Trapped in the Featherlands

Alone in the Badlands

Unable to tell how long she had been passed out, Lilly awoke in a thorny bramble. The girl pushed herself up off the dusty ground. Lilly ripped the thorny branches from her armor and held her hand to a pounding in her head. The girl paused and groaned as her memory came back to her in waves. She staggered to her feet. Upon looking around, she began to remember and realize where she was. Only then did she briefly wish to return to the safety of her lucid, rapid eye movement nightmares.

On frail breath, Lilly looked around into the blanketing darkness. Nightfall had come and shielded her from the threat of the trolls. Comfort in the notion was not a luxury that came naturally. Panic began to set in as Lilly realized not only was she in still trapped in the Badlands, but inasmuch as she was lost, captured by the dead of night, and completely alone. Her breath fluttered. Her heart raced. She knew she should reserve her voice from attracting predators, as Erica would remind her, but fear had rid the girl of all sense of preservation.

"Erica!" Lilly shouted. Her voice echoed over the trees. Only when she heard no answer back did she begin to fear what may have heard her instead. Lilly held her hands out in front of her face. They too were invisible in the dense, unyielding darkness. She took small steps at a time. The ground crunched beneath her feet. Lilly checked to make sure her armor was still attached. In doing so, she relieved herself of the idea that she suffered any injuries from the fall.

Lilly navigated the night cautiously. The day before played over and over again in her mind. She remembered breaking down in front of Erica and being so warmly consoled by the sprite. She thought back to the moment that her and the fairy shared before the trolls arrived, leading to something that stayed on her mind constantly. She remembered the trolls and outrunning them to impossible lengths, and she remembered Erica pushing her down the hill and out of their path. Lilly called out the fairy's name again, against her better judgment. The idea that Erica would sacrifice herself to give her a fighting chance was too great a burden to bear. Fear turned anger; a dry, fighting determination to push forward and rescue her friend from the troll's captivity.

The night had brought with it a lingering chill. Lilly peered in every direction she could to orient herself properly, but found no marker with which to bear. She continued forward, one cautious, shivering step at a time. Her ear had become finely tuned to the sounds of the dreary wood. Small cracks of the foundation, breaking of the branches above, and skittering of the Badland's more timid fauna made her jump and stop in her tracks. Each step felt like a trap she was willingly walking into, but Lilly knew better than to stay in one place while her friend was in danger. Her breath remained stilted. Her weakness in solitary overcame her, finding less and less hope in escaping the horrible place, let alone rescuing her sister, or even then Erica, but the words Erica always muttered to her to keep her moving played on. The fairy's voice, even in her memory, brought the girl to new life. Lilly managed a fleeting smile to keep the hope alive, wanting nothing more than to hold her friend and carry forth to leave the wretched land once and for all.

Lilly wandered through the cascading abyss. She guided herself around fallen trees and grounded alcoves. Brushing through spider web made her recoil in the haunting memories of the Spinnarettes. The girl powered through the woods and the welling of her own tears. She pushed onward in a hastily picked direction, confident that she would eventually find some landmark from which for her to navigate, for better or for worse. Lilly pressed through the thickets and briars until she spotted a glowing orange hue before her. It was distant, up into the mountain side, and danced like fire.

Lilly progressed toward the source without a second thought. The uncertainty and panic of being alone at night behind enemy lines made her fever for some resemblance of environmental reassurance. Lilly imagined that she would be bringing herself closer to a new breed of predator, but a beaming confidence in her abilities to withstand any Badland force that stood in the way of her and finding her friend glowed within her. Faster and faster she cut through the bushes. She scaled up the mountainside with lunging steps. Lilly kept one hand on her pouch of defensive tricks. She slipped in a gloss of mud, but pushed herself up again with furious grunts. The girl powered through the muck and mire, her soul surging with new life. She climbed upward farther and faster, straining her aching body.