Seeker

Lions and Tigers and Bears...

I had barely taken two steps into the forest before it was nearly pitch black and I couldn't see the school anymore. The familiar sounds of someone stumbling through the snow made my skin crawl. I pulled the hood of Lawrence's jacket up over my face. Every step was like an airhorn, and sunk my foot eight inches into freezing slush. I had fished out everything I could from lost and found that would keep me warm, but I was already feeling the chill in my toes. 

"June!"  A boy screamed from somewhere else in the forest. He sounded terrified.

I couldn't blame him.

"June! Let's just go home, it's almost—hey!"

"You'll have to catch me fiiiiirst!"

I stopped short.

"June? Come on, this is really, really dangerous!"

"June, this isn't funny!"

"June!"

He went on, echoing me so much I almost heard my voice instead of his. So June was a—

"Sis?"

I nearly screamed, trying to pull my arm away from the thing. It reached up and pulled down my hood.

"Sis!"

I heard more coming. Oh god, not now—I was too close! It started pulling me along.

"Almost sunrise... We need to... get back to the trail..."

What trail? 

He's limping terribly, and his hand is stiff and cold. Like the others, he's missing huge chunks of himself. Unlike the others, he doesn't  have a mouth that looks like it's been open so wide it ripped and pointed teeth crammed anywhere that'd fit... Between those and... whatever this thing was, I'll take him. I start running, half-carrying the poor guy.

"Which way?"

He pointed a white, cracking finger somewhere off to the left. I can see a few out of the corner of my eye. If I thought I had been noisy before, I sounded like a stampede now. 

"Hope we're close..." I muttered. Earhart, who had been sleeping in the jacket pocket, woke up and started squawking.

"Stopstopstopstopstop!"

I skidded to a halt, finding myself on what was a narrow but brightly lit path. I wondered how I almost missed it. It cut straight up to the night sky. 

"Thank god." Said a voice that wasn't mine.

——————

I screamed again, and the voice screamed with me. The thing next to me didn't look so monstrous anymore.

But he sure looked familiar.

"Who the—"

"Who am I?" I took a step back, putting my hands in front of me in some vague imitation of a karate pose. "Who're you!?"

The boy spat out a laugh. "You going to fight me, little girl?"

"I'm not little!"

Earhart left my pocket to sit on my shoulder.

"Yes you are." She said.

"Hey!"

He looked around, comprehension dawning. "Oh no..."

"What?"

"My stepsister, Melody..."

Stepsister.