Wren

“Well,” Her voice sounded breathy and ephemeral, wafting into the air with a sing-song cadence before being lost just like the wintry breaths that followed, “That’s certainly one way to get you back. I uh… can’t believe that worked.” She did not move, though her arms were now folded in front of her as she leaned against the side of the car. A numbness gave way to a painful, pins and needles burn in Sam’s extremities as the desire to act flushed his body with activity. In a flash, he produced the Gerber and held it out in front of him as defensively as possible.

“Who the fuck are you? What are you doing out in the woods?” He called out.

“A concerned stranger.” The woman said, her voice yet again fitting together like mismatched pieces of a polyphonic puzzle. Dumbstruck, Sam took a tentative step to the side in order to escape the radius of the light to observe the interloper. This was just his fucking luck. Trapped, alone in the woods, with a hallucinatory woman. He just hoped he could collect himself enough to snap out of this shit before it got too late.

“Excuse me, ma’am but I think I hit a deer,” Sam pressed. The pocketknife now resting at his side in as non-threatening a manner as he could manage, though his shaking hands probably neutralized that image for him, “Can y-you help me?”

“Well,” She replied, stepping forward, “It seems like that problem solved itself. I don’t see a deer carcass, do you?”

She was at once delicate and rugged, a living mishmash of opposites. Delicate alabaster ridges that made up her cheek bones sat atop a sheer, dare Sam say, regal jawline that housed thin lips sat juxtaposed against a disheveled nest of cropped, half-shave styled auburn hair that crowned her head. Beneath a waterfall of hair that fell to across the left side of her face, Sam could make out deep set eyes swathed in a smokey, bronze tinted eye-shadow shone a fiery amber even as the light from the car deflected off to her left eyed Sam up and down with a curiosity and eagerness that belied their striking appearance. She stood almost as tall as him, the first female in a while who had managed the feat.

Her black skinny jeans and Grateful Dead t-shirt were almost enveloped by the slate gray overcoat that draped around her shoulders like a cape, leaving her bare arms free for her to keep folded in front of her. There was a long silence as the two drank each other in, one surveying the other as a curious house-cat surveys an interloper into their place of residence.

“Well… no, but it could hav—” Sam began but she cut him off.

“It what? Could have lived and run off? Trust me when I say it won’t be a problem.” Her tone was too collected for Sam’s liking and he found a swell of frustration eddy into a dune of teeth-grinding confusion and dare he say, fear. This was the kind of shit that gets someone killed. A lone drive in the night in the woods. A random stranger playing good Samaritan. The perfect setup for a horror movie, as though the events of the night were meant to be a cherry on top of his recent downward spiral.

“But you were near enough to hear it when it happened, and I saw clearly there was one there.” Sam urged, giving her a worried, pleading stare for help, “And it’s gone. Things don’t… do that.” Sam replied with trepidation.

“Yes, but things don’t work like that around here, you know this. Look around.” She implored. Sam glanced around for the first time in a while and realized she was right. The changes were subtle, almost imperceptibly so, but nonetheless it was as though he was in an idyllic painting. Calling it ‘high-definition’ reality was a bit of a stretch, but the night was no longer a dark, winter umber. Instead the headlights cast a contrasting yellowish gold against a deep blue. The forest was still there, that was for sure, with its endless rows of deciduous monoliths flanking either side of them. In drinking in the shift in his surroundings, however, Sam finally picked up on the auditory discrepancy. The highway was inaccessible from here, yes, but when he’d initially left the car, he could still hear the tell-tale whoosh of trucks and motorcycles roaring down towards exits. Now, there was nothing. A complete and utter silence that was almost more uncomfortable than keening screech of the skidding tires and the disconcerting crack of the deer. He peered into the woods and to his dismay, the coniferous monoliths seemed to stretch into infinity, their trunks wreathed in the same royal blue mist.

“Where… is here?” Sam pondered, though he wasn’t sure if it was addressed to his newfound compatriot or not. He resisted an urge to crack some sort of ‘We’re not in Kansas anymore’ related joke watched as an amalgamation of frustration and what looked like a wide-eyed pity played across her features.

“This is the Ammwyn. The Weirding Woods. The Otherworld. A place outside of life and beyond ****.” She said matter-of-factly. To Sam, she might as well have been speaking gibberish. The girl startled as he lashed out and gave himself a vicious slap to wake himself. Nothing. Nursing the sting on his left cheek, Sam could only help but continue to stare dumbfounded at his newfound compatriot.

“Yet, here I am.” Sam said, before the lance of realization shot through him. He hurriedly looked around him, **** to see anything familiar before making the most pertinent inquiry still hanging in the air, “Am I… dead?” The question stung as he asked it, like trying to talk over a lump in your throat. Part of him didn’t want to know the answer. It was just a fucking doe, how hard could the crash have been?

“No, of course not.” Her reply was followed by a gregarious smile when she watched a sigh of relief escape him. On one hand, he knew he couldn’t trust any of this for shit, but on the other hand being alive felt damn good.

“Thank God. Wouldn’t want things to get any _more _weird, would we?” Sam said. He tried his best to keep the tone cordial through the tremor in his voice as he struggled to process the nights events. Her laugh was even more musical than her speaking voice and despite himself, Sam felt his extremities grow warm.

“I’m Wren, by the way.” She said.

“Sam.” He replied, extending his hand. It surprised him how much simply having something to call her by put him at ease. Granted, he’d started the encounter desperately clawing to maintain his composure, an ever-precarious balancing act now once again being threatened by the dramatic shift in surrounding. His nerves were shot and though there was not roadkill for him to deal with, it would seem as though he’d graduated to a much bigger predicament. In all honesty, wasn’t sure why he wasn’t running, hiding, or making any effort to ascertain help. He didn’t like that Wren seemed genuinely confident in the bombshell she just dropped about this… otherworld or whatever. If she knew more about what was going on than him, it was clear she didn’t intend on or simply couldn’t divulge more, though it seemed like it was in Sam’s best interest to play along for now.