On their way to Wiltwood, Omia crossed a small bridge that took her across the river that flowed out of Darien. She saw that the river itself went into Wiltwood, and assumed that on the other side of the town, she would be able to see it flow in from the Death Eater fields.

Once across the river, it was a short trek before they started actually moving towards Wiltwood, continuing to follow the wall until they were perfectly opposite the gate.

When they began the walk towards the undead forest, the pathway became slightly overgrown and she was able to verify that Death Eater grass was harmless.

It didn’t drain anything away from her when she touched it, no, it gave her a warm fuzzy feeling along her skin, like sitting in front of the hearth on a cold winter night.

After verifying it was harmless, she started questioning her father again.

“Why don't they build the gate on this side of the wall?” she asked.

“Because there are some very fast undead, that might be able to cross the distance in seconds. Undead are not particularly smart though, so it wouldn’t know to travel to the other side- instead, it would slam itself into the stone wall until the grass finished eating it. Aside from the fast undead, there are some of the larger undead that would take a long time for the grass to eat, and they might be able to break through the gate, even if it's closed.

“Essentially, the gate is a weak point to the town, and the mayor did not want that facing the forest.”

Omia nodded. That made sense.

“I have a question for you, are you a little scared of the undead? The monsters I’m telling you about?” he asked curiously.

Omia shook her head, she wasn’t.

“Why not?”

She shrugged her shoulders. He gave her a look, and knew she wanted to elaborate. “They’re… interesting. I don't know, I’m just not afraid.”

Jacob and Torei gave her father a look, all of them conveying a variation of ‘For how long though?’

After that, Omia lapsed into silence. She still had a few more questions, such as where the path out of the town and away from Wiltwood Forest went, but she found that she wasn’t as interested in things like that over the area around her.

She plucked some of the Death Eater grass, feeling the tingle in her hands, and went to chew on it, pausing before she glanced at her father to make sure it was okay.

He looked at her from the corner of his eye but didn’t say anything, so she shrugged and threw the long stalk into her mouth, chewing on it slowly.

“Baa” Jacob let out behind her, and Torei burst into raucous laughter. She ignored them, and felt the tingling that the grass gave off intensify.

If she was only touching it, the feeling was surface level. When she ate it though, she felt a small jolt suffuse her muscles. Quickly, the feeling went away, and the piece of grass stopped giving off the slight tingle, so she spit it out. It still tasted like grass after all.

Omia, her father Loid, and Jacob didn’t notice, but Torei saw that the grass she spit out was far different. Shriveled up and grey, when normally it would pop right back up even if it was chewed. More than that, it would instantly plant its roots again.

This one, though, was fully dead. He glanced between Omia and the grass, trying to figure out if it was something she did, or if it was something with that particular blade of grass itself.

* * *

Omia felt like they reached the forest rather quickly, but it was perhaps because she was so distracted by the allure of Death Eater grass. Now that she knew it wouldn’t hurt her, she was actually rather drawn to it.

When she looked up, it was like Wiltwood had snuck up on her, and the trees loomed ahead, a breeze from the fields transforming from tranquil to threatening as it whistled through the hollows of the gnarled dying woods.

When Wiltwood was a distant thing, she felt no fear, like it existed only as a fable, despite looking directly at it. When her father asked if she was afraid, she spoke only the truth when she denied it.

Now that it was in front of her though… she felt her chest constrict. Still, she did not flinch, and marched forwards, only to feel her father grab her shoulder and pull back. “Hey hey, slow down a bit,” he said. “Let's go over some ground rules before going anywhere. First off, we’re only here to show you some undead, you are not to go near any of them, do you understand?”

She nodded.

“Okay. Second, Torei and I are going to go ahead and kill any that we see. I want you to watch us closely. If you’re going to join the guard, this is what you are going to have to do, so make sure it's something you can do. It’s okay if you’re afraid, but if you’re paralyzed in fear, this might not be what you want to do.

