Narrative

I ran for miles and miles from the thing even though I had no idea what it was. In fact that just made it worse. I stopped behind a tree and held my breath. It slowly came closer and inhaled deeply before running away in the opposite direction. I slid down the tree, sitting on the back of my feet. “What could it be?” and “What did it want?” Still pondering these questions I headed down the mountain and found the track. I made my way back down to the village. It was dark and quiet when I got back. Only 1 hut had a torch lit, that was my hut. I went inside and sat at my table. After a few moments I pulled some parchment froma shelf and tried to draw what I thought I saw, but I couldn't recollect and detail at all. Confused I flopped onto my bed and drifted off to sleep. I woke up to the sun shining brightly through my doorway. I turned to face the wall because the light was hurting my eyes. There was only 1 reason for my door to be open. My best friend Melanie has arrived to see why I had come back so late last night.
 * Green Phials **

“So why is it I ask around the village for ypulast night and nobody has a clue where you are?” she interrogated me. I was unsure if I should tell her about the creature knowing that if I did she would get involved too. I thought it would be dangerous to know this by myself so I filled her in. “Well I was wandering around in the woods, and I saw this thing” I said in a whisper. “What thing?” Melanie asked, sounding totally confused. “Well I can't remember what it looked like but it chased me for miles. I ran for my life it seemed really scary. I thought it was going to eat me alive” I cried! Melanies dog, Hex, wandered in the door nosing around. He was a huge mixed breed dog. Nobody knows what the mix is though! He has a shaggy brown coat with a large black shiny nose. He also has long floppy ears. “We should go and see if we can capture this thing” said Melanie. She loves adventure. In fact she sounded way too adventurous for my liking. “Um, Melanie, I hate to say it but I think that is a really dangerous idea. She just looked more determined. “Oh come on you wuss, do you want to know what this creature wants or not?” she demanded. Well that was what I had been questioning and I guess I did want to find out. “Ok, but we are bringing weapons. I'm not going back up there unprotected.” I gave in. I was relived we were going to try and find out but was still very worried. “YES!” she yelled in excitement. Hex was bounding around beside her, he oved a good adventure. I grabbed my quiver and filled it with arrows. Reaching for my bow, I saw Melanie arm herself with a dagger and a mace. We tried to sneak out of the villiage but it was difficult seeing that if you were seen with weapons and looking suspicious, well, people would wonder. As we climbed and hauled ourselves up the mountain, the trees around us closed in after a while. It was also beginning to get dark. Hex crouched and started to growl softly. Two familiar white glowing eyes appeared. It suddenly felt very cold. I kept acting tough even though I was screaming inside with terror. The eyes came closer, then everything went black.....

“WAKE UP!!”, Melanie yelled in my earhole. Hex gave me a huge lick on my face. “Whoa, I just had this really strange dream! You were there, Hex was there and we went looking for this thing. I dunno what the thing was though”' I mumbled with a yawn. “OK, I'm kinda weirded out now” Melanie said, “because I had a really similar dream”. I started to wonder if this was normal. Why and how Melanie and I could have the same dream, that is. Could this mean something? “What do you think this means?” Iasked as I sat up and hopped out of bed. I suddenly felt 2 inches shorter. As I looked down Melanie let out a yelp. I was standing in what seemed to be a footprint. It looked sort of like a hoof but it's feet were webbed. It also had toes, very hard to explain! “We should go and look around and see if we can get some answers” I suggested. Once again I grabbed my bow and quiver, and Melanie found her weapons. I pinched myself to make sure I was NOT dreaming. Lets go, I don't want the horrible thought of any possible outcomes to keep floating in my head any longer” I whispered nervously. We went outside.

About 1 hour later I had no idea where we were. “Are we even close to where we saw the thing in your dream?” Melanie whined, “because this is where I saw it in mine I think.” I looked up and a large brown bird was heading in the direction I was facing. A ripping growl came from behind us. I froze then said to Melanie “Turn around slowly and draw your weapons.” It was too late, Hex was a moment away from attacking it. The thing motioned as if to surrender, then took the form of Hex! Melanie was standing there with her gob open so wide I thought she was at risk of swallowing a tennis ball. The thing looked exactly like him. It was a shapeshifter. I asked in a very stern voice “What do you want?” It took one look at me and then took the form of our village blacksmith, McFarley. Why would this be? What could this shapeshifter want with McFarley? McFarley did seem to be going out into the woods by himself a lot lately. He was returning with phials full of green liquid and suspiciously hiding them away. The shapeshifter headed off so we followed it all the way back to a hole in between 2 tree roots. The hole must have been where the shapeshifter lived. Once inside we saw that there were many small brown leather pouches filled with gold and over in a corner of the room.... green phials! There were at least 20 of them. I crawled over and picked one up. Scratched into the cork plug were the words 'Property of McFarley'. “What is it?” Melanie asked, confused. “Well it says McFarleys name, so I'm guessing this all belongs to him” I said pointing around the small room and all the gold and phials. Melanie picked up the bag of gold nearest her and turned it on its side. It also had McFarleys name written on it. “Yep, you're right” she confirmed. “So do you tink he could be selling the green stuff in the phials, whatever it is?” I said sounding puzzled, That was when the shapeshifter made a noise. We turned to look at it and it turned its back to us. It has so many scars all over the back of it. “Yes I think he is selling this poor shapeshifters blood” Melanie whispered sounding slightly sick. The shapeshifter nodded sadly.

We had to help it! We ran nearly the whole way back down the mountain to our village. Hex was getting very antsy. We barged into McFarleys hut and demanded “What did you want with that poor shapeshifter up the mountain?” He started to panic and went silent for a moment. Then he sneered “I have no idea what you are talking about.” Hex bared his teeth and growled. This actually frightened me, Hex was a friendly dog. Melanie then pulled out her mace and looked like she intended to hit McFarley with it. It scared the living daylights out of McFarley and he spilled the beans. “Fine, I will tell you” he mumbled. “Shifter blood is priceless, it sells for a lot of gold. When I was snooping up in the woods one day I found the shifter. I took some of its blood and sold it. Shifters are rare and their blood is used in the most powerful potions in the world.” I was sorry to say that taking shifter blood was not legal. That was when the constable came in. “What is happening in here, girls” he asked suspiciously. “McFarley has been exploiting a shifter up the mountain and selling its blood” I cried! “No, I haven't” denied McFarley, acting stunned. “Oh really” Melanie said sarcastically dropping 2 phials of green blood and a bag of gold at McFarleys feet. “He has a whole stash in the shifters home” Melanie beamed. McFarley, this is illegal and I'm taking you into custody to sort this out right now” announced the constable.

Within a couple of days all the gold and the rest of McFarleys stuff was cleared out of the shifters home. We all still visit the shifter, but we never know what form he will be in when we do! It's not often people can help solve a crime, and to this day we still talk about it.