The ground races by beneath Roxas' pounding feet, the chilled autumn air stinging his lungs. As he runs, Roxas feels his body enter that uncomfortable place of being warm on the inside but cold with sweat on the outside. He knew he'd pay later for not having warmed up or anything before launching straight into a full-out run.
He tries to imagine Axel still holding down the fort, doing whatever he could to direct attention away from his unusually quiet tent, which Demyx, by now, would have started to wonder about. And if he hadn't, well, he would when they packed up and left for the next town and Roxas wasn't there.
Roxas swings around a thin tree and slows, however, as a new thought enters his mind. He stops and stares down the road where, just ahead, he can see the side entrances to the park.
He hesitates, taking a moment to breathe, to debate. He pulls the straps of his sheath of arrows forward, bringing the quiver flush with his back, and he feels the weight of his bow bottle as it presses into his spine.
Even though the forest is huge, with patches split by lots of twisty, turny roads and steep rolling hills, it would be a lot faster to cut through.
Roxas glances skyward. Through the smattering of clouds, three early night stars shine in the deepening blue, but it isn't completely dark yet. If he goes through the park, if he runs the whole way and manages not to get lost, he'd make it in time for sure. He knew it.
His mind made up, he darts for the park entrance.
On either side of him loom tall trees. They seem to watch him as he veers past, taking the one-way dirt road that curves upward into the park. His path soon narrows to a single, twisting lane of grime. Rows of trees and thick underbrush emerge on either side of him. The farther into the park he runs, the denser the surrounding forest grows.
Overhead, the interlocking patchwork of hanging boughs work to transform his pathway into a darkening tunnel. Through the lacework of limbs, thick clouds inch by.
Roxas runs on, listening to the soft beat of his boots as they pound the ground. He can't wait to get back to the campsite and into a bath in the pond. He thinks about making himself some peppermint tea and maybe even going to bed early, even though he can't say it was because he is looking forward to tomorrow.
Darkness creeps in around him, spreading its fingers through the trees, working to smear them into a single black blur.
As he approaches a fork in the road, he slows, but only long enough to decide that he should keep going straight.
He keeps running, his breath the loudest sound in his ears. The only sound.
Roxas frowns, at last admitting to himself that something had felt funny since he entered the forest. Only now, however, can he place his finger on what.
He slows his run to a jog, listening to the lonely, hollow clap of his boots.
Quiet.
Everything around him stands really still and really . . . quiet.
The breeze that greeted him outside the entrance has vanished somewhere between there and here, and he looks up now to find the tree limbs motionless, their leaves immobile.
Or are those leaves t all?
A black shadow moves in one of the trees, and Roxas registers the silhouette of one huge black bird. It makes no sound, though it seems to watch him from its perch. One of the leaves at its side moves. Another bird. Soon, with a ruffle of feathers, he notices another and, on his other side, another.
One of them breaks the silence with a caw, the sound falling harsh on Harry's ears, rasping and raw.
Spooked, Roxas picks up the pace again, glad that he's kept himself in such great shape. True, he isn't the world's best runner, but he can keep going if he needs to, and right now, he needs to.
He wonders, an ice-water sensation rushing through his veins with the thoughts, if something's following him.
Roxas shakes off the convulsive shudder that rattles its way through his shoulders. Stupid idea. If anything was following, it was someone. Thieves. Bandits.
Maybe the stillness is just his imagination. After all, this is the woods. Woods are supposed to be placid. Serene. Maybe he just misses the sounds of laughing men and people and the glare of candlelight. Besides, everything dies in the fall anyway, right? All the little crickets have chirped their last sometime back in early September.
Still, he can't help feeling that there should be some sounds. Like a foraging squirrel. A startled rabbit or something.
Roxas slows to a stop again, this time so he can catch his breath. He leans forward, clasping his knees, his own huffing all but reverberating in the silence. He glances over his shoulder at the darkening stretch of road behind him, black like a ribbon of ink. He looks forward once more. He wasn't sure, but he thinks the exit to the narrow path lay straight ahead from where he stand right now. If he is right, he'd enter a clearing behind the campsite and be back maybe even with a few seconds to spare.