“Third, never step off the path. The trees are dense, and sound doesn't travel far. If you cry for help, we will not be able to hear you if you aren’t on the path. More than that, you will get lost.

“And last, If I tell you to run, you run, okay? Run out of the forest, and back to the town. This early in the day, we should only see one or two weak monsters, but there’s never any guarantee, and it’s better to be safe than sorry. If we run into something stronger, we may need Jacob to help us, and it would be better for you to be out of the forest, than for us to distract ourselves as we need to protect you too. Okay?”

He nodded.

“This is serious, Omia. What are the four things I asked you to do?”

“Umm, stay away from undead, watch you and Torei fight if we run into one, stay on the path, and run if a big monster comes.”

He nodded after each, and stood back up when they were done. “Alright. We won't be in there for long, perhaps fifteen to twenty minutes, then we can go home and you can tell all your friends about what you did.” He smirked, “I imagine you’ll be the center of attention for a while.”

Her eyes flashed with disappointment. “Only twenty minutes? I thought we’d be in there until noon…” she said quietly.

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“No no, I want to be out before noon. It slowly gets more dangerous as the sun gets higher, and noon is sort of a ‘tipping point’ for most undead to awaken. Right now, almost everything is asleep, which is the only reason I’m taking you at all. I wanted to give us a large cushion of time to get in, show you what happens, and get out. The extra six or seven hours are for if we get super lost somehow.”

He ruffled her hair, smiling at the pitiful face she was making. “Sorry baby, I just want you to be safe. Now come on. The sooner we go, the more time you’ll have to look at them.”

She was cheered up by that and almost rushed into the forest, before he once more put his hand on her shoulder.

“Rule five, stay behind Torei and I.”

She harrumphed, but listened, walking in the middle of the formation. Torei was in front of her, on her right, while her dad was on her left, and Jacob watched from behind.

Though the trees seemed to have far fewer leaves than a tree should, the sheer amount of them formed enough of a canopy to begin blocking out the sunlight. As they walked deeper, the trees started growing more and more leaves, leaving them rather shaded.

It was still bright enough to see, but she noticed that the shade would become denser the deeper they went.

Not only that, but the fog she first saw from a distance slowly crept back, touching her ankles.

She looked down at it curiously, noticing that it was uneven. Slowly following the source of it with her eyes, she looked up and found herself drawn to a spot off the path further ahead

She was about to ask what it was, when some of the foliage began to rustle, and her voice caught. Immediately, the adults tensed, ready to move.

She knew what she was looking at immediately when the creature walked out, because her dad would occasionally bring back rabbits for them to eat. They tended to have black fur and were rather tiny, which matched up with this.

The only difference was that it was half-rotten and visible pale miasma rolled off it. As it crawled out onto the path, an action which looked unnatural as it wobbled in its movement, his father and Torei crept forward to kill it.

When it spotted them, it shakily turned, then began to walk towards them. Torei went first, holding up a small buckler- previously stored on his back- to block the rabbit.

Omia thought that, when the two sides clashed, there would be a tense fight but… no, her father came around the side and immediately cut its head off, causing the entire rabbit to drop as the white miasma abruptly began to dissipate.

They both backed up and Torei stared at it for a few more seconds, while her dad scanned the treeline, looking for anything else, but the fight was over. Once that was verified, they moved back into formation.

Without looking at her, her father told her “Generally, smaller creatures are much weaker, because they can hold less undead energy. That being said, there are always exceptions to the rule, so every encounter should be treated as life and death, okay? It doesn’t matter if you’re fighting an undead mouse, use all your strength to guarantee that it can not injure you. We knew that rabbit would die easily, yet we still used flanking tactics, to ensure our success.” Then, they began walking forward, Omia following behind.

As they passed the rabbit's body, she could see that the miasma no longer pushed outwards from it, but something else caught her eye as some of it began to flow out of the ground and into the rabbit… before she could study it closely though, they were already walking away.

Jacob tapped her on the shoulder and she looked at him. “You okay kid?”

