I was nearby our night camp when I've heard it. First I thought it was just a howling. The throat of a wolf forming sounds of loneliness and agony. It may sound weird, but when I was looking for it, it didn't occur to be a wolf. Not even an animal of any kind. There was just ... illumination.
I catched a glimpse of a yellow light, fluttering wildly, just as if there was a fire somewhere. Indeed, I considered going back to my friend at the camp to tell him and make him examine it with me. But strangely I felt like there was no need for that. No, actually I thought it would have been even wrong to do that. He didn't deserve to see it, you know? So I made my way there, all on my own.
Carefully strolling past the last rain's muddy remnants I managed to get there. I had to fight myself through some undergrowth and discovered the source of the light. Still standing there like paralyzed, the only thing I could do was to stare.
It was so beautiful I had to smile. I had to smile! It was so overwhelming, my body started to shake while I was taking some steps forward. Feeling myself drowning in a wave of luck I almost overheard the shady sound from before. The howling of an unknown being. I could barely realize, but it became louder. I didn't care though, I was too fascinated by the object in front of my eyes. While I was reaching out with my palm, softly touching its perfectly shaped surface, the howling sound transformed into a whisper, near my ear. First it was confusing, indeed. I even was in kind of a shock once I became fully aware of it.
The next thing happened in a brief moment. It felt like a hand reaching out for my shoulder, kind of scratching and aching. Me, while still being caught in the glamour of the shard in front of me first didn't move a single inch. But when it started to feel like a warm soup running down the skin of my shoulder, I startled and did a headturn to the direction of the feeling in hope to find out what the source was. There was nothing to see, but the pain didn't seem to go away either. On the contrary, the intensity of it would only increase.
After some time of wondering and enduring, I felt my teeth pressing against each other. My body began to feel weak, a great dizzines stroke me and pushed me on the ground. I gasped and looked up on the trees surrounding me, laughing at me in a wavy tone. I immediately became seasick and felt twisted.
That was the moment I saw the thing's face just in front of mine. Actually, I didn't "see" in that sense, it was more like the feeling of a presence. I felt its eyes staring at mine, its flashing fangs forming a smile of excitement. The warm breath was stroking my face's skin. Although I couldn't see it with my eyes, I could feel it, very closely. It was interesting. But that fascination came to a fast end when I've realized that I got stabbed by something metallic.
Cold. My body was freezing due to its great loss of the warm, red substance. But I didn't care much. I could only grin and shuckle, just as my attacker, while reaching out for the shard of light in front of me, not even bothering that my life force was slowly fading away. Once I grabbed it and got it close to my chest, my eyes were filled by the shard's white light.