As Brian, Aileen, Alan, Garret and Raheem ventured deeper into the misty forest, the white mist was thick, reducing their sight to a few feet, surrounding them like a blanket, like it was breathing around them. The atmosphere grew increasingly oppressive.

Brian took the lead, his spear probing the ground ahead. Suddenly Alan stumbled as the ground beneath him crumbled like he was standing on a sheet of paper, forming a pit. Raheem and Garret quickly pulled him up.

“Be careful. It would seem the ground is not stable,” said Brian looking at them with a frown, “form a group of two to walk side by side, one group leads and the other follows behind.”

Aileen and Raheem formed the group in the lead but behind Brian, with Garret and Alan following behind Aileen and Raheem.

As they went deeper, Brian sometimes finds the weak grounds and they avoid them, but other times, one of them steps on the weak grounds and their partner catches them before they fall. All of them had come closer to death more times than they were comfortable with.

This was a very humbling experience for Aileen. She had thought that with Astral Essence, it was going to be easier than sneaking out of the village when she was child. She thought they find the source of the fire, find out if it was done by another tribe or clan, if yes, find the proof and present it to Black Vulpine, ask for help to deal with the Nightshroud and maybe ask the perpetrator for compensation, the gods know they need it. But now being here she questioned if either the responsible one is crazy or the fire was just a coincidence, most likely the fire was just that… a coincidence.

Alan was smiling the whole time they were here, especially when they came closer to death. ‘This is it,’ he thought the deeper they went. He never had this much adrenaline pumping through his veins. Lately the village was in worse situation, so, there wasn’t much to do except to petrol the village and its surroundings for spies, but with the current power of their tribe, no one would want them, maybe except as a slave. So, this was a welcome danger for him.

“Have you noticed? The ground—” said Garret.

Brian interrupted him before he could finish the sentence, “the ground hasn’t given way in some time now. Perhaps there won’t be as much as before.”

“Is It just me or has anybody else noticed. It almost feels like a welcome present,” said Alan.

They all stopped and turned to look at him. He looked at each one as if asking what. They turned from him and started to walk again, shaking their head in disbelief.

“What did I do wrong?” he shouted from the back, grinning a little behind the mask.

As they continued cautiously but more relaxed, Aileen screamed but it was stifled by the mask. She swayed, fall on Raheem’s shoulder and he caught her. Her upper sleeve was torn, there was a small cut on the middle of her upper arm, small blood dripping down her wrist. Her breath became ragged and heavy.

Brian turned and rushed towards her while Raheem was holding her by the side, supporting her.

“What’s wrong?” asked Brian

Garret came from behind looking at the place where Aileen screamed, there he saw a thorn laced with her blood. There was a vine, twining, creeping along a thick stem, the vines had green flower's petals bloom that seemed to breathe the white mist in.

“I think she is poisoned,” he said pointing at the thorn and green petals.

As Brian rampaged through their medical supply, Aileen strokes her wound, as her hand passed the wound a thin ice formed above it, freezing the spread of the poison for the moment.

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After a while Brian took out a bottle filled with a dark-greenish viscous liquid and large syringe with its shape tip made of silver, the container made of a bronze metal, with the injector made of wood.

After taking some of the viscous liquid from the bottle with the syringe, he immediately tried to inject it to the wound but was blocked by the ice. Aileen sensing this melted the ice giving way for the syringe, after injecting her with the liquid, her blood that was tinged with a bit of black reverted to its natural color, red. Her breath started to stabilize, and she regained some of her strength, enough for them to continue their journey. She then laced the wound with a layer of thin ice.

“Let’s be careful. And try to stay clear of the trees. We don’t know which ones are poisonous and which aren’t.” Instructed Brian.

Aileen leaned in Raheem’s shoulder as they walked, he would sometimes check on her by talking to her about random things, Brian also checks on her conditions from time to time. After some time, she had enough strength to walk on her own.

The deeper they went the more poisonous vines and flowers they came across. Some looked like normal plants but when they got close to them, the plants lounged themselves to bite their legs, sometimes they could go for the neck. At first, they had trouble defending themselves but the more they were attacked the more they understood which plants to avoid and which ones to cut before reaching them. Their medical supply was running thin but by now they were able to defend against them.

“The fog…it’s getting thinner,” said Raheem.

They didn’t pay enough attention to the mist as the danger hidden in it were greater than it. But now that Raheem has said it, it was indeed getting thinner, increasing their visibility.

By now there was no weak ground, so they only had to worry about the poisonous plants. After a while they were out of the white mist, but they didn’t take their masks off because there were still poison in the air, it was just not visible, they had to learn that a hard way. They lost a team of seven scouts to it.

By the time they could see the night the sun was already setting, its red blaze cast a long shadow.

“Let’s find a place to make camp,” said Brian, “spread but don’t go too far, lets rendezvous here as soon as the moon is up.”

They spread out looking for a place to camp, but as they were doing that, small insects that looked like an assassin bug, but still smaller than an assassin bug, started to attach themselves to the back of their clot or leather armors, hidden in the shadows of their clothes.

They met at the rendezvous place as the moonlight went up. But most of its past were covered by smokes that looked like clouds.

“I’ve found a cave. It’s empty,” said Alan.

They went to the cave; on their way they picked up dry branches to use for fire. They went into the cave, Raheem started building the campfire while Brian took out utensils for cooking. Garret took out some foods for them to cook.

None of them were good at cooking, but Brian was still better than all of them so, he took the cooking part while the others set up the beds and a net.

As they were doing this the insects left their clothes and settled down at the corner of the cave without making a sound.

After they finished setting everything up, the food was ready, it was a soup made of different vegetables. The taste wasn’t good, but it wasn’t bad either. They continued to eat as they chatted blissfully ignorant of the insects, they brought with them, that surrounded them in the cave.

“I heard you survived a Nightshroud wolf, captain,” asked Alan with a smile on his face.

Aileen shivered slightly when she heard the name, NIghtshorud. That golden-yellow eyes still haunts her dreams.

Brian looked at Alan with a frown seeing his smile.

“Listen to me very carefully Alan. Never and I mean never try to fight a Nightshroud wolf, even if it's a pup. In fact, if you see a two Golden-yellow light in a night or coming out of a shadowy place, run…run like a demon is chasing you because it might be better if you are caught by a demon. Even if you survive an attack—”

He paused as he took off his leather armor showing them his wound on his right chest. The black veins that extended from the wound still visible to his day.

They grimaced when they saw the wound on his chest.

“This… this is what happens if you survive them.”

There was a particular thing that has happened to his shadow that none noticed, there was a hole in the same exact place as the wound, and instead of the black veins on his chest there were replaced by light on his shadow, like the real wound was on his shadow instead of his body.

“And this is if you are lucky.”

“Why isn’t it healing?” asked Garret.

“No one knows.”

“Is there any side-effect?” asked Raheem.

“Every night, I find myself in a world of shadows, chased by creatures I have never seen in my life until they catch me and rip me to shreds, over and over again. And sometimes I can’t handle the mental stress so, I attack anything in my way, even my friends. So, it doesn’t matter if the lights are from the eyes of a Nightshround or some other source, run for your life because death has come.”