Deceiving Appearances
A Cardcaptor Sakura fan fic by *blinkblink*
Disclaimer:
I don't own Cardcaptor Sakura or the characters. They appear purely for my
amusement. Please don't sue me!
Chapter 2
Sakura returned to the cabin as fast as she could. There were no more arrows,
and as soon as she got inside the cabin she felt sure she was safe. Tomoyo was
there, having just set up her equipment. She looked up upon Sakura's arrival.
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"Good walk?" Sakura sat down on her bed.
"You'll never believe it, Tomoyo, someone shot another arrow at me, and I
fell off a cliff but this weird guy in a cloak saved me and then ran away in
the trees and he _must_ be some kind of squirrel or something, and, and-"
she broke off for a breath. Tomoyo looked slightly concerned.
"I'm okay now though." Tomoyo still looked concerned.
"What is it? I'll be more careful from now on, if that's what you're
worried about." Tomoyo shook her head.
"It's not that, I've missed another chance to get you on video! It would
have been sooooo kawaii! Sakura and the mysterious tree-man!" Sakura sweatdropped.
"Whatever you say, Tomoyo. Common, we should get ready for dinner."
The rest of the evening passed uneventfully, there were no more arrows, nor did
anyone see a strange guy in a cloak. After the girls were settled in bed,
someone, Sakura suspected Naoko, brought up the subject of ghost stories.
Chiharu took over.
"I heard that many years ago, a group, like us, came up here. Of course,
back then, it wasn't a camp, they just came on their own to hike. But in the
middle of the night, one of them wondered off, and never came back. The next
day they found his footprints, they led right up to a tree, but then they
stopped. He was never heard of again. But hikers have seen a strange creature
running from tree to tree up here around nightfall ever since. They say it's
his ghost, warning them against wandering off alone." Sakura shut her eyes
and pulled her blanket over her head.
'What if that guy who saved me what the hiker's ghost! Hoeee...'
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Sakura woke up to find Tomoyo's face right in front of hers.
"AHHHHHHHHHHHH! Tomoyo! What are you doing?!?" Tomoyo smiled.
"Sorry to scare you, but it's time for breakfast. I'll go see what we're
having." Tomoyo left, and Sakura got dressed, by the time she was finished
the other girls had all left as well. She was walking to the mess hall, fixing
her hair as she went, when a cold wind blew past her, picking up one of her
elastics and carrying it away.
"Hey, come back you!" Sakura ran after it, through the trees, until
she caught up to it, grabbing it away from the chilling wind. She put it firmly
in her hair, then shivered.
"Brr, it's colder than I thought it would be." Sakura turned around
to walk to the mess hall, only to find the path, and her footprints were gone.
'I must have left the path chasing my elastic! And the wind has blown away my
tracks.' She walked for a minute back the way she came, but there was no path
there. Turning to go back, she found her tracks were gone. She walked back the
way she thought she had come, watching behind her. Her footprints stayed where
she left them. Sakura sighed.
'At least they're not running away too!' She turned to see where she was going,
and when she looked behind her, her footprints were gone again.
'What if they are? I'm lost! In the woods, in the winter!' Sakura hugged
herself.
'Get a grip! You can't be too far from the path. Just sit down and wait for
them to find you.' Another part of her brain argued with her. 'But if your
footprints are gone, how will they know you went off the path? Climb a tree and
look for the path, or the cabin.' Sakura turned to a tree, putting her hands on
it, and was reminded of Chiharu's ghost story. 'But if I climb the tree, I'll
turn into a ghost, and be stuck here forever!' She backed away from the trees
and sat down in the snow, in the middle of a circle of tall seemingly dead
trees, and whimpered soundlessly.
The wind rushed again. She shivered, but found that it was a warm, soothing
wind. Sakura looked up, and found her footprints. The warm wind had uncovered
them. She stood up, and followed them. The wind blew in front of her,
uncovering all her footprints, and leading her to the path. She found it and
ran down towards the mess hall, where she found the others waiting for her. She
kept the incident to herself. There was something suspiciously magical about
it, and if there was magic in it, she couldn't tell the others.
A figure in a long cloak watched from the tree Sakura ha considered climbing as
the wind showed her her tracks. She hadn't noticed him, but he hadn't meant her
to. The wind led her to the path, the doubled back, and swept up around him,
throwing his cloak back and forth. He permitted in for a minute, then raised a
hand.
"Enough." The wind fell down, and went back to roaming the snow
covered ground. He watched just to make sure the girl got to her destination,
then fell out of the tree, catching onto a branch of the tree behind him and
swinging into it, and away.
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Sakura ate her porridge, idly stroking her hair elastic, listening to the girls
around her chatter noisily.
"What's up with all these weird things. Something has got to be causing
them, but why? Why is it after me? If it's magic, maybe it can sense my magic,
and feels threatened. But that's no reason to attack me. If it was afraid of
me, wouldn't it hide? This is so confusing! I wish Kero, or Eriol, or, or Li
were here.' The last name was almost silent in her thoughts, barely recognized.
She sighed lightly and nodded to Tomoyo, who was asking her something about a
camera.
"You okay, Sakura?" Sakura nodded absently. Tomoyo rolled her eyes.
"I'm not quite that dense, Sakura. Really, what's up?" Sakura looked
up, and looked towards the door. Tomoyo tilted her head in acknowledgement,
then got up.
"I'm done, guys, I'll see you at the cabin." She walked out. Sakura
scraped the porridge off the bottom of her bowl, and then got up.
"When's our first activity?"
Chiharu thought for a minute.
"Uhh, at ten. So, in half an hour. Skiing. Downhill, I think." Sakura
nodded and smiled.
"Thanks! See you guys there!" She walked out on the path Tomoyo had
taken.
She got to the cabin without interruption. Tomoyo was sitting on her bed,
camera trained on the door. Sakura smiled.
"Now, tell me what happened? I know something's up." Sakura sat down
opposite to her and explained the whole incident with the hair elastic. Tomoyo
expressed proper sympathy at the correct intervals. Sakura finished, and Tomoyo
put down her camera.
"This sounds serious, Sakura. Someone must be doing this. They're trying
to get you to leave, or, or..." Sakura nodded.
"Yeah, I know. But something helped me out too, or I wouldn't have found
my way back
to the path. Maybe it's the squirrel man!" Tomoyo sweatdropped.
"Uh, I think Chiharu made that up. There's no such thing as a squirrel
man. But, who would want to get you out of the way, Sakura?"
"I don't know! Why does everyone I first meet want to? Look, we can talk
about this later, we have to go skiing now. Common!" She bounced out the
door. Tomoyo grabbed her gloves and followed.
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Sakura practically flew down the mountain, followed by Tomoyo and Chiharu and
co. She looked back over her shoulder.
"Common Tomoyo, faster!" Tomoyo's hat flew off backwards. She drew up
sideways, stopping and began to climb up. Chiharu and the others stopped to
help her get it. Sakura was already far away and getting farther.
"We'll meet you at the bottom! Have fun!" Tomoyo kept trekking up
after her hat. Sakura nodded and kept going, enjoying the feel of the wind
against her face.
She rounded a corner, putting her out of sight of the others. She was having so
much fun that she didn't notice. She also didn't notice the huge wall of snow
hurtling down towards her, until it was too late that is.
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