On the Hills of Eden

“Soleiman, Soleiman!”

Gently, Rumi shook him awake, the tarp beneath them crinkling as he rolled about slightly. The evening sky above them peering sneakily through the treetops and bathing their temporary camp in a comforting warmth.

The two of them had spent the entire day taking turns to rest, snoozing off in shifts as they basked in the forest’s tender light, snacking on Edenberries and drinking tree sap to replenish themselves as they did so. And it had paid off. The sizzling pain in Rumi’s left hand had all but faded, and the soreness in Soleiman’s back had almost completely recovered. Though the two of them knew full well the night ahead of them would be hellish at best, they nevertheless never regretted a single moment of lounging lazily on the forest floor. Because it would be a while before they would be given such liberties again.

Soleiman groaned as he got up, sitting up as he looked about himself without so much as a thought in his head.

“Do we have to go now?”

Rumi nodded.

“Alright then.” Slowly, he shuffled forward, reaching out to his pieces of Thosmodene attire they’d hung above them to dry. At last, they wouldn’t have to bear with the residual warm moistness of days old sweat while they made their trek. At least for a few hours. Or maybe an hour. Or actually maybe thirty or so minutes. It was pretty humid, alright?

The two of them then got to preparing themselves, slipping into their clothes and popping on their boots, before rolling the tarp back up and stuffing it into Soleiman’s bag again. Rumi did offer to help carry some of the equipment for him, splitting the weight about 70/30 between them. Certainly a welcome change for his spine.

Before they began on their journey, Soleiman affixed one of the two pole lanterns they’d taken off of the streets of Mesimeos onto his hip, holding the other one in his hand. They brought two so they’d have a backup and would still be able to see if the one in his hand broke.

And with everything in tow, he lit the small oil-fed candle within the lantern’s glass cage, beginning the two of them on their journey. Neither of them quite knowing how far the next village would be from them, nor how many more of the beasts they’d encounter again during the night.

As they walked, they made sure to keep relatively close to the road, ensuring it was always within 20 or so metres from where they walked. They didn’t want to walk directly on it, lest their luck fail them and lead them straight into a Hashashin patrolman. But they didn’t exactly want to wander straight into the forest deep after last night’s fiasco. As such, Soleiman made sure to hold the lantern low to the ground, keeping it from shining out like a beacon and instead using it mainly to let them see what lay on the ground before them.

They walked and they walked. One step after the next, light yet lively. Quiet so as to not disturb the forest peace, and timid so as to not infringe upon nature in their hubris. Slowly, evening turned to night, and the warmth of the cloudy sky above soon vanished beyond the canopies. Replaced by a thick darkness, fought back only by Soleiman’s lantern. The only source of light within an ocean of night.

And it was pretty peaceful. The howling winds and borderline insane hallucinations that had haunted him last night made no appearance before them. There was no sound of something stalking them just beyond the laternlight’s reach, no sense of some unknowable being lurking within the forest dark- watching them. Instead it was just the two of them, walking alone through the trees.

Step, step, crunch. Step, crunch, crunch.

“Hey, Rumi?”

“Mm?”

“...I’m sorry for spilling the broth on you.”

Rumi looked blankly at him as they walked, though he tried his best to avoid eye contact. His eyes guiltily roaming across the ground before them. She made the first syllable of a word, though stopping herself and cutting it short as she thought back on what she wanted to say.

“Don’t be,” she eventually responded. “I… I think I much rather prefer doing this than being back at the Diner.”

“Really?”

Rumi nodded in response. He saw as any semblance of hope or energy soon faded from her face, years of deep-buried memories and a ruined childhood surfacing in her mind and showing in the sheen that glazed over her eyes.

“Was it that bad, back there?” he asked.

“...Mm.”

Step, step, crunch. Step, crunch, crunch.

“Everyday…” she continued, “Everyday I would wake up afraid. Wondering if I’d overslept, or if I’d forgotten to do something. Just a non-stop burning worry, all the time, everytime.”

Soleiman lifted the lantern slightly higher up, illuminating more of the knotted ground before them. Illuminating more of Rumi’s face.

“I tried to satisfy them, Soleiman. I- I really did. I tried my best day after day… but it was never enough. And I think part of that fault came down to me,” she said. “Because I thought that if I tried hard enough, I’d win their respect. Their love.”

She leaned her face forward, her puffy fringe shadowing the furrowing of her brows and the droplets of tears that sprouted from her eyes.

