I got up, “Alright, that is all the rest we can permit for ourselves, are you guys ready?”

Lory got up and drew her moon sword. “Yes, let’s go and check out this forest.”

Abby slowly got up, “Yeah, I am fine.”

Funk tried to look at his shell, “I think it might take some time to regrow, but I will be fine.”

Before I could enter the forest, a white dove flew at me at top speed. It seemed to have a casing for a letter. I let my right arm hang as a branch and the white dove landed. “Well, what do we have here?”

Lory grabbed the letter out of the casing for me. The white dove stared at me. After looking at who sent the letter, I looked at Lory, “You need to give it a jade to let the sender know the white dove arrived safely.” Lory nodded and did so, the white dove took it in his beak and flew away.

Abby looked at me, “Who sent the letter?”

Funk nodded, “I am interested too!”

I opened the letter and started reading out loud. “Hello mom and dad, I seem to have found myself in the capital. Brent had taken me on his airship, as I was trained, I managed to get free, but my inexperience in the field might have led me to do something stupid. I jumped out of the airship.” “I was able to protect myself with my wings, I really had to take those flying lessons earlier. If I were human, I would have been dead a few times over. Luckily, I am not human. However, the impact messed me up.”

Lory gasped, “She jumped out of a fucking airship? Is she fine? Sorry, go on.”

“Brent has put a power preventing collar on my neck, I am unable to access my inventory, or my energy to heal my wounds. With a broken left leg, and a broken left arm, I think I landed on that side, I had to escape from Brent. My wings were totally messed up as well. Despite that, Brent chased me and I had to go on, broken, bruised and in a lot of pain. He followed my trail as I made my way into an abandoned building connected to the capital. There, I bumped into a stranger.”

Abby tilted her head, A stranger? I hope she is fine.

I grunted in annoyance, “Please let me finish the letter, Later I found out she is named Shirley. When I collapsed, she took care of me and my wounds. With nowhere to go at this moment, as I am injured, I am trying to hide from Brent under his nose. Luckily, Shirley is a very nice woman, she helped me get this message to you. She is also being hunted by Brent for different reasons. You told me to trust my instincts, and they told me Shirley can be trusted.”

“I told her everything, she has healed me up after all, it shapes a kind of trust when you wake up and someone is tending to your wounds. On a side note, she is going to make me pizza. Dad, mom, the others, please hurry, I don’t want to get caught by Brent again. Neither I nor Shirley have the strength to face him. We are still working on getting rid of the power preventing collar. I beg of you, dad, hurry. Love Haley. Oh, and give the dove something to let it know his task is finished, give it a jade, I know mom loves jades.”

Lory looked at me, “Our baby is safe?”

I nodded, “But I fear not for long, she managed to buy herself some time.”

Funk put his hand on my shoulder, “We will hurry, but it is a long trip. We need to count on her to give us enough time.”

Abby beamed, “She is like you, stupid and mostly indestructible, it is kind of dumb to jump out of an airship. She must have gotten that from you.”

Lory sighed, “We should just be glad she is fine, even though she is hurt. We should go on while she has time left.”

I nodded and started walking towards the forest, the others followed me. Lory took my hand with her free hand, I had not drawn my weapon yet. The forest is indeed very dark. Abby spoke up, “I am glad Haley is fine, when we get back to Brent, I will be ready for his artifact trick.”

As we kept on walking, I looked around, “Lory did you see something move?” She let me go and checked the perimeter. “I am sure, I saw something move. Abby, did you see it too?” There was no response. “Abby?”

As I looked at where she was a second ago, she was gone. In the distance I saw trees flying around. I chuckled, “Whatever took her, is getting curb stomped, right Funk?” I looked at him, but he had vanished? “Funk, where did you go? Lory did you see where Funk went?” When I turned around to look for Lory, she was also gone. “Guys?”

“This isn’t funny anymore, we need to move on. You can come out now. Guys? I am actually freaking out here.” I saw shadows move around me.

Captain shouted, “It is the shadows, they got the others, well, Abby is probably kicking their ass.”

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

I looked in the far distance where I saw huge trees and blobs of shadows fly around. The shadows stopped around me. “Why are they not taking me?”

