AN: Thank you for the follows. I hope you are enjoying this crazy story. Please review if you can.

D: Law and Order SVU and all its characters are not mine.

CHAPTER 7

AWAKENING

The pain vanished a while ago but she kept still in fear it would reaper if she dared to move a muscle. She couldn't understand what had just happened. How could she still be alive after such an experience? Was she still alive?

After gathering the will she had already given up to the consuming fire, she took a big breath letting her longs fill with warm air and a strong nature aroma. She moved her hands slowly sliding her fingertips over the wet ground under them. The texture of the grass felt soft and uncanny accurate against her skin. She was still in the woods.

She decided to open her eyes slowly until she can see the branches slightly moving in the treetops. She notice how they move from side to side through the light air that hits them dragging small dust particles into the leaves. The thin rays of light that slip between the big branches filling her sight with brightness that, somehow, didn't bother her eyes. 'What time is it?' She wonders trying to remember at what point of her stormy burn had she lost all track of time.

In her last memory everything was clouded and the rain was insistent falling on her face. She tried to remember a little bit more and immediately remembered about the poisonous beverage sliding down her throat and the intense pain her entire body had been through.

She couldn't understand how she could still be alive after so much pain, after feeling been burned alive. She couldn't understand how she wasn't feeling physically exhausted. Neither could she understand the clarity with which her eyes were showing her her surroundings; how her hands were feeling the smooth and precise pattern of the grass under her skin; how her nose was capable of gettin such a strong scent of pine and water making it all invade her system so accurately. She couldn't understand how her mind could be thinking of so many things at once and still not understand anything at all.

Suddenly, her ears listened to something moving through the trees, a sound so light but so precise that it managed to caught her attention. Her gaze immediately flew to the exact point where the noise came from. In the shadows where the sun rays couldn't reach she found the figure of a man staring straight at her. Fear immediately invaded her on the thought of him been Mathew. Her detective scenes awaken already thinking about how best to run away from him. And, before she can complete her escape plan inside her mind, her body was already on motion. Her torso thrust forward to get her up, her legs bent to push the ground with the soles of her feet and so her body flew backwards through the air until landing back on the ground in a second, her eyes frozen on the figure within forest.

She examined him quickly realizing that he wasn't who she thought. This young man whose eyes hadn't left her was not Mathew. This was a younger man. Taller than her, with long brown hair falling onto his shoulders, and a strangely white pale skin. Olivia stopped her inspection when the man slowly raised his hands as a sign of peace and gave a slight step forward making her give one backwards.

"I will not hurt you." He said in a whisper that flew through the big space between them and reached Olivia's ears clearly. Her eyes moved quickly to find the point where she was lying just seconds before. The surprise invaded her when she noticed that it was a distance too far for her to have traveled in a single bound. She turned back her gaze to the stranger that is already somewhat closer to her.

Her mind started working again quickly and without any clarity yet. She didn't know if to ask any questions. She didn't trust her voice at all after she had spent who knows how much time screaming her throat out. She tried to clear her throat and then she noticed the terrible burning that was still lodged there. The poisonous beverage coming to her mind.

"My name is Stephen." The stranger introduced himself while cautiously moving closer to her but stopping as soon as he noticed her muscles tensing. Now that he was closer she one part of her brain focused on him further and terror invaded her to notice the strange color in his eyes. "Do not be scare." He said his voice still low and calm in hope she would trust him. Which didn't work because Olivia's self preservation had her already thinking of running as fast as she could away from the stranger. And then she remembered her broken legs, which were now inexplicably keeping her standing firmly on the ground.

"You're scaring her, Stephen." A soft, sweet melodic voice was heard not far from them. Olivia eyes wondered around in the trees and in a blink a young woman appeared just beside the man. The woman looked too small next to the tall man and, for some reason, Olivia felt the need to withdraw her away from him. "Hello Olivia."

"How do you know my name?" She finally spoke surprising herself on how accurate and strong her voice was heard.

"I'm Megan." The blonde continued without answering her question. Clearly they were in this together. Olivia didn't waisted ay more time, she turned around and started running away from the strangers. The trees became a blurry wall around her and yet she had been able to elude each and one of them. She abruptly stopped starting to feel the panic growing in her chest. Her motionless chest.

"What the hell?" Olivia immediately noticed the stranger's presence behind her. She turned around facing them with discomfort. "What's happening?" She demanded to know in a growling shout.