“But it never happened. No matter how understanding they were. No matter how lenient.”

“I…” Soleiman started, though trailing off as words failed to come to his mouth. It never felt as though what he said would ever be good enough for consoling her.

“I’m sorry to hear that, Rumi.”

She shook her head in response, lifting it back up into the light, the despair that once tainted it melting in the amber glow of the lantern. The dancing candle flame glittering a warm orange in her cloudy eyes.

“No. Don’t be. Even if tagging along with you guys means I might die… at least it means I wouldn’t have died in captivity,” she said. “Because, weirdly enough, it’s been pretty fun. You know?”

Soleiman looked at her, perplexed. ‘Fun’ was just about the last thing he thought she’d describe their journey so far.

“Fun?”

“Mm… well, I don’t know if that was the best word for it, but, yeah. Even though I’ve been mostly just following you guys, this is the most free I’ve ever felt. In a long time,” she said, patting the hilt of Qingxi’s Xiafan blade as she did so. “So I wouldn’t be too upset if we got killed. Because at least I got to know what freedom feels like. That I ever even met you guys, and that you chose to bring me with you even though I would be a burden… was a miracle in and of itself.”

Soleiman didn’t know what to say.

“Oh, well, I- I mean, I don’t want to die, it’s just-”

“I understand,” he replied, chuckling slightly to try and ease up the atmosphere. But that heavy aura never quite left. Walk as far as they may, Soleiman still felt the insanity of the struggle she must’ve towed herself through. The misery of it all.

“Rumi,” he said.

“Hm?”

He hugged her, stopping the both of them in their tracks.

Though surprised at first, Rumi soon accepted the embrace. Hugging back, letting her sorrows flow into him, the warmth of acceptance and empathy surging back in turn. She even felt as he patted her back. A sensation she hadn’t experienced in a long, long while.

“Thank you, Soleiman.”

He hummed in response.

At that moment, all was quiet. There was no howling, no whistling. No creaking of the cicadas nor chirping of the crickets. Instead, in the midst of that quiet, lightless ocean, stood a little island of light. A glimmer of hope in an unfathomable mass of incomprehensible horrors and inhuman threats. An island of golden sand, upon which the two of them stood, fighting the waves and remaining defiantly over the waters.

All alone, yet still together.

Eventually, they pulled away, and the two of them got back to their trek.

Step, step, crunch. Step, crunch, crunch.

“You remember anything from before you moved to Minerva?” Soleiman asked again.

“From before?” Rumi repeated, thinking about it for a moment. She pushed past her time in Minerva, fighting through memories to return to a time when she was once free.

“Mm, well. I remember that my parents used to own a shop.”

“A shop?”

“Yeah, like a little confectionary store, the ones with hard candies and lollies and the like.”

“What kind?”

“Oh, all sorts! My favourites were always the lemon-flavoured ones, though. My parents even got me a lemon-flavoured cake the last birthday I spent in Solea.”

“Oh wow, really?” Soleiman said, eyes widening. “I like lemons too!”

“Ah,” Rumi said, pleasantly surprised. “Seems like we’re kindred spirits,” she added, smiling at him.

“That we are,” he replied. “Did they sell anything else?”

“Mmm… they sold houseware too, if I’m not wrong.”

“Really?”

“Ah, well, I might be misremembering, but… oh- actually, I’m pretty sure they sold furniture, not houseware.” She corrected herself. “They just gave out contacts to woodworkers whenever someone came in with a commission or request for a new chair or bed.”

“Your parents must have been pretty dang successful, huh?”

“Yeah, I guess so. My father actually migrated from Merkez with a whole bunch of money. So the moment he met my mother, things were all set. They even used to let me and my siblings eat whatever candies we wanted if we helped around the house or behaved well,” she said. “Nice times, those were.”

“He was Merkezi?”

“Yeahuh!” Rumi responded excitedly. “He got a whole load of inheritance money and decided to move to Solea to start a new life. And create me!’

Soleiman returned Rumi’s eager smile with an impressed look, nodding away.

“What about you, Soleiman?”

“Me?”

“How was your life before, well… now?”

Soleiman gave himself a moment to think. To recall. All the memories with Rei and Pallas, travelling through the wilds. Through the marketplaces. Through the years.

“Well… it was mostly just me, Pallas and our mother going from place to place.”

“You two lived nomadically?” Rumi asked.

