The horseman

The alarm clock beside Andrews' bed buzzed ten o'clock, lazily and with a grunting sigh he raised an arm and pressed down on the clock, silencing it. He stretched and smiled at the thought that it was Saturday, he didn't have to get up for school, he could stay in and try to finish a canvas he had been working on for the past month. He got out of bed, splashed cold water in his face and dressed himself. He shut his bedroom door and looked over at the door opposite to him, it was slightly a jar, Andrew opened it and looked in.

The room was empty, his room mate, Peter, had freshly made his bed as usual, by the sound of it he had gone out, probably out the store on the corner of the street. Andrew looked over at the desk, situated against the left wall, there was an open laptop on it.

Andrew walked over to it and looked at what was on the screen, he sighed exasperatedly, just as he thought, Equestria daily. Andrew shook his head and left the room, "what the fool see's in technicolor ponies, I don't know" he said out loud to himself. What any of them saw in it he never understood, granted Peter didn't harp on about ponies every hour of the day, but he could certainly could when he wanted to.

Peter and Andrew both went to the same collage, Peter was training in consumer studies and Andrew was training as an artist, they were nearing the end of the year and they both had exams in six weeks, the two got on very well with each other,(when the topic of the conversation wasn't about ponies) and they had made an agreement to split jobs around the house, Andrew would cook, Peter would wash up, Andrew would do the laundry, Peter would pay the bills.

Andrew entered the sitting room and starred out of the window, Dublin city looked just as any other suburban city would look on a Summer Saturday morning.

Cars were bustling in the roads down below, and crowds of people moved along the paths, heading out to go shopping our going to one of the twelve thousand coffee shops scattered around the city.

Andrew made himself breakfast and then made his way into a small room filled with the few paintings he had made, the one he was finishing consisted of a large, snow capped mountain, and wolf sprinting through the snow.

He loaded his brush and began adding more steely gray to the wolf's coat. Thirty minutes passed in total silence, and by the end of it, the portrait was complete, Andrew carefully hung the painting to dry on a bare piece of wall, he looked down at his watch, Eleven o'clock, the mail should have arrived by now.

He went downstairs and checked the mail box for apartment 528, yep, it was full, Andrew removed the letters and began to walk back upstairs, leafing through the letters as he walked.

Bills...bills...more god damn bills? Peter would have his hands full when he came back, Andrew turned over to the third letter, which seemed to be just a brochures for luxury houses and a third letter which was addressed specifically for Andrew.

"Oh, somebody loves me" Andrew thought to himself, he slowly headed back upstairs. Once inside the apartment he carelessly tossed the bills onto the coffee table and slit open the letter.

Inside was a folded piece of paper, he took it out and opened it.

It was blank, Andrew stared at it confused, he turned it over expecting to see something on the other side, nothing, blank.

"The hell?" Andrew said, why would someone send him a piece of blank paper, what was the point?

He shrugged, he walked over to the bin and was about to throw the paper into it, when he thought he saw something.

He looked at the paper again, had he imagined it, or had the paper just, glowed.

He left in doubt for hardly a second, the paper was glowing, and brightly too.

Suddenly a flash a blinding white light burst from the paper, engulfing the room. Andrew yelled and shielded his eyes, he the sound of rushing wind, as though there was tornado tearing through the building.

Just as quickly as it had arrived, the light vanished, the sound of the died away, and all returned to normal, the piece of paper drifted, silently through the air and fell onto the floor, Andrew had dropped it, or rather, he had taken it with him.

Andrew was gone, no markings were on the floor, he had left none of the clothes he had been wearing behind, he had just vanished, into thin air.

*****

Drip...drip...drip.

Andrew twitched, he felt he had been thrown a great distance by a strong wind, and that he had a hard landing. He rolled over painfully onto his back, only to be met by the same thing dripping onto his face. He opened his eyes slowly, his vision was blurred, he shut his eyes and looked up, then he sat bolt upright.