"Calm down, Olivia." The blond woman advised giving her a nice smile. "In order for us to help you, you have to calm down and trust us." She stretched her hand cautiously offering it to Olivia. Olivia doubted a few seconds and finally nods her head but she didn't take the oh-so-pale woman's hand.

"What's happening?" She asked again somewhat calmer. "How am I..." 'Alive' She wasn't able to finish the question aloud. The woman kept her smile on while turning to face the man waiting for him to decide how to proceed.

"It will be easier if I show you." Stephen answered smiling at her for the first time exposing a perfect set of white teeth. Olivia nodded feeling a strange calm invade her chest as the man's smile warmed His words. "Well. Try to follow me okay?" He gave the instruction with a soft voice and without waiting for her to agree he turned towards the treetops finding a perfect spot. He bent his knees to propel and in a light and fast movement he was already standing up on a big branch. Olivia's eyes widen as they had been capable to witness each and every fraction of the movement the man had just done. It was totally impossible that in less than a second the man could had jumped so high and so far, and it was even more impossible that her eyes had been able to follow him.

"Your turn." The young woman said encouraging her to try and repeat the action. Olivia didn't quiet understand how it was that they were asking her to mimic that action. She had never been a clumsy woman but that agility was simply humanly impossible. Despite her negative thoughts when she looked down, her muscles were already in position to do it.

A strange security invaded her and she took a deep breath before pushing against the ground with her feet. Her entire body was soon in the air and her eyes focused on the huge tree trunk where her hands ended strongly wedded on a heartbeat. The wood cracked loudly under her fingers.

"Good. Now let go a little." The man was already beside her whispering the instruction into her ear. She let her fingers relax a bit until she feels completely safe. Her feet looked for the huge branch under her and she let them stand on it. "Good." The man complimented Olivia giving her another warm smile.

"Now, try to reach me." He said to her with a challenging tone. He jumped to the next tree as fast as his first jump but this time he didn't stop on his landing spot. He rather continued to the next tree and so on. Olivia's face lighted up with a huge smile and without thinking twice, following the sudden excitement that spread from her chest, she jumped directly behind him.

Her mind kept focused on more than three things at once. Her glare was glued to the young man's back moving in front of her taking a leap from the top of a large pine tree towards the ground. Her attention on each one of her own muscles which moved with an incredibly perfect agility and precision easily imitating the man's moves. Her periphery gaze and her ears fully aware of the young blonde woman who had been following them through the near branches and hadn't took her own eyes from her.

Her smell concentrated on the new scent that filled her lungs and a mental note made about the absence of the usual need to breathe. She could feel the light air the the leaves caused while falling from the trees at her path. The clarity with which she hears everything that surrounds them mesmerized her. She could swear she even heard the light sound caused by the movement of the tiny wings of a flying bee on a not so near flower.

She landed silently beside the man falling right in the middle of a triangle formed by three large pine trees. She expected to feel her rushing heartbeats and the normal fatigue in her muscles which she's used to feel after a good morning run. But, to her surprise, her body remained immobile and ready to continue. Stephen stared at her with an expression full of curiosity and evident surprise. The way she had imitated each and every of his moves had been perfect, but what really surprised him is the beauty and grace which she had made every movement.

"You are doing a good job." He said waiting for her reaction. But she said nothing, Olivia was strangely lost in her mind; aware of everything that surrounded them and surprised herself.

"Good? She was amazing! All the trees are intact!" The blonde woman jumped to their side expressing her own surprise without any break.

"This is..." Olivia found her voice and tried to use it to anchor herself to the present situation. "How... This doesn't explain anything." She complained looking the overexcited strangers with an expression full of doubt. "Am I dead?" She asked remembering the last experience she can remember being coherent. And it was nothing more that her own dead.

Stephen didn't answer. He just moved forward to face her so he could be able to read her expression. Once their eyes locked together she froze at their color. She had noticed it before but having them right in front of her face made them creepier. Both his eyes were tinted a brilliant scarlet red that resembled to a velvety soft fabric.

"Tell me what are you thinking? What do you suppose it's happening?" Olivia let out a big sigh frustrated by getting back a question instead of the answer. But she didn't complain, she tried to concentrate on any coherent reason for this all. Which was impossible because there was no logical reasoning for everything that she had just witnessed... that she had just done.