She nodded

“Its okay to feel a bit disgusted at first. They are rotting bodies, but you’ll get used to it. The smell is especially awful early on, but at this point, all the guards are accustomed.”

Again, she nodded, but internally she was confused. For one, she didn’t smell anything, until she focused on it.

Suddenly, an overwhelming scent of rot and death filled her nostrils, but she was already accustomed to it. A feeling of familiarity permeated her when she recognized the scent, and Omia felt exactly where this feeling came from.

Jane.

While Omia had never smelled death or rot, Jane lived in this smell. For her, there was no escape from it during her final battle, and likely before even that.

The second thing that confused her was her lack of disgust, she did not recoil at the rabbit itself, she was merely afraid of it hurting her. Once more, she tapped into Jane's feelings. Jane was familiar with decaying dead bodies, a walking one was little different. She was cautious, but the rot itself played no part in that. Instead, her caution stemmed more from a sense of professionalism.

She didn’t notice at first, but when the next undead rabbit came out, an internal part of her demanded she study it with a critical eye, learning what she could. She reached for the notepad and pencil in its holder on her hip, but her hands passed through where it would normally be.

Glancing down, she saw that there wasn’t a notepad or pencil, and there never had been. Jane carried around a notepad and pencil.

Panic rose in Omia as she felt herself slipping between the memories of Jane and the present of Omia. She was not surprised when another flash of Jane's memory appeared, and she let the pain of it pass.

When she came to herself, she looked down at her feet, and felt her stomach lurch.

The white miasma flowed out of the ground, lapping at her ankles. It did not enter her body, as it had the rabbit, but small wisps of thin smoke pressed against her skin. She felt a cold embrace, but little else.

She was afraid that Jacob would notice the odd behavior of Wiltwoods miasma, as he was the only one who could see her at the time, but he said nothing. Not even acknowledging the fog, he simply continued to follow, ignoring her glances back at him.

‘Can he not see it? Or is this normal?’ she asked herself, but she could see that the forest was only responding to her, none of the adults. It must have been because Jacob couldn’t see it.

She tried ignoring the sensation, so as not to draw attention to it. She didn’t know how long they had already been in the forest, but they’d already killed two undead, and her dad said they would kill two or three. Very soon, they would leave anyway. When that happened, she would be free to never come back. Free to go home, and forget everything that happened here.

Despite the thought though… she still felt a calling out to her. Something resonating deep within the forest.

She felt herself slipping into that trance-like state she’d experienced when she first saw Wiltwood, but the awareness of what happened helped to ground her.

She fought against it, against the part of her that wanted to let go and walk deeper in the forest, giving in to whatever it was.

Absently following behind her father, she saw him fight a third undead, but failed to process any of it. She listened to his orders as he told them to turn around and return home, but still she did not hear him. She was focused, intent on keeping one foot in front of the other, aware of her every movement so she wouldn’t let anything guide her actions. Several times, she felt her mind try and wander, but she always shook herself free.

Before she knew it, a light opened up in front of her, and the forest's grasp on her started to slip. With enough presence of mind, she could barely process the maelstrom of pale smoke swirling around her like a vortex, pressing into her with his deathly touch. Despite that, none of it penetrated past the top layer of skin.

The moment she stepped out of the forest and onto the overgrown pathway, she saw the swirling fog rapidly leak away, sucked into the Death Eater grass around her.

Now gone, she felt a weight drop from her shoulders as her mind fully became her own once more.

Trying to avoid breathing heavily, more from panic than exertion, she looked at the three people around her.

Dad and Jacob looked none the wiser, but Torei glanced curiously towards the forest. He gave no indication of suspecting her, but she realized he might know something, and would need to be careful around him.

Looking back, he studied all the bodies of the undead rabbits they’d killed, didn’t he? She thought it odd, but perhaps he was doing something similar to what Omia felt compelled to do, and study them. What if he, too, had visions of death?

She wanted to ask… but if she was wrong, how would she justify the question? She needed to think about what to say. Lost in her own thoughts on the curiosity of the forest and how to get answers, it was a quiet walk home.