It was no exaggeration to say that, at this point, I had become nothing more than a walking corpse. This terrible realisation had already settled within my mind; that I was going to die here in this cold and lonely place, isolated from human life with no chance of survival. A piercing chill shot down my spine with my collapsed body feeling so numb and cold… yet my head felt awfully hot and dizzy as if all the blood in my body had rushed upwards.
I was a complete mess. My face was covered in disgusting snot, sweat, and tears; meanwhile strands of hair were plastered to my face after being soaked in a combination of the three, as well as mud and dirt. My pale skin was covered in bruises and cuts too… I must have fallen over many times without realising it; not having cared one bit each time I toppled over, only wishing to run and get as far away as humanly possible.
However, it was in spite of all this that my major point of worry and distress had nothing to do with my physical well-being or the pains and aches of my body. The cruel anticipation of horrendous torture before dying in a way that left my remains unrecognisable made me want to vomit… if I hadn’t already; but even then, that was not what concerned me the most.
It was knowing that I had spent a greater length than half my entire life time, these ten gruelling, awful years of suffering without ever knowing if it would get better, and yet still, in the end… getting absolutely nowhere. Simply dying in an unknown, cursed forest out of sight.
Having actually found Oskar after so long only added insult to injury. Was I actually hated by the god of this land? Had I somehow wronged her in a past life, and now I was receiving retribution for it? Moments before passing out again… with the horribly malformed, decaying corpses of the aberrants slowly fading from my profane sense of sight… I mustered something that resembled laughter.
What happened immediately beyond that, I am none the wiser. I am sure that I must have lost consciousness as everything went black beyond the cutoff point. Many times this day I lost my recognition of events and the ongoing happenings, with all of it taking a long while to come back; but that is simply how the brain works under copious amounts of stress.
That is one way in which the human mind can be merciful, for often the true vistas of reality are too terrifying for the mundane person. So that the body can survive, all control will be given to instinct; and so that the mind can survive, it will cut out the especially arduous sources of trauma and instigate forgetfulness. Ignorance is bliss, after all.
I was able to recall some of it much later on, which was seemingly a testament to the brain thinking I could handle it to some degree—given time. I had a greater affinity towards this sort of thing than most to begin with. Although, I would say that one can never truly get used to the untold horrors this boundless world can deliver. That was evident in the fact that I never did end up remembering everything that happened on this day.
When I woke up, I was shocked in more ways than one. I thought I would end up in the afterlife. Unless where I would end up was to be a different place? I did not assume myself to end up in heaven if anywhere, but I was shocked to find myself waking up in the exact location I had passed out in. I was still in the forest, where I had been relentlessly hunted down and pursued, and it turned out that I hadn’t even moved an inch at that… I was surprisingly still pressed against that same tree.
I had enough evidence to suppose I did not die in the end, but I had no clue as to why my flesh hadn’t been torn up, corroded, and devoured until I resembled those aberrants. I was defenceless, surely I should have been killed. For what reason would they leave me untouched?
And left they had. I did not even need to spare a glance to know that. Their presence was completely gone. I went to look down at myself, my intention being to confirm that my body was still intact, and it was then that I found myself covered in these strange little creatures. Their hollowed-out eye caverns, bulbous heads, and pallid, near-transparent flesh was mildly unsettling, but their presence was strangely comforting in a way, which was a feeling that truly made me question the wellness of my own mind. To subconsciously be thinking such a thing… No, the fact that it was a subconscious thought made it worse as a matter of fact.
It wasn’t until my muddled thoughts cleared that I realised what they were. I had never seen them take this form before, but after closely observing them scamper around my person for a moment, some even stopping and watching me back at times, I understood that they were undeniably the same as the village-folk which had been attached to me the entire previous decade. Something had changed from how I knew them, but there was no doubt in my mind it was them.
Trying to assess the situation, I dumbly sat up only for the villagers to scamper away and disappear as soon as they escaped my peripherals. It appeared that they did not want to stay this way for long. Perhaps they were shy, or maybe it was that they could not retain this newly acquired form for a sustained amount of time. Whatever the matter, I knew not when they would retake this appearance; or for a better query, why they took this form to begin with.
To my own great shock, once I had mustered the strength to stand myself up, I noticed the aberrants which had chased me were not totally gone. The aberrant corpses had all fallen back down, reduced to their original state of death; to where the lasting effects would most certainly be permanent this time. I mentioned before that corpses weren’t easy for me to distinguish from inanimate objects. That is why it was easy to clarify whether something still lived or not… or whether something abhorrent was possessing its corpse.