"Ahm" She was definitely a little lost in the movements, smells and sounds around her. It all seemed so clear and perfect that caused her some kind of dizziness. No the physical dizziness to which she is used to. It is rather a mental one that shakes all her mind. "It's a dream." She ensured thinking this may be the only coherent answer. "I'm in a hospital bed asleep. Maybe so medicated that I'm having this stupid and unreal dream." Stephen and Megan listened to her theory a bit disappointed with her little imagination. "In coma?"

"Olivia." Her name leaving the man's lips sounded hypnotizing to her.

"Why do you think you're dreaming?" Megan asked her with a friendly tone. Olivia just left out a nervous laugh which sound filled her ears. That sound didn't seemed to be her voice at all.

"Because, this is not possible!" She answered with the obvious reason. This all was pretty much looking as a dream.

"I need you to focus on your body." Stephen asked her without giving her any answers yet.

"I don't think that's a good idea." Olivia is shocked to hear a fourth voice coming among the trees and immediately her muscles reacted standing in attention.

"Don't worry." Megan said her touching her shoulder with extreme lightness. Olivia looked at the blonde to the eye but kept her peripheral view trying to find the owner of the new voice. The woman's face was perfect, a profile outlined in detail on her pale white skin. Her eyes are somehow too big for the rest of her face, and they shine warmly with a beautiful gold color.

But all that was noticed only by a fraction of Olivia's mind because she had already drawn her attention to the new man approaching them by foot.

"This is Mario. He won't hurt you. He is a friend of ours." Olivia's eyes turn to the exact place where the man was staring at her with a way too serious expression on his face. He was not as tall as Stephen but he definitively was taller than her. His brown hair was long but tied in a ponytail behind his head, and, Olivia couldn't help but notice, he possessed the same pale skin and golden color in his eyes as his so call friends. The doubts kept formulating inside her head.

"No more games." The new man said with a plaintiff voice. "This is extremely reckless." Olivia watched him with doubt not knowing why his sudden leader voice bothered her.

"This? What the hell is this!?"She demanded to know in an unconscious snarl.

"Olivia, this is not a dream." A part of her mind was already doing what Stephen had asked her to do. Analyzing her own body, part by part, starting with her feet that were perfectly placed on the ground, then her legs —her now not broken legs— holding her firmly, her motionless torso with no sign of her vital organ even been in there; her throat...

"Arrgh" She cried out of her chest feeling that unbearable burning again. Grateful to know that she no longer felt it all over her body anymore, but nevertheless it is extremely painful for her throat.

"Olivia, this is not a dream." As in que, the new stranger reassured her. "This is real."

Elliot flew back to Manhattan. He hadn't want to. He wanted to stay on the Adirondacks until he could find Olivia but Cragen had ordered him to go get some sleep. He hadn't fed or slept in the whole time they've spent on the searching. He was losing his mind. Odafin had helped convincing him by telling him it was a good idea to be back in the city in case Mathew awaken. Elliot ended up agreeing. He wasn't the only one having trouble sleeping. Everyone was working hard. Most of them already imagining the worst. He couldn't let himself get that thoughts in his mind.

Elliot dropped into her chair trying to regain a bit of encouragement. He looked at the picture of Olivia with her mother and felt his heart squeezed tightly. There was her face with her bright beautiful smile, her big brown eyes looking at him peacefully.

"I'll find you." He whispered the promise never taking his eyes from the image. A promise that he didn't plan to break. "I'm sorry." His eyes filled with burning tears.

The phone rang at his desk taking him out of the little hell that was beginning to form inside his mind. He rushed up to answer it hoping to receive the news that Mathew had already awakened. Or even better, hoping to get the call from the research team with the news of Olivia's appearance.

"Stabler." He answered.

"Elliot, I need you to come to my office." Across the line he could recognize Melinda's voice, the forensic. The shade of insecurity in her voice evident to Elliot.

"I'm on my way." He hang up and wasted no second to leave the office.

Hundredths of hypotheses were created in his mind while he was thinking what could Melinda have found. He felt the fear invading him knowing by the tone in her voice that it isn't something good.

Elliot entered the forensic office looking around to find the woman on the other side of the room.

"Mel! What did you find?" He required to know looking to the objects placed over the metal table in front of her. He can't help but feel a hole formed in his stomach when he recognized her pair of blouses.

