The Legends of Anigma: Ethiel Archer | ONC 2023

PART XXXIII

Ethiel looked up at one of the eyeballs that was in his path. He saw in them a reflection of himself carrying Maya and Tifa who happened to be walking next to him.

There was something different about the reflection and it kept changing. Subtle changes mounted into huge disparities, and when he got engrossed out of curiosity, his reflecting self along with Tifa’s shrivelled into wraiths and erupted into a rotten mesh of worms.

Ethiel gasped back into the present moment. Whatever he saw, it was all deeply real in feel that his body almost felt that pain.

He looked back at it. The reflection was normal.

Then again... The subtle changes mounted.

But this time... Tifa’s reflection turned and burned all three of them into charred creatures squirming till they were nothing but an atrocious art of ash.

Again he gasped back into the present. The pain was still alive.

He didn't dare look back at the reflection.

"Don't look into the eyes!" He warned others, breathing hard.

"Are you alright, brother?"

"I'm fine..."

"That is not what fine looks like." Lord Veer said. "What happened?"

"Those eyes...ugh..." He wasn't even willing to explain.

"Nevermind, do not explain if it distresses you that much," he stopped him. "That being said, every facet of this forest is designed to deprive the resolve of anyone who chooses to venture into it. It is full of fear and fright instilling factors. Everyone, avoid looking at everything and focus on the path before you."

It was weird how not looking at all the horror the forest had to offer in abundance didn't result in much relieve of discomfort. There was something else other than those awful attributes; something that was right in front of them, all around them, discomfitting them, thwarting their mental stability furthermore.

Suddenly in shock, Ethiel gasped at the dense clouds of mist whirling around; he deciphered in them the subliminal play of pictures portraying everything deeply disturbing, relatable and unrelated.

There was no escape from that unless they closed their eyes, but the harassing mob of chimeras were following them like ravenous vultures circling over a prey and so that wasn't possible either.

In such harsh and dire conditions and circumstances, Ethiel didn't dare to imagine what Tifa – his sister, a little child! – was going through, but he knew she was nearing her limit; she was crying silently, shivering from the sounds and illusions. It was only a matter of time before she caved in. The guilt of it was a sharp stake thrust into his crying heart.

"Tifa..." He called her.

She didn't respond; she was wiping her tears, her body shrunken inwards. Her eyes were trying to avoid the forest, forcefully frozen at the ground.

"Tifa..."

"Huh?" She looked up at him. There were line marks running down her cheek from her eyes.

Tears welled up his own eyes.

"I'm – I'm alright, Ethiel! Don't worry about me." She forced a smile and faced down again.

Anything he said was not going to help her, nor did he have any idea about it. He cursed the forest for making her cry, but more than that, he blamed and hated himself.

In the corner of his eyes, in an instant, his stomach twisted and his heart tore when he saw Tifa trip and tumble over the ground, falling on her knees near a dismaying projection. Her shriek echoed excruciatingly in his soul.

"Tifa!" He sat in a falling fashion next to her, his back aching from carrying Maya.

In that moment of discombobulation, a sudden burst of light from somewhere above lit the whole place in flaming orange.

They both looked up. Among the bobs of light, the largest of them all glowed the brightest, and in its light, all the hazy horror screamed clear in their faces.

"Disgusting!" An uneasy and sickening feeling weighed in Ethiel's chest.

The forest seemed to be dormant suddenly.

"Did that mushroom just move?" Tifa asked in a low tone.

Ethiel looked back at her. The projection of ground near her was like a demon's claw and had a blackish-brown, rotten mushroom patch in its palm.

"I think it moved–"

It was a startling flash of movement; the patch became molten and sprung out towards her, crudely morphing into something creepy resembling an incomplete human and screaming in nightmarish voice, its hands stretching out to her.

She squealed.

Ethiel pulled her closer to himself, but it wasn't enough. The mushroom – or whatever that thing was – it was fast. Its hand were going to touch her.

"Not on my watch!" Lord Veer smashed the thing back into the demonic claw and pulled Ethiel and Tifa further away.

Again, the patch morphed and stretched, but they were no longer in its reach. It snapped back at the claw, but from its back another figure festered out and clung to the ground. Its face burst and another shape crawled out to her vigorously. Figures kept morphing and bubbling out of each other in a desperate and ugly attempt but to no avail.

"That's the power I have been searching for!" Red Wings exclaimed behind, his voice had thirst for vengeance and was loud with anger; it wasn't choked anymore. "I will burn them all!"

He wasn't talking to them.

When Ethiel looked over his shoulders, he was already in the air and away from them, flying towards the huge light, his eyes full of unparalleled hatred. That was the first time he saw him so full of hatred; his eyes, they were a pit of wrathful lava.

"How dare they?! I will not leave a trace of them left! Not after what they did!!"

"No!" Tifa cried. "Come back! Lord Veer do something! You can order him, right?? Call him back!"

"I am unable to." Lord Veer said.

Ethiel's eyes kept getting wider. He didn't know if the forest became silent or if his senses numbed with the menacing sensation that flooded him, but he felt it – something terrible was imminent.

Red Wings neared the huge light.

Tifa gasped.

The bob of light opened like a monstrous mouth, lined with long crooked teeth, and dreadfully devoured him.

The flaming orange light dimmed down and turned to bloody red; a black grin stretched across it.

Inside, a dull blurry silhouette of a bird was afloat. It was Red Wings.

"Oh Red..." Lord Veer whispered.

Shaking them up, Red Wings' screech exploded throughout the forest; his silhouette squirmed and squiggled inside the bloody red ball.

Even the other bobs turned dull crimson. That crimson fell all around and merged into the shadows; the particular place became a barbarous portrait painted in black and blood.

As if in sinistrous glee, the whole forest – the chimeras, the flowers, the mist, the shadows, the shadows within the shadows, and everything – it broke out into infernal, loathsome laughter.