Alma quickly scrambled for her gun, the strength rapidly draining from the muscle in her right arm as she remained hooked to the monster before her. It had gripped her in a deathly bite and refused to let go. The shadowy tether was preventing her from dropping too low to the ground, her gun merely inches from her fingertips. The pain was becoming increasingly excruciating, pushing Alma’s psyche to the edge of sanity. Gritting her teeth through the torment, she leaned her body to the side, using the tendril to keep a shaky balance and was finally able to grasp the handle of her pistol. The sensation in her arm had already begun to grow numb in the mere seconds it took her to grab her weapon. In one swift motion, she aimed at the gaping hole in the shadow's core and emptied the rest of her ammo. Bullets soared, puncturing the bulging flesh and tearing it apart in a bloody fusillade. The attack on its body managed to finally wound the shadow creature, causing it to relinquish Alma's arm as it flailed miserably. Without a second thought, the girl broke into a sprint, refusing to check whether she had successfully killed it or not.
After several minutes, Alma finally stopped to catch her breath. The rasping sounds escaping from her throat were the only sounds cutting through the dead, forest air. Her right arm remained limp at its side, causing her to wonder if she had permanently lost the use of it. With her single good hand, she pulled out a new magazine from her pocket and placed it between her teeth before awkwardly releasing the empty magazine from her pistol, letting it fall into a crater of soft ash on the ground. Easing the new magazine into the gun with her mouth and using her chest to push it in, she spent several more minutes trying to chamber a round as she finished reloading her gun.
A dejected sigh escaped her lips as she swung her useless arm around, checking to see if any feeling had returned. The ex-soldier scanned her surroundings to get a modicum of understanding of her current situation. It had all happened so quickly that Alma had had no time to take in the confusing nature of the situation as it grew exponentially more dire. A completely dead forest with a dark being possibly from another dimension. She looked back in the direction where she had her confrontation with it, making sure it hadn't seemingly survived and was still stalking her. The girl shook the fearsome premise from her mind and continued to move through the area, the strong smell of charred wood still permeating the air as she moved even deeper.
The sun's heat remained strong and Alma wondered when the snowy clouds of home would return. The air would usually have begun to chill by now as she neared closer to what should have been the border of one forest and the entrance to the other, but there had been no visible landscape shift in sight. It hadn't been long before another sudden shriek caused Alma to figuratively shit her pants. She jerked her head back, trying to pinpoint the source of the sudden cry while gripping her pistol tightly. She had been able to fight one off already by locating the shadow being's weakness, she was sure if it had come to it, she would be able to fight off another. At least until she could finally locate the exit and try to figure out exactly what had gone disastrously wrong for her to end up in her current situation. She wondered if maybe another summoning spell had gone wrong, bringing forth a creature as dangerous as the nuckelavee they had encountered not too long ago. The girl had at least felt a slight bit of relief that she had somehow found a new penchant for being able to eliminate these arcane atrocities.
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A familiar rustling of leafy boughs disturbed the deathly quiet air. Alma knew what was coming. Digging her heels into the fine ash, she kept her gun at the ready. But as she followed the path of one trembling tree, another straight across from it had begun to mimic its convulsive dance. Followed by a third and a fourth.
"Dear, sweet Macha. No…"
Soon, dozens of the trees surrounding her had begun to shake uncontrollably. Before she knew it, Alma found herself sprinting at full speed away from what seemed like certain death. Her legs stretched far, taking her faster than the last time. The quivering trees followed at an increasingly alarming pace. Ahead of her, Alma could see no end in sight. She was on the verge of giving up hope, her body nearing its limit even as the adrenaline pushed her with all its might while she ran. The rush and the fatigue were battling it out inside of her, causing her surroundings to blur together and the world to grow smaller around her. In that exact moment, a small glint shimmered in the distance, pushing hope to flare anew in Alma’s racing heart.
“That has to be the border…! I’m finally there! I’ll be able to get home! I—”
The sudden realization struck her like a bullet piercing her chest. Even if she had managed to cross the border into the Tindalos Forest, she wouldn’t be away from the monsters chasing her. They were still after her and they were steadily catching up. She thought perhaps she’d be able to find a place to hide among the snow. An optimistic fantasy that maybe even the cold would drive them off.
But as she raced nearer to the boundary, something in the air changed. The sounds of shaking foliage had come to a sudden halt, just as Alma’s body had finally begun to give out. Harsh jolts raced through her body, the pain of pushing it to its limit taking its toll. The girl did her best to heave harsh breaths past her throat, still trying to piece together what had just happened. Something had caused the apparitions to give up the chase and Alma was anxious as to what it might be.
After several minutes of catching her breath, the ex-soldier marched toward the edge of what should have been the woodlands where her friend lived. But instead of the chill air that she was so familiar with, she was greeted with the stark tingling of oppressive heat pulsing around her. It was an uncomfortable feeling she wasn’t used to, and it only served to make her anxiety worsen. As she pushed forward through the increasingly sweltering temperature, she was met by the monstrous dunes of a horrifyingly foreign landscape.
Instead of the usual snow-covered forest that should have been, there was now a torrid desert with nothing but a broad expanse of dry, cracked sand. The heat grew worse as Alma neared the strange, new desert that replaced her home. But after a few steps, her instincts immediately forced her to stop. There had been something strange about this entire day, and she felt that something out there was somehow the cause of it all. Something dangerous enough to scare away the shadows that had been hunting her. It had seemed like hours, yet it felt like time wasn’t passing at all.
She crept closer to one of the trees teetering at the edge of the threshold. As she looked up at the sky above the desert, her heart skipped a beat. The heavens were tinted with an unfamiliar, searing white color. But it was the blazing star in the sky that had scared Alma most of all. The sun, along with all its tongues of foul flame, were dyed an otherworldly pitch black. Alma couldn’t stand to glance at it for even a few seconds. It was a foreign body that seemed to burn a hole in reality. And as she looked on at the endless desert, she noticed the hazy, translucent smoke rising from everywhere the black sun’s unholy light was touching.
What eldritch dreamworld was this into which she had blundered?