The vines parted, untangling their coiled chaos brought on by the crashing thunder and bludgeoning rain. Illus ran through a storm swell, his range of vision cut to barely ten feet until the torrent clouded all else around him in swirling darkness. The lantern swung from his belt like mad, slowly filling with water, like a timer to retrieve Anilee and retreat back to the other side of the river.

His uphill battle found cobblestones and shattered tile, the mosaic of the masked woman callously watching him from her splendor.

Then he heard splashing in the rain behind him, and whirled around to see nothing.

“Ani!” He screamed into the storm, overshadowed by a crash of lightning. “Ani!”

Splashing, yet again, behind him. Small, light footsteps. Could it be the woman? Or worse, the fox. He ignored it.

Panting in the rain, his ankle was beginning to ache more, swelling with the storm.

He took off toward the bridge, up the stairs and across more overgrown tiles.

Cackling broke the rhythmic crashing of rain behind Illus. He tossed the rifle over his shoulder and drew his machete. Rain clashed into his eyes, the wind berated his face, and his own hair whipped around in front of him. To see, to hear, to sense anything around him was nigh impossible. Soaked to the bone, and sloshing in his boots, he sprinted for the bridge, pushing through the surging pain in his ankle.

“Ani! Where are you?!” He screamed out the moment he stepped onto the collapsed roof of the bridge, careful not to slip and tumble over the edge.

A voice called back.

“Time, young Illus, runs from us!”

The fox howled laughter ahead of him. As Illus crossed, his lantern illuminated the soaked, matted fox sitting upon the wall of the bridge, smiling that wretched, elongated smile.

“Take care to find her spot, lest ye miss her for naught!”

Illus paid the fox no mind, already having prepared himself for the unwelcome idea that Anilee had been too scared to go down the mountain alone. She had a lantern, but Illus wouldn’t be able to see it from afar in this storm.

No dull dawn glow assisted Illus. The clouds blocked all light from reaching the soil as he began his ascent up the stairs.

Suddenly the lightning flashed and the fox leapt at Illus from atop the stairs. Illus slipped on the first step, tumbling onto his back. But the fox did not land on him, nor attack. It laughed from behind him. The sloshy mud seemed to drag Illus down, every movement a chore to rise back to his feet. Growling rose up from behind him, growing closer until he took off up the slick granite steps, flailing the machete toward his rear.

Lightning flashed again. The growl became a bark which was closing the distance. Yet above Illus, at the top of the steps stood the woman in Anilee’s robe, the ornate fox mask’s eyes flaring an ethereal blue.

“I banish thee, fox!” Her voice boomed like a raging river around Illus, overtaking the wind and thunder, bursting harsh vibrations that rattled Illus to the core and scattered the rain.

The fox dissipated into wispy black and blue mist and dispersed around Illus. He stopped for a brief moment, unable to see her, but reeling from the shock of what just happened.

“I can do no more!” She yelled through the rain to Illus. “Make haste, the fox returns as you tarry!”

Illus’s feet were heavy, his arms exhausted, his throat parched, but he ascended the steps with haste. The woman was nowhere to be seen as he sprinted up slick mountain steps. Streams of water rushed down the slopes, catching his feet, flash floods carving paths through breaks in the stairs.

“Anilee!” Illus croaked. His breath became more staggered, more labored, but he had to reach Anilee. He had to. No rationale in his mind could contend with that fact. He had to get Anilee out of the ruins or she would certainly die.

Time became a blur as he ran up the winding staircase, leaped flash floods and slipped on steps. He slammed his knees into so many corners, bloodied his hands on so many roots, and twisted his ankles so many times that he knew soon he wasn’t going to be able to get back up. As he reached nearly halfway up the mountain, light flickered through the rain and mist ahead.

“Ani! Are you there?!” Illus stumbled forward, falling onto his knees, barely catching his breath. He reached her lantern, which was alone in the middle of the path.

“Illus?” Anilee cried weakly from the edge of the trail, taking shelter beneath a tree.

Illus sloppily staggered over, meeting her on the ground with a hug and setting the lantern in her arms. “What happened? Ani, are you hurt?”

She struggled to move, sopping wet, dragging her foot like it was falling off. “She pushed me from the mountain, Illus! I flew and flew and I hurt my knee and my ankle.”

He reacted on the instant, hunching down in front of her. “Ani, get on!”

She slowly, arduously climbed on his back and Illus took off down the mountain. Grime or granite, sloppy or slick, it didn’t matter. His legs carried him down as fast as they could, his lantern slammed his leg with every step he took, light unsteady. Seeing became more of a chore than running, and because of that, he missed a root, toppled over onto his face, and smashed between the ground and Anilee’s body. Her death grip on him would not let up, even as he was face down in the mud. He struggled to pick his head up, trying to wiggle her off of his back and neck.

