Crunch! Crunch!
Saphira's breaths matched Riven as they ran; quick, and ragged as they paced through piles of snow.
WOOOOH!
"To the trees!" Riven shouted, as Saphira's eyes gazed up.
Crunch! Crunch!
"Haaa!"
"...Hakk--"
The cold air seeped through as those pines swallowed them whole.
Snow gave way to shadow as branches jutted outwards, clawing at their coats.
Saphira's stomach swirled with unease and fear, as memories of the church flooded her mind.
Crunch!
The air cut her throat raw.
Her legs moved, but her mind wasn't focused...
Crunc---Splosh!
As the border of snow had been passed, her mind was back in the church.
The stone halls.
The choking dark.
The putrid smell of their feast...
Splosh!
Her stomach knotted as the echo of muffled groans and moans tangled with her breath.
'...Why did this have to happen...?'
Her mind filled with pleas left unanswered as she ran and ran.
The forest had taken its hold....but she had yet to notice.
Splosh!
The image of that child crept in slow...
Its thin frame.
"Haa...hakk--"
...It left her breathless.
A frozen image of its head, lolled to the side as it was detached....and those eyes....eyes that turned to stare at Riven and Saphira through the window.
Grrr!
Her stomach resounded loud.
Was it the memory? Or the hunger that a rodent couldn't sustain?
"Haaa...haa..."
Splosh! Splo-
Her steps slowed as the pain waned.
"Haaa...haa..."
Her voice broke with the rhythm of her breathing.
The image of the child's severed head wouldn't leave....
She wanted to scream, to shove it down...
Splosh.
Her chest only tightened.
"Riv..en, let's--"
The words stuck as her breath filled the gaps.
She turned to the side.
It was dark. Trees loomed like prison bars, their shadows weaving together, blurring into dark.
No steps. No voice.
It was just her.
"...haa..."
An uneasy breath expunged.
Splosh.
Her eyes dropped.
The white snow was streaked red, pooling below across roots.
Blood.
All around.
"...Riven?"
A whisper. It bled into the trees, snatched away by an eerie silence.
She tried again, louder, forcing the name through the haze.
"Riven!"
Nothing once again.
The forest didn't reply with his voice...
"Is this all...?"
The slow realisation crept as she gazed at a tree close to her right.
It's bark was covered slick with crimson, its path falling into the pool of liquid below.
The first thought that ran to her mind:
'Does this have to do with him.'
She seemed to be referencing that tall figure they'd narrowly escaped...
"Drenn..." she whispered, the name floating into the air not a second, before it vanished.
Her eyes scanned all around with pressed lips; her hands scraping at the edges of magic, if necessary to use.
It was too dark for her liking.
"Riven!" she called once more, the bass increasing in her voice...
There was no point.
For a second, she just stood there...and that's when she picked up on it.
Blubblhh....blurrrhhh...
A wet noise. It was a bubbling choke that gnawed at the silence.
When she heard it, it didn't take long for her to smell her surroundings...
Putrid.
Her eyes scrunched.
It was metallic, and large in abundance.
A heavy smell that struck, and lingered indefinitely.
Her gaze traced the surroundings as it shifted and rippled.
Her lips parted, breath sharp.
Splosh.
"...What is this place?"
The very home of death it seemed.
Blubblhh....blurrrhhh...
The aesthetic was ripe for rituals and all such; her crimson gaze seemingly fitting right in.
The air still ran cold.
The kind that gnawed at her lungs with each breath; but a kind she had adopted, although you could never get used to.
But like opposites, it seemed the ground bubbled hot, seething as though something beneath boiled alive.
Blubblhh....blurrrhhh...
She took an uneasy step back, feeling the heat below her boots:
Splosh.
The ground rippled in suit.
Her golden hair seemed like a beacon in the red and darkness. A symbol in a mist of blood.
Her eyes flicked down, then up again; her throat locked tight as she took a gulp.
The bubbling floor... the trees slick with crimson...
'This isn't natural...' '...And this isn't random.'
Her mind whirred as her shoulders shook slightly.
She took a glance around just in case, the figments of her imagination believing she was being watched.
Was it truly her imagination?
Splosh.
For some reason...as she stood there, something nagged at her mind.
It wasn't just the feeling of being watched.
It was important...to her at-least.
'...What is it?'
Still high on edge, she cautiously searched through her mind.
Is this really the right time?
Her eyes dragged all around, past the bubbling floor, past the crimson-streaked bark, to the looming canopy of twisted trees.
She looked up to the trees.
She stared, longer than she meant to.
And then it struck her:
'To the trees.'
The phrase clawed at her memory.
Riven had said it earlier, but where it really affected her was:
'From the diary...'
Her lips parted.
The scribbled writing in blackened ink.
They had found it searching the village.
Splosh.
Her feet shuffled above the blood.
It had told a story; a story that had answered many things...even some questions they hadn't asked for.
The cart.
The blanket.
...And now:
'...The trees.'
Her crimson eyes grew wide under the backdrop of blood.
The words climbed, running from the page, and into her mind once more:
-----------
'He whispers. No lips. Only breath...
It tells me to follow.
To the trees. To the trees. To the trees.
I must----'
-----------
A chill swept over...
What other trees were there?
The pages they had read....had driven them through a story...
It was their story now.
Their harrowing path.
...Their demise.
Truly an eternal memory...
"Huu---"
Her stomach lurched.
The revelation churned inside, twisting with the stench that clawed the air.
The metallic tang pressed heavy on her tongue as her mouth parted; it was inescapable, and was as though she were swallowing it with every breath.
"Huu--"
Her throat convulsed once more.
She thought she would vomit, right there with blood painting the floor below.
Her hair fell down as her head angled below.
'To the trees'
The diary's words rattled louder...even louder than the bubbling all around.
Blubblhh....blurrrhhh...
Suffocating.
This was really their reality now.
Shhhhhrrhhhh!Shhhhhrrhhhh!
Her head shot up.
What was that?
A growling noise of wind...
A whisper?
Grr!
Her stomach groaned as she scanned all around, face scrunched in pain...
And then it came:
"SAPHIRA!"
Loud.
It could only have been one person's voice.
'...Riven...'
It could only have been him.
Raw and splintered, it didn't sound near, but it didn't sound far either.
"...Riven..."
The whisper left her lips this time as the call shook her awake.
East.
It came from the right of her, through a dense pile of trees.
Her legs moved before her mind caught up.
Splosh.
First a step.
Splosh.
Then another.
Then a jog.
Splosh! Splosh!
Her breath ragged as her chest pounded with rhythm of the forest.
"Riven!" she shouted, her voice cracking as she ran.
The trees didn't answer.
Blubblhh....blurrrhhh...
The blood still bubbled.
The mist still pressed in.
Splosh! Splosh!
The thoughts of the diary, the putrid smell, all of it....it was all secondary.
"Riven!"
She called again through the dark as her boots splashed the ground.
She weaved through piles of trees, blood sliding across her worn coat and golden hair.
She didn't care.
...She didn't want to be alone.
Splosh! Splosh!
But as she ran, there was one question that she didn't think of.
Anyone in her position wouldn't have...
But was that voice really his?
Splosh! Splosh!