tw: bugs.

Prologue — II

I'd lost my sandals in a muddy pool some time ago. So near the undergrowth as I was, daytime humidity rose to uncomfortable levels. Birds tittered and flew about, high up, their shadows flitting across the beams of sunlight that reached me. Everywhere I looked, the world was green.

Green veins snaked beneath what should've been bark. Green leaves seemed to overflow with life. Green tendrils, free-floating, pooled at the base of trees and ferns like water. I couldn't see the sky clearly, and even though I knew I had enough water and I wasn't overheating, I felt delirious.

What sort of world was this?

I could only stumble onward.

I collapsed against a tree root, exhausted. The … ambient … pigment? … in addition to the monochrome background made it difficult to discern time of day, and I clung to the only reality I knew: the certainty in my mother's voice when she told me it was a straight path to safety. Considering other things made my breath catch, so I didn't.

Glancing up, I tried to discern if I'd veered off course, but like all the attempts I'd made before, I couldn't see the sun clearly. I slid to the forest floor, sighing.

Then leapt up with a yelp.

I had previously taken the green stuff to be inert, or at least slow moving. But, even as I watched, more welled up from the ground to gather at my feet— a visibly growing pool of partially transparent, luminescent … stuff. It grew thicker and thicker, until I couldn't see the ground at all.

Cautiously I swiped my hand through it as fast as I could, like passing a hand through open flame. It stirred, like some sort of gas, but it had no tangible texture.

I shook my head. What was I doing, getting caught up in bullshit? I stood up, brushing clumps of dirt off my bum. There was an itch on my hands, and I brushed off some worms, too.

When I took a step, however, my foot broke through a shell of earth and sank into a teeming mass of insects. For a second, I felt their cold bodies tickling the bottom of my foot, then I shrieked and stumbled back.

Argh, fuck. I bit my lips to keep any more exclamations inside, then hopped on one foot while wiping the other against a tree root. Gods that was disgusting. Then I stood there, breathing through my nose, gathering the courage to move again.

It was probably a fluke. A freak accident. I didn't weigh that much, and the forest floor wasn't a minefield of bug bombs. It was just an accident.

I took another breath, looked up, picked a part of the canopy that seemed brightest, then set off in that direction.

The sun was setting, and under the canopy, dusk rushed forth.

I stood at the base of a tree, looking around at the thinning forest. I was probably on the right track, fumbling as I had been. Mother mentioned a safe house, but I could barely see my hand if I stretched it out, and the green stuff had … dimmed, I suppose? I glanced at a curl of it around my ankle. It looked about as luminous as a rock.

If I couldn't find the safe house, will my mother come looking for me? I bet with those lamp-like eyes of her's, she'd find me in no time.

I heaved a breath. I wasn't getting anywhere by dithering, and the moon will be up soon. I decided to find a place with less canopy, so I can catch the moonrise for orientation

Soon, the trees began to thin, and I heard the rushing of another river. I stepped around the broad trunk of a tree and the scene opened before me.

Grass had grown wild and tall, their stalks waving in the slight breeze, a rippling sea of green. Rising from the center like an island is the squat shadow of a shack. Its details were blurred by distance and the moonlight, and I could only pray that it was the correct place.

Just as I took a step out of the tree line, something flew past my shoulder and thudded before my feet. I jerked back.

"Just a kid?" said a low, rough voice from behind me. He sounded above me, as though he was hanging out in the branches.

"We're still getting paid. Who cares," said another. "Is Sangoro back yet?"

"Not yet."

"...A right bitch, that woman."

I was frozen to the spot. I didn't dare to turn around, and I didn't dare step forwards to examine the thing they'd thrown at me.

"This means we get the full share, yeah?"

"Finish the job," snapped the first voice.

"Won't be hard. Go on, kid," said the second voice, sneering, clearly addressing me. "We'll give you a head start."

It was the sheer disregard in his voice that pierced through my terrified haze. If I was to die here then by the gods I will make them work for it. Sure, I wasn't brave, I wasn't fast, but now I had a bone to pick, and I worked well with spite.

