The Race of Gloom - Write to Rank 2021 Submission

Ethereal Murder - Green Belt

“Come out you coward! Show yourself and I will pike your head with this crooked blade!”

Nothing came out. Just a laugh, dark and deep, surrounding them like a beastly force.

“We don’t want trouble,” Kidd said, hugging Lenny tight in her hug. “We just want a safe way out.”

“You are welcome to try,” said the dark voice. Val tried to figure which direction the voice was from, but the rain and the echoey forest made it way harder. “But I need to feed myself, and so, you shall be my lunch for the day.”

“Lunch?” Lenny snuggled deeper into Kidd’s warm embrace. 

“Oh yes.”

The arrow in Val’s compass still spun uncontrollably to every direction, and it happened to every compass they brought. 

“Why don’t you just come out and fight me like a man?” Val proposed. “If you win, you can eat us all the way you want. We will not even resist. If I win, though, you will show us the way out.”

“Interesting offer, but I do have one concern. I cannot lose.”

This enraged Val. “You don’t know that.”

“Yes, I do, Val!” The voice was closer now, but the direction was still uncertain.

Val wiped the rain from her face. She shivered with the coldness of the storm but persisted to stand. “How do you know my name?”

The laugh returned. “Because I know you.”

“Val!”

Val looked back and her heart shrank. Two arrows protruded from Kidd and Lenny’s chest, and blood spewed all over their bodies. Rain washed the gore off, but the familiar black mud stayed while the two died.

“No!” Val caught their bodies from falling. Lenny cried, though Kidd just stayed there, gasping heavily with a smile on her face. 

“Stay alive for us, Val.” She coughed and touched Val’s face.

Val was now the only one alive. The anger bubbling up inside her reached its peak, and finally, she unstrapped the holster to her hunting pistol. She started shooting randomly into the forest, and while the bullets burst out from it, the voice laughed like a maniacal monster.

“Damn you!”

She ran out of bullet soon after.

Then, she saw something, deep and hidden between the two pine trees. It was a shadow. Shaded under the tall trees it stood.

It surrendered into the forest and vanished, and so, Val chased it. She ran and exhaustion should not excuse her to stop. Tears welled up upon her blue eyes as she pursued the nothingness of the greasy air.

Suddenly, something panged her from the back. She slumped forward toward the mud.

The laugh returned. “I could just end all of you instantly. In fact, it was so easy to fool you into believing me about coming to this untouched territory. But well, food is not fun to eat whole. My mom always told me not to play with my lunch. Well, where’s the fun in that?”

The voice came directly from above her, and before she got up to see the owner of it, she knew who the person was.

“Shunu!”

The native guide gripped a blue dagger which fresh blood spilled from it. A bow slung itself to his back.

“Yes.”

“How are you still alive?”

Shunu laughed. “You believed my death, didn’t you?”

Val didn’t answer him. She attacked the boy immediately out of anger.

“I’ll kill you, you little beast!”

Val’s machete stroked nothing but the air and the rain. Shunu was already on the other side, and with his dagger, he disarmed Val by cutting well into her arm.

Val dropped low. She screamed, but anger energized every nerve in her body. 

“A fighter. That’s new.”

Val, with a surprising speed and agility, parried her weapon to a weird angle. Shunu dodged it left, but Val outmaneuvered him and managed to whack his belly.

A gasp came out from Shunu’s mouth. He underestimated her and now he paid for it.

“You killed my friends!” The first attack disarmed him. “You betrayed us!” The second got his chest. Shunu flung backwards while black tar came all over from his teeth. 

“No!”

To end it all, Val raised her machete high and butchered Shunu’s skull. He dropped down. And slowly, his soul exited his ancient body. His corpse turned bleak and it dissolved into black mud that tethered the ground.

Val threw her machete away. She checked her compass. It stopped spinning. Finally, she cried everything out.

"Stay alive for us, Val."

"I will, Kidd."