Finn felt an icy hand on his cheek, and then his aunt's aging, sallow, yet eerily beautiful face loomed in his. He tried to claw her hand off him, while his other hand found his mother's knife, which he tried to thrust upwards towards her throat, but her other hand seized his wrist, nails digging into him. He struggled to free himself, flailing in her hand.
"What is this? What's going on?" Finn tried to break free, slow panic starting to manifest inside him. It wasn't her, when she crept at the corner of his vision, when she didn't say a word - she could touch him, he could feel the barb of her nails, and her voice was loud and clear. It was so real. It wasn't his imagination this time, it was magic. The green mist had manifested out of nowhere, and he couldn't hear or see Zafrina. "Zafrina!" He called in panic, trying to get her help, but he had no idea what she was going through. Nia's grip went iron, turning his olive skin white, leaving brands on his flesh.
"She can't help you. Nobody can!" Nia thrust her face close to his, and he heard the clang as his knife came into contact with the metal armour bodice she had worn in life. He tried to free himself again, but she had always been more powerful. Nia flung him to the floor, and he crashed across it, his back jarring as it struck the stone wall. His knife clattered to the ground, and Finn lay on the floor at Nia's fins.
Then another vision manifested behind her. There was a little merboy that looked exactly like him, screaming over Merissa's body. Nia was tearing him away from her corpse, but he held on, screaming for her to wake up, to come back. Her dead eyes fixed on him, cold and empty. Nia was everywhere - slashing her knife across his wrist, getting him into a headlock, forcing him to watch as Bay was brutally beaten by Otan in a training session. He saw her before him, a sword piercing her, as she shattered Melody's bracelet, turning her into a human at the bottom of the sea. He saw an illusion of Melody behind Nia in her helpless human form, legs flailing, her lips turning blue. Nia's voice, as well as Otan and Ontari's, rang everywhere, echoing off the walls.
"Make it stop!" Finn sank to the floor, hands clinging to his head, pulling on his hair, trying to silence the voices. He started to scream for Melody.
Melody strained against the vines, but she knew it was no use. "Bay! Answer me!" It had gone eerily quiet, where Bay had once been. All she saw was a mass of vines, except for a single hand, which was turning white as the vines constricted. She had to act fast, or Bay would die.
A vine snagged on her bag, and Melody seized the handle with her free hand - frantically, she started trying to find the casket. If she could get the stone out...
"For goodness sake!" Melody cried as the handle slipped off her shoulder, and the bag fell into the mat of plants. Now what would she do?
The direction the vines were trying to pull her in... if she let go now, she'd go flying closer to her bag. But then the vines could also grab her arms, and she wouldn't be able to reach the stone. She'd drown in the plants, possibly die - but if she waited, the bag too would disappear and she'd lose her grasp on the hook anyway.
Melody let go of the hook.
Immediately, the vines yanked her down to the floor, and the plants sprang forwards, crawling over her, snaking around her torso and her tail. Melody seized the bag, and started rooting through it, frantically searching for the casket. Where is it? Come on! Suddenly the plants seized her arms, as if realizing what she was trying to do. Melody strained against their grasp, desperately, her heart lurching as she found it, the moment a vine tore the bag from her hands. Her fingers trembled as she frantically tried to undo the casket.
It was here Melody was aware of sharp, biting into her flesh. She released a cry of pain, suddenly noticing thorns, emerging from the plants. They started digging into her - they knew what she was trying to do. The casket snapped and the stone fell out, but it went bouncing across the vine mat. "No -" she didn't get to finish, feeling a vine crawling around her throat. Melody started to cry weakly, as the vines started to envelop her, as she tried and failed to break free.
But then there was a blinding yellow light. The plants shrank back, and Melody could breathe again. Suddenly the vines disappeared, and she fell to the stone floor. Raising her head, she saw Bay laying on the floor, the stone gripped in hand, gasping for breath. By some miracle, it had been close enough for him to grab it. Slowly, he started picking himself off the floor, a hand on his forehead, with white indentations all over his body where the vines had attempted to crush him. Melody, regaining her senses, crawled over to see if he was alright.
"Are you okay?" She asked, frantically. Bay nodded weakly, still struggling to recover. Melody helped him to rise, thinking to herself, how Zafrina was going to kill her if she found out. "I'm sorry, I tried to get the stone sooner..."
"Don't worry about it," Bay tried, but Melody saw the state of him. He'd nearly been strangled, there was light bruising about his arms and his neck. Luckily, since the vines had managed to have such a good over him, their thorns hadn't emerged. But as Melody had resisted... she looked down at her tail and arms, wincing at the scratches that were starting to bleed, from the spiky thorns. Bay looked to be in a state of shock. "Melody... do you mind if I wait outside?" The calmness with which he said these words was unnatural.