But something else feels wrong now, and it isn't just the stillness.
Since he has stopped running, the air around him has seemed to compress, to grow denser. He can't explain it, but it feels as though the night itself, unnatural in its calmness, has begun to move in on him, to close in tight.
His nerves prickle. Along his neck and arms, all hairs rise to stand on end.
The idea that you can feel like you are being watched had always sort of struck Roxas as being corny kind of way. Now, though, as he turns and looks around at all the black trees with their skeletal arms tangled in a silent fight for space, he can't help the sudden feeling that, somewhere among them, something watches him, waits for him to move again.
The birds are gone now. Which is weird, since he hadn't heard them take off.
He listens.
Nothing the silence grows, feeding on itself until it becomes a dull roar in his ears.
Roxas continues on the road, though at a slower, quieter walk, and just when he starts to think that listening to the eerie nothing might be worse than actually hearing something, a hushing sound – a fast whoosh – breaks through from the line of trees at his right. Roxas jumps and readies his gun, an ice pick of hear stabbing him through the middle so that, for a moment, he forgets how to breathe.
Whatever it was had been big. As in person big.
"Who's there?"
Skoooshh!
Roxas whirls. This sound had come from the trees directly across the road. It comes again from behind. Roxas hears the pop of a branch and the crush of dry leaves. He spins in a circle, and despite the cascade of sudden noise, the rustling and crackling, he can't sense so much as the slightest movement in any direction.
Roxas feels his throat constrict and his chest tighten. His heartbeat speeds to triple time. He turns and breaks once more into a run, taking the road as hard and as fast as his legs would carry him. His palms, cold and sweaty, tighten around the grip of his gun, and he feels his quiver of arrows pound against him.
Whatever it was in the woods, it follows him. Out of the corner of one eye, he thinks he sees the edge of a dark something. Then there's another at his left. Figures, tall and long, rush through the black gate of trees on either side of him, their movements too fast. Impossibly fast.
As he speeds up, so do the dappled forms.
They seem to multiply as, out of his periphery, he spots yet another. This one glides away from the others to rush along the group of trees directly beside him. It moves through the trees, through undergrowth, dashing over the dry ground – a rippling form. Roxas risks a quick glance, head-on, but sees nothing, only blackness and tangled branches and stillness. But that was impossible!
"Go away!" Roxas screams. He can't outrun them, or whatever or whoever they were. He can't gain even the slightest bit of distance, and already a stitch the size of a softball has begun to knot itself in his side. He blocks out the pain, pushing through. Run. Run. Run!
"Run!" he hears someone hiss. A woman.
It had come the line of trees beside him.
Roxas tries to cry for help but can't find the breath, able to only choke out a low sob. He can't stop to scream, but he can't keep going like this, either. He can't breathe anymore. His lungs sting from the cold while his sides ache with stiffening pain.
Why hadn't he just gone with someone? Why hadn't he just –
The clearing!
Straight ahead. There! He can see it.
Dizziness wafts in around his temples, but he wouldn't stop now. Somehow, he knew that if he could just clear the gate, he would make it back. He'd be all right.
Reaching for a thick uprooted root of a tree, Roxas clasps a hand to the wood and, as he vaults over, feels the stabbing reward of a thick splinter as it enters his palm. His feet hit the dust and dirt pathway beyond. He teeters forward from the weight of his sheath and slams to his knees. He picks himself up again, stumbling, scrambling, running even as his body begs him to stop.
The small pebbles at his feet rattle around him. Whispers and hisses. Someone laughs, but the sound morphs into a high-pitched shriek. He hears a splintering shatter, like a crash of plates.
He dares not turn around.
To Roxas' left and right familiar gatherings of trees zoom by, looking like interlocked hands trapping him. He tears past them, and even as the campsite draws into view, he does not slow. He wills his body to keep moving in spite of his screaming muscles, the torturous ache in his lungs.
"Roxassss."
