Resident Enis: Trail of Lies

Chapter two

When Mark began to come to, he heard muffled voices. There was also something in his mouth that tasted like honey. As he became more and more aware of his surroundings, he noted something wet on his forehead and something cold under his neck. He was laying on something soft, and he felt the presence of someone to his right.

As he opened his eyes, he was greeted with dim lights, and his vision was so fuzzy that everything looked like one big blob, with a few lights here and there.

As his vision focused, he noted the same girl from before on his right. She was on her knees, and was holding a wooden spoon and a stone jar with what looked like syrup stuck against the rim. Getting a better look at the girl, Mark saw that she had light brown skin and big amber-colored eyes. Her hair was dark brown and pulled to the side in a loose braid, which was laying gently on her right shoulder. She had two brown wolf ears sticking out of the top of her head as if she were in an anime, and was wearing a forest green tube top that had a clasp around her neck, as well as a pair of ripped blue jeans and no shoes or socks, but a small bracelet tied around her ankle. She had a black wolf nose and a concerned look on her face.

"Enis, Dodger, he's awake." She said, her voice and looks giving him a fourteen to sixteen-year-old vibe. "Mark, are you okay?" She asked. Mark was confused on how she knew his name, but then remembered that Enis had told her his name when he sort of introduced her to him.

Mark tried to answer, but whatever was in his mouth was so sweet that it coated his throat and made it difficult to speak. He swallowed a few times and cleared his throat twice before muttering,

"What...happened?"

"You fell from a dead everfree evergreen tree." the girl replied. "Those trees are the tallest in the forest. It's amazing that you don't have a concussion; you fell about five stories." Mark sat there, bewildered. Five stories? How was he alive??

Enis and Dodger soon joined the strange girl, looking at Mark with worry. Dodger extended out her hand and took a wet white washcloth from Mark's forehead, and then took in a sharp breath when she saw that there were a few splotches of red on the cloth.

"It's not as bad, so it's getting better." She said to herself. She put the washcloth down at her side and looked at Mark. "Glad to see you're awake, are you feeling okay?"

Mark looked back at the girl, who was still holding the jar of the syrupy substance.

"What is that?" Mark asked. The girl looked at the jar in her hands. Holding it up for Mark to see, she asked,

"What, this?"

"Mmmm-hmmm." He answered, too tired to say many more words.

"This is woodland nectar." She explained. "It's similar to the nectar in the Percy Jackson series. It's supposed to heal as much as it can. It helped with your health, but I don't have the kind that can help your arm." She said sadly.

"My arm?" Mark asked. "What about my arm?"

"You...you landed on it." The girl answered. "Can't you feel the pain?"

Mark thought about that. Actually, he couldn't feel his right arm at all. He looked at it. It was still there, but man, it looked wonky, as if he had stuck it through grinding gears while a super high-tech machine was running. He looked at it with a look of sheer terror, and Dodger tried to calm him down.

"Come on, I'm...sure that it's not as bad as it looks." She said, but her skin was two shades lighter than it had been a few seconds ago. Mark looked at her as if she were insane. Dodger looked at the little wolf girl.

"Amber, is there anything you can do?" She asked. There's that name again. Amber. Given the color of her eyes, Mark was guessing that Amber was this girl's name.

Amber looked at Mark's arm herself, before looking at Enis. "Enis, you know where Dad keeps his herbs and such, right?" Enis nodded. "Can you please go get me some liquid cast and bandages from his cabinet?" She asked. Enis nodded once again and ran off to get the things Amber requested.

While Enis left, Amber turned back to Mark and sighed. "I'm sorry that I couldn't have been much help." She looked at Dodger. "And I'm sorry again for tackling you. You never know who to trust in Shadow Woods." She looked in the direction that Enis had just run off. "And no offense to Enis, but he doesn't always have the best judgement when it comes to who's a friend and who wants to stab a stake through his heart. I'm glad he found you two, though. You seem like the only humane humans I've ever met."

Dodger and Mark exchanged a look when Amber looked away. The truth was, they had wanted to kill Enis when they first met him. They had planned to take him by surprise and get him when he wasn't looking. But now that they had spent some time with him, they had found that he wasn't so bad at all. In fact, he had become a member of their group. They wouldn't think of leaving him behind.

Enis came back quickly, handing a few jars and containers to Amber. Opening one of the jars, Amber stuck her hand inside before pulling out what looked like a paintbrush covered in some white slop.

She looked at Mark and held out her hand. "I can help." She said. "Can I see your arm?"

Hesitantly, Mark allowed Amber to take ahold of his arm, and she pressed against it gently, bringing a few popping sounds and a few screams from Mark.

When his arm looked pretty normal again, Amber held up the paintbrush and showed it to him.

"Liquid cast." She explained. "It'll harden within a few minutes of application. I'm gonna put it on your arm so it can heal properly." Mark nodded, and Amber began to lather the liquid cast on Mark's arm as if she were painting.

"So..." Mark began in an attempt to break the silence. "How do you and Enis know each other?"

"You know how I told you that I know a werewolf who has a summer home near the bandit shack?" Enis asked. Mark nodded. "Well, that's where we are!!!" Mark and Dodger looked at Enis, confused, until he clarified, "Amber is my friend's daughter."

"Ohhhhh." The two said almost at the same time.

"So, you're a werewolf, then?" Mark asked as Amber began to wrap bandages around his arm.

"There any problem with that?" Amber asked a bit defensively.

"No, no, no problem at all." Mark said quickly. "It's just that we haven't seen any werewolves while we've been in Monster Gulch, or Shadow Woods."

"Yeah..." Amber remarked a bit sadly as she secured Mark's bandages with surgical tape. "There aren't that many of us out there, anymore. My father and I don't know of any other werewolves out there." She explained, and then sighed, placing Mark's arm onto his chest gently. "What all do you know about monsters, anyways?" She asked.

Mark and Dodger looked at each other. "To sum it up," Mark began, "we're taught that monsters equals horrible viscous animals that will kill us and destroy everything that we love."

Amber looked at the two, gaping. "I...still don't know if I can trust you two..." she began. "But there are some things that we should set straight."

Then, she pulled a lever.