Young Writers Society

Alistair continued to walk, taking Riss's silence as a 'yes' to his question. She didn't have to say it out loud. Her silence was telling enough.

He continued to rub the stones in his pocket and didn't think much more of her words, but then he no longer heard her footsteps, and she whispered him a question.

Did he see?

Alistair raised a brow and stopped walking. Why was Riss being so ominous and cryptic? She was being needlessly dramatic. It reminded him of a certain someone, and it started to annoy him.

He turned around, washing away the irritation from his face and voice in case she was scared. And she was. Her lip seemed to quiver and her face was pink, like she was nervous. But for what? Was something about to happen that he didn't sense? He quickly scanned their surroundings again before returning his eyes on hers when he didn't detect anything.

He wished he cold read her cold blue eyes. They seemed to hold on to secrets he didn't understand.

"See... what?" he asked, still not understanding. "Your power?"

Riss didn’t notice the confusion in his tone. Her mind was stuck on its track as her hands started to shake again. He knew the whole time.

“You saw what happened in the clearing?” Riss muttered, her speech speeding up with her breaths. “You saw my wings disintegrate?” She could hardly understand the words coming out of her own mouth.

She started to back away again. The more he looked at her, the more certain she was that she had made a mistake. He was studying her, looking her up and down and seeing the smaller, frailer used-to-be-angel she was, and she didn’t know what she wanted, but all of this was a mistake. It had to be.

“You must have known,” she muttered again, not sure if she was speaking to him anymore. “I’m so stupid.”

Riss was painfully aware that she didn’t have a weapon, and the path was very narrow. Claustrophobic even, seemingly closing in on her as she stood. She didn’t know how fast this man could be, but she hoped that maybe she could be faster. Her legs itched and her mind screamed, Run. Get away.

Before he could respond, she ducked into the brush at her side.

Alistair stared at Riss, trying to read her eyes and figure out what was running through her mind. He wished he knew. But also, he didn't. She seemed like trouble.

"Wings?" he echoed stupidly as she started to back away.

The feathers? Well, he figured that they were from wings, but bird's wings. She said they were her wings. Humans couldn't have wings, even with powers. Right? Science couldn't explain that. That was a biological constraint that simply wasn't possible.

Alistair had no idea what she was saying. Honestly, he figured that her concussion was worse than he thought, and she was spouting random nonsense.

"Riss," he began with a sigh as she began to back away faster. He didn't like how she looked at him like he was a predator. "I have no idea what you are talking about. I was taking samples, and I heard a noise, so I..."

But she suddenly ran away, out of earshot and view, through the woods.

Alistair stared at her body disappear in the darkness of the trail, and he let out another sigh.

Well. Now she was one less thing to worry about. At least he couldn't say that he didn't try to help.

He turned back around to walk down the path, and as if it could detect that Riss wasn't nearby, some flying squirrels landed next to his foot. He softly smiled, slowly kneeling down to meet its beady curious eyes.

"I bet she freaks you out as much as she freaks me out, isn't that right?" he cooed with a small pat of its head. The squirrel kept staring up at him, not fazed by his touch, which he knew would happen, of course. Somehow, these little guys didn't have any nerve receptors on their heads.

He let out another sigh, glancing back where Riss ran off. "Well," he said out loud, starting to reach in his bag. "Can't help to get another sample of you, just in case."

But then his hand reached the many soft feathers, and he let out an annoyed groan. She insisted on keeping these damn feathers, but then she ran away without them. Was this an elaborate ruse or trap of some kind?

Alistair picked up a gray feather by the stem, studying it again. Maybe he could take these to the lab too. What would he find..?

He didn't have any time to dwell on the thought, because the next noise he heard made his stomach drop.

A growl. No, a roar. A ferocious roar.

He could recognize it. He ran into one some weeks ago and barely ran away in time, so he had done his best to avoid getting close to its natural habitat, deciding it wasn't worth sampling.

But then it dawned on him: Riss ran into that direction.

She had awakened the horned bear.

Alistair immediately stood up and looked towards the roar's direction with wide eyes, feeling his heart thump against his throat. His body was screaming to run, but his brain was screaming for him to go after Riss who was obviously mentally unstable and, potentially, useless at fighting.

His mind played this mental tug of war between risk and safety, and after two seconds of intense deliberation, he gritted his teeth and threw his bag on the ground next to him, sprinting after the noise.

"Riss!" he yelled loudly, hoping to get her attention as well as the horned bear's. "Don't do anything stupid!" he blurted out loudly as well, because he had a feeling he truly did need to emphasize that.

Alistair heard another roar, softer now, and he finally stopped to see what caused the commotion. He only had a split second to observe his surroundings, but he could see Riss pinned against a tree while the horned bear looked over at Alistair with anger.

He—which, as a mammal biologist, Alistair instantly picked up, not that he was particularly looking for it—was extremely muscly with long legs and hooved claws, his whole body covered in matted black fur. His loud snout had teeth the size of fingers, and his beady black eyes stared back at him as his long round ears perked up. He guffawed and rubbed his hoof on the ground before charging towards him with his knife-sharp antlers pointed at him.

In panicked moment, Alistair threw the stones in his pocket at the horned bear and then somersaulted passed him. He immediately landed back on his feet and then ran towards Riss, snatching her arm, and then sprinting away into the forest in a zig-zag pattern.

Horned bears were fast, but they take a while to turn around and reorient themselves.

And most of all, they hated fire.

Alistair didn't look to see how it affected him, but after the stones were thrown, they caught on fire and ignited into a plume of smoke and combustion right when the horned bear ran into it. He heard a loud painful yelp from the animal, but he continued to run through the woods, not caring that he was forcefully dragging Riss around.

He was right with one thing, at least.

This girl was trouble.