"Elliot, I have... bad news." She took the coffee cup in her hands and showed it to him. "I analyzed the residues in this and found a highly dangerous toxic substance." Elliot listened carefully struggling to maintain his composure. "If... Ell, if Olivia drank this..." The strength in her voice cracked unable to continue. "No one could survive that." Elliot got his hands on the cold metal seeking some kind of stability unwilling to believe what he heard.

"We're not sure if she has taken it." He said aloud more to soothe himself and than for Melinda.

"The one who knows for sure is Mathew." The doctor said returning the cup to the table. She could watch how Elliot struggles to keep his calm.

"I know." He nodded agreeing with her, knowing that he had been waiting for the man to wake up in order to get the information he needed, but was so afraid to receive. "Found something else?" He asked staring at the other things. Melinda nodded knowing that it isn't any better than the one information already given.

"Yes I found some prints in the cup."

"From him?" Elliot asked knowing that it would help to put the man finally in jail.

"Yes. And from someone's lower lip." They stared at each other not daring to put in to words the terrible conclusion that could mean.

Stephen lead Olivia among the huge trees of the vast forest, maintaining a constant speed to make sure she didn't go out running. It's not a good idea she disappeared from their sight. Not at all.

Olivia was aware of the others who followed them. At her left flank, a few feet away from her, Megan was following them studding the area making sure there were no people around. No humans. At her other flank a shadow moved with the same agility fixing his whole attention on Olivia. Mario. Her feet rarely touch the ground as she continued her way following Stephen.

They had promised to explain more once they were back at their home, and had asked her to follow them there. Home. The word somehow made her trust. Partially. Her surprise was still immense. She knew that she was running incredibly fast, she even believed that maybe she was flying, but, no matter how fast she was moving, if she focused she could still see everything around her with precision and detail. Just as if she was taking her usual morning run at Central Park. 'Incredible' She thinks clearly hearing her voice in a special part of her mind.

When they reach a small lake Stephen decided to stop. Olivia noticed the sudden change and easily jumped beside him. She looked into the fresh water and didnt think twice before running to the shore and, without hesitation, bent over the river filling her hands with the vital liquid to carry it to her mouth. She thought this would help to soothe the burning in her throat. She frowned when no change was made. The water run through her mouth down her throat and seemed to evaporate right there. "Agh" She complained facing the strangers.

"What is this feel..." She began asking but was stopped mid sentence by the strange look on Stephen's eyes. "What?" She turned around looking for what they were staring at.

A big deer remained immobile across the lake watching them with awe. The wind blowed lightly hitting Olivia's face and filled her lungs with a whole new scent. Her ears were able to capture the only heart that was desperate beating across the water. This got her mouth filled with a strange cold liquid and intensified the burning in her throat. Megan approached her with the intention of stopping her actions but Stephen didn't aloud her.

"Let her haunt. Is the best way to explain it." Mario observed with discomfort from his spot but didn't intervene.

Olivia was conscious of their words but her eyes were fixed in the deer, who took an insecure step backwards. This little movement was enough to turn on Olivia's muscles. She looked at the distance between one bank and another easily calculating the length between them. In less than a second her body was in the air ready to land on her feet catching the deer between her arms.

A thunderous noise was heard in the forest at the moment the animal felt to the ground followed by a moan caused by the pain of its broken ribs. Without giving it a thought Olivia's fangs were already against the animal's jugular.

"This is not a good idea." Mario said watching the wild woman at the other side of the lake. Stephen rolled his eyes and ignored him jumping to a nearby rock in order to have a better view of Olivia's hunting. Megan approached Mario and embraced him against her body.

"We broke a rule." He said not answering the embrace.

"Quiet my love. Nobody will know." Megan tried to calm him.

"Meg, was she going to die?" The man asked her knowing that she was the only one able to answer that question. Stephen overheard the question and turned to face his blonde friend wanting to know the answer too.

"Yes." Megan said with confident. "But it was different this time." The attention of the two men focused on the blonde who didn't know how to continue.

"What do you mean?" Stephen encouraged her to continue wanting to know if their experiment had the reaction they expected.

"I saw her die but. It was blurry for a moment. Quite interesting to see and hard to understand." The young woman tried to explain something she hadn't had the time to understand herself.

"You and your experiments." Mario complained turning back his attention to Olivia but, for his surprise, he could only find the lifeless deer on the other side of the lake. "Damn it!"

TO BE CONTINUED...

AN: stay safe. I hope to update soon.