The sound of his name whisks by him, caught by the wind and then lost in the rush of leaves scattering around his feet. He hears it, though. His name. Someone has whispered his name.
That, at last, stops him and brings him stuttering to a halt at the edge of the campground threshold. He wheels around, eyes scanning. He gasps for breath, sucking down air in huge gulps.
He peels off his bow and arrows and, mustering every bit of strength h has left, throws it onto the ground. It makes a dull thud sound as the water bottle within slams into the hold, hard turf.
Whoever it was had said his name. That meant they knew him.
As though triggered by the flip of a switch, rage replaces his fear.
"Who's there?" he shouts, heaving. "Who is it? Why don't you just come out?"
He wiped his running nose with his sleeve, not caring.
"Demyx?" he roared toward the gathering of oak trees. "Xigbar? I know you're there!" This he turns on a row of shrubs lining a cobblestone sidewalk.
"Axel, if that's you, this isn't funny, I swear to God it's not! Wherever you are - whoever you are - !" As he shouted, Roxas spins in a circle so that his voice could echo all through the neighborhood. So everyone, everything could hear him.
Roxas turns and sees the silhouette of another boy. He could tell about his age, maybe younger. Still with rage coursing, he turns and huffs to the boy, but he is grateful to find something familiar. He stands at profile, short blonde hair and a brown jacket about his shoulders. At first Roxas thinks he's looking at his own reflection.
Suddenly he slowly turns his head to face Roxas. His skin porcelain white, deep blood-red lips. Roxas' mouth goes dry as paper, and his stomach plummeted to the floor. The eyes depict innocence and a warm kindness that's so familiar.
Ventus.
The boy raises a thin, abnormally long hand, the tips of which ended in long red talonlike claws. He waves at Roxas. His nails, more like the scarlet fangs from some deadly venomous snake, gleams in the light.
Roxas freezes, his eyes locking on a jagged black hole that marked Ventus' cheek, as though an entire chunk of his face had been knocked out, like a chink in a porcelain vase.
Roxas can see straight through, to the hollow jaw and two rows of red daggerlike teeth within. Fear pulsed through his veins and yet stood hypnotized. Ventus is horrible and fascinating all at once, like a scorpion prepared to strike, all angles and sharp lines and menace.
In one blinking movement, the Ventus lunges at him, jaw unhinging, the black hole in his face widening. Teeth bared, claws outstretched, he unleashes an ungodly sound, something between a woman's death screech and a demon's howl.
It happened too fast for Roxas to form his own scream, too fast for his raised arms to do any good. Her claws rained down. Ventus' form loosened into violet smoke.
Roxas coughs and the ground beneath his feet trembles, then shudders before opening up. Darkness swirls inside it like an in ground whirlpool. Roxas falls backward. A shrieking torrent of jet scales engulf the light.
"You didn't protect me!"
The edges of his surroundings quiver, dirt and rock loosening until, at last, they break forth in a tidal surge.
Slowly he sinks into the ground like in quicksand. Earth pours over him in rushing waves from all sides. It fall against his body in heavy clods, a suffocating weight that fast becomes crushing.
"No!" Roxas screams in a rustic tone.
He flails and thrashes, battling to loosen himself from the raining soil and ash that threatens to consume him. He fights to stand, causing the dirt to press more tightly around him. It claims his legs, trapping him. He reaches with both arms toward the open sky, but the earth gushes, building to his waist to his chest. It piles past his shoulder, his head, and now reaches to consume his arms, swallowing the light one fragment at a time.
The packed dirt squeezes his chest, crushes his lungs. He can't breathe. Roxas gasps involuntarily and is rewarded with a mouthful of course grime. He swallows and his body convulses at the acrid taste. His lungs burn for air. His heart knocks against his ribcage, begging for release.
His ears roar, and a strange hum grows louder within his brain as his chest convulses and he coughs, sucking in a mouthful of dirt in exchange.
The grit burns his lungs, and he coughs again.
More dirt. More coughing. More pain.
And then it's gone. The pain recedes. His chest relaxes.
His lungs stop demanding air.