Chapter 2

I felt the calluses on my fingers rubbing against the slippery steering wheel, the cartilage so numb by the lack of blood circulation that not even the icy whistle of the wind entering through the four half-open windows outside could help.

My eyes stared at the water reaching my knees, and, once again, I raised my head carefully “fearing some concussion with the probable accident “and tried to see the outside. It was still dark, but I could swear that the numbers on the panel marked 6:35 a.m. before it went out completely.

The delay for the sunrise was just one of my countless and tiny concerns. There was also the main one: How and why was I inside an almost completely submerged car?

The rearview mirror reflected an image that did not seem familiar to me. A slightly rounded face of pale color, full lips, and eyes of drooping eyelids, protecting large spheres of the iris in whiskey brown color.

My long hair of an intense black caused shadows around my shoulders “shadows that I could swear were moving and increasing like a curious viewer to see ahead “provoking moments of sudden panic, in which I turned only to find the emptiness, then returned my gaze to my feet freezing by the cold water and remained to study the numbness of my fingers.

As if responding to a distant call, my ears snapped with a buzz. I was finally able to move my hands, guiding them to my head. My fingers got stuck in my hair, touching, and recognizing, and a crease formed on my forehead when I stared at that image in the mirror. Something didn't seem right with that body. Something didn't seem right to me.

Releasing the air in small inches, I tested pulling one of the legs. Water splashed and rumbled in my ears, louder than I expected that small doses of droplets would sound. Again that caution made me turn my head back, looking for a threat.

You're safe, I repeated while pulling the other leg. My pants weighed and stuck to my skin, but that didn't come close to the most worrying thing for me. Who exactly am I? I asked in a dry murmur, looking for the answer in each support or small alcove of the car.

I believed that if I was in a car that was mine, there would be some document or certificate, and I almost screamed with relief when I pulled the sunshade and a wallet fell on my lap.

I took out the first photo ID, and there was the same girl who looked at me in the mirror. I went down and looked up to be sure, and I had it. My name, as the document said, was Elena Flamel, born in San Diego, California, a few months to turn nineteen.

With my brow still furrowed, I left the document in the passenger seat and returned my gaze to the rearview mirror, trying to see the outside. Ignoring the strange coldness in the way he watched me, I did a second self-examination looking for possible injuries.

I was intact, except for a small abdominal pain, but completely safe and sound from an accident that threw my car into a lake, or something like that.

My still-frozen fingers protested when I opened the car door and jumped into the water, soaking all the Jeans material that was not initially wet and considerably moistening the ends of the hair that went up to the waist.

Before reaching the edge of the stream that produced small waves running smoothly around me, I thought it would not have been a good idea to check the back seats thoroughly.

Who knows what I could have found at least in search of a sweater, because out there, with the wind of the quiet cold dawn and with wet clothes... It seemed insane to wear only a shirt and pants.

I trembled so much when I stood up, that the noise snapped in my ears, scaring me all the time. I cracked my teeth, feeling a slight discomfort in my jaw, and folded my arms around me, protecting myself in the way it suited me as I turned in the same place, performing a tactical reconnaissance.

I'm not able to say how part of me was still so cautious and stupidly calm in a desperate situation, but I kept breathing slowly, controlling every impulse that begged me to run and scream. I looked at the car still stuck in the water and drew a line to the top, where I found a small bridge.

It wasn't surprising that I had fallen from there. Anyone with a little alcohol in their blood would have lost control of a bridge without walls. I didn't admit the terrible truth that I wasn't drunk.

On the contrary. My sobriety was greater even for someone who had just had an accident. I even tried to find a way to climb to the bridge, but it was protected by dry land and unstable soil.

Climbing was not on my list of priorities, and it seemed more difficult than you see in movies, so I turned on my heels and ventured down the dirt trail, whose ground of loose stones and creeping plants extended to an aberturå to the silent forest ahead.

It was stupid. I knew that. Entering a forest alone, right after an accident, is not something very smart to do. Add also the darkness so referring to the night and terror, far from an imminent dawn, and the title of stupidity has a new owner.

My steps were purposely high. I believed that this would be a way to scare away any animal lurking. And it seemed to work for a while. Branches scrambled in the distance, creatures fleeing my way.

The treacherous creeping plants made me stumble from time to time, and this distracted me from the highest branches, where thorns waited to kiss my face in a painful passage. My cheeks burned when something made me turn my head suddenly to the left.

I thought I heard a noise, a song, and then silence. It was fast enough for me to know its importance. Come to me, it seems to say. I blinked several times, trying to decipher the sound, although I didn't listen to it anymore. It was like a jovial and old voice, the call of a lover and a mother, fast and slow. Dark.

My legs moved on their own and I found myself running down the trail, suffocating the creeping plants with my sneakers heavy by the water. The forest never seemed to have an end, and I was almost surrendering to fatigue when another sound made me stop.

This wasn't a song, and it didn't look like a call. The ground shuddered as the sound approached. Closer and closer, threatening, horrible. An unpleasant image ran through my head. Fangs, paws, and evil hovered over a creature whose face I was unable to see. Run, run, come to me.

I didn't need to hear a second command, I started running through the trees closest than they should, and I got into every passage of rocks blocking the way. Branches exploded behind me, crushed by something heavier than I could handle, bigger than I imagined.

The ground itself seemed to move under my feet, throwing me forward with staggers. The trees united even more as I passed by as if the creature in my wake had awakened the forest. As if the trees themselves blackened by the night were trying to protect me.

I slipped on a moist part of the ground and leaned on a tree, squeezing one of my hands on my stomach. My forehead scratched against the bark of the trunk, and chills ran through my skin with the sound, still so loud and close that I could say that the animal was exactly a few steps away from catching me.

I swallowed the burning in my throat, and tripped again, turning around. It seemed like I was running in circles, stuck in the same place. I did not dare to wait for the creature to appear to guide me on a path, I left ahead, sighing an alleluia when the path had opened for another fendå in the rocks. I believed that crossing it would find an escape route. I was sure I just needed to cross. And I did.