Lights

Chapter 7.

The dense plumes of smoke lingered in the air, the thickness made it hard to breath. It felt as if she was chocking.

A dense form of fog soon followed shortly after, concealing her into a tight space of opaque blackness. She continued to walk forwards, the constant sound of leaves crunching underneath her muddy, pale bare feet. The frozen ground made it painful to walk. The brutal, chilling wind thrashed at the towering, thick oak trees, picking up their dead leaves from the dirty earth, thrashing them around harshly in the bitterly cold air. She hugged her arms to her chest closely in an attempt to seek warmth, the familiar feeling of fear settling into her inner core. The dark silent surrounding her fired simultaneous flashbacks of potentially being here before in her head, yet she couldn't figure out why the atmosphere was so comparable. Had she been in this forest beforehand? No?

Snap.

A tree branch in close proximity snapped abruptly, stopping her dead in her tracks. The noise had originated from behind her; only when she turned around she was greeted once again with the heavy fog, blurring her vision even further. Surly it was just her imaging things?

Beginning to grow unbearably anxious, she began to clumsily amble forwards again, this time ensuring that she was more delicate on her feet to prevent the orange and yellow coloured, rotten leaves from crunching as loudly. The bare trees swayed violently around her, their vein like branches almost surrounding her in a cage, like they were ordering her to turn around while she still could, warning her of the dangers ahead. The narrow, uneven path ahead was never ending - her feet dragged her forwards. It felt like an unknown force, pulling her to her fate.

After what felt like an hour or two, she stumbled upon a few rocks shielded by a thick cover of bright green moss, leading her to what appeared to be a broken bridge. She squinted her eyes into the distance, although it didn't do much good at all as the path ahead was still in a mysterious pitch-black fog. The rickety bridge was extremely unstable, pieces of decaying wood dangling off the end where a large gap in the metal protective fence surrounding it, looked as if it had been bashed through by someone or something, a small green object, floating and waving in the wind, hanging off a part of the bridge. Her mind raced.

The object looked like some type of clothing, possible a coat.

Without further hesitation, she placed one foot on the bridge, the wood creaking quietly under her weight as she peered over the gap in the wood, the piece of fabric hanging over the water, snagged on a jagged piece of wood. Just as she had suspected, a pool of dark liquid trickled beneath it. The unfamiliarity made her stomach churn violently. But it felt as if she had been here before.

"You can’t run away from me, baby." The all too familiar menacing voice croaked from somewhere close by, however as she scanned the vast area of trees all encasing her, she could see nothing. Ignoring the cool shudder that tickled her spine, she focused her gaze back on the dark depths of the lake, below where the coat hung, this time noticing a faint glow signal from the bottom. She bent down cautiously, her knees resting on the edge of the bridge. She squinted to get a closer look. 

"You will only hurt the people you love by running away." The voice made her twitch. It may have just been her imagination, but this time it had sounded in much closer proximity to where she was crouched. She frowned, deciding to ignore it. It must've been her imagination running wild. So she focused on the light that appeared to be closer to the surface of the water. It appeared to look like a car headlight due to its roundness and vivid light.

"Kaia, wake up." Another voice screamed in pain. The voice sound weak compared to the one who had spoken earlier, which had high authority. The command caused her to freeze, the voice sounded familiar.