Ezzie didn’t say anything as Ava rowed them across the calm and silent lake, the only sounds the lapping of the paddles in the quiet waters, and soon the shoreline and the village disappeared behind them, and they were surrounded by twilight. Ezzie fingered the compass in her hands. Ava’s arms ached from rowing. She was really out of shape! She stopped for a moment and they drifted.

“Are we still going north?” she asked.

Ezzie studied the compass, under light of the stars. “Yes,” she said.

“Good,” said Ava, then, “Are you suicidal or something?”

“What’s that?” asked Ezzie. “I’ve never heard of that before.”

“It’s—” Ava paused. “It’s when you never wake up from the long sleep, or whatever you immortals call it.”

"Oh,” said Ezzie. “Maybe.”

“I knew a boy in high school who committed suicide,” said Ava. “His name was Isaac. It came as a shock to everyone. I don’t think his parents were the same afterwards. If you did anything, your sisters would never be the same. They’ll welcome you back. I know they will.”

“I hope so,” muttered Ezzie, still staring at the compass. “I have nothing to go back for.”

“Is that why you’re helping me?” Ava asked.

“Yes, and why not. My sisters won’t forgive me.”

“Yes they will.”

“Doubtful. Rosalie said I’m the long sleep to them.”

“When was the last time you drank any blood?” Ava asked.

“Awhile ago. It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes it does.”

“Not really. It doesn’t matter if I wither away into nothing.”

“It matters to me,” said Ava.

“It does?”

“Yes. You rescued me from that horrible spinning world.”

“Oh.”

Ava began rowing again.

“I hope Elu was right,” she said. “I hope that myth was true.”

“Do the rivers really flow with sweet blood in your world?” Ezzie suddenly asked.

“Well—” began Ava. “Not literally.” She figured there was no point in keeping the truth from her anymore. “There’s a lot of violence and bloodshed though. Lots of war and murder, so there’s a lot of blood. Just not rivers of it.”

“Oh. So I shouldn’t go there with you and go on an antidepressant?”

“Well, you have to get a prescription for an SSRI.”

“What’s a prescription?”

“It’s something you get from a doctor.”

“Oh,” said Ezzie, and Ava doubted she even knew what a prescription was. She seemed let down though, and Ava didn’t want her to be let down.

“But you could always come with me and I could say I’m depressed and get a prescription for you.”

“It would really help my depression?”

“Sure,” said Ava.

“What’s warfare and bloodshed?” Ezzie asked. “Are there fountains of blood in your world?”

Oh boy. How was Ava going to explain this?

“There’s no fountains of blood. War is when people purposely kill each other. Like put each other in an eternal sleep.”

“That’s awful!” said Ezzie.

“Yes.”

“Why do you mortals do that?”

“Usually it’s over money and resources.”

“What’s money?”

“A form of currency.”

“Still don’t know what that is.” Ezzie sighed. “Rosalie would know.”

“Probably.”

Ava didn’t feel like explaining what currency was, and she didn’t really know how to do it in a way that Ezzie would understand anyway. They continued their row in silence, and she began to wonder why no one had ever returned from crossing the lake. She wondered what they were getting themselves into. There could very well be danger ahead. Why else would no one return? Cold dread began filling her. Well, whatever it was they could face it. It couldn’t be any worse than a spinning world, right? Or maybe there was just nothing at the other side of the lake, no land at all, and they’d be rowing forever, on this calm, twilight lit lake, until Ezzie withered away into nothing and she starved. She hoped she was wrong.

“Why do you think no one has ever returned? Aryana said no one has ever returned from crossing the lake,” she said.

“I don’t know,” said Ezzie, blinking her strange, purple eyes, which Ava was starting to think were beautiful, and she hoped she wasn’t developing a crush on this gaunt, bony immortal girl.

They rowed. And soon came to a wall of cold fog and started through it, all of the heavy grayness blocking out the starry sky above.

“Not more fog!” said Ava. “Are we still going north?”

“Yes,” said Ezzie, who seemed unphased by the damp grayness they rowed through. Ava figured she was used to it.

“I hope we reach land soon.”

