It wasn’t as if he couldn’t go. He was perfectly, completely capable of going to the Unknown Grove, getting in it, and getting out. He was second in command of the Jackals and was this close to becoming Adel’s successor if anything were to happen to him (or even if he just retired, which Halcy would much prefer than “anything happening to him”). He was completely and utterly able to go.

But there was something to be said about Halcy Valentine wanting to go, get in, and get out: He didn’t. He didn’t want to go, in any capacity.

The backups that Adel would send wouldn’t be there for awhile, he figured. It would take time to gather and mobilize them, and Halcy was expected to already be there at the Grove when they arrived. He had to scout and do reconnaissance. He had to get there just in case the Angeon was hiding in the Grove, having slipped past the guards inside the city.

After all, it had managed to give Alaric the slip pretty badly.

Halcy turned back towards the door of the Jackals’ HQ, hand tentatively reaching out towards the handle. He would wait for the others before going, because there was strength in numbers, wasn’t there? Right? It sounded like he was trying to give himself a pep talk of sorts, but it really was because he was worried about the others entering the forest themselves, long after he had done so.

Not that Halcy didn’t have faith in his men to find him, but... But...

“Augh, fine!” he yelled, and he turned on his heels, and he ran. His long legs let him sprint effectively, throughout the city. He was fit, so he could do this — that’s what he told himself. He was a leader, so he should do this — that’s what he told himself.

He really was pep talking himself into entering this damned forest.

He wasn’t scared, though. Definitely not.

All those stories about people entering and never coming out and the witches and wizards and waiting Angeons meant nothing to him. Nope, he wasn’t scared. He definitely wasn’t.

But it was like falling from a building as he ran: He had just enough time to think about his actions and what he was about to do before the inevitable.

And he was thinking that he should turn around right now immediately.

But his legs continued to carry him. They carried him past the borders of the actual city, to the fence that sectioned the city off from the walls that surrounded it. He licked his lips in anticipation, nodding to the guard in the lookout tower.

“I’m on official orders to investigate something beyond the gate, from Commander Sadik. Please allow me in.”

The guard glanced down and away, then opened the gate for him. Halcy quietly slipped through it.

He looked over his shoulder, watching the wooden gate close again behind him. Something caught his eye on the gate, and he moved closer to see.

Scratch marks ripped at the wooden gate near where the gate joined with the rest of the fence. Dried blood was caked inside such marks, and as Halcy hesitantly ran a hand over the marks, he realized that they were from a human — or human-like Angeon — who was desperate to get out.

But why on Earth would an Angeon claw at a gate if they made it this far? They could just slip through the gate themselves as they pretended to be a human.

“Do you know anything about this?” he asked the guard.

The guard peered over the edge of the tower, down to where Halcy was touching. She shook her head. “What exactly is it, sir?”

Rather than answering the question, he said: “How long have you been stationed here? In general, I guess, like... How long?”

It took the guard a moment to realize what he was asking in such a roundabout way. He looked apologetic as she answered: “Around a year. My shifts are usually at this time of day.”

Halcy withdrew his hand, standing back up all the way. “And you’d report someone trying to enter without authorization, right?”

“That’s protocol, sir. Of course. But in all my time here, no one’s tried.”

“What about when you’re not on watch? You still have to report to the next person, yes?”

She nodded. “That’s right, but... Nothing in our log books says anything like that. No one gets this far.”

Halcy nodded, tugging at the scarf around his neck. It wasn’t like it was tight or anything, but just that he was feeling awfully cold suddenly. “You’ve never seen these scratch marks, then?”

Her eyebrows immediately shot up, and she adjusted her glasses. “Scratch marks? Really? I’ve never been on that side, sir, so I’m not aware...”

Halcy sighed. “... Right. I guess you really don’t know anything about it.” He bowed. “Thank you.”

He turned, waving to the guard over his shoulder with a smile.

As he walked along the path towards where the next lookout tower should be, close to the Grove itself, he thought about how, if anything were to happen, it wouldn’t be easy to get out. The gate had to be opened, after authorization from the Jackal guarding it; more importantly, if Halcy or anyone else mentioned that there was an Angeon, the gate absolutely wouldn’t open at all.

Is that the cause of the scratch marks?

Someone desperately attempting to get out of the area around the Grove and back into the safety of Ariostead?

He sighed again, kicking dirt beneath his heels deliberately, almost pouting. His entire demeanor from before changed, as he watched his foot go in front of the other, then that one go in front of the first, and so on...

Soon enough, he arrived at the entrance to the Unknown Grove. By this time, the sun had completely set, swathing him in a sort of eerie darkness that pressed in from all sides. He ignored it.

He stopped beneath the lookout tower. There were no lanterns lit, even though Halcy could barely see anything, so one was definitely required. Were they asleep? He’d have to reprimand them.

“Hello?” he called up to the guard.

He was met with only silence.

