Unplaces

“I still can’t believe we haven’t been caught!”

“I told you scarves and jackets are the way to go for this: dozens of disguises in one."

“I still don’t get why we have to do this, it’s not like we’re going to need this as lawyers.”

“Yeah, and why is it that our group, with students who want to be lawyers, are the only ones that have to follow him off campus?”

“SShh, quiet down or we’ll get caught!”

We were following our criminal investigations professor as an assignment for his class. We had to follow him around for a day without him noticing us. Though it was odd that he was walking off campus now, the other groups didn’t have to do that, was something wrong?

“This is ridiculous, why do we have to be the ones getting the extra work on something that we’re not even going to use?"

“Maybe he’s trying to show us what the work will be like for those we will be working with so we can better understand our future colleagues?”

“Or maybe he forgot that we were doing this today or something came up off campus that he can’t postpone.”

“Yeah, right. That’s why he’s walking onto a trail off the highway.”

We tensed, our group mate was right, there’s something off. We all feel it and hesitate at the start of the trail, hearing the cars race by onto the highway. We wonder if we should really be here, but in the end, we need the grade for this assignment to pass, and we need this class to graduate college in law. So we pass.

* * * * * * *

We hope that our discomfort would ease as we walked through the forests, but it only gets worse. The air feels…fresher, everything seems brighter, but we’re still on edge. Every noise sounds wrong, though we can think of no reason for it to be wrong. Until…

“What the hell is that!!!???”

We all look at the strange, small, winged creature with pointed ears and wearing a foxglove as a hat floating about the trees, sprinkling dust everywhere.

“Nope. Not real, we’re hallucinating.”

“Wow, a pixie!”

“Ok, I don’t think we’re hallucinating if we all saw the same thing, and before you get all sparkly eye about fairies you should keep in mind that in most folklore they can be dangerous as often as they are helpful.”

We don’t know what to make of what we see, is this real, or are we seeing things? We decide that we should probably get a video of this world as proof that we’re not crazy, so one of us gets out their phone and starts recording. We continue to wander around, looking for any way out or any sign of our professor. Why would he be in this place, whatever it is? We see many more strange things that we could not describe, not only the animals but the plants too, though sometimes we are uncertain what was which. One of us sees a woman washing some dark liquid from clothes that look remarkably similar to ours but before she can take a closer look…

“Oh, look! A cat! Here kitty kitty.”

The ‘cat’ was larger than a Maine coon, black as night, had glowing intelligent green eyes, and odd tuffs of fur on xyr ears.

“You really think that’s a normal cat?”

“I think it might be a cait sith.”

“Well, leave it alone whatever it is.”

“Awww, ok”

“You know what, we should just get out of here before we get killed.”

So we turn back, searching for a way out, no longer concerned with our assignment. After a while of this, we look into a clearing and see…

“What… what is this? Why do those creatures…look exactly like us? They’re even dressed in the same outfits that we’re wearing.”

“Maybe they got them from that woman that was washing clothes that looked like ours.”

“Wait, what!!? You saw a woman washing clothes that looked like ours!!? Did they look like they had blood on them!!?”

Before the question could be answered, we are suddenly engulfed by vines, trapping us. And then we see our captor.

“You! You’re a faery!!?” We exclaimed at the sight of our professor, who stands before us with fingers like claws, pointed ears, and sharp canines in a wicked smile.

“Why are you so surprised? Have you never noticed how much fae and lawyers have in common? We can’t truly lie, but can get around it with half-truths and deceptive language, we’re quite fond of contracts, must obey the letter but not the spirit of the law, excel at finding and utilizing loopholes, work in courts, and can be somewhat helpful or completely malevolent if we chose. We barely even have to hide our nature as lawyers, we only need fake human greed.”

While he speaks, one of us sneaks out a pocket knife and begins working on the vines.

He gestures to our doppelgangers. “These fine changelings are in the top of their class at human mimicry, and they’ve been following you around for weeks, learning everything about you until they knew you better than you know yourselves. And, now, with you stuck here in Tir Na Nog for the remainder of your lives after you drink this,” The vines bring forward a purplish drink with a flowery, yet unearthly smell, “They can easily take your places. Oh, don’t worry about your fates though. We’ll take good care of you. Now drink up.”

“But it’s our lives you’re taking! Even if you don’t kill us! Our dreams, our hopes, our families, our friends, ”

And with that we are able to cut free from the vines and run off as fast as we can. We hear crashing behind us as the professor chases us yelling about the dangers of this place and how we’d be safer with him but we ignore him and tried to find the way back home. We keep running until we run out of breath. We can’t hear the professor anymore, but we have no idea what we were up against with him, fae are often credited with being faster than humans with enhanced senses, for all we knew, he could be right behind us…or ahead of us. It was then that we came across a river and unfortunately saw the ‘horse’.

“Here boy, it's alright I’m not gonna hurt you, I just need you to give us a ride out of here.”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Do you have a better idea of how to get out of here?”

“We keep running and don’t mess with the faeries who might try to kill us!”

“Ah, come on it’s just a horse there’s nothing to fear from this gentle…”

He puts his hand on the horse, and before he could finish, the fae horse bites him hard on the shoulder and drags him into the lake, screaming, blood gushing from the bite. We stand there in shock, one of us falling to her knees. The other grabs her hand and begins running again, pulling her along. As we run some human sized cats that moved on their hind legs appear, singing and dancing by the road. One of us tries to follow them.

“Come on, if you go with them they’ll drink your blood!”

Then, we sighted the way out. We tried to run faster but tripped over something, sending them off the side of the road and the phone we used to record everything flying forward, and the ieles pounced on us.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

I still wonder what happened to my friends yesterday, they all seem so different, what could have happened when they followed their professor around? I go to the woods by the highway where I saw them last. I look around to see if I can track where they went when I find one of their cell phones. I pick it up and see that there’s a video on it, so I play it. My horror grows as I realize what happened to my friends, and…