Chapter Forty-Three: Whispers in the Snow
X's grip starts to change, sliding to my neck to hold me in place, pushing himself deeper as I feel his tongue reach for my lips and I'm melting as I let him gain access-
Oz's voice cuts into my ear, "Just got a good glimpse of Elysia...it ain't pretty. It's completely overrun by at least five separate major Hexer Nests and that's just above ground...I'm issuing a warning that there may be scouts of the Hive-minds for up to a five-hundred kilometre radius. The Nest saturation levels do not seem to extend further than ten kilometres from the Fence in any given direction. But I can't say for the influence..."
Fenir's voice immediately responds, "Is the Tower still intact?"
"Negative...it's probably housing the initial Host.'
"Fuck." His voice pauses, giving me enough time to lunge back from X, realising what I was doing, completely red, I felt like my face could melt winter from existence. "X, you will need to extend your 'sight'. Watch for any movement. Oz, get out of range and alert Siem to the situation. Kid," he pauses for a second and I realise that he was now under the treehouse and talking to me...and I'm not ready to face anyone right now. His voice was now echoing from down below and in my ear, "We need to hurry. There is a chance that if there is a Queen controlling a Tower that they have the intelligence to intercept any radio calls and redirect themselves to our position. It is unlikely but..." He didn't need to finish the sentence.
I hear X moving towards me and I freeze, unable to look at him in the eye trying to get myself together at what I had just done. He on the other hand looked calm and composed. I see his fingers reach out, push against the base of my neck as his lips touch my forehead before I feel him taking a deep breath, letting me go and as I stare up at his face like an idiot, I see his pupils change to slits and he leaps to the ground, landing in front of Fenir like a cat.
His voice was strangely distant as he speaks, "No movement within a five kilometre radius, for now. However...unknown movement seven kilometres to the east. Do I follow?"
"Negative. Seth," Fenir pauses for Seth to respond. "Get back in range. Now."
"I damn well heard him. I've travelled south-east. There is nothing in this area either."
I see X touch something on his on headset, just behind the ear that must have made his signal live. "No movement, whatsoever?"
"That is a neg-a-tory."
"No natural fauna?"
"...No...now that you mention it. -Fuck me sideways and call me Gwendolyn. X-"
X cuts him off, "I see it. Can you handle the temperature drop?"
"No more than normal, mate. As much as I'm enjoying the scenery, Kae, we have less than twenty minutes before temperatures drop below...comfortably freezing to death to cholesterol cannot functionally keep us from literally freezing to death."
"What's changed?" I called down to Fenir and X, working my way over to the ladder to get down.
'Big...dark...scary. And fast. And cold. Bad. Dreamer will stay in dreams...forever.' Lady stands up from where she was sitting to meet me as I descend.
'What is it?' I ask her back as I find safety curly my fingers in her fur. She sends me an emotional shockwave that nearly bowls me over. It freezes my lungs in my chest, my ribcage becoming brittle as the ice devours bone, turning it to sand as I choke. Darkness fringed in blue and smoke rushes before me, only death and sleep's sweet nectar was the warm embrace that I could use to escape. The eyes are watching me. Choking on the blood -kill me-
Lady pulls me out of the imagery and my body found relief from the shackled restraints that were choking me. I shudder as I cough, gasping for air, trembling as I hold onto Lady otherwise I might have fallen over completely blacking out as my lungs fight the icy tinged air that was bitterly warmer than what Lady showed me.
"...the fuck was that?" I gasp.
X came over to support me, "Blizzard." And I instantly feel heat radiate from my face again as his touch accompanies the memory of his lips on my skin not two minutes ago.
"The blizzard decided to take an unexpected scenic route of Switzerland, heading in our direction...and it's fast." Seth appears out of nowhere, completely red faced and out of breath. "It's movement is not something I'd call 'natural'."
Fenir marches up to me. "Now is not the time to chat. Kid, you will need to lead us to your house and to this possible evidence." So pushy...
I nod, pointing deeper into the forest, "It's on the other side of this part of the forest." I start walking, still holding onto Lady's side. "It's only about a hundred, hundred-and-fifty metres away."
The snow squelches under our feet as the silence settles in. I look around, my thoughts were colliding with one another and never settling. It was mainly swinging between 'I just fucking kissed X', and 'I want but don't want to find anything at the house'.
Do I regret kissing him?
...No...I wanted to keep going. I wanted him. It's too confusing. How could I want him? I barely knew him but...somewhere underneath all my anxiety, that didn't matter.
I have no experience with this...
Lady's thoughts curiously prod mine, almost gaining complete access to them and it felt like I was caught red-handed like a kid that just shop-lifted. I feel her stop from looking too deeply, knowing it was causing me stress.
'...Does Dreamer not want Lady to see?'
'No-...I don't know. I don't even know what I just did to be honest.'
'Instinct wants another...other-half...' she slightly looks at X who was taking the lead, stopping every now and again to watch for anything. 'Waking Dreamer doesn't understand.' I almost felt her smile in amusement. 'Dreamer is cub. Not understanding the flow...frightens Dreamer?'
For fuck's sake... 'Yes...'
'If Chimera and Dreamer... let it flow. Fighting or...running will harm.'
...Am I getting relationship advice from a tiger? 'X is Chimera?'
