A young man shifted on a hard wall turning his gaze and narrowing his eyes, peering out a window at a forever expanding starry sky. His head and face were wrapped in scarves of various decorative colors, not because of a gruesome appearance or horrible incident, but because it made him feel more secure. A few strands of chestnut hair had fallen in front of a set of deep, piercing emerald eyes from under the wrappings and a sigh had issued from his worn throat. "Well, I should get moving," he murmured, voice muffled and calm yet a tad hoarse. He stood up on a marble-like stone surface that had been scratched, scuffed and cracked over time. Pushing off of the wall he stood, making a small movement to stand in a somewhat hunched over position. He ventured the halls of the relic of a building, with glass cut to create mosaic pictures bursting with reds, blues and greens. Small metallic ringing sounds issued from small, round, golden bells secured at his ankles that added flat notes to his dull, bare footsteps as they padded on the cold floor. They were nice to have as they cut the paranoia that loomed over him like a shroud of the unknown.
He breathed in a lungful of half stale air and shuddered as a scarf shifted, exposing a small space barely big enough to even see unless searched for. Grumbling a bit in minor frustration at the chilly air, he made a short stop to arrange the scarves and re-cover that annoying, miniscule spot. "There," he sighed out a relieved breath, finding it a bit odd that a scarf shifted so strangely. Turning quickly as to take in things, with eyes like that of a trained sniper he scanned the corridor, there was nothing? Yes, Too much of absolutely nothing. Making a turn on his heel, the sir faced back to the direction he had been walking for nearly eighteen-hundred seconds. The young man had been kicked even more than back on edge, and the paranoia of eyes everywhere ripped his mind. Damn it Ysmer, there`s nothing here but a potted plant. His thoughts growled with reason trying to attack his fear as if they were mice charging against a pride of lions. No matter how his fear and reason raged and fought against each other, Ysmer cold never shake that feeling, the feeling of eyes boring into him, feeling like they stared at him, cutting and slashing through even the fabrics covering his identity.
This had been going on for nearly twenty-three hundred seconds, each tearing moment had been far beyond worse than the last, and the hallway had yet to reach an end point or even a turn off to shake this stabbing, wrenching feeling in his stomach. I can`t be going insane, can I? I have to return to her….I promised. The pounding thought of endless resolve pulsed through his brain faster than Chyan on a sugar rush: Atumn needed him. Ysmer shook this thought process back on track as his hands formed fists and trembled gathering all of the courage he had in him. "For Atumn…" he said, steeling his nerves and turning back again, but that hallway that once was behind him was now pitch black, deadly, eerie nothingness where even the hall seemed not to exist anymore except one object: a small potted tree with a dark trunk and leaves that seemed to bleed red off of white. He cursed under his breath and pulled a pistol and a glass capsule of a bright red substance from a woven belt that was hidden under a long gypsy style shirt.
Realizing itself being noticed, the pseudo-tree shattered out of the confinement of its pot and resumed its usual form. The trunk splintered and expanded, crying and screeching, echoing groans of wood being moved willingly but awkwardly into place to create a monstrous creature that could give all of the most terrifying nightmares ever dreamt a run for their bank accounts. The hell-sent creature`s "roots" quickly began to go through the same metamorphosis as the dark wooden body, twisting unnaturally to resemble mangled arms and humanoid limbs, all accented with leaves that spelled certain death if a single mistake was made. As the transformation that would even make Spartans turn tail to run and escape came to an end, the wooden monster made a god awful roar that seemed to have the potential to shake and tear the world to pieces, and if that wasn`t the worst part, every single spot of crimson on the leavesblinked.
"A Nevergreen…" Ysmer gasped, and cautiously moved back a step, hitting the wall that was suddenly behind him. "Oh, great," he groaned in a 'why me' voice as he felt the concrete and brick on his back. "What the?!" he quick turned, and the rest of this unending hall was gone, he was trapped with nowhere to go then past the behemoth before him. He exhaled sharply and stared the Nevergreen down as it charged like a bull to its fighter, keeping his cool.
With a swift graceful kick and tinging of bells Ysmer had disarmed a few roots. He made quick, fluid movements as if music coursed through him, past the right side of splintered and howling wood. The bells tied at his ankles made small whirring sounds as they began to retract to the metal bands, slowly changing back to small spheres from a compressed disk-blade shape. The second he was at the not-so-certain death side, he made a break for a wider area. The Grimm followed him, regaining its lost limbs as time moved and ticked on by moments, seconds, and minutes, every time the glanced back the blood tainted trunk was closer than the last and managed to gain more ground on him as he attempted fleeing.
Ysmer`s mind raced, what the hell was he going to do? What could he do? The Nevergreen was only gaining on him and was closing in too fast for comfort. He made a sharp left turn and a short time after, a right, the entire time was consumed with tearing through his mind for any idea he could find. In due time his rationality started to dwindle and he wandered into insane ideas that he swore only Chyan could even dare pull off. Then this one decided to show up, It most definitely wasn`t foolproof nor was it sane or likely to work but it was better than nothing (or y`know deciding to kick some ass and take some names which he didn`t have it in him to do). Inhaling sharply he turned on his toes and performed the backflip kick to save his life, causing the beast to slow a bit. Though obviously not enough to stop it, with more swift kicks to the trunk and limbs with seemingly coordinated he was able to manage to stop it in its track as the large Grimm regrew its cut off branches.
"This is it…"
He loaded his bell-like gun with the capsule of dust, this was his last resort, the Final Toll. He let out his breath as about to pull the trigger when a cerulean blur flew through a mosaic window, and the sound of a chainsaw slicing through wood and strangely flesh. "What the…Chyan?!" Ysmer said with ultimate surprise in his voice and quickly pointed his gun away, nearly obliterating a wall further down the corridor. She just looked at him with a big, bright smile.
"Hello Partner! ~"
A/N: Yay I made it to chapter two (biggest feat for me I can never finish anything but I promise to try to keep this alive)
Ysmer belongs to my boyfriend and he has helped me so much with this story. So a super special thanks to him!