We wandered through the woods for some time, though exactly how much time I don’t know. We searched for Geno and Sonese or Fenci, for anyone, really, but fond nothing more than trees and bushes. For what felt like, and probably were hours, we wandered and wandered, and, though we saw no one, we had the feeling that someone was watching, and, though we knew it was just an irrational fear of the woods, as if it was a very scary sentient being, we succumbed to the fear, after all, even if it wasn’t sentient, it was still scary. Milo, scared as always, already had tears forming in the corner of his eyes, but at least he was trying to hold them back. He was failing miserably at it, but at least he was trying.
The scariest part was the silence; it was suffocating me like an invisible hand wrapping its fingers around my neck. I could hear my heartbeat and our every step resonated through the night, alerting any nearby predators, if there were any. But the silence was of use to us too, because if noy for it, we wouldn’t have heard the screams of terror of Sonese and Geno’s roar. And just like that, the hand that had choked me now pointed to right direction to follow.
I didn’t need to pull Milo to follow me, because he had already bolted in the direction of the scream, shouting like he had never before, calling for the people he loved, while I froze in place. The scream didn’t have the same effect on me that it had on Milo. While adrenaline rushed through his body, I felt mine freeze. Milo did what I had done so many times to him: he pulled me and lead me to the scream. I was wondering “How is he not scared? Why is he not scared?” the answer was simple really: he was. He was frightened, tears rolling down his cheeks like it had when Lezine died. It’s just that he cared more about them than he cared about himself, and wasn’t afraid to put himself in danger for them. And while the crybaby rushed to help, I was frozen, scared for my life. But I wouldn’t let Milo’s pseudo-courage overshadow me. So I ran.
We finally arrived at the source of the scream, and found Geno and Sonese. She was resting against a tree, with blood running down her arm, coming from two parallel cuts in her right shoulder. Meanwhile, Geno was in the ground, wrestling what at first looked like a wolf. He had it in a rear naked choke, allowing us to see the size of the thing, making us reach the conclusion that it was too big to be a wolf. After a second to absorb the scene, I quickly dropped my bag and reached for the knife I had brought, in the hopes of skinning a deer or some other animal. While Milo rushed to aid Sonese, I jumped on the beast’s thorax, trying to avoid its claws, but I still got a few small cuts before I could get a good stab in its throat, and when I did, I gave a few more just to be sure. And then a few more stabs, for hurting Sonese. And one last stab to compensate for my freezing.
For each stab, it let out a terrible screech that was so loud we were sure even the village could hear which was worrying, because it meant there could be more of those things around, and we were sure they wouldn’t be happy that we just killed one of them. Geno had one or two cuts that seemed more like scratches on him, and I had cuts in my chest and arms, and though we were both covered in blood, it was mostly the thing’s, the real problem was Sonese, which had cuts in her shoulder that seemed to be rather deep. Milo was doing what he could, tearing some of his shirt to dress her wounds, but it kept bleeding. We heard noises in the distance and decided that it was better to keep moving, so we chose a direction and strode.
We didn’t say a single word to each other, and kept striding in the empty hopes of finding our way out, or someone, or anything at all, other than death, though the latter seemed certain. The woods surrounding us seemed to glare at us, and to this day I swear that I heard whispers from all around, mocking us, finding joy in our suffering. Our stride became slowly became running, until Sonese couldn’t run anymore, and, since we couldn’t hear anything around us, we took some time to rest. The cloth Milo had used to dress her wounds was black with blood, and she complained of pain. We could hear something, a voice, not too far from us. “Should we check it out?” I asked Geno, who, panting, looked at me with anger, silently blaming me for what was happening. “Could be a lure.” Sonese spoke in between the cursing and the panting, but with firmness. “What other options do we have?” Geno finally said something after a moment of silence.
We started to move slowly and quietly towards the voice. After some walking, we noticed a flute accompanied the voice, which sang in a calm rhythm, in a language unknown to me, but the song seemed to ease the mood around us. Sonese, who had suggested the voice was dangerous, was now leading us, with newfound eagerness, which had spread to us. The voice and the flute got louder and louder as we walked, but we could also hear the noises from before too, which made me grasp the handle of my knife tightly and made our eagerness partially become fear.
Remember when I said few beings could compare to dancing (drunk) Sonese’s beauty? Well, this is when I met one of those beings.
