She was alive. She was not dead.

Rose's chest rose and fell with shaky breaths, her legs more wobbly than steady. Alive, not dead, she kept repeating to herself.

But she couldn't waste any time. She needed to get away from the glade before whatever had risen there would come after her. The tall dark-haired elf, Andor, as the female one had called him, had said that she would be safe out here, but she didn't trust his words. Not after what he had done to her.

Like an innocent and clueless girl she had walked straight into his trap, had fallen for his honeyed words and eyes of molten gold. How could she have been so stupid? Had she learned nothing from even the simplest tales about elves? They never gave anything away for free, least of all their immortality. She let out an indignant huff. It should have been clear as daylight that his advances were nothing but a calculated trick.

Anger welled inside her, anger at her own gullibility, but she couldn't dwell on that now. She shut out the painful thoughts and moved ahead, yet her steps suddenly faltered.

What if this was another trap the elves had laid out for her? Making her think that she was safe, just to entertain themselves watching her get lost? What if they had even worse things for her in store? The one with the broad shoulders had looked more than ready to try that knife on her. And the other one with the auburn hair seemed to delight in making jokes at her expense. Even the female one had appeared more hostile than friendly. Maybe she tortured humans for sport?

She shuddered at the thought, but resisted the temptation to turn around and look. If they were indeed observing her, she wouldn't give them the satisfaction of thinking she would waste another thought on them. They could perish in those creepy shadows for all she cared.

Rose gripped her bag tighter until her knuckles turned white. She stared at her hands as if she expected them to disappear at any moment. Wasn't there a strange glimmer to them? Were they turning transparent again?

She took a deep breath, but the smell of dried leaves and humid moss only made her sick. Her mouth was parched and she was desperate for water to wash away the stale taste, but there was no way she would drink from the stream that flowed not far from her pathway. She would rather stay thirsty than risk being turned into another plant.

Rose forced herself to keep on walking, step after step, following the pathway straight ahead, not looking left nor right. The leaves rattled on the creaking branches overhead. She shivered in her thin blue dress, the delicate cloth not offering sufficient protection against the autumn wind. Pretty, but useless, that's what this dress was. She couldn't wait to get rid of it.

Rummaging in her bag, she pulled out her coat and wrapped herself in it, but the anticipated warmth wouldn't set in. The cold had seeped into her bones, as if her body had forgotten how to function properly while she had been — a flower, that's what they had said. It sounded almost too surreal to be true and if someone would have told her that it was possible to turn a human into a flower she would have called them delusional.

She buried her hands in the pockets of her coat and plowed ahead. Her legs were still not to be trusted completely, so she kept her eyes on the pathway that spread into the distance like a carpet of deepest orange, flaming red and golden brown. For a few seconds she thought on slowing down to appreciate the saturated beauty of the autumn leaves, but not today. Today she was thoroughly annoyed.

"Bloody shoes!" she hissed.

A sharp pain bloomed in her left foot. She hobbled to a nearby log and plopped down to rub her toe. This felt like the tenth time that she had stubbed her toe! The gnarled roots hidden under the piles of leaves were a hazard and those flimsy shoes were just as useless as the dress. How on earth could the elves walk in these shoes? Or perhaps they couldn't, which was the reason why some of them, like Andor, walked barefoot.

Hopefully he would step on a particularly pointy thorn, so that feline gait of his would turn into an ungraceful limp. With a grim smile on her lips she flexed her toes, tentatively putting her weight on her foot, when a terrifying thought suddenly made her freeze mid-motion.

She had no idea what day it was, or even what year. What if ages had gone by and everyone she knew was dead? After all there were many legends stating that time moved at a different pace in the realm of the elves. She reached for her wrist, but instead of her watch, there was nothing. It must have vanished alongside her clothes.

Of course, flowers probably didn't need watches either, she thought to herself, remembering the female elf's explanation. But this watch had been special to her, a gift from her grandfather for her fifth birthday. It had been her steady companion since then. She absentmindedly rubbed her wrist, fighting against the feeling of emptiness and loss that threatened to overcome her. But it was no use to mourn the loss of a watch now. She needed to stay focussed.

Looking around didn't really help either, as the forest probably would not have changed much over time and she still wasn't close enough to the small village to be able to confirm any date. At least the day was clear and bright, and the menacing thunderstorm that had loomed over the glade had not followed her. The pathway ahead was empty, thanks god, and now also vaguely familiar.

She strode with renewed determination, pressing her bag closer against her body, ignoring the insistent trembling in her limbs. Finally the end of the forest came into sight, and the outline of the rolling hills that lay beyond made her heart jump with joy. Never had she been so delighted to leave behind a forest. The vegetation thinned as the pathway widened, low lying shrubs and bushes gradually replacing the majestic trees.

