Nonexistent (Rise of the Guardians)

Prologue part 2

~Alexandra
As the moon reached its height in the sky, my eyes snapped open and I sat up, dead leaves falling off of my shoulders from where they had fallen on me from the rapidly wilting trees above. I brushed them off, goosebumps quickly erupting on my skinny arms as the cold winds coming in from the north chilled me to the bone. I reached back to wrap my cloak around myself, but found nothing. It was then that I realized that I was in the forest, alone, at night, in nothing but a thin nightgown.

Panic flooded me in great, crashing waves, drowning out all my other senses and thoughts as it overwhelmed me. I tried desperately to think, to remember, exactly how I managed to get here. Where I actually was. Who I was. I searched my mind, but nothing surfaced in my memory. I panicked, looking around me wildly and trying to find something to give me a clue as to why I was here. A conveniently placed note explaining everything would be preferred, but no such thing showed itself. Instead, there was only a cold wind blowing through the trees, biting through my thin dress and making me shiver.

I turned my eyes to the sky, staring at the brilliant full moon visible through the trees. The moon was beautiful, full and shining bright, lighting up the landscape with soft silvery light. The moon was calming, and it seemed to chase all my feelings of panic and darkness away. In that moment, I knew my name. My name is Alex Briez. How do I know?

The moon told me so.

Focusing back on the bed of leaves strewn across the forest floor, I cautiously rose to my feet, using low hanging branches to pull myself up. My legs were wobbly, and the leaves under my feet felt sharp on my bare feet. I started forward shakily, my cold hands grasping the rough bark of the branches as I pulled myself along. My toes crunched on the dead leaves, and the occasional thorn poked the bottom of my bare foot, making me hiss air out between my teeth in annoyance and pain.

Suddenly, a root poking up from the bed of leaves like a small archway somehow caught my foot as I stumbled along. I tripped and fell forward with a squeal, landing flat on my chest and hitting my chin on a pebble. It rattled my teeth and made my jaw hurt, but I was mostly unscathed. I started to push myself to my feet, but my hands left the ground far too easily.

I found myself flying upwards into the air, carried by nothing but the wings of the wind.

The ground receded rapidly as I was thrown upwards by the air, sent screaming into the clouds. I hovered for a moment, looking around at the white landscape of clouds around me, hills and mountains of water vapor rising in huge billowy lumps in every direction.

Then I started to plummet. The wind seemed to grasp at me as I fell, trying to catch me as I flailed and panicked, trying to breathe as the ground rose up to meet me at a blinding rate. I spread my arms wide, as if I was going to grab the air on either side of me to catch myself.

My plummet stopped with a rough jerk.

I let loose a hysterical laugh, my eyes wide and terrified at the thought that I was hovering hundreds of feet above the treetops that had seemed so high just moments before I flew into the air. Then it hit me.

There was absolutely no possible way I was actually flying.

And then, I fell.

I didn't fall quite as fast or long this time, instead landing on top of a thick tree branch, completely winded and shocked as the impact knocked all the breath out of my chest. I slid off the branch and landed on the prickly bed of leaves below.

I crouched there gasping loudly for a long while, until a boy emerged from the bushes to my right. His tousled black hair and light blue eyes seemed familiar somehow, but with my blank memory, he could have been my own brother and I wouldn't know it. He was wearing a simple tunic with dark brown breeches, and a stiff brown coat that looked quite uncomfortable. In his free hand, he clutched a heavy amber stone on a chain. It seemed to glow in the light of the moon, but he stowed the necklace in his pocket before I could get a proper look at it.

He sniffed and wiped his nose with a shaking hand, his baby blue gaze roving around the trees he stood between. How he failed to see a teenage girl with golden eyes, windswept black hair and wearing nothing but a tattered nightgown sitting dumbfounded in a pile of rotten leaves completely confused me, but he just stood there staring into space with a lost, desperate look in his eyes, stray tears trailing down his pale cheeks.

I stood up slowly, carefully positioning my nightdress so that it was as conservative as it could possibly be. It didn't work very well, but at that moment, I didn't exactly care about modesty.

As I walked up to him, he kept his gaze glued to the decaying leaves below his boots. He sniffled, his shoulders shaking with concealed sobs, as if he was ashamed to cry. I stopped a few inches in front of the boy, waiting for him to notice me.

He never even glanced up at me.

He murmured words quietly, and I strained to hear him say, "You left me, too. You promised." And then, quietly, as though he was afraid to say it, "I hate you. I can't believe I ever called you my sister."

As I was reaching out my hand to place on his shoulder to catch his attention, his head snapped up, and I scrambled back in surprise. His blue eyes, so helpless before, now held a cold, calculating, and hateful look in their light blue depths. My breath caught, and he stared straight ahead, seeming to look directly through me into the shadowy forest. He breathed heavily for a moment, still staying hatefully at the shadowy forest.

"Erm... little boy, are you alright?" I asked, my British accent coloring my words.

No reply.

"Hello? Can you tell me where I-" I was cut off by the boy moving forward, and he caught me off guard. I scrambled backwards, but he kept walking, not ever looking at me for even a moment. I stood, trying to catch the boy's attention, but he continued his weaving path through the trees.

I jumped in front of him, my messy black hair flying out behind me like a fan as I leapt into the boy's path. Instead of stopping, the black haired boy simply continued in his path.

Right through me.

With a flash of blue light, the boy passed through me, his nose going right through my belly button. I gasped and stopped dead in my tracks. The boy continued unaffected through the dark forest, striding through the leaves with fury and purpose as he disappeared into the shadowy trees, blending in like he was part of the darkness himself.

He couldn't see me. I wasn't even there.

I turned and walked off into the dark woods, the shadows looming in front of me, trying to trap me in their darkness. It was as if they were specifically trying to capture me. But the light of the full moon seemed to chase the shadows away. My nightgown rustled in the chill breeze, and though I could have sworn I saw a shadow flicker overhead, traveling with the brisk wind, the woods remained quiet as I thought about what had occurred.

I wasn't there.

I was completely nonexistent.