The spirits no longer took possession of their bodies, as if they had turned tail and ran. It was as if all of them had simultaneously been warded away by something. It was hard to believe, but the possibility that it was the doing of those strange creatures I found upon myself was highly likely. I had originally surmised the villagers to be no match for those abhorrent spectres, and I still found it hard to think otherwise, but it seemed there was more to them than I initially thought. Had they grown in strength over a decade of lingering resentment, or was this a sudden onset of newly found incitement? My head was beginning to hurt with so much happening after only just waking up.
“I need a drink…” I mumbled to myself before reaching inside my coat and pulling out a metal container, a rudimentary flask of sorts, and unscrewing the lid. My throat was parched beyond belief but I hardly took that swig for the sake of said parched throat and more for the sake of slowing down my pace. I did not move for a good moment, feeling the weight of the half-full flask in my hand as I swirled it around a bit, letting the liquid swish in a gentle spiral motion, purposely delaying myself before I had to get up and continue my journey in this nightmarish forest. I had long confirmed that there was nothing hiding in the shadows that would jump out at me. Although of course I did not allow this moment to carry on too long. Even if I was hesitant to brave the forest again, I was many times more apprehensive towards becoming food for rampant corpses.
Nonetheless, my priority as of now was simply finding a way out of this damned forest. Who knew when apparitions of similar likeness to those before would appear, or as to whether I would be so lucky that the same occurrence which saved me would repeat itself. Regardless of the answer, I did not care to stay and find out.
However, it was not easy to come to a decision as to where I would head next. I wanted to avoid meeting any more of them at all costs. Having lost track of where I was, the map was of little use. While I was still on the main road, I could navigate with the map’s help; but being in such an obscure location now, it was not the same. Two dimensional depictions were the most challenging sight to make out for me. I had become familiar with reading this map in particular, but it was still incredibly hard to decipher at times. Unfamiliar posters and signs were no doubt one of my most formidable enemies, with any encounter leaving me to scrutinise the contents for painfully prolonged periods of time.
Even now as of writing this I still often need to run my fingers across the surface for a better understanding of what the hell I have written. My handwriting is probably terrible… If I was lucky, there would be someone in the vicinity to read the contents out for me. Improving my ability to read and write was a large part of the reason I began writing this journal in the first place... My own ineptitude is why I thought it a miracle to have found the path when I did, yet it appears now to have been a tragedy in disguise. Although in the end, I would not have found Oskar were it not for traversing down this way. The existence of this path was ironically similar to the villagers and this accursed sight—a gift, and simultaneously, a heavy cross to bear.
The sight was not completely without its upsides, however. It was only this I could rely on to guide me, as my sole method of securing a path out of harm’s way and for general use. I decided that by scanning the area and looking out for where creatures with malicious souls lurked, I could maybe find myself a way out of this forest and onwards to Cherepakha, where I would finally find Oskar. But, as I cautiously spun my head around seeking a direction to begin this challenging exit, I suddenly found myself face to face with someone completely out of nowhere.
‘What in the—!’, I instantly reeled back as my face turned multiple shades paler. They were so close in so little time, and I had been completely unaware of their approach! I was still terribly skittish at this point, with all my nerves working to their highest degree, so I must have jumped back several leaps much like a frightened cat.
“You there! Hello! Fancy coming across someone else in a location like this, eh?” Before I could so much as collect my thoughts or speak a single word, the stranger casually smiled and attempted to open a conversation as if her actions were completely natural. Her gentle smile relayed no shock, surprise, or wariness at discovering me, giving the insinuation she must have known about my presence a fair moment prior to approaching.
“What are you doing here? A place like this is no place for ladies,” she remarked.
I stared at her without speaking for a while longer than socially acceptable. Yet she seemed unfazed and patient. Was she aware of the awful fright she had given me? Then why wasn’t she saying anything? In the silence, I eventually found time to think about what she actually said. There were multiple things wrong with her sentence already. For instance, was she not a lady herself? And then, for that matter…
“I am not a lady,” I responded with irritation masking fright.
”Hm? Strange. You look like a lady, you sound like a lady, and finally… you… feel like a lady… No, you feel like a lad actually. Perhaps you ain’t one after all.” The stranger donned a look of realisation before turning away and resigning herself. But as for me, I could not find the words to say anything. I was speechless. In only a few short moments of meeting each other, after she had nearly killed me through shock when I had just barely escaped death prior, she had firmly grabbed me where a stranger certainly should not. I felt confused… and… defiled somewhat.