“Yeah. Ever since our mother adopted us we did so. Going from campsite to campsite, living on the outskirts of cities the whole of our lives,” he said. “We were allowed to venture into the cities, though. At least up until the very end. And Porthopolis was our last stop.”

“Oh, wow. That must’ve been fun, no?”

“It was, yeah,” he replied, nodding. “It was always a new adventure whenever we moved.”

Rumi hummed in acknowledgement.

“We’d live out in the woods, Pallas would hone her control over blood, and I’d be off reading some book about the hungry hungry caterpillar and whatnot.”

Rumi giggled softly.

“Mm. Yeah. That’s just about most of it.”

“Do you know why you were always moving from one place to the next?”

“Oh,” he said, realising that Rumi had been left completely out of the loop about their goals and just about everything else regarding the mission the two of them and Qingxi were undertaking. “Yeah.”

“We were fugitives, basically,” he continued. “You see, Lord Gravitas, hates our mother.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, she’s- or rather, she was the head of a huge resistance movement between many of the dukes. And her aim was to dismantle Lord Gravitas’ hegemony over the islands and restore sovereign rule to the Arkalaios Princess.”

“Who?”

“The true ruler of Minerva, basically.”

“Ah, okay.”

“And… have you heard of the Soteiras?”

“Mm… no…”

“Basically, they’re these legendary warriors who appear every few decades and rise to insane heights of power,” he said. “So far there’ve been two of them, one controlling the Domain of Brains and the other the Domain of Bones.”

“Ooh, that sounds cool!”

“Mhm, mhm!” He responded excitedly. “And they’ve always led Minerva to freedom, liberation. Saving our country and our people, freeing us from foreign Kingdoms like Ahd and Merkez.”

Rumi looked pretty impressed. This was the first time she’d ever heard of these so-called saviours. Which, given their importance in Minervan history, surprised her somewhat.

“And Pallas,” Soleiman continued. “Is one of them.”

Rumi stopped in her tracks entirely.

“What?” she asked, eyes wide open and mouth left agape.

“Yes! She controls the Domain of Blood, which is why you see her shooting it out all the time.”

“Oooh,” she replied, dragging out the singular syllable as it all began to dawn on her. The true gravitas of the situation.

“So our mother saved her from an attack on her home village by the Hashashiyyin when she was younger, and since then she’s been training her up to one day lead another revolution for our people.”

Soleiman stepped forward slightly, signalling Rumi back into a walk as the lingering shock slowly washed over her and faded away.

“And, yeah. That’s it,” he said, finally concluding. “Now all that’s left for us to do is to await mother’s return.”

“Where’d she go?”

“Uhm, well…” he replied, though failing to find an answer to her question. “She didn’t tell us, but she did tell us that she’d rendezvous with us somewhere in continental Minerva- which is where we are now, so… I suppose we just have to survive for the time being.”

“Hmm.” Rumi replied. “We really are one in the same, then.”

“You think so?”

“In that, well, Lord Gravitas has moved us both all over the place. Whether we liked it or not.”

Soleiman hummed in response, certainly seeing the connection between them.

“Yeah, I guess so.”

The two of them continued on their trek, step after step, Soleiman stopping occasionally to top up the lantern’s with another helping of oil. Something they’d also stolen from Mesimeos.

After some time, Soleiman suggested heading back out to the road to check if the village they were headed towards was anywhere in sight.

Though, unfortunately, even after they thrust their lantern out into the open void, they saw nothing. No signs nor traces of human habitation. It almost felt as though they were in some sort of hidden dimension, engulfed in darkness, unsure if really anything existed beyond the flicker of their lantern’s flames. And it was all so silent.

Every now and then, they stopped briefly to top themselves back up on water and to munch on some Edenberries, just to make sure they had enough fuel in the tank if they ever came across trouble. Little breaks where they’d squat down on the ground or sit down on nearby rocks and just nibble away at the golden glow of the berries, accompanied by naught but the sounds each other made when chewing.

But they ran out of water some ways into the journey, after having popped back out onto the road several times and sat down a handful more.

Disappointingly tipping the last waterskin over only to see mere drops fall from its mouth, the two of them decided to take a short moment to stock back up.

Rumi helped Soleiman pull out his knife and drill and the other two waterskins, handing them to him one by one as he sized up a fairly mature-looking birch tree. And though he couldn’t see high up enough to discern if it stood above the rest, he more or less guessed so given its relatively large girth.

