricks that Selena and the witch were playing on me.

Either way, I had to keep moving. I had to find the edge of the woods and get out.

While I walked, I decided to focus on something else to keep my mind off of the discomforting noises around me. And there was only one thing I wanted to focus on: remembering.

I realized that Selena had some sort of spell on me. But it was still strong, and although the fog was thinning out slightly, it wasn’t enough. Somehow, I knew that that girl who looked oddly like Selena was somehow the key to all of this, but since I was stupid and went with Selena instead of trusting the girl when she said that Selena was a liar, I was now all alone. I should have listened to her, but I didn’t, and now I was paying the price.

I just wished that I could remember more than her name.

Her name was Nina, and she was somehow connected to me, but I couldn’t remember anything else. Even her name faded in and out of my mind, as though I was being teased. It was as if her name, her existence, was attached to a thin string that someone was tugging along just out of reach. Every so often I could get a little glimpse of it, and a few times I felt it in my fingers, but then it would quickly slip away and out of reach.

Nina…

I decided to stop by a large tree, where I shifted back into my human form to give Fio a rest as well, and then leaned on the tree and slid down to the ground.

Maybe Selena and the witch were still on my trail as I sat here and leaned my head back, closing my eyes, but I didn’t even care at this point. I was exhausted, and I wouldn’t be able to find my way out of here anyway if I didn’t wait for dawn to arrive. It was simply too dark to see anything. I was only going to get myself more lost if I kept trying to find my way out. I was fairly certain that I had already been somehow walking in circles instead of a straight line as intended.

My eyes weren’t closed for long, however, before something suddenly came to my senses. It was faint at first… A scent. It smelled like campfire smoke.

Suddenly, my eyes shot open. I stood, sniffing the air more intensely; it was, in fact, campfire smoke, and it was lingering. This smoke very well could be real, unlike all of the other things that I sensed around here.

Maybe, if I followed the smell of campfire smoke, I would find help.