“Please do not grab strangers you’ve just met,” I said with a grave expression.
“Lass… I mean, lad. You are but a babe in my eyes, it is no great ordeal. You look about… twelve, if I am correct?”
“I am seventeen.”
“Nary a difference.”
“It’s a difference of five years, how is that… uhm, ‘nary’ a difference?” I had yet to hear that word—no one I had met before this stranger had ever used it. Her accent was strange and hard to recognise too. With the context and her demeanour as evidence, I presumed the word meant something along the lines of ‘hardly’. But that was beside the point, and hardly relevant. Nary relevant? No, that doesn’t sound right.
I felt my sense of reason slipping away as I held what appeared to be a light-hearted conversation, doing so with a woman I had just met, inside a place I held irrefutable proof to be dangerous beyond one’s wildest imagination; yet she spoke in such a calm manner that it suggested I must have unwittingly left that site of deranged abnormality and found a way out.
That had to be the case, because otherwise she was either foolishly ignorant of the imminent danger held by this location or had reason enough to not perceive the horrors of this forest as a threat. My hope was that the foremost possibility would be the case and I had really escaped, but there was a much greater likelihood it was one of the latter two possibilities as the forest still reeked of death and decay. I wanted to stay covert if I still remained deeply within the cursed confines of the forest, but the cards dealt to me were likely that of useless baggage to decrease my chances of survival, or an unimaginable existence which held my life in its benevolence. Both were equally terrifying to me.
An unavoidable feeling of dread washed over me. I had no idea what was going to happen next after meeting this woman. I could only patiently watch her as I contemplated what to say next. Although, oddly enough, I felt strangely nostalgic when I looked upon her visage. The faces actually looked upon as of now held a stark contrast in looks compared to what I remember from when I was seven. There was a clear difference between the faces I saw and the faces others saw.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
But despite that difference, there was still consistency and even beauty. I could tell if someone had balanced facial proportions, whether they had facial hair or not, and even the colour of their various features… but it was like looking at a very abstract painting. I did not attach much value to the faces of others because of that. However, I could best perceive the faces of those I held strong emotional attachment to. I could not see the woman’s face very well but there was a sensation and feeling about her that was greatly like someone else I knew.
It was… too familiar for a stranger. But who specifically that someone else may be was sitting on the edge of my tongue and I could not seem to shake this feeling nor could I understand what exactly it had originated from. I fell into silence, in which the stranger responded with her own silence as if acknowledging my thoughts and allowing me to deliberate. She was strange too in this sense. She had a strange patience as if waiting a hundred years was no great task, much like… “Gwynevere…”
“Oh?” A pleasant tone rang out, as if it was only this moment when her interest had been genuinely piqued. She tilted her head slightly and said, “To hear that name, in a place like this. How surprising.”
Now that I really looked at her, with the image of Gwynevere present in my head, her features were practically identical to that of Gwynevere; and from what I could remember, the woman’s soul bore a striking resemblance to Gwynevere’s too. Although I could not actually see what she looked like as if the eyes of another met her figure, I could presume what she looked like physically through what I saw spiritually—just like how I came to understand Gwynevere’s appearance when I first met her. Every detail down to her vibrant red hair was the same, only that her hair had been tied up behind her instead of flowing freely. I had not seen or spoken to Gwynevere in many years, for we parted ways long ago; so the possibility it was her was not outrageous despite the differences in personality and soul.
From the very beginning, Gwynevere was not my real mother and had no obligation to act as such. The void left from my mother’s death made it hard to split from Gwynevere, where I was afraid of once again being left alone and abandoned, yet I understood it was a necessary part of growing up and achieving independence. She surely understood that too, the day we parted being the day she acknowledged my ability to survive on my own—without her to guide me. I had a journey ahead of me after all, and Gwynevere surely had unfinished business of her own too. I was more than thankful for all she had given me in my time of need. However, I had regrettably not heard anything of her since. No one had ever heard of the woman named Gwynevere.
“Then you must be Julia!” The stranger which I thought may have been, but didn’t quite accept to be Gwynevere exclaimed, somehow assuming an even more familiar tone—when I had not expected there to be a higher degree of familiarity than what she already expressed. The fact she knew my name further increased her likeliness of being Gwynevere, but I just could not accept it. This person could not be her. Gwynevere was a mature character, a sincere role model I looked up to with great reverence. She was gentle and kind, but resolute and reliable when necessary. Not to mention she also… It is best that I stop there.
