InsaneJournal

The sun was a different kind of sun.

The weather was different, hotter, muggier and the sun's rays lashed its hot anger upon Hansel like an Inquisitor. This wasn't France. This wasn't Germany. This defiantly wasn't the forest he fucking passed out in the middle in. It was witchcraft, plain and simple. And Hansel stalked in a defensive position, his face set in an alert and determined set, as he held his rifle. Some witch likely hadn't been so happy to hear about Hansel kicking down all her sister's doors for answers and leaving a body trail in his wake. Hansel just never heard of any witch strong enough to transport to... God know's where.

One of the marshy reeds broke in the distance and the witch hunter turned about himself to face it. Sweaty, alert. The weather effected his breathing. Making him take in deeper pulls into his nose. Nothing was there.

Hansel kept himself tense, eyes still working, waiting, even though his years of trailing told him there was nothing to the noise. It was likely an animal. A deer. He had seen a few acting oddly. They had been stalk still at the sight of him but something in it was like a dare... The Witch Hunter shook himself and turned about while mopping up the back of his neck. The German born hated heat. Wet or dry. Since he was stuck in a swampy heat wearing something like fifteen pounds of leather, Hansel decided he hated wet-heat the most.

And as Hansel walked through the dying marshlands, passing a large rundown barn, the hunter couldn't shake that feeling of being followed. Of eyes on him. It didn't matter that the Witch Hunter was completely aware of his surroundings, that there were no clues to a tail. The feeling was just there and it was building another sensation within Hansel that he hadn't completely felt since he was a boy. Hansel pressed his lips together and tried to will the growing terror away. More deep pulls through the nose as he tried to get his barrings. He needed to find his sister. No matter that he was in a different location in God know's where.

A strange looking town was in the distance. A long bridge over a wide river. This place had nothing to do with God.

For some reason, the thought spooked Hansel. Or maybe it was still that feeling of being watched, being followed. Open marshlands was impossible terrain to shake a shadow. There was no way to backtrack. Hansel was utterly exposed and that knowledge, mixed with the sensation within him, caused for the Witch Hunter to move quickly even in his defensive stalk. By the time he got to the bridge, that cation was replaced with haste, that irrational terror getting the best of him.

Hansel jogged the length of that bridge. His jog picking up speed the closer he got to the uncertain and clearly desolate city. It was just there, in sight, when he stopped suddenly, almost tipping forward in the momentum when he saw a solid ribbon of black rock with yellow dotted lines. It crossed him and for a moment Hansel was like a witch about flowing water. It was a myth, moving water and witches, but the man was struck still by the strange sight before him. Was it stone? It was too smooth with no clear signs of cuts but yet it looked gritty all at once. What was the reason for the raised yellow lines that almost looked reflective? But that feeling was building within Hansel again, as if the sensation within pinned pointed how close the stalking was.

Slinging his rifle over his shoulder and swallowing, Hansel decided, almost regrettably, and lunged himself onto the asphalt road, bracing for something terrible... Only to be standing perfectly fine. Just like standing on rock. Solid and sure. And the fear was gone. The sense of being followed. Hansel looked over his shoulder and back out over the bridge and those dying marshlands and kitted his brows at it. Magic. It had to be but he shouldn't have been affected...

Hansel stomped his feet a bit on the asphalt, testing it. Another bit of magic? It seemed man made. Hm. The Witch Hunter looked around himself even as he pulled his rifle back up over his shoulder and into ready position. Some elements of the dead city felt close to home. Just on the cutting edge of design that onetime Gretel and he had gone to England.

Gretel...

Hansel set his jaw and began to walk again. A determined man in a strange world. He walked a good two kilometers before something like a town notice board caught his eye. Curious, Hansel walked over to it even though the area looked nothing like a town square where such boards normally would be. Notes littered all over the board, some so old, faded and rained upon that a lot of the messages were gone but something jumped out at Hansel, his name. Or what he thought looked like his name. The man grabbed the piece of paper and ripped it off from the town board and read. Well, tried to read. Hansel even tipped it to the side as if maybe that would help. Gretel's name was on it. His heart started to thunder into his ears. Hansel willed ever crude scrawl to make sense; and when it did, he read it over three more times.

Black Dog Motel.

Hansel folded up the paper and stuck it into his leather trench coat pocket as he looked about the empty street. His first lead and it was within a dead and defiantly wrong town. Now he just had to find this Black Dog Motel. Hansel picked up his rifle and cradled it into his arms and wondered just how much trouble it would be for him to stop and ask for directions. Why did he have the distinct feeling that if he did some witch was going to jump out from somewhere and tired to eat him? It wouldn't be a first.