Halcy frowned, eyebrows furrowing. He moved around the tower to the ladder, climbing it. As he did so, however, he was greeted with a very familiar scent the further he went up. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of iron, as it felt like iron settled in the pit of his stomach.

He took a deep breath, peeking over the floorboards once he reached high enough.

Two eyes, twisted in different directions, and a mouth frozen in pleading fear, stared back at him.

In the next moment, he was on his back on the ground, blinking. Dust had been kicked up around him at the impact — did he fall? His back surely hurt like he did, so he must’ve. He coughed, sitting up.

“... Damn.”

Halcy jumped to his feet, wincing from pain — at least it hadn’t been that high of a fall that he broke something — and climbed the ladder again. He braced himself this time, closing his eyes until he was all the way up the ladder and safely inside the lookout tower.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The corpse was twisted in all different directions, with blood pooling around it. He knelt down, inspecting him closer. The man’s innards were strung around him, as if the intention was to hold him in place as he died slowly of blood loss. But organs were easy to rip, weren’t they?

So that wasn’t it. He shuddered at the thought of someone just doing this for fun.

Peculiarly, the tips of his fingers were all red, and as Halcy grabbed the lantern in the corner to shed some more light on the scene, he noticed scratch marks on the baseboards, filled with blood — the same size and shape as the markings on the gate. They all went in the same direction, suggesting some sort of struggle — like the guard was trying to get away from whatever had him in its grasp.

He shuddered again.

Halcy clapped his hands in front of him, bowing his head, and said a quick prayer.

“I’ll come back for you, alright?”

Halcy strengthened the light of the lantern, thankful for the copious amounts of oil, and descended the ladder once more. With the new light, he realized, at that moment, that there was not a single, other guard out on duty, when there should be at least ten on the ground.

He said another quick prayer to a God that hadn’t answered in years for protection before meandering through some trees, officially entering the Unknown Grove.

The fog wasn’t so bad near the entrance. He could still even see the thicket of underbush as he walked slowly and with purpose. The lantern did a lot of work — rather, it didn’t do anything at all, as it refused to show him any particular path. Though that was normal. After all, these woods were said to shift shape for no singular reason.

But he didn’t actually know how it shifted shape. Would he realize? Or would he just be walking around in a circle for hours and hours and hours upon hours without any sort of salvation? Now he knew why it was totally off limits to most people — you’d never be found again, even if you wanted to be. One had to be completely sure of what they were doing, where they were going, if they wanted to traverse the Unknown Grove.

Halcy stopped walking, realizing one thing. He didn’t know what he was doing, nor did he know where he was going. How in the hell was he supposed to get through this, find ten missing people, and an Angeon — and then make it out alive?!

Well, it was whatever, he supposed. He’d do it somehow.

Where there was a wish, there was a way.

He remembered his grandfather always telling him that — where there was a wish, a god of fate would hear it and grant whatever wish it was. Bending time and circumstances were nothing for the gods of fate, even if they didn’t directly speak to anyone anymore.

So he wished, he wished, with all his heart to find something, anything.

He cleared his throat.

“Hello?” he called unsurely. “Is anyone there?” His tone picked up a little bit more confidence as he pressed on further into the woods. “Commander Valentine of the Jackals requests anyone to show themselves promptly!”

But again, he was only met with silence.

Only now, with the guard’s face in his mind every time he blinked, it was a little bit more eerie. A lot more eerie, he thought.

“... Hello—! Again, Commander Valentine reque—”

He blinked, and when he opened his eyes again, he was on the ground nowhere close to where he had been, coughing violently, with an immense pain in both of his sides. The lantern had been knocked out of his hand because of the sheer surprise and intensity with which the attack contained.

In the flickering light of a flame, a lone, lithe figure stood, some ways away from him. Halcy grabbed at his right side, feeling a wetness, stinging the wound a little bit more. He cursed beneath his breath, but he did not take his eyes off of the figure.

The figure seemed to glow from behind — the light was soft, and the light from the lantern didn’t seem to even reach it. How far away was it? How large was it? But Halcy could clearly see it, so it couldn’t have been too far off.

He pressed harder against his side, wincing. He blinked again, and when he opened his eyes, the figure moved closer to him.

The pain was causing tears to well up in his eyes, too. He grit his teeth, shaking his head, and when he looked back up, the figure — no, no, the Angeon — stood directly in front of him.

He didn’t even manage to say anything before it dropped to its “knees”, losing some of its humanoid figure, and grabbed with both hands his throat. It squeezed, and it squeezed, and it exerted so much force in this single movement that it lost its humanoid form even more, reverting to something that much resembled its native form instead.

A thick, black liquid rolled down its arms, as pure, white wings sprouted from nowhere near its head, not actually touching it. A halo of thorns circled around above it, before the halo slowly grew larger, and larger, and more black liquid dripped down onto Halcy, burning his skin, through the scarf now in tatters.

