The hostess nodded and headed to the phone. Another worker came to her and helped her back to her room. Katie sat on the edge of the bed while the worker waited for the doctor to come. She thought about the events of the day and Sam. Her head was foggy and she could not remember where he had come from. She felt stupid for going into the woods alone without wearing the proper shoes, it was something that she knew better than to do but she was thankful that Sam had shown up.
It was only a few minutes before the doctor walked into her hotel room with the hostess, the two workers that had stayed with Katie left her alone with the doctor. He checked her eyes, her breathing and her heart. He had her move around and when he was done he told her that she would be fine, but her head would be sore for a few days.
“You are lucky you made it back,” he said to her as he turned and began packing his supplies, These woods are not safe after dark.” The doctor left and Katie headed back to the shower. She had to clean up and change out of her dirty torn maxi dress. As she stepped into the shower, she could not get Sam out of her head, she also wondered why people kept telling her that the woods were dangerous after dark. It intrigued her to know what they meant. They had been very vague in what they had said, but they had made it very clear that there was a real danger.
Katie stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in a towel before walking to the window she looked out at the woods and began thinking about Sam.
Something about his eyes had drawn her in, he was her hero and she wanted to thank him for what he had done, but then she realized that she had left him alone in the woods and had no idea what had happened to him.
Katie grabbed her laptop and began looking for anything to do with the area and the woods. What she found was that each year many tourists disappeared in those woods and on the off season several people would wander into them and never be seen again.
Then there was something else, it was what the locals called the explanation for all of the disappearances. The local shapeshifting dragons. It was said that many believed the shapeshifters had gone extinct years ago, but with all of the unexplained disappearances, many believed that these creatures had just been in hiding.
Katie thought about the hotel that she had been staying in and realized that there were dragons in every part of the hotel. Even the sign that was outside of the path she had walked on had a beautifully painted dragon on it. She became more and more interested in the local lore surrounding the dragons. Even though she knew there was no way it was possible for there to be shapeshifting dragons she wanted to know more about what the locals believed.
The lore stated that the dragons had lived on the island hundreds of years before people had ever discovered them. There were two types of dragons that were said to inhabit the island, those of the water and those of the land.
It was said that the great lizard was sworn to protect the island from being taken over and his alliance was with nature and not with people. There were stories of human women falling in love with the shapeshifters, leaving their families and becoming one of them, there were stories of dragons attacking settlers as they tried to build their communities and stories of men attacking the dragons and killing them all.
There were also stories of dragons impregnating human women, while taking on human form and passing their blood line on through humans and it was said that those that were left of the dragons lived in the woods right outside of Katie’s hotel.
Katie closed her computer not able to wrap her mind around the idea of a shapeshifting dragon making itself look like a human and giggled a little. She had heard some wild stories in her life, but as she crawled into her bed, she was in awe that people still believed in monsters.
Katie laid back in her bed and thought about Sam, she smiled at the idea of him being some terrifying shapeshifting dragon. No, he was just a beautiful man that had rescued her when she needed it the most.
That night for the first time, Katie had not dreamed about her past or her ex, she had instead dreamed about the mysterious man, she dreamed about Sam.
The next morning Katie awoke with a smile on her face, she quickly dressed and headed down to grab some breakfast. She slipped a few extra muffins into her bag and headed out the door. She was headed to the woods again, this time she was prepared. Katie wore a pair of yoga pants, a T-shirt and tennis shoes. She brought a flashlight in her bag just in case the woods got too dark and she brought a compass. She was not going to get lost today.
She knew that some people would have called her crazy for going back out into the woods alone, but she could not get Sam out of her head. She had to know that he was okay and she had to see him again. She had not felt this way about a man since she had first met her ex, there was something intoxicating about him, but Katie wondered if that had not been because of the large bump that was still on her head.