"Maw…"

"Shush, you furball."

Siam the Cat had been mewing, or rather maawing, for hours, and I was really amazed at the resistance of these critters: you can step on their tails, yell at them, stop feeding them for days, ignore them completely and let them caterwaul all night long, but they'll never give up or just fall asleep out of fatigue.

"Maw." The cat took a short pause to jump on the front seat from the back and paw it for a moment, before sitting face to me and starting her concert again.

"Shuddup!" I was getting very annoyed. I was trying to study, but with a background soundtrack such as a bored cat, it was becoming very hard to focus and actually learn something. Although in that case it would have been hard for me to actually learn something from that book: I knew it like the back of my hand.

If it wasn't with Val's unconditional love for this thing, I'd have thrown it out of the window a long time ago. I'm not cold-hearted or anything, but a girl has limits, limits this cat loves to cross. All the time.

My car was parked at the entrance of small woods. Any other normal girl would have been scared to stay more than ten seconds around here, but not me. I played in these woods when I was a kid, and knew the forest by heart. That was why I had wanted to come here: everyone else was frightened, so the place was perfectly quiet. Except for the constant noises of the cat, of course.

"Maaaw."

"That's it! I have had it!"

As quickly as I could, to prevent the cat from dodging and bouncing over me, I literally jumped on her, caught her with both hands and trapped her in the glove box in front of her.

"There. All nice, cozy and quiet."

Somewhere around eleven, I got tired of the muffled maws and afraid she'd pooped on my papers. Taking a little cat-leash from my travel bag, I frowned when my hand met with something wet and sticky. When I took a closer look, I saw an open pot of what seemed to be… jell-o. Val had wanted to put a snack in my bag. And like every time she tried to do that, it had ended up with a mess. Mess I had to clean myself. I took a tissue and wiped my fingers while wondering when she had had access to my bag.

Twisting and turning myself so as to reach the glove box, I pushed a button and the little door opened, making way for an enraged, spitting and scratching cat. I wasn't scared though, having been around for some time. I was used to see this cat pitch a fit every now and then, and I knew exactly how to deal with it.

When I was finally done, the cat was all tied up and could merely jump from the high seat and walk a few inches before being, roughly, pulled back. Taking one last second to grab my bag, we, the cat, the bag and I, settled out for a trip into the woods.

I was surprised to find the woods completely changed. Once clear and green even under the pale light of the moon, the grass was now thicker, longer and darker than ever before. The trees had grown taller and the shadows they were projecting at me were quite frightening. The air was heavy, charged with some kind of negative vibe, and a cold breeze blew on my bare arms. Shivers ran down my spine, and my whole body shook for a moment. This place was giving me the creeps.

Suddenly, I found myself worried for the cat. Not that I liked it or anything, but a very annoying voice inside of me kept screaming that Val would be mad at me until we turned eighty if I ever lost her beloved, toe-munching companion. I took a deep breath and coughed. Dust. Allergies… next sneeze in five seconds!

"Ah… Ah… Atchoo!" The sound of my sneeze echoed for seconds, and another came. Then another, and another. Stupid forest. Stupid place, stupid Val!

"Kitty? Get back in here or I'll…" before I even had time to finish my threatening monologue, a tree attacked me. Or rather… a branch attacked my forehead. I'm still not sure, but whatever may have happened, I know I landed on my butt. Again. The thing was, this tree was really bigger than the others, and the branch that hit me was as thick as my leg!

Now, I might not be a biologist, but trees that tall shouldn't be allowed to exist! They're a danger for people like me! People who, might I add, are already a danger to themselves. Clumsy like me, it's hard to find. I have always had the nasty habit to bang my head or shoulder —or any other part of my anatomy— against anything and everything, varying from doorframes to annoying things like tree branches.

