A chill rolled up his spine.
The forest had hushed its pull.
The sounds of bubbling and insects, scattering amongst bark had silenced.
'Judgement...'
The word repeated in Riven's head, as his fatigued gaze wandered.
Splosh.
He took a nervous step back; his whole being suffering with aches.
"...haa..."
It seemed whenever silence fell, something heavier would emerge...a feeling he'd experienced all too well.
He didn't have the energy for whatever was next.
His mind has just been riddled, assaulted with punishment; punishment that still lightly echoed through his ears.
All around, the mist surrounding those dark pillars fell heavier.
His fingers twitched at the scene, before another step rang.
Splosh.
It wasn't a surprise anymore, just routine.
'...Misery has a schedule.'
A press tightened against his chest.
"...haa..."
It grew with each bated breath his body allowed.
Was it the figment that had appeared earlier?
His look alike?
His usual focus had been replaced with drenched fatigue.
"You think I've got anything left to give you....?"
The words scraped out, more whisper than yell.
His breath clouded faintly against the mist.
The forest didn't answer, and so his breath rang alone.
"...ha..."
His fingers shook.
His chest rose ragged.
There was no escape, so why bother?
Squelch.
A step.
Heavy.
Wet.
Real.
The blood mist parted, unsteadily, as if something pressed its cover.
A silhouette took form...
Only one thing could take that shape.
Riven's heart pumped.
Thump!
"Out of all the cursed woods you could stumble into, you found the Lord's garden."
Only one could have a voice so....cruel.
So deep.
So cutting.
His long limbs pressed against the veil.
Squelch.
His mask echoed first.
White. Pale. Featureless.
Riven's eyes glazed over.
Those long, elongated limbs.
That stench that carried....that followed him.
It was him without a doubt...
Drenn.
Riven's lips parted, a rasp caught between exhaustion and something else entirely.
His bloodshot eyes carried over to the monsters frame:
Those tattered red garments.
That sword hung at his waist, its scabbard black as night, whilst its edges rotted.
"Silence in the Lord's garden. How reverent."
A twitch ran over Riven's skin as the words landed, ripping his attention.
He stared into those two slits...
They pulsed, faintly alive within the mask's shell; steady, unwavering.
For a second, time folded.
The sound of wood creaking, the gargling of blood, the thud of a body dropping...
His mind flicked, to when he'd first seen them, to when they'd first made his skin crawl.
That night...
They were the same eyes that watched him run away, over and over again.
Thump!
His pulse skipped.
The air thinned.
He was made to experience it again...
The same chill that fell heavier than the Veil itself.
"Crawling thing..."
The words dripped slow.
"You've bled enough. It's time that blood found a purpose."
Thump!
The air curdled.
They stood metres apart, but the chill that spread made him feel closer. It was like he was part of the forest; even that as a whole seemed to hold its breath.
Thump!
Riven's ears rang from the words.
He could feel something climbing up through his body.
Was it inevitable?
His vision swam, its edges quivering.
Thum--
His lips parted once more.
A simple action, but this time...it wasn't a rasp of exhaustion.
A sound escaped, broken and breathless:
"...hehe.."
A chuckle...
It was not born from amusement...
"...hehe..."
Riven's shoulders trembled as the sound left him.
The corners of his lips twitched, flickering on the border of a smile.
Those grey eyes, bloodshot and sunken, glimmered faintly with something unreadable.
His face hung half-tilted, strands of his hair patched to his temple.
...He kept laughing.
Not loud. Not wild.
Constant.
The forest was deathly quiet.
Drenn's head tilted slightly as he stared at the pilgrim.
"Has the forest corroded your mind?"
The words weren't mocking.
It was flat observation; like the inspecting of a dying insect that had twitched longer than it should.
Riven didn't reply.
The last few breaths he had, danced out of his lips as his eyes stared wide.
Thum--
His heart didn't race anymore.
It wasn't resilience or bravery...
It stuttered, as if unsure whether to keep trying.
The laugh had thinned into nothing.
The echo didn't fade however...it hung, like it didn't know whether to stop.
It was there, a tremor ran down Riven's spine.
The forest hadn't moved, and not even the wind dared to touch him.
Those ember slits pulsed once.
"You laugh at the edge of your grave. How human."
Riven's throat tightened.
Thump!
He felt his chest rise shallow, a tremor shaking on his person.
He wanted to breathe, but the press weighed across his skin.
A heavy familiar feeling it was...
Squelch.
Drenn stepped forward; a slow deliberate splash through the soaked ground.
"Tell me, crawling thing...when you delayed the ritual, did you think you'd escape safely?"
The words sank into Riven like fangs.
Squelch.
Riven's bloodshot eyes quivered under strain.
Thump!
He refused to look away...
Squelch.
Another step rang through the silence; each approaching slower than the last.
"Fifty years, and still...the soil remembers the taste."
Vmmm....
A pulse rolled through the ground.
A recognition almost.
Thump!
Riven's hand twitched towards Mael's Fang, almost by instinct.
Shkrch.
Drenn's bony fingers rose, curling loosely in the air. Blood stirred from the floor; slowly at first, but then curled upwards like threads answering a call.
The threads didn't scatter.
They coiled, slow and deliberate, tracing circles around his hand.
Sllrch.
His mask moved slowly back towards the boy, rooted in place.
"You reach, even now....as if struggle could change the end."
Squelch.
Tall, the monster in-front of him towered.
Riven's eyes quaked as the blood in the air clung to his lungs.
It smelled the same as before, even with Drenn's appearance.
Thump!
It smelled like the inevitable.
Thump!
It smelled like failure...
Thump!
It smelled like...the end.
Thump!Thump!
Riven's throat ached to speak, but he knew...
If he didn't speak now, words might never leave his breath again.
"...I'm still here."
The words barely left. A whisper stripped of defiance, but unwilling to disappear.
Squelch...
A faint pulse ran through the red veins coiling at Drenn's feet.
His mask didn't move as he stared down at the boy.
"No," he murmured.
His rough voice, almost tender.
"You are not."
Thump!
Riven gripped Mael's Fang tight.
Drenn stepped closer.
Silence fell over the trees.
The veil bore witness.
Two stood.
Blood would write the rest.