I burst into a sprint, straight into the grass.

Shadows moved in the corner of my sight. Several things happened at once.

A man materialized out of thin air right next to me — he'd been moving so fast — a slice of silver raised over his shoulder with his insides glowing blue like the map of an underground train system. I caught sight of his eyes, reflecting the moonlight. Vapors of green reared from the grass all around me and dove at the man, splashing over him like an upended bucket of snakes.

An overwhelming exhaustion crashed into me at the same moment, and I tripped over my feet, tumbling to the ground in a painful sprawl.

"Fuck!"

Was that me, or someone else? I picked myself up painfully, surprised that sword hadn't connected with any part of me. When no immediate harm befell me, I looked around, heart hammering.

The clearing was calm, the green ocean of grass unbroken.

What happened?

Torn between sprinting for the shack — which was no closer since I barely got two steps before the man jumped me — and investigating what happened to said man, I dithered in place for too long.

Something cold slammed into my shoulder, and I had barely registered the pain before another figure was standing in front of me, glowing blue and his arm drawn back.

Adrenaline covered the pain. I threw myself to the side, away from the blade.

Luck favored me that night, because I survived the first swing.

"Stay—"

He spun, the whites of his eyes visible in a ring around his furious eyes. Green enveloped him with a silent roar.

"—still!"

I scrambled backwards, but it wasn't enough. Pain seared through my leg. I didn't scream, just curled into a tight ball, wracked with searing pain and terrible fatigue.

There was a dull, heavy thud.

No further blows came. The clearing was silent.

Slowly, breath by breath, I uncurled, peering out from between my fingers. With adrenaline fading, the hammering of my heart grew heavier and heavier with each beat as though it was a physical weight. The pain was overwhelming.

My eyelids wanted to close. I wanted to collapse and sleep forever. My shoulder and leg were bright spots of pain, and the breeze was chilly. But I could do none of that, because I had to check if there were any more shadow-fast people trying to kill me.

I staggered upright, listing heavily. Once again, I was surrounded by a calm, murmuring sea of grass so green it glowed. I looked at the stuff: there was no indication it was going to rear up like a shark and swallow me.

Cautiously, limping, I investigated the spots in the grass where I'd last seen the two men.

I spotted their blades before I spotted anything resembling a body. The weapons lay abandoned in the grass. The closest sword had a smear of something dark along the tip— my blood. The metallic glint of another caught my eye, just a few steps away.

There was something attached to the handle of the closest sword, and I edged closer, squinting. At first, I thought to be an irregularly shaped guard. The next second, the image snapped into place.

I was looking at a human hand, chipped and grey and broken off at the wrist. It'd been turned to stone.

I tripped backwards, my heartbeat suddenly roaring in my ears. What?

The arm lay a little ways behind the sword, broken off from the main body above the elbow. It was as if someone had pushed over a statue, smashing it to pieces. It was broken at all the right stress lines.

My gaze drifted; I recognized the silhouette of a man a few steps away; I squeezed my eyes shut.

What the fuck.

Then I heard two distinct thumps, the sound of sandals hitting grass.

The sharp sound of an inhale.

I whirled around, placing weight on my hurt leg — pain spiked through me, but I couldn't bother with it. Only one thought was running through my mind: I was going to die here.There wasn't enough time to sort out what I was feeling.

A large figure stood silhouetted against the moon, another behind it, the blue flames inside their bodies dampened and— and— controlled, somehow. I threw my gaze around, frantic, looking for a way out.

I tried to do— what, I didn't know. Control the green shit like the Force? Order it to move with my mind? It clearly moved earlier, but now I stared at it desperately and it did absolutely nothing.

My heart was beating so fast I could feel it thrumming under my skin.

The man knelt down, saying something in a rumbling voice, but I was past the point of reasoning. The last thing I saw was a cascade of messy white hair, shining in the moonlight.

this one's pretty short, brace for next chapter.