There, there, it's okay - listen, nature is speaking - your worries will fade

"What?" I really didn't get what he was trying to do.

"You are a human. I am a forest spirit." He repeated in his overly calm tone of voice. It was like he was reciting a text infront of class. Quite annoying.

"Yes. I am Human. You are Spirit." I said back in his stupid voice. 

He just stared at me with a blank face.

"You don't find anything weird about that?" 

"Well, I thought spirits would be floating in the air and haunting their descendants for fun or something." I wasn't having his shit.

He shook his head like he was disappointed by my response.

"Well I'm not dead yet, as you can see," he stated matter-of-factly. 

Is he full on messing with me?

"Me neither, so, now that we got that out of the way, mind telling me how you appeared from thin air?" 

He smirked.

"Well, you fell on me."

Yep, he's messing with me. 

"Humans can't see spirits unless we touch eachother," he kept on lecturing.

"We see you though." 

I tried to understand what he was saying. 

He appeared from thin air because I stumbled and fell. I guess I must have hit my head pretty hard there.

"I get now what dad meant when he said humans are idiots," he thought out loud.

"Yeah, thanks, I know," I said, almost automatically.

He chuckled and leaned back on the little hill.

"You'll believe anything to avoid accepting the fact that things that can't be explained exist in this world."

Wow, he almost sounded like a philosopher there. I don't think hallucinations are supposed to break the fourth wall.

He suddenly slapped my leg. Pretty hard at that.

"Ow, what the hell?"

He nodded.

"You felt that right? I definitely felt the sting of your prickly leg on my hand. Can't be dreaming then right?"

I was about to hit him with a witty remark, until I managed to compute what he had said. It did hurt. So had him lugging me around. 

I furrowed my brows.

"Right?" he was feeling good about himself.

I lowered my head, it weighing me down. 

Maybe it is like the books? 'Girl gets thrown into magic world, marries the fairy prince and they live happily ever after' 

Yeah right, as if. I hit my head really hard back there.

"Great, so now that we've established we're not dreaming," he smoothly continiued.

I was still deep down in my mind. 

But maybe it is real. He really is a forest spirit who appeared out of thin air.

There's no way something like that would happen to me though. I'm not the popular, pretty protagonist with big boobs. 

But he doesn't really seem like a proper romantic prince either. He has been rude to me from the start, either ignoring me or yanking me around like a ragdoll. 

And that slap really did hurt.

I looked up to find him unashamedly staring right at me.

"What?" I was uncomfortable. I don't really like when people look at me.

"Not dreaming, yeah?" he asked again with his stupid smile.

I squinted my eyes at him and nodded slowly.

"Good!" he clapped his hands together.

"Okay, now, take my shirt and rub yourself with it." he said, while already taking it off.

I was pretty appalled by the thought of that. "Ew, what, no?"

He had managed to get his shirt off and held it in his hands.

"Well, it's this, or becoming one with nature."

Becoming one with nature didn't sound half bad compared to using someone else's, a boy's, clothes as a washrag.

"Becoming one with nature as in covering yourself with mud and deer poop," he happily explained.

"Why do I even have to do this?" I was starting to get a bit mad again.

"Unless you want to get tracked down by human-hunting bears and killed, you have to mask your scent." he replied, a bit more serious this time.

"Here," he held out his shirt to me.

"And why don't you have to do it?" 

I still wasn't feeling too good with the idea of 'masking my scent'.

"They're not looking for me, they're looking for you, a human," he started to go on again.

"You breached the border, and so, have to be exterminated to avoid information about us leaking and your people massacring us." he stated nonchalantly. It was weird how calm and straight-forward he was being with this.

"You heard the shouting before when we were running away, right?" he tried with a different approach.

I nodded, but was still suspicious. 

No one would believe me anyways, what's the point?

"They are looking for you with the bears. I briefly spotted them before."

He seemed serious. 

Why does he care about what happens to me? 

"I'll just go home then, out of the forest." I really did want to go home now. He was starting to scare me.

"Yeah, good luck with that, as the road's probably blocked off with the bears at work."

Crap. I didn't want to get mauled by a bear. That sounds really, really painful.