Captain did not answer, he seemed to be thinking. I looked back at my shadow. I kneeled and poked one of the shadows, it felt as if it was some kind of portal. Captain suddenly spoke up, “I understand what is making this jungle lifeless, that shadow is a monster, it took Abby, she must have escaped and is wreaking havoc on it. I am not sure where Lory and Funk are, most likely inside whatever is in there.”

“Alright, and why is not taking me?”

I could hear Captain smirk, “Idiot. Your shadow, our shadow is tainted.”

I sighed, “Alright, you might not agree, but I am not leaving anyone behind.”

Captain sighed, “I would not expect differently from you, if they are people you care about.”

I exhaled deeply and spawned a red blade, “Here goes nothing!” With a bit of hesitation, I jumped into the pool of surrounding shadows.

I landed on dark writhing flesh. With disgust, I grunted, “This journey is taking me inside too many creatures.”

Captain laughed, “Get used to it, the best way to take out big monsters is from the inside.”

As I looked around, fish, crabs, plants, many other things were wrapped in shadows. The crabs and other living creatures got stabbed by tentacles and drained. I started running forward, the shadows seemed to ignore me. In the distance, I saw Funk struggle with tentacles that tried to grab him. I came over and shot silver beams at the dark tentacles. Funk looked at me, he nodded and slashed one of the dark tentacles. “Funk, where is Lory?”

He pointed forward to a door that seemed to be opening and closing rapidly, like some kind of valve. “Alright, let’s go!” We started running, we came out in some kind of room with a giant cocoon with people in it.

Funk looked at me, “She got dragged away, I could not stop the tentacles, there were too many of them.”

“No worries Funk, we will save her.” I walked over to the giant cocoon. Many of the faces were skeletons. I walked around it and saw Lory, blacked out, she was slowly turning into a skeleton.

I wanted to touch it, but Funk stopped me, “I am not sure if that is a good idea Steve.”

Without hesitation, I shook Funk away, “I know what I am doing.” I rammed my hand into the shadow cocoon and grabbed Lory. Things started shaking, the cocoon became transparent and we both could see thousands of skeletons, drained of their life force. All of its force got sent to my arm as I tried to pull Lory out. I made a red shield around Lory, and she returned to normal.

The shadow force started grabbing my arm and I screamed in pain as it started biting, scratching and clawing at my arm. My flesh got ripped asunder as blood splashed everywhere. I gritted my teeth as my arm slowly turned into a skeleton arm as no flesh remained.

The room started to spin and Funk came so close he touched me with his shell. “Come on Lory!” With a huge yank, I ripped her loose and everything started exploding. “Captain!” “Give me all you got!”

We made a huge red shield around us, then all the shadows exploded as the black flesh got corrupted with my red energy. Shadows flew over us, and we got erupted as if we were in a geyser towards the ceiling. I held on tight to Lory and rolled over the ground. Funk ran over to me, “Steve!?” Slowly I got up and hoisted Lory over my shoulder. I wanted to answer, but all I could do is pant.

I have a massive headache. Captain also panted, “great, what is a fucking Cursemorph doing here?”

I spoke up with a lot of trouble, “a what?” Captain did not answer.

Funk pointed at my arm, when I looked, I nodded. “We will fix it. I think there is a campfire burning over there, it must be Abby.”

Funk nodded, “Let’s go.”

We slowly walked over to the light and followed the smell of the campfire. When we walked out of the forest. I saw Abby sitting at the campfire, it was already dark. Abby gasped, “Oh my god, you guys are not dead!?”

I sighed, “Thanks for the confidence boost, we were only gone for a few minutes.”

Abby looked at my skeleton arm, “Steve?”

“Yes?”

“You were gone for two nights.”

Funk looked at me, “What, that is not possible.”

Captain spoke up, “A Cursemorph doesn’t follow our rules of time, and you interacted with the core Steve. You might have saved Lory, but everything comes with a price. This costed you two days, and about your arm, visit me, and we will fix it.”

I sighed, “What happened to you Abby?”

She smiled, “I kicked its ass. I went looking for you guys, but the shadows ran away from me.”

I put down the tent, and then I put Lory in it. “Funk?”

“Yes?”

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I am fucking tired, but I guess a time warp will do that to you.”