It was probably an hour later before we ever got going again. My neck was bandaged up by some supplies a random witch had on her, and Kade's stomach was patched up too until his fast healing took over. I could tell he didn't really like that, and neither did I considering it only made him weaker.
Delilah was once again leading the bunch, the goblins scattered ahead and the others noisily following behind. I walked alongside my original gang... and the fear on everyone's faces was not very well hidden.
"So what happened?" I asked Odis and Maeve, just to make conversation. "Salazar said you were a coven leader and you were a pack leader." I pointed at each of them. "What happened to that?" I didn't smile just in case it was painful for them to talk about... which, based on their expressions, it was.
"My coven was wiped out years and years ago by a group of demons. I'm sure you can guess who led them," Maeve mumbled. "I stumbled across the Freelancers not too long after that and they took me under their wing."
"I already knew the Freelancers when I was a pack leader; long story but we were already allies. My pack used to be strong, well mannered... until some nasty wizard became displeased with our ways and cursed them. They went rogue... did horrible things. I had no choice but to kill them one by one myself," Odis informed.
I felt bad for asking after that. I was sure both situations were highly upsetting and hard to move on from.
"What about you?" Kade said, elbowing me in the side. "You haven't told us much about your life."
I was a bit dismayed at that, but even more surprised at myself. He was right, I really hadn't told them anything about me. I kept everything short, though: my parents, siblings, school, and some aspects of our modern society. I felt it wasn't important to go into much detail, considering I probably wouldn't be here much longer. Either I'll be killed or I'll finally return home.
I'd be separated from them either way.
More of our awkward and totally natural silence followed that short discussion. Hours passed after that, and eventually, the sun started plaguing the sky with light. I don't know how I walked for so long without much rest but it was strangely encouraging, like knowing that I was capable of something normally difficult proved my bizarre strength.
The most exciting part of the quest was when we finally reached the edge of the forest, a vast hilly land stretching out after it. Verdant, yes, but not completely reassuring. Although it seemed cheery, all I saw was a longer and more tedious walk ahead, and I mentally collapsed into an exhausted heap.
I said nothing of my fatigue, though I saw the same thing on the others' faces. We all sensed it but silence clogged our throats and we continued. I never really checked the crowd behind me because I could hear feet shuffling through grass and wings batting in the air. Roll call was not needed considering there was never a change in volume of the sounds.
Eventually, the luscious green hills came to an end. More precisely... they just stopped coming across as a bright color and flattened into an enormous field. The color sure did dull, all that stretched before us was a sort of army green and mixtures of brown. The land looked dead, honestly, and gave off that eerie feeling I was all too familiar with.
There were no trees, no houses, no... anything! Just dead grass that continued on for probably a mile. It was so flat I could see its end out in the distance, trees scattered here and there on that tauntingly green side.
Something seemed very odd about this.
I turned around to our halted group of fifty or more and frowned. "Anyone know why the land is like this? It doesn't seem natural to me," I announced loudly.
"There's a reason why we're called supernatural," the bat answered, but not in a rude way. I just gave him a quick glance and waited for an official response. After a few seconds, a lady with very wavy blonde hair and a black eye patch over her left eye stepped forward. She was clothed in a badass leather outfit that appeared completely homemade. Her long boots made her lengthy height look even more incredible.
"Yeah," she answered in a bold voice with a German-like accent as she stared out at the land. "This land is radiating with ghostly magic... I feel it." She stepped closer to it and hovered a hand over the dead grass curiously.
"How can you feel it?" I asked.
"I'm a necromancer, it's kind of my thing. But what I do takes some serious power and concentration. This... this is incredible... way past any normal level of necromancy! Something like this would've had to be done by someone truly remarkable," she said, awed. She was amazed but I was nearly terrified. Whatever was happening with the land didn't sound like something promising, especially since it involved the dead.
"So I take it it's not safe to cross?" I asked awkwardly. Her hand stayed over the grass but not once did she touch it.
"I'm not sure. Only one way to find out," she answered, turning to the crowd. "Anyone got a stick or something?" Before anyone was able to search their surroundings, a loud squawk sounded overhead and a crow swooped in from the air. It seemed normal and flew over with no problem. Then it began to close in on the field and eventually landed softly and silently.
Why it landed in a vacant field, I don't know, but it just sat there, out in the open with no issues. It even pecked at the dead grass and pulled out an earthworm, swallowing it instantly. We all watched quietly with deep curiosity and waited for something bad to happen.
But nothing did.
The bird, after a couple of minutes, took flight and soared towards the direction we came, squawking noisily as it did.
"Strange," Delilah whispered once it was gone. She was still staring at the field with unsettled confusion.
"Indeed," the lady added.
"Well, is it safe, Krishna?" Someone called from the crowd. She turned around and stared thoughtfully for a few seconds before gazing back at the landscape.
"If that crow got away... then I guess we should be able to, also," she then said. Everyone seemed satisfied by that answer, including me, but no one volunteered to go first. Even when I asked, silence followed.