Bias may cloud my judgement if I continue on that note, but do understand her qualities were near-flawless. Capable and wise, she was. The one in front of me… Her character does not seem terrible, but she paled in comparison to the Gwynevere I know. I just could accept it was actually her.
“Who are you, and how do you know Gwynevere?” My curiosity burning and my patience waning, I unwittingly got to the point too fast—and did so in a manner that could come off as rude. I scolded myself immediately after the words left my mouth for forgetting the situation I was in. Our conversation had eroded my caution for a moment there. But to my relief, she did not seem offended.
“I am Gwyndolin—Gwyn… dolin, not evere. You may also call me aunty, if you prefer’t.”
’I would rather not use such a term to refer to someone I just met…’, I frowned. Learning from the previous example just prior, I kept this thought in my head without vocalising it aloud. She seemed carefree, but it would be best not to offend her if possible; not until I gained more information involving the current circumstances.
I coughed, disregarding my own discomfort, and asked, “‘Aunty’… Does that mean I’m correct in assuming you’re a sister of Gwynevere?”
Gwynevere did not speak much of her own blood relatives, or her private life at all for that matter. I was still young and naturally quite self-centred, so when she dodged the few questions I did ask on that topic every once in a while, I did not care much to continue on that line of questioning. Besides, she became awfully solemn whenever I mentioned things such as the past. It seemed that the very concept upset her in a way.
“Yes, you are correct. Although, I am her only sister—her only sibling, even,” Gwyndolin explained. “She spoke much of you, Julia. She cared deeply even despite how quaint the time you shared was.”
Upon hearing those words, I felt my heart rapidly soften and my guard lower. I rarely got an insight into what Gwynevere thought of me… so being told this after so long and never knowing whether I would even learn what became of her was… incredibly endearing and precious. I struggled to find words to say back, but before I could, Gwyndolin continued:
She said with a complicated expression, “But I was sure you were female… Are you playing tricks on me, Julia? You didn’t stuff something down there, did you?”
I could only smile as I felt a vein starting to burst. Gwyndolin was seriously making me consider violence, but even if I felt a little less apprehensive in dropping my somewhat polite persona now, I still decided it would be best to keep strong and hold myself back from doing anything rash. But, more importantly, there was one thing questionable about what she said that I couldn’t help but think about… ‘Gwynevere had apparently spoken of me to Gwyndolin, though she seemed not to have stated anything regarding the fact I am a born male. In fact, Gwyndolin seems to have been told I was a woman. Has Gwynevere believed me to be a girl all this time…?’ That was a fact hard-learned.
I was still contemplating whether or not I should actually reprimand or scold her, even carrying a few words for Gwynevere in mind, though nothing of grave nature mind you, when Gwyndolin suddenly appeared to lose interest for a moment; seemingly distracted by something as her eyes wandered off to the left, nonchalantly turning her head in that direction. She had been quite engrossed in our conversation so seeing her suddenly become so distracted was slightly concerning.
I hurriedly followed her gaze to figure out what it was. Although, what piqued my curiosity most had to be the loss of her smile for that brief moment, where her disposition and bearing resembled that of Gwynevere much more than any moment before. She radiated a sense of knowing and confidence that simply was not there before. If I had not believed her before when she had announced herself to be Gwynevere’s sibling, this momentary glimpse would have brought me to the conclusion that this must indeed be her, Gwynevere’s blood-related sibling.
“Looks like company,” Gwyndolin said, her gaze unturned from the original focal point. Despite her words implying a presence other than us, I had yet to see anyone at this point, which I found to be highly absurd. If someone were to be in our vicinity and approaching so as to be spottable by the naked eye, I was confident in my ability to see the oncoming visitors well before anyone else. Nothing could hide from me—my sight was just that special. That is why I was shocked to be unable to see anyone or anything, the forest grounds ahead of where the both of us looked was completely empty.
I was beginning to doubt this after all. The fact Gwyndolin told of people I could not see brought suspicion in that she may have made up the presence of others. The possible reasons for such a charade were as numerous as stars in the sky, but it was hard to think of many reasons that were not maligned in intention. However, it was possible I was being too paranoid due to the recent events that had led me to becoming sceptical and hyper-alert. My suspicions were quickly proven wrong in the end. Soon enough, I saw the aura of a person and then more people until a sizable group was visible from far away.
