Prologue
When I was small I used to pretend to be from far off places, with magic and fairy tales, princes and princesses, witches, wizards and Warlocks. I used to bring the stories I read or the ones my mother read to me to life in the back garden with my sister. When I became older my thoughts didn't really change but instead of playing them in the back garden I played them out in my head. I'd day dream of these fantastical lands from books and movies and I'd place myself in the story or I'd pretend I was a certain character to change events I didn't like.
I never once thought these fantasies would become my reality, these were my escape from real life, my happy place, my distraction. These fantasies were just that. Fantasy. But when I chose to take that trail, when I stood in that circle of oak saplings knowing the legends that I grew up with went against everything I was doing, I changed my reality.
I woke to a warm breeze blowing through my hair. The strands flew about my face tickling under my nose and sticking to the edges of my lips. My eyes were closed but the sun cast that red glow through my eyelids, I slowly opened my eyes bit by bit, they were heavy as if they'd been closed for days. I finally opened them only to shut them quickly from the blinding light around me. I tried again with my hand hovering above my face. I squinted up at the blue sky and blinked again trying to adjust to the light. I looked around myself I was laying on the ground of a clearing in what looked to be a forest. I slowly sat up wincing at the pain of my back from what felt like a nasty fall on top of my backpack. I slipped the bag from my shoulders and sat it on my lap. I began to try to access my situation but my mind was racing too fast for me to keep up with.
The only thing I could think of was the screaming of hundreds of voices I heard before I woke in this clearing. They were screams of anger, despair and victory. What on earth had happened to me for me to be laying in the middle of this forest?! I tried to remember what I had done leading up to this.
.
I had been hiking with my family in the mountains near where my grandparents lived, it was a group hike with cousins, aunts and uncles all from my mother's side I remembered, we'd been arranging it for awhile as a sort of family reunion. We had come to a cross roads of sorts on the trail, I had been up ahead with my cousin Lauren. She'd wanted to take the obviously more popular trail but I had wanted to take the less used looking one just to try make the walk more interesting. We ended up making a bet of who'd get to the top the fastest and each took our own trail. My trail had actually been an old route that led to a dead end but me, being the stubborn foul that I am, thought I could find my own way to the top. I took my phone and used the compass on it to lead me in the right direction but as I walked up through the trees that covered the mountainside I stumbled upon a fairy ring. A circle of young saplings struggling to grow with these massive trees surrounding them. I smiled to myself as I remembered the old legends and stories I had been told growing up about these rings. You were never to step inside it, for fear of being cursed by the Aos Sí (the Fae) these were to be avoided and if you came across one you were to go in the opposite direction. But I disregarded all these as superstition, so I walked on through. As I came closer to the ring the wind picked up it whipped my hair all around me, taking it from the braid I had it in and blowing it in front of my eyes, blinding me. I stumbled over a rock in my path and fell into the ring bringing a sapling with me bending its young bark as the limbs got caught beneath me. The wind was nearing a howl bowing the tops of the tall trees surrounding the ring fort. I tried to scramble to my feet but the wind pushed me down now screaming with the speeds it whipped through the trees. I stumbled to my feet fighting the wind when it suddenly stopped. I fell forward from the sudden drop but even though the force stopped pushing. The screams continued. I looked around and saw that even though I no longer felt the wind it was still billowing all around me the only other things unaffected were the ring of saplings. The screaming became louder and louder. It was like the screams of thousands of people. Men, women, children. Of cruel laughter, of downright terror, the screams of anger and despair thor through me. I tried to block my ears with my hands pressing as hard as I could, but the sound only grew. I fell to my knees and pressed my forehead to the ground, my eyes shut tight.
That was the last thing I remembered.