With the shock, my bag spread its content on the grass. When I kneeled to pick up my things, I noticed something else I didn't know I had taken with me: a book. Well, not any book, it was Val's perfectly kept and beautifully illustrated copy of the Lord of the Rings. She had probably borrowed my bag, placed it in (she never travels without that book) and forgotten it here. But there again, it's weird. She NEVER leaves it behind…

Indeed, it was strange. I would have expressed my puzzlement aloud... But I had no time to do so. Thick haze covered the floor, adding to the hale of light that emanated from the book. I couldn't hear the sweetly annoying song of the crickets anymore. I couldn't even see what was in front of me so much it was bright and blinding.

At that point, I should have screamed, ran for my life of fainted.

But I couldn't.

I was just stuck, my feet wouldn't move. Light surrounded me and I almost immediately lost contact with reality… to never regain it. My eyes closed, and I thought I was dying. I felt my body twist and turn in the air, or whatever else it might have been, and I probably stood there, in the middle of a place —no word in any of the four languages I spoke could fit for a description— no one else but me would ever know.

Suddenly, if such word can be used since time seemed to have stopped, I felt a violent pain inside, and yet I couldn't tell where it came from. My heart, my lungs… I wasn't even aware of them anymore. It felt like my soul was being ripped from my body, taken away by some invisible hand and put aside in a security chamber, far away from me.

The next second, I was sitting astride on a large branch. The only thing was that I wasn't alone in this tree. Next to me, leaning on the thick trunk, was a man. Or at least it looked like one.

On second thought, it wasn't a man. It had some kind of freaky pointy ears … abnormally long blonde hair… he really reminded me of someone… someone I saw at least two times a day, every time I tried getting my lipgloss back from Val's room…

The 'man' turned slowly his head towards me. Blue eyes, high cheekbones, strong jaw, thin lips…

I screamed.

I was so panicked, I forgot for a moment the fact that I was up in a tree. And I backed up, so did he. But, you know, the funny thing about trying to hold on to something that doesn't exist is that sometimes, you happen to fall. And that's exactly what I did.

Before everything came black, I noticed something extremely weird: the sun. It might have sounded awkward at the time, but now that I think about it… I swore it was nighttime back in the forest.

When I woke up from what must have been a really long sleep, a sweet and forest-like smell reached teased my nostrils. My head was resting on something soft, like a cushion, and a silky cloth covered my body up to my shoulders. Murmurs rose from around me when I moved an arm to rub my aching head.

Cracking open one eye, then the other, I saw two huge, deep blue eyes staring at me. Once again, I screamed; and once again, the blonde head stood back in surprise.

"You!?! Again!?!" I yelled towards him. "All of you!?!" I turned to where the whispers came from to find three familiar yet unknown faces looking at me. "Can't you people just leave me alone??"

For a moment, I thought I had fallen asleep in the car, and was currently dreaming. But my head was throbbing and my back hurt like after a very intense dance practice. I wasn't dreaming.

"You are hurt" the elder said, reaching for something on a side table.

"Hey, I fell from a tree, wouldn't that be normal?!?"

All the old men looked at each other, visibly surprised, and consulted each other for a moment in an unknown language. Something about the unknown tongue reminded me of Elvish, like that spoken in the Lord of the Rings movies. Val's favorite movie…

"We will leave you to rest."

And they left, one behind the other, still chattering in their strange and flowing tongue. I sighed loudly, hoping for someone to hear it. I needed something to wake my body up, but how could I pick it up if even leaning on my elbows was terribly painful?

I stared at the ceiling for a moment. It was quite interesting, really. But what amazed me most of all was the view. There were no windows to speak of. In fact, the wall was literally cut open and left that way. From my bed, I could see mountains, waterfalls, trees and houses.

The whole room was bathed with the warm light of mid-morning. Having gone camping several times a year with my parents for over ten years, I knew quite well how to determine the time of the day from the position of the sun, yet in such circumstances, I was uncertain.

I heard a door open and close, and padded footsteps coming towards me. I didn't bother to turn around, though, because I knew my neck was not in the right state for such acrobatics. I felt someone sit next to me on the bed and lean on their arm, as if waiting for something to happen. A voice finally rose behind me.

"Where do you come from, stranger?"