"Hey, can't you hear me little bird?" A voice spoke sweetly to me. What happened? Where am I? I opened my eyes slowly, not sure what to expect. I really have to stop waking up like this. "How are you feeling? You had a nasty fall back there." A bright eyed blonde with a big smile was looking down at me.
"What…what happened?" I croaked out. "I was hoping you could tell me, you were almost a goner. What were you doing out there? Are you insane or just stupid?" The memories started to come back, pained to realize that it wasn't just a terrible nightmare. I'm still stranded in the wilderness, but now I have a savior I suppose. He's right, he's the only reason I'm alive. "Thank you." I said. "It's nothing, if I was you I'd be praying for someone as handsome as me to come to my rescue too!" He chuckled, but I didn't think it was funny.
"If you want to thank me you can start by telling me your name." He held put an arm around my shoulders to help support me to sit up. "I…don't know."
"You don't know?" He asked confused. "Who are you?" I asked "Why are you helping me?" He seems to be friendly enough, but I don't know anything about him. "Well I guess we should get acquainted hmm? For starters, my name is Makoto, I'm one of the three head messengers…" "A messenger? A messenger for whom?"
"Wow! You certainly are full of questions little bird. I didn't even finish! I am the lead messenger for the Jasmine Empire, I was running my daily routes when I saw 'The Stray' go on the hunt after something, and that something turned out to be someone." He poked my collarbone, gesturing that I was that 'someone' he's mentioning.
"The 'Stray'? What's a Stray?" Nothing about today makes sense.
"Well, a 'stray' is an expired soul that has wondered so long looking for its 'purpose' that it eventually lost its way in this world and in the end, lost itself entirely. They can't move-on to the next life, but they don't belong in this one either, they are eternally trapped in-between and become a shadow of both." Makoto explained. I let this new information sink in, so those things that chased me were lost souls without purpose? "Why can't they move on?" "Good question, some say it's because they don't know how, and others say because they did something so sinful in life that took away the privilege of eternal rest, I guess you actually have to be one to know the real answer." "Why are they so aggressive?" I asked.
"Well little bird, you see when you become lost for as long as they have you begin to lose your mind of what is real and what isn't, but natural instinct tells them to find a way out. However, they cannot do so without a living body." "So they were trying to…possess me?" "Not you, your body." He corrected. "If they did possess my body, what would happen to me? My soul?" "Who knows! Maybe you would be trapped, maybe your soul would be pushed out and doomed to roam, and maybe you would become a stray yourself! I don't know."
"Why did they stop moving like that?" Makoto seems to know allot about this place, maybe he can help me find a way out of here…maybe. He walked over to a nearby stump of a fallen tree and placed his pack besides it before he sat in front of it to lean against the oak wood. He lifted his arms behind his head to stretch out to a more comfortable position. I decided to walk to his position to also lean against the stump. "It's a spell, a holding spell to be exact, it's temporary, but it provides some good cover, easy to cast too. Lucky for you I was in the area or you would be one of them by now little bird" "What?! Do you mean a magic spell?" "All spells are magic! What other types of spells are there?" he exclaimed, it's all starting to come together now, I've obviously been flung into some kind of sick fairy tale! My head is spinning with the endless possibilities of how I might have gotten here.
"Now I have a question for you, little bird. Why are you dressed like that? Are you a slave or something?" I looked down at my hospital gown and stupid pink shoes. "What? No! I'm not anyone's slave!" I said defensively. "Then what is it?" he tugged on the tie string on my shoulder, I shrugged him off. "It's a hospital gown I guess." I answered truthfully. "Hos-pi-tall?" He tested how the word tasted rolling off his tongue. "Never heard of him, you're not from around here are you?" He pointed out. I nodded. "What are you even doing out here?" His brows pushed together in confusion.
"Why should I trust you?" I glared at him, he's starting to get annoying. "Well, why should I trust you? For all I know you could be a cute little trap." He asked back raising one brow. I really don't know how to respond to that. "I guess neither of us knows if we can trust each other, and yet we are sitting here, talking things out anyway." He said "If we meant each other harm we would have done something to each other by now hmm?" He made a sly closed mouth smirk. I guess he does have a point, but I should still be cautious none the less. "I guess so, it's just I feel like I've been trying to find my way out forever yet nothing makes sense and I've gotten nowhere. I'm so tired it's starting to get to my head…" I rubbed my tired eyes and looked at the stars peeking between the trees. He slouched to look at my face "I know how you feel, it shows in your scent." "What? My scent, really?"
"Of course! Scent is pretty much the basics of communication after all, everyone knows that." "You can see my scent?" I'm confused. "Well no I can't see your scent, I can read it. What you can't read scents?" "Um, no I've never been able to read scents. I don't think I've meet anyone who can." "My sense of smell isn't that great, it's because I'm just a half-bred. My mother's Okami, but my father was a human. If I was full Okami I would be able to pick up auras too…"
"Wait! You're not human?!" What the fuck is going on with my life right now? He burst into laughter. "My! What a silly little bird you are, of course I'm not! Living humans haven't set foot in this world for centuries! You really thought I was human?" he couldn't hold back the chuckles. "But, I'm human!" I pointed to myself. "Hmmm." He inhaled deeply "you don't smell like a human." He shrugged.