Would you cry for me? Like I did for you? A maddened voice asked Teal, startling her awake. She had dozed off during lunch and almost fallen into the bowl of watery soup in front of her.

She knew she needed to stop spending all night hunting, but she just couldn’t sit still while the monsters grew stronger.

A soft finger tapped her on the shoulder, and she turned around, and met with the anxious gaze of the new guy. “Hey, are you alright?” He asked, his hoarse voice sounding genuinely concerned.

She nodded, brushing off the hand and going back to eating her food. Fractured memories floated around her head in a jumbled mess of static and pain.

“Um… when did you get here?” The guy asked awkwardly. Why wouldn’t he just shut up and let her eat in peace?

“Three weeks ago,” Teal muttered tersely. Hoping that would be enough to get him to leave her alone. She didn’t handle talking to people very well before the great storm and since then… she was practically allergic to it.

If not for the kindness and generosity Stella had shown her, she would have long since left Port-Vale in search of a way back to the capital.

“Where are you from,” the boy called Will asked. So, he was still talking huh?

“Capital,” Teal spat out one word, like speaking another to him would take years off her life.

She hated how the boy’s face changed when she said that. Hated the sad look in his strange eyes and the way he averted his gaze from hers. What did he know? For all anyone knew, the capital was still standing…

Teal pushed her chair away from the table and stood up, walking briskly out of the room. When she got like this, she needed to hit something and if she hadn’t left then, it would have been the tall boy’s face.

She ran to her room, grabbed her backpack and left without a second glance. She walked down to the end of the hall and into the destroyed room, climbing over the rubble with the grace and precision of a cat, before jumping up onto the fallen lamppost and walking across it to the street.

Her hands were clenched into tight fists, her knuckles white as she walked through the town, ignoring those parasites at the gate that tried to ask her for a toll bursting out into the freeing wilderness.

When she left Port Vale, she began to run. As if she was running away from her memories, her past. Her feet blurred, pounding along the grass at dizzying speeds and yet leaving no footprints behind, as though she were weightless.

Away from the city she went, running by the fields full of mutated crops and worms the size of snakes. She ran past another hunting group in the distance. They shouted and argued at each other, trying to coordinate an attack on a cornered ram that was bigger than a bull.

She went further, behind the cover of growing trees, where she could be herself. She didn’t have to bottle up that anger and rage here. Out in the wild, the only thing that mattered was strength and she had plenty of that.

Following the forest deeper, she flitted through the trees, not slowing for a second until she arrived at a pond, hidden beneath an impenetrable tangled mess of brambles, the pond was only reachable if she crawled through a shallow stream, rocks scraping her chest and legs.

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Here, the forest was deathly quiet. Birds didn’t fly overhead and crickets the size of cats didn’t squeak. A few days ago, she had noticed this strangeness, this absence of life.

Yesterday, she had managed to find this mess of brambles and heard the sound of running water, but it had taken her until dark before she found a way in.

Resolving herself to come back later, here she was, crawling through a stream, her clothes soaked, her eyes burning with steely anger.

‘Why did everyone accept that boy so quickly? There’s something off about him. From his appearance alone he isn’t normal, but it’s not just that. He chooses his words too carefully, always avoiding answering questions about how he had got to Port-Vale and what he was doing before then.’ She thought angrily.

She had seen people like him in the capital, with their hidden agendas and half-truths. You could never trust them because you never knew if they actually believed in what they were saying.

Plenty of people like that had approached her father, trying to get hand-outs or skip military service. Pretending to be friends only to cast him aside after he helped. He was too good-natured to notice these things, but she wasn’t.

‘I’ll keep an eye on him for now, but if he does anything suspicious, I’ll break him,’ She decided firmly.

The stream opened up into a bubbling waterfall that fell a few feet down into the bond she had glimpsed through the brambles.

Turning herself around so she didn’t go in headfirst, spikes tugged at her hair and clothes, scratching her skin. Cursing to herself, Teal finally slid into the pond, the cold water shocking her system.

After sinking for half a minute, she began to panic, just how deep was this pond? She was quite tall herself, only a little shorter than Will and she hadn’t reached the bottom after all this time.

Flailing in the dark water, she clawed her way to the surface and flopped out onto the bank beside the quiet water. Too quiet.

When she finally caught her breath, she noticed that the silence was too absolute. Even the stream falling into the pond made no sound. An uncomfortable tingle crawled up her spine, she felt like someone was watching her.

Her head snapped around but there was no one there. Only the still black water of the pond. The shape of the pond itself was unusual. An almost perfect circle with a black pillar sticking up in its centre.

“Is anyone there?” She asked softly, almost afraid to break the silence.

Only you… I quiet voice echoed out from the pond.

“Who said that?” Teal asked, whirling around to spot the source of the sound. But it seemed to be coming from everywhere all at once.

I did… No. You did. The soft voice said with a giggle.

“S-Show yourself right now or I swear to the gods,” Teal started.

The G-gods… what gods? The wretched creatures that ruined your planet. Those gods? They won’t help you now. The voice crowed.

Teal was shaking now, nerves crawling along her spine screaming in danger. Whatever was speaking was a threat. A threat she couldn’t deal with.

“I-I said S-show yourself,” She tried to sound confident, but her voice wouldn’t stop trembling.

Of course, the voice said softly. Before the pool went silent again.

Teal watched and waited for something to happen, her heart banging against her chest. Shivering from the cold and fear in equal amounts. She had always thought of herself as a strong person. She could fight anything, but this she couldn’t even see or understand, this was primal fear of the unknown and incomprehensible.

In utter silence, the lake began to move. Black bubbles surged around the obsidian obelisk in the centre of the pool.

The first thing she could make out was a hand gripping the pillar. It was a twisted mockery of a human hand, four long fingers that led into vicious claws, coming from a disproportionately long and sinuous forearm.

A torso and leg came next. The torso was short and emaciated, ribs poking painfully through its leathery black skin. The legs were long and bony, ending in feet that looked more like human hands, the nails of which were the shape of fishing hooks.

When she saw its face, she almost screamed, backing away until the brambles wouldn’t let her go any further.

Like that of a bat, its nose was two slits, and its mouth was a gaping scar that ran from ear to ear. Its eyes were completely white and glowed luminously in the dim light of the pool.

The abomination opened its alien mouth revealing gums with no teeth, and a bloody red tongue flickering in and out like it was tasting the air.

Now that we’ve met, I have some questions to ask about a snake. It said, its voice strangely soft and alluring, a horrible mismatch to its ghastly appearance.