hydra | svt

CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT.

wonwoo

"seungkwan, get back!"

mingyu's voice rips through the momentary blindness of a brilliant white light. i make a noise of distress as i stumble, my hands breaking my fall against the ground - where a bed of crops would usually cushion my fall remained nothing but dirt dryer than the sahara and harder than concrete.

i almost scream in frustration, wracking every minuscule corner of my brain to remember the name of the greek goddess of the harvest; it's on the tip of my tongue as my fingernails drag through the crumbling soil, my body working automatically to shield me from the intrusion. hansol and minghao's cries echo between my ears until i finally remember.

demeter.

no sooner does the name flash in my mind does the light vanish. replacing it, the glowing figure of a woman hovers above the patch of crops i'd just watch wither away, her bare feet barely grazing the ground.

her skin is the colour of straw, not quite a sickly yellow but not quite golden either. her hair is a dread-lock of branches, intertwining and reaching out past her shoulder, some strands dipping to the lowest point of her back. from these cedar branches, delicate flowers bloom but i notice that they shrivel up just as quickly, breaking off to flutter to her feet. her features are rounded and earthly, though her eyes are pools of amber light. the grassy green of her toga floats as she does and in the crook of her arm rest a bountiful cornucopia of the most vividly coloured fruit i have ever seen.

"good evening," she says. her voice is as soft as a bale of hay, yet commands the undivided attention of the five of us. "i hope i'm not disturbing anything."

my fist twitches in the pocket of my hoodie and i fight the urge to draw first blood. her malicious smile is anything but kind.

"you may know why i'm here," she continues after receiving radio silence from us. "and i don't want to be the fuel for your nightmares and the reason for your untimely end, so work with me here, okay?"

i breathe sharply, shifting into a fighting stance. i'm tempted to let her continue but it seems like mingyu has other ideas.

"like hell we will!"

at his words, her smile drops a fraction. nonetheless, she tries to remain positive; i'm not sure why, everyone has realised how this is going to end by now.

"now, just here me out-"

"i'm not scared of you!" mingyu continues to shout. his face is like thunder and he truly means his words. unfortunately, i cannot say the same for myself. i bounce on the balls of my feet, prepared to teleport if i need to.

demeter's smile falls completely. the line that replaces it is haggard and suddenly she doesn't seem so beautiful anymore.

i begin to shiver in my light jacket, suddenly wishing i had brought another layer with me. frost starts to creep and cling to the soles of my shoes and i take a few steps back in surprise, cringing as it crunches under my feet. my breath starts to cloud in the air as i inch closer to my friends, confusion evident between us.

demeter's appearance has changed too. her skin has greyed and her cheekbones are more defined. the skin under her eyes is purple and thin, doing nothing to compliment the greying of her scleras. her irises have frozen over like a muddy lake on a winter's day and frost collects at the tip of her brow. her gaze jerks between us and the minute we make eye contact, a chill runs down my spine. the cornucopia she once cradled has stiffened into a razor-sharp scythe, its icy blade slicing through the air with the experimental swing she gives it.

the sub-zero temperature is making it hard to remain calm as the air burns my lungs and my fingers grow numb. i rub them together in an attempt to generate as much heat as possible, but to no avail.

the goddess of the harvest is no longer smiling down at us, her raised arms signifying death and disease to the field surrounding us. a bluster has started too, biting into my cheeks and imprisoning my breath in the form of mist. demeter tuts as we struggle to fight against the gale, the glow of her magic blurred by the blizzard cascading onto us.

the glowing stops abruptly and in the earth's response, the ground begins to shake. with the combination of the tremors and the wind i'm thrown off my balance, tumbling backwards into the dirt again. the ragged terrain cuts into my hands and i wince, wiping the speckles of blood and dirt onto my jeans.

the ground continues to shudder more violently until suddenly an ear-splitting squeal breaks through the roar of the wind. i barely have time to register the threat, scrambling to my feet and jumping into mingyu's side as we both dodge the flurry of boars stampeding towards us.

there are maybe fifteen or twenty of them, thundering across the field on jagged hooves. they move as a pack, each animal surrounded by the straw-coloured glow of demeter's magic. each pig is double the normal size; the parts of their flesh that aren't covered in malting, coarse fur are instead teeming with an infestation of maggots. the blackened parasites writhe and wriggle over the rotting flesh of each wild pig, continuously eating at the pink meat underneath. they dominate these creatures, using them as a vessel for their plague as they destroy enough to create zombies but not enough to put them out of their misery. as the creatures of decay charge, many of these maggots smatter to the ground and i'm careful to keep a very wide distance from them.

"feast, my babies!" demeter hollers from her front-row seat to our demise. she hovers above the tallest of the pigs, a thorny smile twisting her lips.

i let out a noise of surprise when a couple of the pigs turn to me directly, staring at me with pitch-black sockets, devoid of any eyeballs at all. i don't have time to ponder how they can see because they charge, spraying up dirt and dead plants.

any plants that had survived the new wintery climate thus far now perish under the hooves of these animals; not only are they the embodiment of death and disease, they also happen to induce those things too.

i curse, narrowly missing the opportunity to be skewered by a broken tusk. it would be suicide for me to fight these things head on with no armour or weapon to support me and mostly a defensive power; instead i teleport to another part of the field, closer to where seungkwan is petrified.

i trust my teammates to protect us as i shout at seungkwan over all the chaos. he doesn't seem to register me at first but then he jumps back, craning his neck at all the action happening around us. he settles on me with wide eyes and i give him a look that tells him i understand his painful confusion. instantly, he softens a bit.

"stay by my side, the others will have our backs. do you have anything that can be used as a weapon?"

although stunned, seungwkan shakes his head and i purse my lips in thought. running away will have to do for now.

on another part of the field minghao has also snapped out of his shell-shocked state and is now part wolf, his arms and legs covered in grey shaggy fur with knife-like claws jutting out from the ends of his paws. he expertly weaves through the few pigs surrounding him, taking calculated swipes at their bellies and faces. he keeps doing so, using his powerful legs to outpace them, until one finally falls. seungkwan and i watch in curiosity as the pig lets out a final squeal of suffering before going limp. the maggots feasting on the carcass slowly sink into the grass below and in the blink of an eye, everything down to the bones disintegrates into dust, blown away by the breeze. a symbol of rebirth is left in its wake in the form of a fresh patch of grass, greener than an emerald and untouched by the winter hell-scape around it. 

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bonus points to u if u noticed the studio ghibli reference i may have slipped in ;)