Eventually, the waiting apparently became tiresome and I saw Darwin raise his hand. "Ah, I'll do it," he groaned impatiently. But even though his voice held confidence, his body language didn't. He hesitated before stepping onto the grass and even gulped while staring down at its lifelessness.
He then lifted one of his large, bare feet and stepped onto the grass with both eyes squeezed shut in anticipation. Even I let out a sigh of relief when he didn't explode or sink into the earth or receive some other obscure fate. He dragged his other foot behind him and open his brown eyes with a smile.
"Seems alright to me!" he exclaimed, taking quite a few more steps out into the field. A few others were smiling but I couldn't bring myself to do the same. Something still didn't feel right to me.
Darwin had walked quite a distance when I cupped my hands around my mouth. "Hey, uh... Darwin!" I shouted. "Maybe you should come back. I don't think it's really safe!"
"No worries, Lady Bella! Everything's alright!" he responded back. I shook my head slowly and nearly gave up.
But then something caught my eye.
I mentioned how the land was almost completely flat, barely painted with small dirt mounds or anything in that matter. Out of the corner of my eye, though, I saw something move out in the distance. I say distance but it wasn't really far... just at the right span where I could see a shift in the unnatural stillness. Whatever it was was only there for a couple of seconds... and then when I glanced that way, it gradually sunk into the earth as if it didn't care about being seen. With just a glimpse it only appeared to me as something a bit round and greyish, not very alarming at first. But it only took me a few seconds to process what had happened, and I began to panic when it occurred to me that it was actually the top of a bald head I'd seen.
The greyish color? Easy to explain when I thought of our current situation.
I'd just witnessed a rotten corpse... a rotten corpse peeking at me from underground.
My eyes widened so big I thought they'd pop right out of my head. Apparently, no one else noticed it because their poker faces never changed to terror like mine. I cuffed my hands around my mouth and screamed almost to the top of my lungs.
A moving corpse was obviously not a good sign.
"Darwin! Come back now! It's not safe!" I screamed. He stopped, clearly startled by my sudden alarm, and turned to look at me for a brief moment. Not too long after that, something shot from the ground -a hand- and latched onto his leg, gripping too tightly for him to snatch away. He looked down in fear and clawed at the grey, shriveled arm but reached no prevail. A second one followed the first and grabbed onto his other leg and instantly began to drag him to the ground.
"Of course this would happen to me!" he yelled furiously.
I combed a hand through my hair and turned to the bat. "Can you fly over and pull him back?!"
Shock struck his face, but he nodded reluctantly and spread his seemingly crippled wings behind him. In no time, he was hovering over the struggling goblin, reaching down a deformed hand to him. Darwin tried to reach but it was no use... he couldn't reach high enough. The bat flew lower which only led him to a similar predicament.
A whole corpse, almost rotten to the bones, sprang from the earth, pitching mounds of dirt in every direction as it wrapped its gaunt arms around the bat's middle. He screeched and displayed his uneven teeth in displeasure as his claws pointlessly scratched at his restrainer. Eventually, he too was slammed against the earth as the corpses tried endlessly to pull them below ground.
Basically, we were matched against zombies.
When I turned around to find another volunteer, everyone stepped back and almost everyone shook their heads. Frustrated as hell with such unwillingness, I veered back around and blew air from my nose.
"Well shit," I groaned. "Plan B."
I went to take a step forward but Kade was there to stop me once again. "Now I know you've lost your mind. Do you see what happens we you step on the grass? What makes you different from them?" he said, nodding his head towards the bat and Darwin. Their condition seemed even worse now that they had been dragged down to their waists.
"Someone's gotta save them," I pointed out. "It's my fault they're in there."
"You're just gonna get taken down too!"
I pulled away from his grip and sprinted onto the grass before he could stop me again. He yelled sharply but I didn't stop running. All around me I saw hands shooting from the ground and swatting at my feet and legs, all resulting in failure. I even heard groans of displeasure amongst some of them, something I would've thought impossible.
Before too much longer, my hands were wrapped around the bat's hand, desperately tugging him out of the infested ground. Little by little I was succeeding, but not as quick as I wanted to. A few inches at a time, actually.
I did one great tug and saved more time when it brought him up to his thighs. A bit more and it was up to his knees... then calves... ankles... eureka! He was free! Rotten hands still clung to his feet but with me and him both kicking they gave up their attempts and sunk back into the earth. Then we both managed to get little Darwin free in no time, and I quickly shooed the two of them away, ordering the bat to fly the goblin to safety. Although he lifted Darwin partially in the air, he defiantly hovered there.
"Goddess! I can't leave you!" he insisted. I kicked away a hand grabbing at my foot and swatted at him.
"Go now!" I yelled, glaring at him to ensure my seriousness. Without a second more of hesitation, he flew to our crowd and set Darwin down lightly before doing the same for himself. Then all eyes were staring at me expectantly.
I ran like there was no tomorrow, occasionally stumbling over stray hands and arms. It wasn't until I was about thirty feet away from the group when something successfully grabbed my ankle and stopped me. I immediately kicked at the bony hand but it wouldn't budge.
