Sitting in front of a small campfire I had made I stared into the flames and let my thoughts bubble to the surface. I'd managed to recover somewhat well now after the outburst in the forest and finally had time to try and piece together everything going on.
"Teleportation… emotions… malevolent 'force'… that zombie thing…"
I felt myself coming close to an answer, however the answer I had in mind was so crazy that I wanted to deny it as much as possible. Thinking back at the beasts and creatures I had seen whilst in this forest, the ones I don't recognise, I felt that this theory was becoming more prominent, but I still rejected it or at least wanted to reject it and prove it wrong as much as possible.
"Theres no way… how? Why? If that were the case, then there's not even a point in me being here? I'd just be some random extra thrown into a shitty forest as some sort of twisted experiment"
If the current thoughts I had on this world were true, then this place already had a story. It had a beginning, middle and end. All the characters and people in this world already had their own lives to live or have been lived, there would literally be no reason as to 'why' I had ended up here in this case.
I stared deeply into the flames rising in front of me and after some more time with my thoughts I shook my head with a defeated feeling welling up inside me. I grabbed some water I had collected in a makeshift bottle and drank it as I watched the last embers of the firewood burn out in front of me.
Cold wind seemed to hug me instantly as soon as the last ember of the fire burnt out. I'd already spent months here at this point, and honestly, it was a miracle I'd even survived. I always hoped one day I'd fall asleep or be walking somewhere, and suddenly, I'd be back home, but it never happened. If this world was truly the world I suspected it to be, there may be some means of getting back home... but such "magic" would be almost mythical even in this world.
"Guess it's time for me to head out again…"
I was running low on water, and my food supplies were dwindling as well. I had a lot of questions but it was impossible to answer them all currently. As I stepped towards the exit of my camp, I heard a faint sound in the distance that instantly raised all the hairs on my body. Unlike a normal animal yelp, this sound was… human.
"What a cute little subject laying a trivial trap like this... I wonder where he is…"
I immediately ran into some cover nearby my own camp and watched for a moment. The second I heard a human voice I felt the urge to respond instantly, however hearing how he spoke… especially the words 'cute little subject'… that instantly raised red flags.
As I lingered for a moment wondering if I should just run now, I saw the source of the voice walk into my camp area, his back was hunched and his face was covered with a mask. Judging from how he sounded a moment ago, it was evident he was an older man.
The old man seemed to stop for a moment, musing as he looked around my meagre camp. He stared at the fire in the centre of the camp for a moment and let out a chuckle.
"Seems this subject is quite the clever one... or maybe just lucky. To run away the moment I was about to find him could be his blessing..."
The man, who was empty-handed one moment, suddenly had something in his hand the next. He pointed it at the floor and spoke words that impacted my mind like a hammer to a anvil.
"Appare Vestigium."
Dust-like light emanated from the man, enveloping the surroundings. Footsteps began to materialize on the ground, revealing my movements around the area in the past few hours. The man scrutinized the footsteps, searching for specific ones that would indicate my current location. I noticed footsteps slowly appearing, pointing in my direction.
Realizing the danger, I swiftly started running deeper into the woods. Having spent months here, I had familiarized myself with the geography, which gave me an advantage in that moment. However, I was aware of the power of the words the man had uttered. I knew what they were capable of, and in that moment, the answer that had constantly plagued my mind, the one I tried to ignore, shone brightly.
"So, this is that world, the Wizarding World."
A world I had only read about in books and watched on screens in my previous life was now a world I saw in front of me, all too real. I didn't even have time to process these thoughts as I imagined the old wizard following my footsteps with evil intentions. I was aware of the spell he had conjured. It was a tracking spell of magic activity. While I hadn't done any actual magic, I probably had some sort of 'residual' magic left behind by my outburst earlier.
If I ran far enough and hid well enough, I'd be out of range for at least a while and eventually the tracks should die out as long as I don't have any outbursts again…
.
Hours had passed since my encounter with the old wizard and whilst nearing the peak of my exhaustion, I managed to find an alcove underneath a tree to hide in for a while. I caught my breath and felt tiredness, fatigue, and hunger overwhelm me as I sat there. The longer I stayed still, the more my anger and confusion festered. Now that I knew the answer to "Where," I had lost all hope of answering "Why." I smacked the tree root I was sitting next to in anger as I tried to calm myself.
All these recent events that had happened to me were now explainable. I was a young wizard. Who knows if the body of this boy was someone who existed and was dumped in this forest, or if this body appeared alongside my consciousness as someone new?
"Well I guess there's at least the silver lining that I have some idea of what's going on now… but…"
Sure enough, it's great to understand what I am now, but it doesn't necessarily mean I can suddenly grab a stick and conjure magic, even if I know the words of some spells. Wandless magic could be possible, but that was even harder that using magic with a wand. I had no guidance to show me how to do these things and trying to learn by myself was near impossible. Even if I spent months in these woods mulling over my memories of the books and movies, trying to teach myself, I would still end up falling short without proper guidance or at least some textbook knowledge within this world to go off.
The more pressing issue was my current state of mind and body. I now knew what was happening to me. Due to the sheer stress of being shifted to another world, the sadness of leaving my dad behind, and the pain I had experienced up to this point, I had become an Obscurus. I had no place to belong, and since I tried to suppress my magic, I only led to the Obscurus process quickening. I only suppressed the phenomena out of fear of alerting beasts around me. After all, the situation with the falling tree had nearly made me a sitting duck for some magical beasts in the area… but my own fear of getting found had led me into an even worse situation.
Looking up through the sea of leaves above me, I gazed into the moonlight that pierced through. If this was the Wizarding World, I wondered where I was. I didn't think this could be the Forbidden Forest outside Hogwarts, as surely these happenings would have alerted someone there by now. Instead, a dark old wizard had appeared, tracking me down and calling me a "subject."
Could I be in another forest in Britain? Or maybe not even in Britain at all...
The only solace in all of this was knowing that this world wasn't just one massive forest. There was an exit, and if I tried hard enough, I could escape... that is, if I didn't get caught by that old hunchback wizard...