The light of the lantern stuck into the dirt behind him, he shuffled his way about the tree slightly, trying to move out the way of his own shadow as he placed the knife’s blade against the tree’s bark.

But as he moved about the tree, he noticed something.

Part of the tree’s bark… had shifted.

“Rumi! Rumi!”

“Huh? What? What happened?”

Soleiman jumped back, holding his knife out in front of him as Rumi rushed to his side, looking all over the place in search of whatever had startled him.

“What happened?”

“The… the thing,” he said, hands shaking with the knife clutched in both of them. “The one from last night, it’s back!”

Putting her hand upon Qingxi’s blade’s sheath, she stepped forward gingerly. Bending her body in preparation for the strike, she slowly circled the tree…

And saw nothing.

Soleiman shifted too, moving the lanternlight around to try and help her see it.

But there really was nothing. No hump, no protrusion that moved. It was just a birch tree, its bark as still and immobile as any other.

“I… I don’t see anything, Soleiman.”

Perplexed, he stepped forward. Circling the tree.

And saw nothing.

There really was nothing there.

“Huh… I- I could’ve sworn I saw the same thing.”

“Mm… maybe you’re just tired? Or that it's a bit dark?”

Soleiman scratched his head slightly. Yeah, maybe he was.

“Hmm. I… I guess so?”

Rumi hummed in response.

“You okay now?” she asked.

Soleiman looked her in the face. The concern, the anxiety and the fading sense of dread and fear all showing in her raised eyebrows and gentle eyes.

Soleiman looked her in the face. The lack of emotion, the thick ridges that ran along her eyelids and lips- blending into the darkness of the night. And that thin smile, subtle yet sure.

Mocking him.

…

What?

He realised it. There was a second face, much, much larger than the both of them. Suspended in the darkness, peeking out from behind a tree far, far thinner than it.

“Behind you!”

Rumi spun in place, the lanternlight flickering and jumping about as Soleiman flinched in visceral response to the thing.

“What? What? Soleiman!”

Soleiman tried fixing his eyes back in place, pupils darting about as his mind strained to parse the absolute black of the night. But even with the lantern illuminating what it could, he could see the face no longer.

“Soleiman!”

He rushed forward, placing himself directly by Rumi’s right.

“I-it’s gone…”

“What’s gone?”

“There was a face behind you,” he said weakly, voice wavering and cracking under the fear that gripped his heart and clamped down on his throat.

Rumi looked around, trying to see into the dark.

Yet she saw no face.

“I… I can’t see it.”

Soleiman slowed his breathing, engaging his diaphragm and making sure he felt each inhalation in his stomach to do so. In and out, in and out.

“Maybe…” he said, struggling to get the words out in between gasps. “Maybe I’m just seeing things.”

“You sure?” she replied. “You… you look pretty shaken, Soleiman.”

“Yeah. I feel shaken too,” he said. “P-probably just some lingering fright from last night.”

“Alright, if you say so,” she said. Reaching her right hand out, she continued, saying, “We can hold hands, if you want.”

“But don’t you need that hand for the blade?”

“Oh, right.”

Rumi shuffled about, moving to his right.

“You can have this one, then.”

Soleiman looked at the bandaged stump, little stains of tarnished dull gold from the several rounds of Edenberry paste application still showing through the fabric.

“Thank you, Rumi,” he said, holding onto it. Careful not to touch the stumps where her fingers once were.

“Alright, let's keep going,” she said.

The two of them soon got back to walking, Soleiman clutching Rumi tightly as they did so. Not wanting to even so much as run the tiny risk that they could somehow be separated, leaving him alone in the dark. With that face. With that thing.

But, as they walked, Soleiman only grew more paranoid. The face began appearing more and more often, surfacing in the corners of his periphery only to vanish back into the darkness whenever he turned to look at it with the light of the lantern. As if it was the darkness itself, retreating from the light. As if it was stalking them, just out of view.

No, it was not stalking them. It was stalking him.

The face grew more and more bold, appearing more frequently and at times peering back at him from several places all at once. The crunching of leaves and the squishing of grass beneath their feet grew louder with each step, more disharmonious. Their footsteps slowly slipping out of rhythm as they fell into an uneasy, irregular cacophony of noise that made his heart jump and his mind race whenever it sounded like they were just barely out of tune. Like a third pair of feet had begun pacing its way about them, shadowing them, lurking in the dark and mimicking their each and every move. Blending in, until it became one with them. Among them. Behind them.