She was tall, as tall as Geno, and wore a black dress that dragged on the floor. Her skin was more than pale it was colorless, as if she was nothing more than a walking and singing cadaver. Her hair was black, blacker than the night itself, wavy and not so long, reaching only her shoulder blades. Her eyes were a very dark brown, almost black and her lips were close to a purple. Behind her, accompanying her with perfectly timed steps that matched her almost dancing pace, was a figure that seemed to be made completely out of darkness, though the fact that it was cheerfully playing a flute made look cute, rather than scary. When we plunged into her line of sight, she stopped the singing and the shadow stopped playing the flute, both of them surprised, though soon it became apparent that it was a pleasant surprise for them when she opened a cheeky smile of a child. The shadow restarted to play the flute, full of bravado, though the aura of braggadocio emancipating from the woman flooded the night with a faint, barely perceptible light completely overpowered his bravado as she raised her right arm in an inviting gesture, with the dress’s sleeve covering her hand completely. The smile she already had widened as we slowly approached her.
“We are lost” Geno was the first to speak. “And wounded. Can please help us?” the singer only noticed the blood and the wounds after Geno pointed them out, but she never let her smile get any smaller, she simply made a quick hand gesture telling us to follow her, and we did. As she led us through the woods she sang and danced cheerfully to the sound of the shadow’s flute, once in a while inviting us to dance with her, though she seemed to take a special interest in Milo, dancing around him and inviting him the most, but neither of us accepted the offer. The song was incomprehensive, though it did ease the mood for everyone, except for Sonese, who was still in pain, clinging to Geno.
The walking was doing fine, with not a single interruption or disturbance or threat, until suddenly she stopped and stood still. Her smile vanished, giving way for a serious look, staring to the infinite in front of her. Not even the shadow kept playing the flute. And then, for the first time, she spoke directly with us, though the words were not even close to comforting. “It would seem like it is too dangerous to follow in this way.” her voice, previously so soft during her singing, now seemed somewhat hoarse and worried. “It would also be safer to not make any noise from here on out.” she turned slightly to her right and kept walking in silence, no longer dancing, or cheerful. We kept following in silence for some more time, unable to tell whether it was any close to sunrise.
“What is happening?” Milo broke the silence with a question directed towards the singer, who stopped in her tracks and turned around to face all of us. “Why is it so dangerous that you can’t even sing?” The song that had eased the mood really did make a difference when it vanished. She looked into his eyes, and then looked around, analyzing each of us before giving an answer. “Such innocence.” she started, looking to Sonese. “It would such a shame to shatter it, don’t you think?” Sonese didn’t answer in any way the question, but we all knew she agreed. The singer simply kept walking whithout answering Milo’s question.
The rest of the walking was completely silent; though I’m sure there was much happening that night. After an unknown amount of time walking, the singer stopped and pointed forward. “Just follow that way and you should reach Nelose within a few minutes. You probably will arrive before sunrise, so maybe no one will notice anything happened.” Geno was still worried about Sonese, though. “What about her wound? It is deep.” she had already started walking back into the woods and simply gave us a quick smile and said “Don’t worry about it.” After those words, we simply walked in the direction we were pointed, hoping to find help for Sonese as quickly as possible.
We came out of the woods and it was still night, like the singer had said would happen. We arrived at the village and Geno was ready to call someone to help, but Sonese intervened. “She said not to worry.” Geno got frustrated with Sonese’s words and almost shouted. “You are seriously wounded! How do you want me to not worry about it?!” Sonese’s answer was simple: she showed him her shoulder. The wound had vanished, leaving not a trace of it, for everyone’s surprise. I looked at my cuts, but they were still there, which made me a bit jealous, to be honest, but it wasn’t really suspicious for me to have a few cuts, so I just didn’t really care that much.
While Geno was still astonished and examining Sonese, I pulled Milo to the side and dragged him to the tavern. It was closed, but when did a door stop me from getting wrecked? I left Milo outside while I quickly snuck in and opened the door from the inside. We came in and started drinking in silence, reflecting on what happened to us. That night, Milo drank as much as me; after all, it was a rough and crazy night. When we were done drinking, I left a coin in the counter and we left, closing the door after us. We then simply went home. Geno and Sonese probably had gone to sleep already, and we followed the example. Milo went to his bed, and so did I, not for him, but because I wanted it for myself. That night I heard a light sobbing, and at first I thought it was Milo, but it wasn’t. Something in that night had stuck with Sonese, but she never told us what.
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