The sounds of the forest seem to fade into insignificance when the fox enters the clearing, the twittering of birds fades away as the fox slowly pats its way towards me. Yellow intelligent eyes trained on me. A gust of wind blows a strand of my white hair across my face. I stare right back at the fox. I hear a slight rustle from behind me, I think its Erina up in the tree shifting on a branch. The fox isn’t distracted and it keeps to its trajectory towards me.

When it gets within a few metres it begins to emit a faint glow which slowly builds in intensity, I cover my eyes until it dies down.

“Uh, Hi Sylvie…”

The fox wasn’t there anymore. In its place was Leo, dressed in an overcoat and boots. “I’m..uh..like you. I guess” he says, itching the back of his head awkwardly.

“How did you do that?”

“I’m...a shapeshifter, I can turn into other living things. You’re the first person I’ve ever shown” he looks at his feet.

“Thats cool!” I genuinely mean’t it, I loved reading books about shapeshifters when I was younger, being free to roam the countryside as you want, hunting and living with nature..

“Really?...” He asks, I nod furiously in response.

“I’m sorry, I was a little suspicious of your message. I’m kind of vulnerable, so I brought someone with me” He pounces backwards, agile like the creature he previously was.

“Wh-w-who?” The tree rustles again and I turn to watch Erina drop down from it, using her thick tail to balance her landing.

“Sorry Leo, I’m here too. You have nothing to be afraid of”

“Oh, hi Erina..”

“So a shapeshifter? I’ve heard tales about your type..” he visibly flinches so I poke Erina in the ribs.

“Probably not a good topic Erina”

“Right right sorry” she waves an apology to Leo.

“So Leo, what did you call me out for? Did you want to talk?” I lean forwards, curious as to why he wanted to talk to me in particular.

“I don’t really have many friends, and you seem so nice..” he looks at me, refusing to meet my eyes directly. “And you were quiet and seemed like you’d listen to me. No-one else ever seems...seems to want to..and..” he falters.

“Its okay, sit down here” I stand and gesture to where I was sitting, he nods and I brush off my jeans. He takes my spot, he leans forwards, still looking down. I hear a sigh and he begins talking.

“I first found out I could do it when I was ten, not long after us special wretched creatures became known to people. I lost a good friend in the process, scaring him half to death when you wake up as a dinosaur during a nightmare. I nearly crushed him” I shot Erina a glance and she was as shocked looking as I felt. I kept a kind smile on my face and put my hand on his shoulder, I could sense waterworks were inbound.

“We moved away not long after to here and I was given lessons on how to control it, but also told to never do it in public. From that point on I...distanced myself” he sobs and I pass him a tissue from my bag. “I come out here to get away from everything and everyone. Its my happy spot”

Erina speaks up, looking a little sorry for herself. “I’m sorry Leo, I wouldn’t want to take that from you” She crouches down to his level. I was a little surprised when she crouches to look at him head to head. “I’ll try and set up some defenses around this area, so only you and the wildlife can enter and leave. I’ll make sure we can come too if you’d like?”

“I...I’d like that, I think” He sniffles.

“We should decide on a plan” I didn’t want Leo to feel like an outsider anymore, most people had accepted me. So I didn’t see why they would find Leo and his family to be very strange at all.

“A plan?” the two of them say in unison.

“I don’t want you to feel like you have to hide away like this all the time Leo. Its good to have a safe space, but theres so much you could miss”

“I…” Leo begins but falters again.

“I agree with Sylvie” Erina nods. “We can’t hide you away forever” Leo looks back and forth between me and Erina, looking rather worried. “Don’t worry Leo. We won’t do anything you don’t want us to, we have to be relatively careful with this” He nods, scanning us up and down but still not looking us in the eye, I think theres something he’s not telling us.

It worries me but I leave it be, whatever it is will come in its own time, Erina grabs a notepad out of her bag and scribbles down our contact details on it.

“If you want to talk, just send a message our way. I suppose I’m the expert out of the three of us about this sort of thing, I’m sure we can bring things about wonderfully Leo” She smiles and passes him the piece of paper.

“We’ll leave you to it then okay?” He nods, reading the paper in his hand. “You’ll be alright?”

“I will….thanks…” he doesn’t look at us, his eyes are pinned on the scrap he’s holding.

“I’ll set up some magical borders soon, see you later Leo” we wave goodbye and I place my tablet back in my bag before stuffing my hands as deep into my jacket’s pockets as possible. It was getting darker and colder so quick these days…

***

I shut the door to my room and decided to surf the internet like I used to back before I died, I loaded up an old music playlist, grabbed my headphones and checked out all the old sites I used to and immediately ran into problems. Most sites I used to find were shutdown or led to completely unfamiliar websites. Frustrated by this, I gave up and spent most of my evening playing old PS2 games for the umpteenth time, as much as I loved these games it was beginning to get a little stale..

Then my evening got worse. The screen by the door let out a chirping noise, which was the alert that I had a visitor at the dorm for me. I looked at my tablet for a message from the Principal like last time but I found none.

I cautiously tapped the answer button on the door. “Sylvie Wade! This is where you are?”

“Grooh...zz” I let out an audible moan, that sounded a lot like my mother. She was a domineering woman and we did not get along. I pressed the cancel call button, which also denies access to the building. I can imagine the immense strop she was getting into, missing her favourite toy for fifteen bloody years can do a lot to a petulant child.

Did I mention that we didn’t get along?

There was a time when I didn’t know better, I was her little doll. Dressed in petticoats and all that rubbish for the longest time, when I started hitting puberty though I wisened up. I saw other girls having the time of their lives outside, doing whatever they wanted and I didn’t just want a piece of it. I wanted the whole damn cake, even the little figurines on top.

I made excuses and joined clubs, slowly lessening the amount of time I spent with her and all her clothes. I wore trousers more often whilst she wasn’t looking too, all the little things I could do to escape her influence. She never wanted me to get a job or anything like that, just stuck to her antiquated ideas of what a young girl should be. I had hardened myself to her crap long ago, but her sudden reappearance had broken down some of that and I found myself growing emotional and frustrated. I picked up the tablet and sent a message to Nurse Jousset, asking her to turn her mother away.
I was relieved when I received the message back from her that mother had been escorted off the campus, although I would have to go talk to her about it. I was dreading that, but either way she was gone for the time being. I sank down in my bed, console still running and swiftly fell into an exhaustion induced sleep.

***

I felt like I was being suffocated, something rough filling and blocking my mouth. My survival instincts click on and I start swinging my arms, clumping and displacing the dark powder cloaking the light, but no matter how much I moved I couldn’t break through, and then suddenly…

I shot straight up in my bed, so unbelievably relieved at seeing light and breathing air again, I shudder, reflecting on the nightmare I just had. My body went through that once, sans my consciousness. I don’t want to ever have it happen again. It did have me wondering though, that seemed way too apt of a nightmare. Was there something I was missing? Something influencing me to have it, or some form of regained memory? Or was that coincidental?

It took a few moments for me to regain a steady and slow rate of breath, my hyperventilation ceases. I stayed in bed, staring straight at the still-on TV, trying to motivate myself to get to classes. I did get up though, sleep could end up with me returning back there and that was the last thing I wanted right now.