And sure enough, the fear that wrapped itself in a pythonic vice grip about his chest and whispered paranoia into his ears began manifesting itself too, speaking through the winds and whispering through the breeze as it had the previous night. Blowing, whistling, calling.

Cheering.

Celebrating.

“Let’s stop for a while,” Rumi said.

Halting in their tracks, the two of them stood still in the forest, the wind blowing about them. Their ears wide open and picking up every last sound they could hear. Every bough that rustled and every breeze that wept. Every insect that buzzed and every leaf that crunched.

The two of them locked glances, dread now truly dawning upon them like a sick daybreak, just as the crunching of the leaves suddenly halted.

They breathed in, and they breathed out.

Still as the night.

But then the grass squished again. Off in the distance, obscured by the dark.

Squish. Squish.

And then the leaves began to crunch.

Squish, squish. Crunch- squish.

Closer and closer, faster and faster, the winds howling louder and louder as they rose into a wicked crescendo- Rumi standing in between Soleiman and the distant noise, hand on the hilt of-

What little light they had suddenly vanished from the forest, Soleiman falling over onto his back as he felt the force of the swipe through the entire pole- shattered glass raining down upon him. The contents of his pack spilled out in the darkness and the backup pole broke off from his hip, his eyes unable to differentiate between one item and the next as he pilfered his hands through the mess of fabric and steel and wood and-

Crunch crunch crunch!

With the thing pacing around them, circling quicker and quicker, surging back into position, Soleiman’s fingers could not find the shaft of the other lantern.

“Rumi! The other lantern!”

“I don’t know where it is!”

Faster and faster, now within just a few paces of them, Rumi shuffled back to where she thought Soleiman was, still prepared to unleash the three charges of the Xiafan blade upon whatever it was that circled them.

And as the crunching and squelching changed directions, suddenly affixed in one point of space- only growing louder and louder, Rumi prepared herself. Pulling the blade from its hilt.

The entire area flared back to life as an infernal flame surged into being just behind her, drenching the night with a dazzling yellow glow and scorching most of Soleiman’s front and arms as he jumped back in pain.

The winds began to billow about the blade just as the light hit the beast pursuing them, its failure of a human form, disproportionate and sickly and runt-like in the purifying light of the flame despite being the size of a bear. Its head missing, and instead a singular massive face upon its chest larger than the both of them combined.

The blade flew out from the leather sheath, arcing out violently as a razor-sharp gale tore its way through the air, soaring on past the beast and into a nearby tree.

Thrown off by the sudden heat of the flame, the beast landed to the side before scampering back off into the darkness.

Rumi turned back to look at Soleiman’s backpack up in flames, massive plumes of smoke and soot emerging from the flaming pile of equipment.

“Did you get him?” Soleiman asked, wincing at the pain.

“No!”

“Shit!”

Looking around frantically, Soleiman spotted the other lantern, its glass glistening in the amber light. Directly across from where they were, a good few metres away. Nestled in between two trees that had one of their blankets at their feet.

Hurriedly, he clicked the flint and steel onto a belt loop on his pants, clutching the liquor bottle tightly in his other hand as he leapt forth. Rushing forward before the thing could return, he reached his hand out for the lantern, just moments away from it.

“Wait!”

Soleiman stopped just before he crossed the threshold of the two trees, turning back to look at a horrified Rumi, her mouth closed shut and her face bleak.

“That wasn’t me.”

Suddenly, from above, they heard as a loud rustling erupted from above the canopies, a shadowy mess emerging from the darkness, its wicked stained grin glinting in the firelight.

“Watch out!” she yelled.

Soleiman held his hands up and leapt back as the beast swung down an entire tree branch upon the flaming mess, slamming its flames into the earth and extinguishing their light once more.

His body slammed hard against the solid trunk behind him as he felt the dirt and splinters fly past his face, scraping and swiping at him as the wind was knocked out of his lungs.

“Soleiman! It’s coming for you!”

Feeling the fabric of the blanket on his elbow as he collapsed onto the ground, his ears soon filled with the grunting of the beast and the sound of its hands and feet as it scampered towards him- he doused the blanket in whatever liquor he had left, draping it over his right hand as he struck the flint and steel against itself.