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

“Me too,” said Ava, though she didn’t know what to expect if they even did, but soon enough the fog thinned out, until only wisps of it swirled around the paddles of the boat and over the water, and above most of the twilit sky could be seen, and the boat bumped into a rocky shoreline. Beyond the rocks rose trees, leaves damp and dripping water, and beside their rowboat were two other boats, both rotting and black in the water. Must be from the others who had come this way and never returned, and Ava suddenly had a bad feeling about that forest beyond. What was in it exactly? The fog cleared completely here.

This place—oasis—wasn’t on the map. Unless it was the tower place.

“Lets tie up the boat, so you have a way of getting back once I go home,” said Ava, as the boat rocked against the shoreline.

“I have nothing to go back to.”

“You have the fountain of blood.”

“My sisters don’t want me back.”

“Yes they do!” Ava gasped, getting frustrated with Ezzie’s negative attitude, but she reminded herself that Ezzie was depressed, and it was just the depression talking.

Elu’s people must still be here somewhere, but why had they never returned? The icy cold dread filled Ava again, as her and Ezzie tied up the boat to a large boulder and began up the rocky shoreline and into the damp forest beyond. It was dark beneath the tree branches and shadows stretched beneath the trees. The forest floor was damp and covered with bright green ferns, and soon they came to a massive clearing, dotted with brightly colored mushrooms—green and orange and red, and for a moment it felt like being under the musician’s spell again, when all of those technicolor flowers had appeared.

Four, mutilated bodies lay in the tall grass, amongst the mushrooms—Elu’s people? Dried up entrails lay amongst the mushrooms. The heads were detached, dismembered and tossed about, dangling sightless white eyes. The sight made Ava feel like she was going to be sick. Woven baskets lay on the ground, toppled over, shriveled mushrooms laying amongst the live mushrooms.

Eat us, the mushrooms seemed to say.

Eat us.

“What happened here?” asked Ezzie, walking further into the clearing and stepping on the mushrooms. They puffed up clouds of brown spores.

“Eat us!” the mushrooms seemed to sing.

Eat us.

Eat us.

We’re so tasty!

Ezzie was peering at one of the mutilated bodies.

“Was this… violence?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Ava, trying not to breathe in the brown spores. “Yes it was. I-I don’t know why they’re like this, though.” She couldn’t help breathing in some of the earthy tasting spores. Bits of dried up hair lay amongst the mutilated bodies and was attached to one of the heads—it looked like a dreadlock, making Ava’s suspicions come true. “Elu’s people.”

“But immortals don’t conflict violence upon other immortals!” Ezzie said in disbelief. She took a deep breath—also breathing in some of the brown spores that now lingered in the air, under the starlight.

“I-I don’t know what happened!” said Ava, the mushrooms singing to her.

“Eat us!”

She seemed to be able to hear them now, out loud.

“We’re ever so tasty.”

She walked up beside Ezzie.

“We’ll nourish you!”

Suddenly Ava couldn’t even see the mutilated body they stood above. Suddenly all she could see were the mushrooms. Technicolor shot up into the sky—blue and purple and red, all surrounding them, and there were the mushrooms, practically pulsating with tenderness and juiciness, and Ava’s stomach grumbled. She hadn’t eaten any of the berries in the boat and, being a vegetarian, hadn’t eaten any of the strips of dried meat. Her last meal had been that peanut butter and jelly sandwich and chips under the musician’s pavilion.

She backed up, stepping on one of the mushrooms, and brown, earthy spores shot up into the air.

“Do you see that?” she asked Ezzie, referring to all the technicolor shooting up into the air, and the pulsating of the mushrooms.

“Hear and see what?” asked Ezzie.

“The mushrooms,” said Ava in a daze.

“We’re tasty!”

“Eat us!”

“Eat us!”

Ezzie nudged one of the toppled over baskets, with the dried mushrooms in it.

“They must have eaten the mushrooms,” she said. “Could that be the reason for such violence?”

“I-I don’t know,” said Ava, staring at all the colors around her and of course the mushrooms. They looked so good. She could barely see Ezzie anymore, and she smelled the spores—earthy and brown, like fresh planting soil. She stepped on another one of the brightly lit mushrooms, releasing more spores.

“Eat us!”

“Eat us!”

“Eat us!”

They all chorused.

Ava went to one of the mushrooms and knelt on the ground beside it. This one was bright green. She touched it.

“Don’t you hear the mushrooms, Ezzie? They want us to eat them!”