I felt somewhat bad about my misjudgment of character, but it made sense to be cautious around the intentions of strangers—especially those who claim relation to friends and family. I only realised how much of a fool I was when I realised my mistake in failing to read her intentions outright to extinguish these suspicions as soon as they lit up. I could not read minds, but as with the locals of the small town before the mountain range, I could easily tell apart the honest and dishonest. Emotions, hostility, and dishonesty are but a few of the states I can read with expertise. I thought I had calmed down, but the fact I had not thought of doing such a thing that I would usually do as naturally as breathing was proof I was still in a disoriented state of sorts. The unfortunate thing is that I am not capable of reading my own state, where such problems may lie.
In the end, Gwyndolin did not lie and I did not need to peer into her soul to understand that. There truly was a fair number of people coming towards our position from a distance. Fellow humans seemed to be venturing into the forest. They had come into range not long after she had alerted me, the fluctuating light of their souls gradually getting closer and more clear. She had managed to recognise their presence well before I could and as far as I knew, her vision should not disparage the common person’s. I was curious by which means she knew, for it should not be possible no matter how good her eyesight is. There must have been some other method she had used.
“We should leave before they get closer,” Gwyndolin said.
“Why? This is an opportunity, is it not?” Exercising caution with strangers is no foreign concept, especially for a wanderer such as myself. But when faced with threats no mortal threat can hope to compete with, it is easy to throw such caution to the wind. As I thought about it, I realised how little I cared about their specific alignments—hostile or friendly. I just wanted to find a way out and leave this damned place; to escape these foul monstrosities, to meet the man I had longed to meet, and moreover, I just felt tired. Incredibly so.
Going with them would be an assured path out at least. In my own judgement, it was the most sensible option considering our current priorities. From what I could see as they moved throughout the trees, orderly and never breaking formation, they appeared to be an organised group. They were soldiers if luck was on our side; soldiers that heard the commotion raised by Oskar’s battles, which were by no means inconspicuous or concealed, and as such were subsequently investigating the area.
“I understand your sentiments lass, I really do. But trust me, you wouldn’t want to.”
“Lad, you mean.”
“A mistake. Forgive me.”
A ‘mistake’ supposedly. Surely, she would not say it again then. That is why I made a mental note to rip her a new one were she to make the same mistake again.
“Mm. And why not, why don’t we approach th–” As I tried to speak, Gwyndolin cut my words off just before I could finish the sentence.
“Duck,” she said with a tone that did not allow refusal. And suddenly, I was grabbed and dragged down.
“Listen for a moment. You’ll understand why.” Not long after Gwyndolin ushered me into silence, I could hear the faint voices of a few men speaking from a relatively short distance away. They walked by, through the thicket and foliage, where the path they navigated implied as such that they were searching the area and looking for something or someone. The general topic of their conversation seemed to be about the locals I had met before. The men mostly repeated the tales of which they had been told, such as the dubious nature of this cultural ground known by the locals and the locals only to be a cursed land—which the soldiers lightly took as baseless superstition.
By their armour and uniformity, I had long concluded they were a unit of soldiers like I had previously assumed. They were equipped with sheathed swords and even what looked to be flintlock pistols, which the latter was a very uncommon sight for soldiers deployed out in the country. From the gist of their conversation, I gathered that the soldiers were now investigating the area after having received many concerned reports about the recent strange abundance of commotion coming from the woods.
“It’s a girl we’re looking for, right?”
“That’s what they said. Small and short in stature, silver hair, feathery coat, and typically seen wearing a blindfold is the description we were given.”
“But a girl couldn’t have done that, no? I mean, they were completely torn apart. Butchered. I say they were infighting. No human can do that kind of damage. As for the girl… she’s probably dead. It would be some stroke of luck if she survived that carnage, and that was only the entrance to the forest. It’ll probably get worse further in.”
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking… If she manages to survive somehow, then Evenkhell ‘Herself’ must be protecting her.”
As they walked by and their voices slowly faded into the distance, that was the last of their conversation I could make out.
“They’re looking for a girl? They could be talking about either of us.” Gwyndolin finally broke the silence once she was sure no one else was around to hear us.
“I hate to say it, but it’s me they’re looking for.” I couldn’t rebuke her statement this time. They were looking for a girl, but that description could only be of me.