Once more, the forest was lit with fire. Soleiman felt as the heat of the flame began seeping through the fabric and onto his skin as he held the blanket before him, illuminating the beast’s face as it stumbled back onto its two stunted legs.

The flames hurt him. But he sure as hell knew it hurt the thing too.

Emboldened and pressed by the gnawing of the fire through his flesh and skin, he clutched the blanket with his fingers as he swung at the beast, missing. Though in doing so, the edges of the blazing blanket flew out, sending a spray of hot, burning alcohol out at the beast- sending it recoiling back as it boomed in agony, the mouth upon its belly unfurling to reveal the grizzly mess of rotten flesh and pus-filled goo that festered within.

He swung again, burning it more, provoking it as it bared its human teeth and prepared to lunge at him.

When it was suddenly sent flying into a nearby tree to his side, droplets of clear viscous fluid and pitch black blood flying out into the distance as the second charge of the Xiafan blade found home upon its back.

Roaring in agony, the thing flailed about momentarily, its stubbly dwarf legs kicking through the air helplessly until it managed to use its larger, tree-sized arms to right itself. The thing made an attempt to run, scampering back off into the darkness, but Soleiman grabbed one of its malformed foetal legs with the blazing blanket- fingers pressing into the liquor-soaked fabric as he felt the fire reach down to his bones.

The thing reoriented itself, holding itself upright with one arm as it turned to face Soleiman, the two squinting eyes upon its chest turning to lock onto his form as he dug his heels into the soft earth beneath them. It lunged forward again, mouth open and teeth bared.

When Rumi surged forward, sinking the blade’s metal well into its chest, piercing the cartilage of its flat, fat-covered nose and sending it back into the ground. Pinned.

“Twist the blade, Rumi! Kill it!”

The bite of the blade meandered and rotated about the wound it had created, fighting hard against the thing’s uncannily resilient flesh and making little progress as it fought to get back on its feet. Pulling back on Soleiman and pushing up against Rumi all at once as it curled its lips back in a sinister sneer.

Rumi yanked back on the blade, desperate to resheathe it before the beast could get back on its feet. But the thing’s muscles tensed about the thin metal, locking it in place- pus and goo and blood oozing from the wound suddenly shut tight about the blade. Leaving only a small portion of its metal unburied.

“Kick, kick!” Soleiman urged as they began desperately booting the beast’s lips, ultimately to no avail as the force of each strike and stomp simply dissipated out into the fat, blubbery mass within.

The thing placed one of its hands back below it again, preparing to rise once again as it pulled the other in preparation to strike.

“Soleiman! Grab the blade with your hand!”

He looked her in the eyes, the amber flicker of the blanket’s flames shining off of her sunflower yellow irises.

Without hesitation, he threw his hand and the blanket about the blade, feeling just minutely as its handguard pushed up against his hand amidst the sizzling, screaming agony of the burning of his flesh.

The thing drew its hand back to its furthest extent, eyes wide open as it wound up a punch that would shatter her skull in an instant.

But in doing so, the muscles in its abdomen stretched, loosening. Giving Rumi just enough space to eke the blade out.

Creating a gap between Soleiman’s hand and the handguard.

The last glowing band upon the blade’s hilt faded away as the winds came screaming to life about the sword, agitating the flames, aerosolising the embers and the alcohol and sending forth massive plumes of flame that rushed against the thing’s body.

Rushing faster and faster, slipping the blade out of its flesh, until eventually the entire beast was sent flying backwards through the trees, bringing the light of the flames along with it as it slammed into a nearby tree, falling limply as it collapsed onto the ground a blazing, rotting mess.

Soleiman let his left arm fall from its guard, seeing as the blanket on his right had been burned away in the madness of the blade’s final attack. And he turned to see as Rumi stood just by him, blade out pointing in the opposite direction from where the beast had been sent. Clean, with not a single drop of blood upon it. And without having taken a single finger off of his hand.

“Is… is it dead?” he asked, looking over to the corpse.

“...I think so,” she replied. Slowly, she turned to look at him, returning the blade back to its sheath.

And there it was. His hand, blackened, charred, and numb. The fingers stiff and unmoving, as though they’d been petrified by the heat of the flame. But at least they were spared the pain, their nerves long since burned and dead. The same could not have been said for his forearm, swarming with peeling skin and blisters and red with blood.

And even before she could even cry out in concern, he collapsed onto his knees and onto the ground- joining the rest of the forest in its dark slumber.