She frantically dug the mushroom out of the damp soil. It felt soft and waxy. She broke it in half, releasing spores into her mouth. Her stomach grumbled again. Oh it looked so good! It looked scrumptious.

“Don’t eat that, Ava!” said Ezzie, sounding frantic. “This is a bad place. We have to leave here!”

“But it’s beautiful!” said Ava, staring at the green mushroom she held, hypnotized by it. “Can’t you see all the colors?”

“No,” said Ezzie. “I don’t see anything.”

“How can you not?” asked Ava, smelling the mushroom she held. Oh, it looked tasty. She absolutely had to have a bite. Then she saw red, and the world bled around her—soft drops falling all on the edges of her vision, and she saw Ezzie’s frantic face and saw and felt how her skin would feel beneath her fingernails and wondered if Ezzie would bleed, or if she’d just shred like paper, skin peeling off beneath her hands, and she wanted to gauge out Ezzie’s eyes, the feeling so strong she had to stop herself from jumping up and lunging at Ezzie.

She dropped the mushroom she held, the red in her vision making it look purple.

“I-I don’t feel so good,” she said, through the red haze.

And then she saw her own skin and how if she clawed at it she would bleed bright red, and imagined clawing her own eyes out and had to do everything in her power to resist the urge.

“Eat us!” the mushrooms sang.

She was happy she hadn’t taken a bite out of that mushroom.

And she imagined Elu’s people here, frantically picking the mushrooms, frantically eating them, frantically gauging at each others eyes and decapitating each other with their bare fists, frantically using violence against one another, frantically inflicting pain, and Ava felt sick.

Ezzie was right. This was a bad place.

But oh, that mushroom looked so tasty!

Surely one bite wouldn’t hurt?

“Come on!” said Ezzie, grabbing her arm and hauling her to her feet. “We have to leave!”

“Just one bite—” said Ava.

“No!” said Ezzie, pulling her through the clearing, pulling her through the red haze, and Ava struggled as she breathed in more of the brown, earthy tasting spores, but Ezzie was stronger than she looked, and soon they came out of the clearing and back into the cool and darkly shadowed forest, leaving the mushrooms and the mutilated corpses of Elu’s people behind, but Ava still saw red—bleeding at the edges of her visions, and she didn’t know how long it took for her vision to become normal again. She breathed in the cool, fresh air of the forest.

“Eat us!” the mushrooms sang behind her. “Eat us!”

She breathed in more of the forest air, clearing the scent of the brown earthy spores, and eventually her vision become normal again. She no longer saw the world through a red haze, but her heart still beat rapidly, and she still had the urge to claw away at Ezzie’s gaunt face and tear her own eyes out, but by the time they reached more fog and it swirled around their ankles and around the trunks of trees, and wisps of it clouded the stars above, the feeling was mostly gone.

“I’m okay now,” she said, still breathing heavy. “You can let go of me now.”

Ezzie did.

“You’re okay?” she asked.

“Yes. I think so,” said Ava, never wanting to see another mushroom in her entire life. “What was that?”

“I don’t know, but that was a bad place,” said Ezzie.

“Why didn’t the mushrooms affect you?” Ava asked.

“I don’t know,” said Ezzie. “I don’t eat mushrooms. I only drink blood.”

Yes. That was probably why. It was also probably because she had no sense of smell.

“So it’s probably because I don’t eat mushrooms,” said Ezzie.

“I-I wanted to claw your face off! I saw red.”

“It’s good you didn’t eat that mushroom then.”

“Well, I guess now we know what happened to Elu’s people. They must have killed each other.”

“What does killing mean?”

“Put each other in an eternal sleep.”

“Oh. That’s just awful!”

“Yeah.”

“And that happens all the time in your world?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not sure I want to go there then,” said Ezzie. “Even for an antidepressant.” T

hey stood in silence for a bit then, just wisps of fog blowing around their ankles and through the ferns that covered the forest floor.

“Well, are we still going north?” Ava finally asked, still a little shaky, but she was starting to feel better.

Ezzie took the compass out of the pocket of her holey jeans. “Yes.”

“Good. Lets go then.”

Ava wanted to put as much distance between them and that field of mushrooms and those mutilated bodies as possible, and she wondered why this place wasn’t on the map. Were they really still going in the right direction?