Only when the woods lay at a safe distance behind her, did she finally stop to turn around. Everything looked so peaceful and quiet, no sign of a magical glade, dangerous elves or a threatening thunderstorm. The branches swayed softly in the autumn breeze. Just a forest, nothing more. Or was it?

It couldn't all have been a dream, could it? Her strange attire, missing clothes and watch were proof enough that it definitely wasn't. She threw the trees an angry glare. A nightmare was a better word to describe what had happened to her. But, she had awoken from it and she was going home. That was infinitely better than being dead or being a flower.

Pulling herself together she trotted along the country road until she reached the village. To her relief everything still looked the same as when she had left, the only difference being the curious stares of people, which made her sorely aware of her somewhat outlandish appearance.

Couldn't the elves have chosen a more inconspicuous dress? This was a shade of blue not even Melinda had ever worn, and her friend was always on top of every season's new trend. As if the colour screaming 'Look at me!' wasn't enough, the length of it nearly swept the floor, so she had to bunch it up, which made it look even more awkward in combination with her utterly plain coat.

The amused expression on the face of the ticket office clerk at the train station made her wish that the elves had given her an invisibility cloak instead. She quickly snatched her ticket, peering at the date. A sigh of relief escaped her. It had been only four days since her departure, not a year or an entire lifetime. Still, she would have to explain her absence, and she was quite sure that having been turned into a flower by an elf wasn't something people would be inclined to believe. She'd better start working on a more credible explanation, like aliens trying to abduct her or bears attempting to eat her for dinner, although maybe trains not running on schedule would do too.

When the train finally did arrive, she got into the last wagon at the end of the platform, searching for a compartment that wasn't too crammed. She settled for one with only two people, one of them a middle-aged man, snoring in a way that made it clear he was fast asleep, and the other one a young woman, who had her nose buried in a book. Hopefully this would guarantee her a quiet journey. Rose wasn't in the mood of being stared at and much less, small talk. She just wanted to be left alone, go home, and never come back to this village, its cursed forest and wicked elves.

She dropped her bag and huddled into the seat beside the window, when her eyes fell on a crumpled local newspaper. She picked it up, browsing through the pages with little interest, but then a headline caught her eyes.

Unnatural wave of thunderstorms sweeps the county

The authorities have advised everyone to stay indoors and emphasised to steer clear of the forest after two hikers have been found dead, buried under a fallen branch of an ancient oak.

She swallowed hard and dropped the newspaper with trembling fingers. What if that had been her? She could have been dead. Well, for all she knew she had been dead for the human world for a few days, and if the elf that had taken her life hadn't decided to come back for her, she would have remained a flower for the rest of eternity.

She pulled up her legs and wrapped her arms around them, her head falling back against the headrest. Breathe, she reminded herself, when anxiety threatened to overwhelm her. She couldn't let the gravity of those events allow to pull her into a spiral of despair, at least not yet.

First she needed to get home. Surely Melinda would be out of her mind, worrying about her. And then her parents. She didn't want to imagine how many times her mother must have tried calling her. She hadn't even bothered to pull out her phone, which sure as hell had run out of battery. And then she would need to explain to her boss at the library why she had been absent without giving any notice. A deep sigh escaped her. She was glad to be alive, but a flower surely had less complications to face than a human.

The landscape outside flew by in a blur of colours, the afternoon sun barely strong enough to break through the thickening cover of clouds. Rose propped up her chin on her hand and stared into the void, her eyes lost in a whirl of past and present.

"Ruddy Elves," she muttered, watching as her breath fogged the glass.

She should have listened to Melinda and stayed far away from them. Should have tossed that ancient book into the rubbish instead of believing in something that wasn't meant for her human eyes. Her gaze slid to the young woman across her, who had not looked up once from her book, and then it hit her.

"The book, where is the book?" she hissed.

She sifted through her bag, pushing aside wallet, keys, phone, a half-eaten package of bubblegum, the strange pink stone the elf had given her and half a dozen other items. It had to be in there. She dug in deeper, tossing her belongings onto the seat beside her, her brush bouncing off of the armrest.

Where was it? Where was the book?

Panic rose within her, her heart pounding in her chest. But even turning her bag upside down and inside out, shaking it frantically, didn't reveal anything besides crumbs, old receipts and that tampon she had been searching for a few weeks ago when she was out. It was as clear as daylight that it wasn't there.

"They took it! Those bastards took my book!" she near shouted in a jumbled crescendo, completely forgetting that she wasn't alone in the compartment.