I grabbed the shirt he was still holding out to me.

I stood up and turned my back to him. I felt his eyes burning holes in my skull.

"Don't look, it's embarrasing."

I didn't want to do his smell ritual in the first place. I'd have honestly rather gotten mauled by a bear than taken a clothed shower infront of him.

His pale face filled with red, as he understood that he was staring at me. He quickly muttered a sorry under his breath and turned around.

I started to slowly rub his shirt on my dress and my exposed neck and lower arms. It felt really weird and really awkward.

Mom would have definitely blown a fuse if she had seen me do that.

I got to my ankles, at which point I saw they were bleeding. I hadn't realised that the branches had scratched me that bad.

I didn't want to ruin his clean, white shirt with my blood.

"I don't care if it get's dirty, I have more at home," he conveniently added. He must have peeked and seen me conflicting, staring at my legs. 

I still didn't want to make it dirty. I knew blood stains were really hard to get out. His shirt would have been ruined because of me.

I turned around and looked at him, still sitting and staring into the dark woods with his back to me.

I went and put the shirt on his shoulder.

"I'm sorry if it got dirty," I apologised.

He had already stood up and was putting it back on.

"I told you that I don't care if it did."

He looked down at my ankles. Which still had blood dripping down them.

He huffed and started to rip off the bottom part of his shirt.

"Hey, what-" I tried intersecting, but he had squatted down and started tying my ankle with the ripped fabric.

I tried to pull my leg away.

"Hey, you don't have to do that," I tried to tell him.

"Don't move," he said, grabbing my leg to hold it still.

I couldn't really move with him holding my leg, so I let him do his thing. He then ripped off the lower back portion of his shirt and tied it around my other ankle.

Luckily it was like a big pirate shirt, so he wasn't left with just a crop-top with puffy sleeves. Rather, just a cropped top.

"Good! Okay, now, sit down and wait here. I will go bring some wood for a fire," he said while getting up. Now that he had said that, I did notice that is was getting a bit chilly, and again, I didn't have much of other options than the one he gave me.

I sat down, leaned on a tree trunk and hugged my legs close in an effort to keep the warmth I had left. 

Our hiding spot looked like a little crater, surrounded by the small wall and a big tree. It looked pretty trampled, I guess he had been here before too.

In the center lied a small circle of burnt coal and ashes, surrounded by little rocks - his fire pit.

It smelled nice there. I consciously took a big gulp of that fresh forest air. I could feel some of the energy previously spent from our mad dash flow back again. 

It was eerily quiet. I couldn't hear any birds, or even mosquitoes. When the boy left, I had heard him rustle in the bushes nearby, but even that was gone now. 

Wait, what was his name? Had he even told me? 

I guess I hadn't told him mine either then.

It's weird that I had agreed to his smell ritual before. 

I guess it made sense, if there really were human-hunting bears looking for me. Why would they use bears though? Don't they have dogs?

I also still couldn't get over his demeanor. He hadn't seemed nervous at all, it was like he had done this all before. Like a routine of some sort. Maybe it was his hobby, stealing girls. The reverse version of sirens then? Luring girls to the forest instead of men to the sea.

I wonder why he had chosen me as his victim.

I was brought out of my thoughts when he suddenly dropped a bunch of wood on the fire circle. He sat down opposite of me and crossed his legs, propping his hands on his knees. He sighed loudly.

"What's your name?" I finally asked.

He was a bit surprised.

"Hey, that's just what I was about to ask you!" he announced gleefully.

I wasn't sure how to respond to that. I just kept quietly staring at him.

"Oh, sorry, my name is Arin!" he introduced himself, smiling.

That was a pretty name. I honestly wouldn't have been too surprised if he had declared his name be Yggeran or something like that. 

"I'm Elena," I said back with a small smile.

"I'm sorry about your shirt."

He huffed and shrugged it away.

"I told you, I have more. Don't worry."

With that, he started on building the fire, putting smaller sticks in the middle and then laying bigger ones ontop.

He was humming some song. It sounded like a cute lullaby.

If he has more shirts, that must mean he has a dresser and a home. Where would forest spirits even live? 