"What? Bay, I don't think that's the best idea -" Who knew what more lay ahead? On her own? The plants lay around them, shrivelled, black and very much dead, but what if Circe had laid more enchanted traps?
"Take this thing, please..." Bay pushed the stone into her hand, his fingers trembling. "Do what we should have done from the start. Use this to get to Zafrina and Finn, go to Circe, and then get out of there."
"But -"
"Melody. I can't. I can't..." Bay sounded somewhat hoarse, and Melody realised that his bruises were getting darker. The vines had tried to crush him. His arms shook slightly from where he'd strained against the plant prison, and Melody flooded with remorse that she hadn't acted faster.
"...alright. I'll use this to find them and take us directly. We shouldn't be too long -" he didn't let her finish - he tore from the tunnels, so desperate to leave. And then it occurred to her - he hated dark places, especially caves. On their first journey, they'd been trapped in a cave by a giant sea serpent, and it had given him his tail scar, almost killed him. No wonder he'd been on edge - this had only made it worse. "Wait -" Bay didn't hear her apology. What had she put him through?
Feeling almost sickened, by what she had done to him, Melody took hold of the stone, which had the subdued glow once again, before commanding it. Take me to Zafrina and Finn. She didn't acknowledge how whenever the glow was subdued, the voice was silent.
Melody found herself in a different set of tunnels, with the green stones lining the walls again, but then the Abraxia stone almost slipped through her fingers. Was that... screaming?
Zafrina was screaming in hysteria. She felt a lump of ice in her belly as she rushed into the chamber the tunnel led to, but all that greeted her was green smoke. Melody coughed as she plunged into it. She called for Zafrina and Finn, but it wasn't them she heard first - it was the beginning of Nia's voice. Before it could form a word, Melody thrust up the stone. The green smoke briefly turned yellow, before it faded to black. The smoke started to drain away, retreating, and Zafrina was revealed first.
Zafrina's screams ceased as her illusion drained away, leaving her collapsed against the wall. Her hair hung over her face as she slowly raised her head off the floor, finding Melody above her, the stone in hand. She shoved it into it's casket and dropped to her side. "Zafrina, what happened?" Zafrina looked blankly up at Melody, slowly raising a trembling hand to her forehead, as if trying to concentrate.
"...I saw Otan... and I heard the voice... It was everything I fear. My nightmares became..." Melody didn't know what voice, but the mention of Otan, and her nightmares, made her come to a conclusion what Zafrina had seen. She drew in a sharp breath as she pulled Zafrina into her arms.
"I'm so sorry, Zafrina, I'm so sorry!"
"I..." A state of numbness consumed her. Melody's voice was fading. She didn't want her - she wanted Bay. "Where's Bay?"
"We... um..." Zafrina slowly looked up, an unhinged look in her eyes.
"What are those scratches on your arms?"
"Look, Bay's okay, but he decided to wait outside. We - were attacked by... living plants."
"Living... plants..." a strange smile appeared on Zafrina's lips, one that put Melody on edge. "Isn't that just grand?"
"...Yeah. It sure is." Melody sat back, confused and beyond worried. Zafrina seemed to be in shock, she was rocking ever so slightly.
"You might want to check on Finn." Zafrina suddenly said. Melody turned, to see the green smoke revealing Finn at last. He was curled in a foetal position, hands clasped on the sides of his skull. She went cold.
"Get out... get out!" He was sobbing, and something within Melody crashed. She leapt across the space between them.
"Finn!" Still though, what he saw didn't leave. He continued to cry out, not noticing her, even as she crouched in front of him, her hands on his face, as she tried to bring him back to reality. "Look at me! It's alright, I'm here, open your eyes! It's alright!" Somehow her voice broke through the mist, and then his eyes snapped open. He was struggling to breathe, his eyes flooded with tears, and pure terror. Very quickly, the hysteria died down, to silence. Finn stared at her, unseeing, as Nia's ghost tormented his mind, hissing and whispering in the background even after the spell had gone. He looked deep into Melody's blue eyes, hoping they'd provide serenity, but they weren't their usual calm. They were unhinged, frantic, as they saw what the vision had done to him. "It's alright..." Melody still said, despite her eyes.
Finn slid from her grasp, leaning against the wall, eyes staring straight ahead. Zafrina lay on the ground, in a dazed heap, her eyes glassy with shock. Melody slumped, her shaking, thorn-scratched hands pressed to her mouth, as she felt it. The horror and guilt of what she and they had all done, causing them all such unnecessary pain. Why hadn't they used the stone to take them directly to Circe?
They wouldn't have had to gone through this. They wouldn't have had to hide from a rockfall. Bay wouldn't have almost been suffocated by living plants. She wouldn't have the bitemarks of thorns throughout her body. Zafrina and Finn wouldn't have been subjected to the horrifying illusions Circe had crafted...
"I'm so sorry." Melody's voice was a broken whisper.
