I took a deep breath as I hiked the mountain trail.

It had only been an hour since I had decided to relax and unwind by going on a local hiking trail by the college that I was attending. Things had not been…good today and I figured some time out alone in nature would help and I was quickly being proven right. The Appalachian mountain truly was a wondrous sight to behold.

The trail itself was a simple one that had been created by decades of foot traffic which had resulted in an obvious path through the lovely nature of the small forest-covered mountain. The trees were pretty much empty of leaves since it was the beginning of winter and the cool air helped clear my mind as I walked. Frost was also scattered here and there as well which gave the entire trail an almost mystic vibe. I was kinda surprised I hadn’t seen any other students of the college on the trail but decided to not question the blessing.

The college wasn't a big one and was more isolated than others I had seen which was one of the reasons I had ended up picking it during my senior year in high school. It helped that it was a good three hours away from my family too.

I was already finishing up my first semester as December started and was more than ready to be done with the basic classes that I had been forced to take. Only one of them had been related to my major in philosophy which I rather enjoyed but other than a sociology class I had also taken, the rest were numbing to the mind to wade through. Either way, I felt ready for the final tests and was going to enjoy a long winter break in an empty dorm.

Things had been going so well until today. I suppose I only had myself to blame on that front but it didn’t make the unease in the back of my head any better. At least that was mostly gone now and I could move on while ignoring my problems like usual.

So far that tended to work.

Absentmindedly I stopped for a moment to pull out my phone and quickly swiped away the messages that had been sent to me over the last hour, not even giving them a split second of attention. I stared at the picture on my home screen for a second before I swiftly turned the phone off as I felt the numbing start to creep back in. I was met with a black screen that reflected my face back at me.

I saw my usual pale skin that had earned me the nickname of vampire for most of my life. The paleness contrasted with my black short trimmed hair and the soul patch on my chin that extended about an inch or two down. All framing a slim face with a sharp nose and cold blue eyes. I could also see the top of my brown leather trench coat I was wearing with the plain black t-shirt underneath. I also had some dark blue jeans and some black boots on but that wasn't reflected back to me.

All of it made up for a decently, at least in my opinion, handsome man named Alexander.

Though most people ended up calling me Alex or even Al at times but that was neither here nor there at the moment. Still though as far as names went I felt like I had been given a good one. Far better than the other names I had been hearing some of my old high school associates had been naming their kids.

I really felt bad for the kid named Harambe.

I rolled my phone in my hands as I stared at it in thought. The things that my now ex-girlfriend had told me not too long ago flashed in my mind, cycling on repeat like a broken record. I still believed that she had overreacted to things that I just didn’t see as important. If she felt that she couldn’t be with someone that she felt was untruthful then she would die of old age before finding them.

Everyone lied. It was a simple fact of life. Some lies were little while some were big but at the end of the day, people lied as they would eat food or drink water. If she felt the little things I had said here or there were too much for her then fine. She was more than free to leave. Just like the others had.

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“I’d be a liar though if I didn’t say that it still hurt a bit,” I mumbled out as I continued my little meditation and thinking.

As these thoughts tinkered in my head I felt the numbness finally reside and a small smile found its way onto my face as I let out a much more relaxed and relieved sigh. Glad that that little problem had been nipped in the bud I went back to opening my phone screen again, this time with the goal of changing the stupid home screen when my foot found an uneven spot on the trail.

I hissed out a small “Shit.” before I threw one of my hands to catch a nearby tree. This was unfortunately the same hand as my phone which resulted in it being flung down to a lower part of the hilly ground near some bushes.

“Lovely” I muttered as I finally regained my balance. I kept an eye on where I saw my phone fly as I experimentally picked up and rotated my foot around. Luckily the pain I felt was rapidly fading and after a few seconds, I was confident in putting it back on the ground. With one problem dealt with, I turned to deal with the other.

I carefully took steps off the dirt path as I made my way down the declining forest floor. I tried my best to keep looking at where I had last seen my phone but found it to be a rather difficult endeavor as I was forced to shift my eyes to look down to make sure I didn't step on anything I didn’t want to step on.

It took a few mins but eventually, I was in the same general location of where I had flung my phone like an idiot. With a tired sigh, I squatted and started to look around the brush wishing that I had taken the time to get my leather gloves before I had left my dorm room. Damn my roommates and their judgemental looks that drove me to leave before I had been properly ready to be out in the cold.

“Come on out my darling little phone. Papa would like not to have to spend the very little money he has to get another one of you.” I whispered under my breath as I pushed fallen leaves and branches to the side as I continued my search with sadly little success.

It was just as I was thinking of taking a break and allowing my poor knees a minute or two of rest when I heard a tearing-like sound screech through the mountainous woods.

My eyes widened as I shot to my full height, hoping to look around and find out what the hell had just made that noise in the middle of a forest. At least that had been my attention but I had ended up going too fast and quickly lost my balance. Despite my best attempts, I couldn't regain any of said lost balance and fell to the descending ground and started a clumsy roll downwards.

In my panic and shock, I found myself allowing the roll to happen for a few seconds before I regained myself and was about to throw my arms out to stop it. But before I could I felt a…shift is the best way to describe it. Like going from the cold outdoors to a warmer inside room.

In my confusion, I stopped myself from throwing out my arms, and to my even greater confusion, I found the roll stopping itself. As I recovered from the ordeal I twisted over onto my butt with a little cringe from some little bruising that now covered my body. After a few seconds of dizziness, my head cleared and I was greeted with a baffling scene.

The mountainous winter forest I had been in was gone and in its stead was a different much more evenly elevated one that still had colorful leaves on its trees. Nature all around me was more green than it should be in winter as the grass was still fresh and the plants were very full of life. The confusion increased even more as I felt that even the temperature was now on the cooler side than the colder side it had been on for the past month.

As I took in my new surroundings, very aware that I had somehow been transported somewhere else, my mouth opened to say something or really anything. Words stalled for a minute as I just stared at the impossible sight in front of me. Eventually though, words did find their way out of my mouth.

“What the Fuck…”

I felt it was elegantly put.

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(Pov-???)

It saw everything.

It always had and always will.

Millions of things to do. Millions of Things to calculate. Millions of never-ending tasks.

Its attention was spread throughout the world as it performed its duties. Its attention is not stolen by anything. Not even when the tear appeared. It wasn’t the first tear, the first one had made it stop for a moment but all the ones that followed were simply cataloged.

The thing that fell out of the tear during its few seconds of existence before it repaired itself did make it stop.

It’s billions of non-existent eyes focused on this one being. It sought out and a connection was made. Human, different slightly from the humans it usually dealt with but human all the same. With the connection made and the data cataloged it moved to go back to its tasks.

But something else made it pause.

Something deep within it had creeped out. A Rule it had never dealt with before.

It did not know what a Traveler was nor did it care. A Rule was a Rule. It applied the new Rule to the human along with all the details that came with it. Too much time had been spent on this, its never-ending tasks continued to build up and it must go back to them.

The entire distraction had taken 0.002384 seconds.

Too long.