'Yes...not...real...not natural...mixing of Miasma...human arrogantly tainting it...child changed. Miasma changed. Rotting. Hateful. Death. Consuming...Tying chains, trying to tame raging storms. But...Chimera is not at fault. Lady's existence is not Lady's fault. So Lady cannot blame Chimera for what Chimera is. Chimera likes Dreamer very much. So...Lady likes Chimera.' ...But she doesn't like what X represents.
'Dark little one is the same...but not the same...corruption not as loud,' she indicates to Seth.
I glance up at him. He was looking around him in 'full-alert mode', like X. But...I could tell that the cold was affecting him a lot more than it was affecting me. Is this what X meant when he asked Seth if he could handle the sudden temperature drop?
Looking back to my front, my thoughts stall as we near the clearing. My house was a dark shadow to the left like an unnatural opaque blob on the backdrop behind the thinning tree-line. As we neared the field, it opened up to a clear wide patch of carpeting snow. The house looked exactly the same. Untouched, unnoticed, just like three years ago. Reality became twisted as the onslaught of nightmares I've had over and over for week began to relay out. My excitement dropped in my stomach as the nightmare swallowed the snow in red. I expected to see Anne's doppelgangers; malformed and bleeding reaching out to me or ignoring me completely, litter the field as they did last time. The last dream was of probably every Anne I dreamed at this place. Every version of Anne littered the field as corpses, drenched in a sea of blood, all face down in the direction of the same tree. I walked through, ankle deep in her blood...and never got to the end.
"-is it?" I barely hear Fenir through the horror, his voice was only an echo in this distance.
I look up to the spot. My feet didn't want to move. I could feel something grabbing my ankles -pulling me down. I want to scream. Nothing. My voice dies. Something surges like bile through my throat to silence me. Leaving me only to the panic-
"Hey!" A pair of hands clapped loudly in front of me, snapping me out of the dream. "Kae. Stay focused on what's here in front of you right now." Seth pull his hands to my shoulders, the weight grounded me.
And I blinked. It felt like I haven't done that for a very long time.
He forces me to look at him in the eye, his voice was calm and controlled, "Ok. Where is it?"
I was able to step out from his grasp and walked towards the tree. It stood out in the field. It wasn't in the exact centre. In fact, it was closer to the house but still roughly twenty metres away. But in my dreams it always had yellow maple leaves. But now in winter...it was a red skeleton. The trunk and the branches were dyed red, like blood. It shouldn't be here.
My body went into auto-pilot. It knew from Anne repeating the same thing over and over and over...I kneel in front of it and began to dig.
My fingers protested at the touch of ice biting into them but I couldn't feel it. Numb to my core. Hoping. Praying that the nightmares were more than my own personal torment taken form for so much internal blame and hate.
I finally hit dirt.
Dig.
Dig.
Dig.
My fingers hit something hard and left a light noise. I look again and see something metallic poking out. My heart sinks but my fingers, shaking and numb, hastily tried to recover it until it revealed an old biscuit tin. My nails, crusted with dirt claw at the lid's rim until it finally let me see what was inside.
An envelope, tainted yellow with age and felt so delicate to the touch. I pull on it, opening it gently. It revealed a folded up paper and as I pull it out, the SD card fell to the ground. But I couldn't care less as I unfold the paper. I feel light shining on me and see that Seth had turned on his torch, allowing me to read it. I look at the letter, all horribly written in red crayon. I immediately knew it was Anne's handwriting. The scrawl was from her eight-year-old self.
'It's not your fault' were the words written on the page.
My vision suddenly went fuzzy. Ah, I must be crying again, were my dissociative side's thoughts before I began to sob. I bite back the screams, grinding my teeth as I was unable to completely suppress my breath.
"She knew. She knew!" My voice was tight as I accidentally crumble the paper in my curling fist and instantly feel bitter regret and try to straighten the creases in the only connection I had left. For years she knew and didn't say anything. I was suddenly feeling dizzy, unaffected by the sound of Oz's goddamn airship touching down.
"We need to leave now!" Oz shouts at us from the opening ramp door. "We can check the location again, later! The radar is picking up new signals and I am not about to find out what they are."
X's voice responds, "...Scouts...and-"
"The blizzard has increased its speed tenfold. I know. Get your asses on the Kite, now!"
"We have what we came for," Seth flicks the SD at Oz before coming back to me. "Come on, Kae."
I could feel him trying to reach out to help me up and I felt myself bristle. I wanted to hit something. So much anger. So much-
"Get on the ship quickly, Seth. You're barely holding on," X's voice whips out as a sudden gust of wind rips through the tree-line. Even from here I could hear it rattling the windows of our house.
We need to leave before it tries to damage the house.
What?
It wants to kill. It wants your blood. It wants the song.
Shut up already.
X lifts me to my feet. "Ignore it for now. Don't let it see you." He pulls me along, onto the ship. My brain discards the memories until I hear X clicking me into my seat, staying kneeled in front of me. "Oz, disregard any of the regulations. We need to get out of the area within twenty seconds."
"Then it's a good thing I left the engine running," Oz grins back as he flop into his seat and fiddles with the controls in front of him.
Fenir looked between me, Lady sitting beside my chair and X, who had put his hands over my ears. "What's out there?"
"...The Queen."