Chapter 3

The Freak Out

Kassidy's head was pounding as she slowly woke. Her vision was blurry and she tried to see clearly what was going on around her. She gingerly rubbed her head but didn't move anything else. She wasn't paralyzed, but she didn't want to move.

As Kassidy's vision came into focus, she expected to still be in her jeep or somewhere where she was getting treated for her injuries. Kassidy remembered driving Holden back home and they were arguing and that's when she accidentally summoned the magic from her necklace. And that's when things were getting terrifying as the jeep went out of control and that's all she could remember. Instead, she found herself awoken inside somewhere else.

Kassidy slowly sat up and looked around her. It certainly did not look anything like a building, instead, it looked wooded. As she took in her surroundings, she could tell that this place wasn't just wooded, it looked very old. It wasn't a house, but she knew immediately that she was inside a tree.

How did I get in here? Kassidy thought.

As Kassidy kept looking around she noticed a bat was on his back with his eyes closed. He was an iris purple color, with a light brown mane. Kassidy then noticed the angular fringe brown hair that looked exactly like Holden's and that's when she felt like she was going to be sick. It was Holden. And just like Kassidy, he was a bat.

Oh, no…

Kassidy didn't want this to happen, but it did. She accidentally turned not only her but Holden into bats. She was screwed.

She wanted to get Holden out of here, transform them back into humans, and maybe try to get him home without him waking up; thinking that maybe he was dreaming and that nothing actually happened. But when she looked at her neck, her necklace was nowhere to be seen. It wasn't around her neck. The only piece of jewelry that was around her neck was her choker. Kassidy's stomach dropped and she tried to calm down, but she could feel her heart racing.

She then heard Holden groaning and she looked to see that he was flickering, his eyelids open. Kassidy flew over to Holden and then she got on her knees as soon as she got to his side. As she looked at him, she noticed that his injuries looked tended to. There were leaves on him and that's when she noticed the leaves on herself. The leaves were stuck to them like glue and they made no movement of falling off of them. Kassidy was then sure that they got rescued by someone, but who rescued them?

"Holden?" Kassidy asked, worried. "Holden, you alright?"

Holden's eyes were half opened as he turned his head to look at Kassidy. As Holden looked at Kassidy he looked confused. But as he got a good look at Kassidy, his eyes went really wide. His eyes were in shock and fear.

He then screamed.

He abruptly scooted away from Kassidy and was breathing hard and was freaking out. Kassidy held her hands up and tried to move towards Holden. "Holden, calm down!"

"Get away from me, you freaky rodent!"

"Holden, it's me, Kassidy!"

Holden got up and tried to run, but because he had wings he ended up falling-hitting face first-to the ground. Holden groaned in pain.

Kassidy clenched her teeth in shock. That's gotta hurt…

"What happened?" Asked a masculine voice. "Is everything alright?" When Kassidy turned to see who it was, she was surprised to see a silver-haired bat near an opening of a hole. He had a goatee, light blue fur, a cream-colored mane, dark blue wings, and yellow eyes. He was looking at them worried. "Everyone heard screaming in here."

Kassidy didn't want to believe it, but this bat was actually talking to them. She had no idea that animals could even talk. Even when she transformed into a certain animal she had no idea because she was having her own fun. She thought this only happened in stories, but this was real life and this wasn't a story.

"You bats are talking!" Kassidy looked at Holden and he was looking from her to the other bat. "This can't be real, this can't be real! I gotta be dreaming because talking animals don't exist! I'm in a hospital right now, I'm getting help, and this is all a dream!" Holden put his hands in his hair. "This is not real!"

Kassidy flew over to Holden and landed near him. "Holden, you're not dreaming, this is real."

Holden looked at Kassidy. "You're not real! You're just a dream and I want this dream to stop! I wanna wake up!"

"Holden, get a hold of yourself!" Kassidy all the sudden backslapped Holden across the face. She heard the silver-haired bat gasp. Holden covered the cheek Kassidy slapped startled. His mouth was wide open as he looked back at Kassidy. "Listen! You're not dreaming and like I said before it's me, Kassidy. I'm a bat and I don't know if you noticed or not but you're a bat as well."

Holden put down his hand from his cheek and he looked at himself and as he did, Kassidy saw his confusion. He looked at his fur, his mane, his wings, and anything else he could see on him. He was touching himself to make sure he wasn't actually losing his mind and as he did so, Kassidy could tell he was slowly shaking. She knew Holden's reaction would've been like this and this was why she wanted to transform him back to his human self. But because she didn't have her necklace on her she couldn't do that.

As Holden was looking and touching himself, the silver-haired bat got next to Kassidy. "Is your friend alright?" Kassidy looked at the silver-haired bat and he was looking at Holden like he was an animal that he's never seen before.

Kassidy rubbed her neck and still couldn't believe this bat could even talk. "Umm… he's not used to anything like this and there's a good reason for it… The thing is, is that he's not actually a bat and neither am I…" The silver-haired bat looked at Kassidy confused. "We're humans…"

The silver-haired bat's eyes went wide.

