Forever After

Chapter 1

It is a damp and chilly day. Everything is perfect. Ever since I was a little kid I can remember just coming out here and savoring the sense of fulfillment that nature provides. I am now in my fifteenth year and things don't appear to be changing any time soon.

The greenery of the forest just does something to me. Call it what you want, but I say it enchants me. Yep, perfect way to put it. You see, I live in a small town in New England. The place is amazing. It's quiet and wonderful and the few people that live here try their very best to make sure that the place remains that way.

The town is not really far from the shore and near to the frigid mountains. My house is a relatively large Victorian styled two story mansion that was built by my great-grandfather and passed down through the generations. Currently, I live there with my father, my mother and my little sister. Directly behind my house is the vast expanse of uninhabited forestry. I guess it's literally my back yard. I come up here to camp and hunt and to bring Arianna, my little sister on an occasional horseback ride.

I first started hunting when I was nine and Grandpa used to bring me up here to show me the things that his father used to teach him, hunting, of course, being his favorite. His most prized possession was a pair of deer antlers from the first deer he caught when he was a teen. They are mine now. He gave me them as a gift of my twelfth birthday and the following year he passed away. I really miss him, but whenever I come out here I feel as if he is with me somehow.

Summer is coming to an end and next week I will be going back to Pax High School. I try not to make a big deal out of it since I have Eli and Courtney, my two best friends since before we were even born.

You see, my mom, Eli's Dad and Courtney's mom used to be best friends in high school and it still is that way to this day. As strange as it sounds every once in a while they would go to the mall to `hang-out' as my mom says. Only god knows what they really do there.

Court has straight blonde hair, warm green eyes and cherry red lips. To me she is stunning. Very smart, she dresses neatly, not to mention the myriad talents that she has. She just simply excels at whatever she does. Her calm personality and maturity is what I admire most about her. Whenever Eli and I have our little—ok, not so little disagreements she puts us back into our place and in some cases even forces us to apologize to each other and we have to say it like we mean it or else we have to do it over and over again. In business terms, she is like the CEO of our group. Standing at 5 feet 6 inches, she is about three inches shorter than me and Eli.

Eli also has dirty blonde hair, only his eyes are a shade of deep blue like mine. We have received a lot of `hey, are you brothers?' because of our eyes. We are the same height at 5 feet 9 inches. He plays baseball and football which he has been very successful in by the way while I am captain of my swim team. So there you have it we are very fit.

In a way we always seem to be the missing pieces of each other. Let me elaborate, the things that he isn't that good at I excel at while the things that I am not that good at he excels at. Examples: I am good at swimming while he is horrible at it while he is good at baseball and football while I couldn't catch the damn ball if I was freakin' superman.

His lips are full and red but not as red as Court's. He has stern and high cheek bones and I have to admit he is pretty good looking.

After strolling through the forest for what feels like an hour to me, but really may be four, I finally spot a good-enough sized deer. My first instinct was to shoot it with an arrow, but then a younger deer about half the size of the other deer came from behind a bush.

Under normal circumstances, I would have shot the deer without second thoughts but its young prevented me so I just simply made a bag of commotion and sent them on their way running. I feel pleased with myself because I know that that was what Gramps would have done.

So now, I am back to square one, deer-less. I haven't caught anything in over five days now and I was kinda losing my motivation.

I really wanted to know what time it was now and all I could depend on for that was the damn almost nonexistent sun, au contraire, hiding behind the ever present cotton-like clouds.

I decided to go home now for supper. Firstly though, I have to get Snowlake, my purebred Arabian horse. Now, you might start to wonder who the hell would name their horse Snowlake, well I do. But that's an entirely different story on its own so you'll just have to wait for that one.

After searching and calling Snow for several minutes she finally shows. The initial frustration led me to wonder why I don't just get a leash for the god damn horse whenever we come here but it gets me thinking about things like who the hell puts a leash on a horse. I love her too much for that anyways and besides this is her chance to enjoy nature like I do. Yeah.

We are leaving now and hopefully we will reach before six, since I am guess-timating that it is about a couple minutes after five.

This summer has been really nice, I begin to think. For the most part of it I just hung out with my two best friends. Then there are the vacations and all that but for the most part I just stayed here doing practically nothing.

I've decided to ignore the time and take it slow heading home and then everything around me seemed to just capture my attention.

The birds are particularly loud today with their singing which caused a smile to spread across my face. Now don't get me wrong, I am not some nature crazed freak but these are the things that make me happy and to an extent make me forget any problem that I might have and just love living. Ya know?

From the trees towering over me right now with their vibrant green leaves to the soft and tender-to-the-touch green grass below my feet; the lazy streams that run through the forest connecting to the shallow lake. The animals are my favorite though, the raccoons, the deer, the beavers, the fish in the lake and especially all the birds.

As we are going through the forest I sense something else or someone else. Of course what gave them away was the classical music playing. At first I was kind of scared. I mean who wouldn't be after all; it was just last night that Eli and I were on my bed watching Halloween on my TV. It kind of scared the crap out of me but also grossed me out big time.

I quickly got over it quickly though since I seriously doubt that some psycho-serial killing freak would be listening to classical music while on his way to kill me. That would be seriously messed up—even for a serial killer.

The music suddenly stopped and when I turned around I didn't see or hear anything. The fear started to come back and my instinct told me to run the hell away with Snowlake but I couldn't. Call me stupid, but for some reason I wanted to stay and look around to see if I might find anything.

Then a loud scream rock my ears as a strange boy grab hold of my feet. I panicked and mistakenly kicked him in the head. He falls to the ground and I am almost instantaneously tossed off Snow and on top of him.

"What the hell!" I scream at Snow who I'm pretty sure threw me off on purpose...or is it the fall that was making me accusing a horse of purposely throwing me off its back.

I quickly begin to notice that the boy wasn't moving and looked like he was knocked out cold.

"Shit!" I mutter out loud and then I put my head to his chest listening for a heartbeat. I heard a steady heartbeat so I guess that at least he is alive.

Now I have an unconscious boy who just scared the crap out of me and a large towering white horse that pummeled my ass off its back. I knew that I had to get him to regain consciousness so I begin to shake him. That didn't seem to work so I thought about calling his name but I didn't know it.

After all, he did just practically attack and scare me to death; how the hell am I supposed to know his name and I don't even know him.

An idea sprung in my head so I search his pocket for a wallet and sure enough I find one when I open it I find a pictured of him along with some other people but my top priority was finding his name and sure enough I see the name `Spencer' scribbled on the back of a picture of him. I couldn't help to notice that his wallet was packed with hundred dollar bills so I figure that this kid must be well off.

I started to shake him again, "Spencer, Spence!" I called and after about ten shakes his eyes begin to open.

I looked him in the eyes and really began to realize that this boy has a strange effect on me. His eyes are steel gray and almost transparent; they are perfectly guarded by thick dark eye lashes which contrast neatly with his blond hair. He looked to be about my age or a little bit younger and he's about two inches shorter than me.

His skin is smooth and warm and it looks naturally tanned. He has a well-defined cheek bone, a petit nose and the most attractive feature on his body was his full pink lips.

He is breathing steadily now as he looks into my eyes and the next thing he says to me stuns me.

After the initial shock and speechlessness a simple smile finds its way on my face.

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