He seemed just a bit taller than me, which meant he wouldn't fit inside a tree. Maybe they lived underground like moles? Or in wooden huts?

"Ooh, check this out!" he happily said. 

He had finished building the campfire, all there was left now was to light it.

He put his right hand over the pile of wood.

He eyed me, like he was building up tension for a performance.

He turned his palm up, and held down his middle finger with his thumb. His nail was turning white under the pressure.

He let it go with a slight pop.

A small flame appeared on the tip of his finger.

He was flipping me off.

"Cool, right?" he boasted.  

I furrowed my brows at that. He didn't seem to notice though, and went on to light the fire with a smile plastered on his face.

He poked around the inside of the pile until smoke started rising. He then suddenly pulled his hand away and started waving it around, as if to cool it down. The flame on his finger was gone.

"What are you doing?" I asked. He started the flame and I saw it cover his finger, how did he burn himself?

He scrunched his eyes shut and kept waving his hand.

"Magic doesn't always go to plan." he mumbled.

He stopped waving his hand and took a look at it.

He quickly did a similar thing like before, popping his finger, this time with his other hand. His fingertip frosted over.

He started slowly rubbing his burnt palm with it.

After zoning out for a few seconds, he looked up at me.

"So, what's up?" 

He stared at me innocently, like he hadn't almost squeezed me to death just before.

I stared right back at him. I had no idea what to do or say.

"Good talk!" he blurted. 

It was really, really awkward. We both sat and tried not to make eye contact.

"So I thought we'll just go to sleep for today, now that the fire is going and everything," he tried to break the silence.

I took a look around. 

Were we going to sleep on the bare ground? I get that we're in a forest and all, but really, just straight on the dirt and pine needles?

He must have noticed me looking around confused.

"Yeah, I don't really keep a pillow and blanket around here," he said. Was that a tinge of remorse?

"I mean, you could sleep next to me if you want, to conserve warmth and stuff-"

My head shot up the very second those words left his lips. No way. I've had my fill and then some of physical contact for today.

His raised his hands in the air in defeat.

"You don't have to, of course," he added shyly.

I just turned my back to him and tried to lay down, as comfortably as I could. Luckily it hadn't rained in a while, so the ground wasn't moist. 

I folded my hair into something akin to a pillow, putting my arm down beneath it so my hair wouldn't get filled with pine needles.

I tried to close my eyes and fall asleep. He had quieted down as well, the only things I could hear now was the fire crackling and him shifting position every now and then behind me.

I couldn't fall asleep.

I yelled at Mom.

I felt my heart starting to beat faster and heavier.

I let her down again.

A feeling of nausea crept up on me.

I failed her again

My breathing picked up its pace.

What the fuck am I doing here?

I guess the adrenaline finally wore off now. 

It's cold. It's damp. Who the fuck is that boy?

It was a panic attack. I had had them many times before.

I sat up and raised my head in an effort to open up my airways.

My mind froze.

I leaned on the tree next to me to try and give off some of the pressure.

The nausea was making my stomach feel uncomfortably heavy. It was the part I hated most about this stupid thing. 

My head felt heavy, spinning around. I couldn't focus my eyes anymore, all I could see was a blur. I squeezed my eyes shut and covered them with my hands.

I tried to force a deeper breath down my lungs. 

Something grabbed a hold of my wrists, pulling them away from my face.

"Hey, yeah? Look at me!" he almost shouted.

I pried open my eyes and looked. He was sitting right infront of me.

My breathing got faster again. 

Why is he touching me?

"Look at me, yeah? Right in my eyes." He was determined.

I managed to pull my gaze up to his face.

He started loudly breathing in and out. I subconsciously followed him.

I felt a feeling of calm starting to wash over me. It was like a soft white wave.

My heart rate was going down. I felt my tense muscles start to relax.

He softened his breathing, and so did I, along with him.

He was holding me in some sort of trance. I was still staring straight at him.

He lowered my hands and let go.

It was like the white wave of calm had landed, crushing my anxiety beneath it.

I was covered with cold sweat from head to toe.

I was still locked to his eyes, as he moved to lay down with me. 

"Rest now," he breathed.

I closed my eyes again, this time falling asleep almost instantly.