This was it. Right? This was it.

This was where his life ended, as the blackness started to creep along the edges of his eyes. He couldn’t breathe, he couldn’t breathe... He scratched furiously at the Angeon’s arms, to no avail at all. It hurt, it hurt so badly, but he couldn’t stop. He just wanted to get away.

“Die, worthless human.”

Anyone, anyone.

He closed his eyes, tears ready to fall.

“Pure Meteor Burst!”

The pressure let up, and Halcy immediately turned to the side, letting out as much of his dinner as he could. He took a few moments to keep coughing, as bright lights flashed in his peripheral vision, resounding with the snapping of a bow.

Someone placed a hand on his back, and then they pulled at him. It wasn’t a pull of misfortune, nor was it one of malice; rather, it was one pulling him out of the way of the onslaught of attacks against the Angeon.

Behind a tree, Halcy let his head rest against it, and he breathed.

“Commander Valentine, are you alright? Sorry, that was a stupid question, wasn’t it? Sorry, haha... Ha...”

He opened his eyes, a young man filling his vision.

“Sergeant... You’re Sergeant Anatolius.”

The young man, Anatolius, smiled and nodded. “Ah, you recognized me... I thought all my hard work was going to waste, but I’m glad it’s not.”

Halcy tried to smile through the pain, shifting how he was sitting. A few more attacks sounded behind him, sounding a little further away than before. Anatolius stood up from where he had been crouched, peering around the tree.

ANATOLIUS: “Ah, Miss Maya’s having some trouble out there... You’re not in any shape to fight, either, so I can’t just leave you here...”

HALCY: “I... I’m fine, but what happened? Were you stationed here?”

He shook his head, blond hair framing his face. “No, I wasn’t. I’m part of the squadron that was formed as backup for you, by Commander Sadik.”

Halcy nodded as he took in the information, shifting where he sat again. He pressed both hands against the wound, trying to stop the bleeding as much as possible. Anatolius saw what he was doing and took out some bandages from a pouch on his hip, crouching back down and attempting to dress the wound.

“I specialize in the medical aspects of the Jackals, so please let me help... I’ll explain, too.

“There was about five of us, with First Sergeant Maya leading. Unfortunately, we didn’t realize just how bad these woods were, and Miss Maya and I got separated from the other three.” He smiled sort of solemnly. “It was my fault that we did, but it’s okay... As long as I can help you, then it’ll be just fine.”

Halcy smiled even more, patting Anatolius on the shoulder after he was done dressing the wound on his side. He pulled the scarf, barely a scarf anymore, off from around his neck as he spoke. “Don’t worry. You’re doing a good job, Sergeant. You were just promoted, weren’t you? And you’re tasked with such a dangerous mission, already... You’re making all of the Jackals proud!”

Anatolius shook his head. “I appreciate the flattery, but there’s no need to—”

“Nonsense! You really are a good man, and I’ll reassure you until the day I die!” Halcy immediately interrupted the self deprecation. He placed a hand on the tree as he stood up, shakily, with Anatolius close by to catch him. “So accept it, please! That’s an order, as your superior!”

Anatolius shrunk under the clap against his shoulder Halcy gave him. Halcy smiled at him still, then his expression turned serious, eyebrows drawing close together as he looked around the tree at the fight before them.

They really did seem a lot further away now — Maya and the Angeon. She laid out barrage after barrage of arrows from her bow, pushing herself to the very limits. Halcy could tell that her mana was running low, but more pressingly was the fact that she hadn’t yet managed to fell the Angeon using almost all of her power.

“Meteor Prism!”

Expending the last of her mana as the arrow of energy was thrown from her bow, the blue tip pierced the Angeon square in the chest. Ah, her mark is on as usual, Halcy thought.

The blue tip expanded quickly, so the Angeon couldn’t escape. Halcy recognized this as an emergency binding technique — soon, the Angeon was trapped in a blue sphere, glowing white and floating in midair. The Angeon struggled around on the inside, letting off a few attacks, but no matter what it did, it couldn’t get out of the sphere.

Anatolius pushed passed Halcy in order to make it to her before she collapsed. Wincing again, Halcy walked slowly, so as to not disturb the wound any further than it already has been, over to the pair.

ANATOLIUS: “Miss Maya, are you okay?!”

HALCY: “Ah, she’s obviously not... Haha, you asked me the same question, right?”

MAYA: “I told you to stop calling me that! Both of you, shut up! I want to rest now.”

HALCY: “But if you rest, the Prism will fall. Isn’t that right?”

MAYA: “Of course! Argh, fine.”

She hopped up, dragging herself to her feet. Anatolius tried to support her, but she just brushed him off. After a few deep breaths, she stood as straight as she could, hair bouncing around her face, and saluted Halcy.

“Commander Valentine, this is First Sergeant Maya Ramsey, responding to your call.”