He pushed up and jostled her aside, gasping for air as soon as his mouth was uncovered.

Anilee rolled several feet, slipping on a granite stone. “Illus!” She got up and rushed over to him. Injured, exhausted, and sopping wet, his mind caught up to the fact that Anilee wasn’t actually injured as she slipped yet again on a block of muddy granite, toppling over onto her side.

He rushed to her, his own limp catching up to him. He helped her to a seated position, but her injuries prevented her from standing.

She began crying. “Please, Illus, help me! It hurts!”

Illus felt her leg, but nothing was out of order to touch. No blood, not even a bruise.

“From just then?! What happened?!”

“I slipped on the granite and twisted my leg. It hurts!” She wept into her knees.

Illus grabbed her leg and tested its range of motion, still perfectly fine. No swelling, no popping, nothing. She didn’t even wince. “Get up, Ani, take your light- go! You’re faster than me and we need to go yesterday!”

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“I can’t, Illus! I think I broke it!” She threw her arms to the ground, weakly attempting to stand.

“Ani!” Illus grabbed her face, trying to calm her. “You need to understand that there is no pain worse than the death you will face if you stay on this mountain. You have to try.”

She pushed up, then weakly fell back on her rear. “I can’t!”

“Do you want to die, Ani?” Illus stroked her cheek, begging her to move. “I certainly don’t want you to die, but you need to get up and get down this mountain with me! I can’t carry you any further!”

Anilee broke even farther down into tears. “I can’t, Illus, why can’t you?! Why do you hate me?! You’re just fine and I can't stand!”

Frustration, rage, desperation drowned Illus’s mind. He clutched the sides of Anilee’s face, forcing her to look him in the eyes while he screamed into her face, completely losing control of his temper. If he couldn’t convince her kindly, he could scare her badly enough that her own adrenaline would kick in. “Then stop trying to make me hate you! I don’t care! Shut up! Bloody bollocks, shut up and get up!” His voice rose to that of a war cry upon seeing her frozen in place. “Get it together and bloody run, Anilee!”

Horror grasped her face, not as though she heard him and listened, but as though she was terrified of this side of him that she had never seen.

He pulled her up under her arms and yanked her along behind him. She held herself up fine, shock overcoming her haunted face. Illus stumbled forward, scrambling to push off of his free hand.

Anilee kept pace with Illus as he stumbled and tripped his way down the mountain, much slower than before. In the back of Illus’s mind, he was waiting for a blessing, for a touch and a whisper to let him leap like he did earlier, but nothing came. The woman was gone and Anilee tried to pull her hand free from Illus’s deathgrip.

Illus lost balance and slipped in the mud, letting go of Anilee and tumbling across a trench carved by the flash flooding.

White flashed through his vision.

Illus rolled up and out of the mud. An exhausted smile crept up his cheeks seeing Anilee take off like nothing, her lantern disappearing into the hazy darkness. He bobbed his head, wrenching his whole body to keep moving. His left foot struggled forward, followed by the right, then a little easier on the next step. Spots of red clouded his vision, a searing pain swelling in his head. He screamed, forcing his body forward into a jog, pushing through the sharp jolts in his knee and ankle at every step.

Lightning crashed, thunder shaking the ground that instant. The thunder rumbled like a lion giving chase, and it motivated Illus to quicken his pace. His rhythm came back, his throat moistened by the rain, his fervor strengthened knowing he may still make it across in time.

Illus emerged from the treeline and gazed up at the dim, gray sky of the early morning. His head spun, weary and sleepless, but eyes locked ahead on the bridge. The fox was nowhere to be found, nor the woman.

Slowly he carried himself over the bridge, propping himself up on the wall the whole way across. The gully below thrashed with floodwater. One step at a time, quick, but careful, Illus crossed safely, then all he had to do was get through the roses.

The roses.

Anilee didn’t have a rose, nor did she know how to get through.

Illus raced down the steps, past the mosaic, through more forest until the winding wall was before him. Screaming. Anilee’s screams echoed from the fountain. Illus spotted her bumbling into the fox hole they had crawled in through, the vines tightly constricting her legs, saved by her dress from the thorns.

Illus raised the rose from his pocket, hunched over as if he was bowing. “Please, dear roses, release her and let us pass. Please.”

The roses halted, one tendril twisting in the air before Illus as if inspecting the flower. Then they released their tension, untethering Anilee from her hysterics.

She collapsed into the mud as the vines let up, wailing like a newborn, so Illus picked her up in his arms, mustering one last surge of adrenaline to carry her down the valley. The knee high floodwaters were quickly rising, aggressively beating against every stone, every downed log. One wrong step would sweep anyone off of their feet.