The woman across peered at her over the edge of her book, her gaze a mixture of pity and apprehension, the man only stirring briefly in his sleep.

"Sorry, I had a rough couple of days," Rose mumbled apologetically, quickly directing her attention back to stuffing her things back into her bag.

Why? Why had they taken her book while leaving everything else? They had not taken any of her money, not even her phone, nor her keys. Not that the elves would have had any use for these items. Of course they must have recognised the book for what it was, something that she herself had never been able to do, because of her not being able to decipher the language.

Rose sank back into the seat with a sigh and ran her fingers through her disarrayed locks. She pulled out a petal from behind her ear. It was tiny and so delicate that she had to pinch it between her fingertips to prevent it from being picked up by the slightest wisp of wind.

Something in her chest constricted painfully, a sensation of defeat overcoming her. The book was lost and there was nothing she could do about it. She would simply have to accept it. Possibly it was for the best and she should see it as the price she paid for getting back her life. It taught her a lesson never to meddle in things that were beyond her reach.

She balanced the petal on the tip of her finger, watching as it swayed. Was this another human, who had shared her fate and wasn't as lucky as she herself? Or was this just part of a normal flower? When she caught the woman sitting across her looking at her with raised eyebrows, Rose flicked away the petal with her finger. It looked like a minute wing of a butterfly as it floated through the compartment. She followed it with her eyes until it was gone from her sight.

Rose spent the rest of her trip home rather subdued, the loss of her beloved book alongside her treasured watch leaving her with a bitter aftertaste that she could not shake off. The city lights were not able to lift her out of her gloomy mood when she finally rounded the corner of her street.

She had opted to walk from the train station rather than take the bus, which was awfully crowded during the busy rush hour. However, it was a long walk and ignoring the weird stares turned into a real chore, so she hurtled along as fast as she could until she stood in front of her building. Her legs were begging for a break, and her feet felt utterly sore. These leather shoes were definitely also not meant for city terrain. They would be the first to hit the garbage.

She fumbled for the key and let herself in, the smell of old building and wet stone hitting her nose in a familiar but not altogether unpleasant way. The dim light barely lit up the narrow hallway, but she knew her way around. She checked the mailbox, which to her surprise wasn't overflowing with junk-mail or bills. Perhaps Melinda had emptied it already. Then she called the elevator. No way she was walking up five floors.

The elevator creaked as it rattled upstairs and when it finally ground to a halt, Rose exhaled a long breath and walked towards her apartment-door, the cold of the stone floor seeping through the thin soles.

This was it. She was home.

Safe and in one piece, even though she seemed to have lost more than just her book and her watch in that glade. She couldn't put her finger on what that was though. Hopefully it wasn't her sanity.

When she turned the key around in the lock the door-knob was practically ripped from her hands by someone pulling it open from the inside.

"Rose!" Melinda stared at her, her eyes red-rimmed, her black locks sticking out in odd angles from a messy bun on her head. "You're back! You're alive!"

Her friend didn't even give her a chance to say a word, but pulled her into a bone crunching hug. "Oh my God, I was so worried. I heard in the news about the thunderstorms. I thought you may have been hit by a lightning, or those pointy eared weirdoes had gotten to you."

"I—I'm fine," Rose muttered into Melinda's shoulder, even though that wasn't true. She could feel the sobs building up, but she couldn't allow herself to break down in front of her, not when Melinda herself seemed to be a nervous wreck.

Melinda gripped Rose by her shoulders and studied her face. "You look terrible."

A weak smile dawned on Rose's face. "So do you." Melinda must have indeed been worried sick, if she had even forgotten about her usually impeccably applied make-up.

Melinda arched an eyebrow, and then she took in Rose from head to toe. "But the dress looks nice, even if the style is a bit strange. Where did you get that? Were you on a secret trip to a medieval fashion show?"

Rose swallowed past the lump in her throat, when the burning pain in her chest suddenly flared up again. She shoved away the image of amber eyes boring into hers, skeletal shadows clawing at her. Cold sweat crawled up her spine.

"I—the elves, I found them. They took —" A tear slid down her cheek, but she didn't bother to hold it back.

Melinda's eyes widened in silent understanding and then she resolutely wrapped an arm around Rose's shoulder and pulled her inside. "Come on, let's get you cleaned up. I'll fix you some hot tea. There's some Chinese takeout left-over, and then you must tell me everything."

Rose didn't object and leaned into the reassuring warmth of her friend. When Melinda was in mother-hen mode it was best not to protest and if she ever needed to be mothered, it was now.

Whatever strength she had conjured up to make it back home was leaving her, the brittle remains of her composure flaking away rapidly.

When the door snapped shut behind Rose, the dam inside her finally broke.