❝"I want to save them."
"You're just saying things that I already know, Nellie."
"You're not going to try and stop me?"
"On the contrary, my little Witch. I'm going to try and help you."❞
***
Viatorem Atramento: Ink Travellers. That was what Noell...
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Noelle's boots smacked against the damp of the forest floor, each step kicking up dust and leaves in its wake. She could see the bridge now; it was small and old with a wooden platform and rusty metal railings, and a sliver of fear crept into her heart that it wouldn't hold her weight even as the strong currents crashed against it relentlessly. But it didn't overpower the relief that flooded her at that moment; she made it, she could get out—!
A hand grabbed Noelle's arm and yanked hard enough that she heard a sickening crack. Noelle cried out in pain as she was jerked back and came face to face with her attacker. Her stomach dropped. Looking back at Noelle with beady black eyes was something Noelle thought could come out straight from a Percy Jackson book. It had an old, weathered and rotting face with sharp black icicles for teeth, wisps of silvery hair just barely clinging on to its spotted scalp. It's thin towering body was dotted with liver spots and the same leathery skin, toes and fingers armed with dark pointy nails.
Noelle shrieked in horror, and wrenched her arm out of its vice-like grip. "Let go of me!" she spat, "What the hell are you?!"
The thing opened its mouth in a voiceless snarl. Suddenly, its face flickered like a TV with a bad satellite signal, showing the grinning face of the old lady who was at Spencer's shop. Noelle froze in recognition—and then it spoke; a horrid, rattling hiss of tongue and bone. "We are the Erinyes, child of the Ink." It rattled in Noelle's skull, a chorus of voices confounding her thoughts. "For aeons we have waited for a chance to feast on a bounty like this—you will not run from us this time! We will feed!" It lunged abruptly but Noelle managed to dodge at the last second, turning on her heel and darting through the trees that suddenly emerged. The Erinys hissed and ran after her.
Noelle felt that it was a hair-breadth away from her but she didn't dare look back; hadn't Spencer warned not to do so? Wasn't that why she was suddenly finding it harder to get to the bridge? It was the only explanation she had for the trees that shot out of the ground at alarming speed, seemingly blocking her path towards it. There was a narrow gap just a few paces ahead which she could get through, but if the rumbling earth was anything to go by she knew she only had a few precious seconds to make it. Without thought Noelle dived through the opening and landed with a painful thud on the platform of the bridge just as a giant tree erupted from the ground. There was an agonised screech from the now-densely packed forest behind her which pierced through her skull. For several painful heartbeats her head pounded relentlessly as her lungs and arm burned as if a thousand blazing suns had been set upon them.
Once the sound faded away Noelle scrambled to her feet and slowly turned around. She jerked back. Noelle was on the very edge of the bridge. The water crashed and flew up to soak her boots as she blanched paper-white in fear.
What the hell was she doing? She couldn't really be thinking of doing this—
Her thoughts were cut short at the sound of a huge crash, one after the other after the other. Noelle looked back without thinking, and saw several trees falling with a thick cloud of dust gathering above the forest. The Erinys had been transported back to the entrance but was loathe to admit defeat; it tore through every tree in its path to make its way toward the child on the platform and would stop at nothing to get to it. Noelle turned back slowly and closed her eyes.
She kept dreaming about this bridge; that it would take her to another world.
"Get out through the only possible route there is."
Noelle felt the ironic urge to laugh. She had demanded for an answer; she guessed this was it.
