CHAPTER THREE

That night Koji lay awake, lost in thought about the events of the day. Takuya was sound asleep by now. His mom had ended up letting him stay another night. He had a feeling he was going to spend a lot of his time this break with his best friend.

As he laid half unconscious, drifting into a deep sleep, his mind wondered around different paths. His dream, would he dream it again tonight? Who was that girl in the dream? What was the gold flash he saw earlier from the forest? What had REALLY happened to Jamie on the tire swing? And what force lay in the forest?

xxxxx

He halted at the edge of the frozen pond. It was damp and grey. Mist smothered his face. That girl, he had to get nearer to her. What did she want? But she didn't make the fragalist move, she just stood, lifeless. Was she real? He felt something very mysterious about her. She was the force that was calling for him.

Koji lift his foot slowly out onto the solid ice. Mist floated all around him. He could hardy see the girl. He slid closer and closer to the gloomy girl. She almost looked frozen, but Koji could feel she was alive. He slipped nearer and with every step his heart hammered on his chest, harder and harder.

Faintly, whispers started surrounding him. Where were they coming from? The echo's got louder and louder in his head and when he was and inch away from putting his hand on her shoulder he focus on the soft sobbing he herd in his head. The crying and weeping got louder as his trembling hand came closer to resting on her shoulder. He was too spooked to say anything. But then what was he doing hear in the first place?

He placed his hand on her shoulder and a scream screeched through his head. The girl was still. She was warm but dull and damp from the mist. A sort of sad, confusing and frustrating pain surged through his body and he immediately removed his hand from her shoulder. Minutes seemed like hours as they ticked by and Koji stood ice still, waiting for something to happened. His heart was so wild he could feel the pulse in his ears.

Without warning the girl swung around, eye's flickering as she moved. Her hair swayed and then with a quick move of her hand she raised it and shot a green bright light at Koji, pushing him father away.
"What do you want with me?" Koji yelled as he was blasted backwards.
A girl's voice whispered in his head like a breeze passing by and slowly was lost in the distance...

Koji gasped as he shot upright in his bed, trying to breath quieter he looked around. A cold sweat dripped from his face. Then he knew that the girl was in the forest right now. Glimpsing at the clock as he flung out of bed and he noticed it was the earlier hours again, 5:46 am.
"Takuya!" he tried to wake his friend, "She's out there! She out there now! I can FEEL her!"
Takuya groaned and suddenly realized what was happening, "What? Where are you going? Ok, I'm coming!"

Koji forced his coat on not even bothering to do it up, laced up his shoes and burst out the back door, Takuya on his heels. Back lane the force he felt got stronger in a more intense way, the girl, she was close by.

His lungs felt like they would catch fire at any moment when he reached the pond. His heart almost came up through his mouth as he saw a girl sitting on the ice, fiddling with her skates beside her. It was her. The girl from his dreams. The one he was being drawn too. Koji stepped out onto the ice and the girl quickly looked up at Koji, meeting his gaze and fled, flinging her skates over her shoulder. Koji tried to go after her put slipped and fell on the ice.
"WAIT!" Koji called after the girl as disappeared into the fog. But she was gone.

As Koji lay stomach first on the ice he drew in huge gasps of hair and breathed out making steam clouds from his mouth.
Takuya walked over to Koji on the frozen water, "She sure took off fast."
"Yeah...No kidding. It's almost as if we never saw her. Why on earth would she take off so fast! As if she was afraid..." Koji got up.
Takuya was lost for words as stared at the route the girl took off down, "I don't know."
"Something is weird about her. Something is very wrong all together! But I need to find her...Some how," Koji turned around to go back home.