The apartment was gone, he was now sitting in the middle of a forest clearing, the trees were close together, so Andrew couldn't see if there was anything behind them, and very little light came through as the tops of the trees had large branches with many leaves that blotted out sunlight. A few drops of water from the nearest tree had been falling on his face, another drop fell from the tree and hit Andrew on the head, he brushed it out and looked around the clearing.

"Hello?" Andrew said out loud, hoping that there was someone nearby that could hear him.

There was no reply, the forest remained deadly silent.

"Is there anyone else here?" Andrew asked more loudly, still no answer returned to him. He got to his feet and began pacing up and down,"stay calm" he told himself, "just stay calm, find a river, that usually works".

But there did not seem to be any running water in this forest at all, all there was was a pile of rocks and some large, overgrown thorn bushes.

Suddenly, from far off in the distance, Andrew heard the sound of yelling and screaming, the noises were coming from off to Andrew's left. "Maybe someone's hurt" he thought, he had nothing to help someone if they were, but maby he could bring them to the nearest town and get help for them.

He set of at a steady pace towards where the noise was coming from, he pushed apart several branches along the way. Where was he? Andrew was completely baffled about what had happened. Was he dreaming? Just to make sure he wasn't he gave himself a sharp punch in the shoulder, this however attributed nothing except giving him a sharp pain in his shoulder.

So it wasn't a dream, well then what was all this? He was more confused than he had ever been in his life.

He ran for about a minute until he came to a small cliff at the edge of the forest, there were no more trees at the cliff side, he pushed apart the remaining branches that obstructed his path and surveyed the sight before him.

There were no people to be seen, lying on the ground however were three horses, three very small horses. Andrew cautiously approached the horses, strangely they were all wearing golden armor, "maybe their war horses", Andrew thought. Could that have been it? Had that paper sent him back in time, maybe he was now in World War One.

He rolled the horse over and examined it, it was dead, it had several gashes down it's body that looked like they had been made by a sword, the wounds were fresh and blood was still pouring out of them.

He moved to another horse and looked it over, this one didn't have sword wounds, this one looked like it had been burned alive, but no bushes looked like they had been burned. Andrew picked up the hoof of the horse, it was covered in blisters and felt as though it would break off if Andrew pulled on it.

A rancid smell reached Andrew's nostrils, he covered his mouth and coughed, the bodies couldn't be rotting all ready, they looked like they had hardly died an hour ago.

Then Andrew became aware of something moving behind him, before he could turn fully around, something huge had bounded out of the forest and pinned him to the ground. Andrew yelled in shock, he felt hot breath on his face that smelt of rotting meat.

The creature snapped its jaws, trying to get at Andrew's throat, he pushed the beasts head back with one hand and fumbled around with the other. His fingers found a stone, he seized it and smashed it against the animals head.

It yelped and recoiled, Andrew took his chance and kicked the monster away, he scurried backward and got a look at what the creature was. It looked like a wolf, but it was made completely out of wood, it's paws were wooden and were shaped into sharp claws like a wolf. It glowed a ghostly green, and it's eyes stared straight into Andrews, unblinking.

The wolf snarled, saliva dripping from it's pointed teeth. It bounded back at Andrew, he threw his stone at it, it hit the beast in the head again, this however only seemed to make it more angry, it howled and jumped.

Andrew grabbed a spear lying beside him and thrust it upwards, the wolf flew straight into the pointed piece of steel.

It howled again in pain, then it went limp, the wood stopped glowing and fell apart, pieces of bark falling with small thumping noises.

Andrew jumped up and began stamping on the wood, breaking as much of it as he could.

He stopped his stamping and slumped back onto the ground, taking deep breaths.

"Damn", he said, he looked over the cliff at the horizon, he saw smoke rising from a part of the forest. Something was over there, there could be people over there that could help him get home. He stood up, then remembered he was still holding the spear.

"Better hold onto this"he thought, he looked down the side of the cliff, it was far to steep, and to big a drop, he'd break his legs if he tried to jump down it. He found a way down in the form of a dirt path that curved down into the bottom of the forest. He slid down the path and looked up.

The smoke was was coming from quite far north in the forest, it was his best chance, someone there was bound to have answers, he clutched his spear, and set off into the forest.