Tyza yelled out from across the valley, barely keeping composure. “Illus! Get down there and I’ll throw you the rope!”

Anilee opened her eyes in a panic, gazing up at the bloody and battered Illus trudging down the hill. He was losing traction too fast, so he set his rear in the mud, clutched Anilee close, and set his feet out to brake himself before reaching the water.

At least that was his plan.

Unfortunately for Illus, Anilee thought he fell and pushed out of his arms. This threw them both into a wild roll down the hill. Illus’s spinning head and weary body were at their breaking point, but he reached out for Anilee anyway, grasping her in his arms to break her fall, covering her head and neck with his arms.

Then a flash and suddenly all was freezing cold as they plunged into the flood, the water battering them further downstream. Illus was under water when Anilee kicked off of him, using him to get herself out of the torrent. She manically pulled herself up the ledges while Tyza ran along the edge, trying to find her brother.

“Illus! Illus!” Tyza about lost her composure and leaped down had her husband not done it first.

Sator grabbed the rope, guiding it down to where Illus had beached in the dirt, coughing water out of his lungs. Sator fastened the rope around Illus and picked him up, struggling in his own right to stand, then signaled Tyza to pull.

The two gritted their teeth, trudging forward.

The air seemed to fall still as the rain swelled again, hail bashing through the canopy, bludgeoning the men trying to climb.

Illus pushed Sator forward, “I’m behind you! Climb!”

Sator’s bloodshot emerald eyes were fading in and out, his body struggling to stay upright the whole way up. Five ledges he had to climb. One ledge, he pulled himself up. The second ledge, he barely managed. On the third ledge, Sator’s grip slipped and Illus pushed him up, wheezing and gasping for air, his lungs still stinging from the water.

Illus followed directly behind him, Tyza doing her best to pull them up while Anilee huddled beneath a tree.

From beneath that tree Anilee heard a mad cackle, then her fear consumed her. Her fear of Illus. In her eyes, his gasps and wheezes were whispers and curses toward her. She heard him saying how he would throw her back into the river when he got up, how he would steal her work, how he and the others were plotting to ruin her life. It didn’t make sense. It didn’t have to. Because in her fox-clouded mind, she was in danger and the only way to stop it was to be rid of them.

Anilee raced to the packs and took Sator’s machete, then made a beeline for the rope.

Sator made it up the fourth climb with a push from Illus, but as Tyza was about to pull them up, Anilee slashed the rope in two.

Tyza lost her grip and fell flat, the weight of two men far too much for her. Illus tumbled back on the third ledge, as he had been relying on the rope to hold himself up. Tyza finished pulling Sator up, who collapsed onto the edge.

Rope cut, Anilee began toward Tyza, machete gripped tightly. Tyza spent everything she had assisting Sator, and the torrent of rain made it impossible for her to hear Anilee behind her.

A tidal wave of crashing water shook the ground, a surge of runoff from the ruins along with a wave from the lake finally spilling out into the valley. The water was already as high as the second ledge. With Sator struggling to pick himself up and Tyza unaware, Anilee closed the distance. Illus caught a glimpse of her approaching with mere seconds before she would be close enough to slice Tyza down the back.

“Tyza! Duck!”

Without a thought, Illus unclasped his flooded lantern and hurled it at Anilee. Tyza pulled her head down. The lantern soared over her and slammed Anilee’s shoulder, knocking her out of her delirium and onto the ground. Tyza lost her hold on the wet rope when Illus shifted his weight so dramatically, though. He staggered back, then the ground rumbled again, sending him forward. He didn’t even have time to react. The water swelled up to his ledge and swept his feet away.

Before he knew it, he was soaring through the air, moving too fast to make sense of anything. He heard one final cackle from behind him, on the ruin side of the valley. Then everything became muffled and foggy.

Tyza watched hopelessly as the wave swept him away. She rose to her feet, frozen, unbelieving of the events before her eyes. Tears melded into the raindrops on her cheeks before she even processed what was going on, then Sator staggered up to her, pulling her back from the edge where the water was still rising.

Tyza didn’t turn away, screaming out her brother’s name, searching for him in the rapids as a curtain of blue mist rose from the river, blocking all sight across.

Sator’s head thrummed, struggling just to see. But he knew. Tyza’s wailing screams were enough for him to be sure that he would never see his best friend again.

Anilee rose to her knees. Tiny pouts underscored every sharp breath that escaped her lips. She cradled her shoulder, completely shocked and unaware of what was going on.

With fatigue taking over, Sator collapsed into Tyza’s arms, holding her hand as she collapsed into him, weeping into his shoulder.

A shroud of vapor clouded the entire forest. All they could do was take shelter and wait out the rain.