Cyan in Avalon

People Like Her ch.12

*

Cyan thought that The Land of the Sleeping was creepy.

But afterwards she realized that underneath The Land of the Sleeping was even more terrifying.

The group walked briskly, not one of them enjoying even a second under the barren land. Zethan led the way, charging quickly through the dark cave corridors. He was the most comfortable by far. Nel and Amyth strode behind him, both casting wary glances at what surrounded them, but comfortable enough to chat once in a while. Brin and Patrona barely seemed to notice.

At the back of the group, scurrying along with wide terrfied eyes, shaking hands, a pale face, and shut tight lips, was Cyan.

Somehow, the strange mutated eye-spider creatures staring intently at the group horrified her the most. They were eyeballs, single red-eyed eyeballs. Where veins usually connected to the eye socket, long black spider legs sprouted.

The bunches of them were deathly still. The walls were made of their red veiny piercing eyeballs, all slowly moving as the group walked. Cyan had almost choked when they first entered the caves.

Supposedly the terrain up on the dry land was becoming much too like mountains for the group. But even so, Cyan would rather balance on a rope over a cliff--than to have these eyes glower at her for an hour more.

She had shrunken into herself, averting the creatures' deathly stares. At some point Zethan had noticed and joined her at the back of the group.

"Creepy little freaks aren't they?"

Cyan nodded.

"W...were they the Splinters'..eyes?"

"Before. Since then, they ran off down here."

"Why..?"

Zethan glanced at Cyan, turning to the eyes crawling above them.

"...maybe they would rather look at each other than what's up there."

Cyan's eyes lingered on his face for just a second, before she turned back down to the ground.

"You aren't tired yet?" Zethan asked.

Cyan shook her head.

"Sure?" Zethan asked again, his voice mocking.

Of course she was tired. She just wasn't tired enough to admit it. She wasn't passing out yet. He lifted a brow at her, but she didn't seem to notice. She was staring at the ground still.

She was just saying 'I'm sure' when the walls began to tremble. The tremor grew harsher as the group stood as still as if they were part of the ground. Zethan was looking around cautiously, his eyes searching.

And just as quickly as the tremors had arrived, a tiny black flower sprouted at Cyan's feet. She looked at it, her brows furrowing as it grew; its roots spread across the ground rapidly. Its growth rate only increased and increased, and soon enough Cyan began to panic. Just when Zethan turned back, the roots shot up, tangling amongst themselves and duplicating faster than Zethan could swing out his dagger.