Out of nowhere the corpse sprouted from the ground like an obnoxious weed and began to plod up my leg, revealing its ghastly, repulsive appearance to my unsuspecting self. The others were pretty deformed but this one seemed to have all of its skin stripped off, nothing but a dirtied skeleton and ripped clothing left behind. I squealed by accident and tried to smack it away, but I was tripped when another hand latched onto my other leg and deliberately stole my balance.
My head hit the ground hard enough to knock any unprepared person completely unconscious, and although I was dizzy for a moment, I manage a successful readjustment. My legs kicked amateurishly at their restrainers, though not once did they succeed at pushing them away.
I could hear my name being shouted, but the groans of the freakishly live corpses nearly blocked it out completely. One griped the side of my face, its rotten finger tugging at the corner of my eye and mouth. It reeked of an indescribable smell, one that I was sure I'd never smelt in my life. That, of course, was not the worst of my problems.
One thing I was continually asking myself was... where was my help? I just risked my life and successfully saved two creatures, but out of the massive crowd that I thought had my back, not one made an attempt to rescue me.
Before I knew it, I felt my whole backside sink into the earth. I wasn't sure how many corpses were pulling me-two, three... four? However many, I wasn't able to fight against them. I couldn't win this battle, which became obviously clear when my whole middle was pulled beneath the soggy soil. Now you'd think "Oh, no way that's possible. You'd have to dig some kind of hole first." But no. I don't know what kind of sorcery was happening here but I was passing through the soil like a ghost through a wall. I could feel it but science didn't want to properly apply to this situation.
I didn't have much time or thought to say goodbye to the world, I sank like rock and could only allow the corpses to drag me farther in the soil. My face became clouded with dirt, my whole body stained by it too. I had to close my eyes and mouth to keep it from going in either, but I could do nothing for my ears and nose.
Something tugged at my hair while something else pushed down on my stomach. I still couldn't quite figure out how this situation was at all possible. It was like being shoved into snow, just warmer and far less comfortable. I could feel the weight of soil falling into the hole my body made as it passed through. It blanketed me... but surprisingly I didn't suffocate. Yes, I couldn't breathe, but it didn't seem to be much of an issue. The worse part was the corpses still tugging on me like two dogs playing tug-o-war with a rope. I could tell I was still sinking though... down, down, down I went like a rock to the bottom of the deepest ocean.
At one point there'd be a limit, right? Like wouldn't the corpses and I eventually hit stone and stop? Or were they enchanted just enough to drag me down to the very core and drown me in molten liquid... that is, if I even made it that far.
Just as I began to lose consciousness from my lack of air and the pressure of soil on top of me, I felt a sudden burst of heat by my back. Not possible, I thought, that I could've made it to the center of earth that quickly.
My suspicions were quickly answered when the dirt pressed against my back disappeared and all that I felt was air. The back of my head was next, then my legs and feet. My fingertips eventually broke through and I swatted at the air for a reason I was unsure of.
My face was the last part to be exposed to the change. Eyes coated by dirt, I used a free hand to wipe it away and batted my eyes at the sight below. The corpses dangled me by keeping a tight hug around my waist, forcing me to hang my head back to even get a good glance.
Though, when I did... I wish I didn't.
I was thousands of feet in the air, looking at a world literally from a bird's eye view. It was vast, dead, and unmistakably rotten. All I saw was "clear" land for miles. Out in the very far distance, though, was a castle, astonishingly huge and as black as night! On the opposite side was a black spiked gate the height of a skyscraper, possibly a bit shorter, that stretched so far into a foggy mist, it seemed to go on forever. Its luminous doors stood even higher and gave me the horror-movie creeps. Past it, the reddish-black fog was even thicker and not one thing could be seen beyond it.
The land wasn't very pretty itself. There was no green grass or lively shrubs, from what I could see. All I saw was either red, black, or a brown dark enough to be black. Here and there were random burning fires, and before I could gather anything else, the oh-so-tight grips around my waist were suddenly gone.
And I was falling.
I screamed to the top of my lungs, flailing my helpless arms in front of me as I stared up at the sky which was also painted with a red and black mist, and not one sign of dirt.
I was preparing for impact, ready to die when I hit the ground. There was nothing else I could do. I couldn't grab onto anything, couldn't stop and ask for help. I was falling from a deathly height and had no way out of it.
Suddenly the falling stopped and my back SMACKED against the ground so hard, the sound that came out of my mouth was a combination of a scream, gasp, and a wail of pain. My head hit too, as well as the rest of my backside.
But I didn't die.
I just felt the most agonizing pain I'd ever felt in my life! I was groaning as I wearily pulled myself to a sitting position and rubbed my aching back and cursed under my breath. My hand alternated between my head and back in a pattern that became slower as I took more time to study my surroundings. I didn't even take the time to dwell on how I survived such a fall. I didn't feel it was as important.
Dirtied face twisted with pain and fear, I began to think to myself.
You know how you get a feeling and just know what's going on? Or just know where you are and what's bound to happen? Well I did, just at that very moment. Based off the hellish scene around me, I wouldn't call it a coincidence... I'd call it a nightmare come true.
I was in Hell... and though I survived the fall, I knew I wouldn't survive whatever was about to happen next.
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Sorry not sorry.