"I'm a bat…" Kassidy looked back at Holden. "No! I'm a bat! I'm a freak! I'm one of the ugliest creatures that exist on this planet! How did this-" Holden stopped in his sentence and he looked at Kassidy and Kassidy saw there was a realization in his eyes. Holden then narrowed his eyes. "You did this to me! You turned me into a bat with that magical necklace of yours! You're a witch!"

Kassidy sighed and rubbed her temples. She then looked back at Holden. "Okay, I admit, I'm a witch! I didn't mean to turn you into a bat I was just angry with you that I wasn't thinking straight."

"My day just keeps getting worse and worse. First I have you for a tutor, my dad cuts me off, and now thanks to you I'm now inside a body of a bug-eating freak!"

Kassidy looked at the silver-haired bat and he still had his eyes wide open. Kassidy knew this looked like a bad time to be arguing with Holden. "Umm… sorry, if this is disturbing you… You probably don't hear things like that every day."

The silver-haired bat cleared his throat. "It's true… I don't. I don't hear bats saying that they're either human or witches."

"So do you believe us? We mean no harm."

"You say that you two are humans and now that I've heard all this I'm starting to believe you."

Holden walked over to Kassidy and got next to her. "Is it that obvious?"

"Now that I think about it, it does make sense. A Silverwing in the colony saw you two in this human contraption unconscious."

Kassidy and Holden looked at the silver-haired bat confused. Silverwing? Kassidy thought about it and the more she did the more she figured that's what these bats called themselves. It would make sense to call them Silverwings because they were silver-haired bats. She liked that.

"Silver what now?" Holden asked.

"Silverwing, that's the name of our colony."

"How long have we been out for?" Kassidy asked.

The Silverwing looked at Kassidy. "You've been out for almost a day; it's good to know though that you two are okay. My name is Mercury; I'm the scout and messenger of this colony."

"I'm Kassidy and this is Holden."

"It's nice to meet the both of you and I also believe that you two are not harmful. Since you two are awake the elders might want to see you two, but before we go I have to go grab someone. You two wait here and I'll be right back." And with that, Mercury took off through the hole he came in through.

Holden looked at Kassidy with the same confusion when Mercury mentioned the name Silverwing. "Elders?"

Kassidy looked at Holden. "They're probably the ones that run this colony."

Kassidy couldn't believe that they've been out for almost a day. At this point, her Uncle, Aunt, and the rest of the family were probably worried about her because she's been gone a while. Especially her cousins because she said she would read them a bedtime story when she got home. It was too late now to read them a bedtime story. She could already see them get upset because she wasn't home.

She also thought that Holden's family was worried about him. Sure, he was a troublemaker, but that didn't mean they didn't love him. He, after all, did have a life back where he lived and even though he gets on Kassidy's nerves a lot she knew she had to get him home. She also had to get herself home.

"So... your family has magic?" Holden asked.

"Not all of my family members," Kassidy said. Since he now knew of her magic, she decided that there was no point in hiding this-even though she wished she knew how to do a forgetting spell, but she didn't know how to do it properly. "I take my magic from both my Mom and Dad's side of the family."

"Who doesn't have magic in your family?"

"My Aunt and my cousins don't but my Uncle does have magic, but he doesn't really know how to use it because he didn't want to focus on that."

Holden looked at himself again and then he looked back at Kassidy. "Are you… good with magic?"

"Not really… I'm not very experienced with magic. I still have a lot to learn if I'm to master all these complicated spells." Well… at least he's settled down… for now.

She didn't know him very well and this made her worry if he'll spill the beans and tell everyone her secret. Although, she probably wouldn't have to worry about that… unless he had proof. She had to know for sure.

"You won't tell anyone will you?"

"Well, I won't be telling anyone right now because no one knows where we are. We can't stay like this though. We have to get back home."

"Alright, alright. So we'll just find my jeep, get my necklace, and as soon as we do, we'll transform back into humans and we'll forget that this ever happened."

Holden threw up his arms and then threw them back down. "Great, you lost your necklace, that's just great. We don't even know where your jeep is."

"Well Mercury did mention a Silverwing seeing us in my jeep, so maybe we could ask him or her to show us where the jeep is and then once we get to my jeep I'll grab the necklace. But I need to know though that if I transform you back into a human you won't tell anyone about my secret."

Kassidy didn't trust others easily, she mostly trusted her family. She never really trusted anyone unless they looked to be innocent and didn't want to cause trouble. If Holden couldn't keep this a secret then she knew for sure she had to learn that forgetting spell.

"So if you transform me back into my human self you want me to keep this a secret?"

"Pretty much."

Kassidy watched as Holden was thinking while looking at the ground. Pick wisely, party animal.

After a minute of thinking, Holden looked back at Kassidy. "Fine, if you transform me back into my normal self I won't tell anyone you're a witch."

"Deal."

Kassidy and Holden extended their hands towards each other and they then shook on it.

A/N- Hey, guys, sorry I took so long, I was busy with preparing for basketball. So far I've been having a boring summer, but I've been excited to get back to this story. So I was planning on making this longer, but I decided to instead focus on Kassidy and Holden now being stuck as bats. The next chapter I will be focusing on these two meeting the elders, Shade, and Ariel. Plus you'll be seeing more of the two figures from the first chapter. Until then, be prepared for the next upcoming chapter. Later.