Book 1: AIR

CHAPTER 14:

PREY OF THE FACESTEALER

Mizu leaned against the wall, her eyes still wide as she stared at the face-less soldier. She saw it take in a deep breath and than exhale, flopping to the side. "What in the name of…" Mizu began as she began to back up. She tripped over the pieces of wood behind her and fell to the floor. She heard the familiar clicking noise as she felt the ship rock a bit. She stared at the wall and saw four spindly legs reach out into the corridor and grab for the body. A horrible sucking sound was heard and the body was lifted though the hole in the wall and gone from view. Mizu sat on the cold decking, too afraid to move or run.

She heard the clicking sound again and saw a horrible insect like body enter the hall. It didn't even have a well defined head, merely a stump that had a row of those claw like legs around what looked like an eyelid. It turned in the hall, as if trying to sense the location of another meal. It snapped to Mizu, whose face was too distorted with fear to change expression. She heard the sucking sound again and the feelers stood straight up. Mizu screamed and stumbled to her feet. She threw her arms behind her and the wood formed a wall between her and the monster.

The legs ripped through the flimsy wall and began scratching at the water logged wood, tearing it away to get its new meal. Mizu ran towards the door that led to the deck and began to tug on it. It was bolted shut. She grabbed the lock with her hand and squeezed. The lock broke off and fell to the floor as a mashed up lump of metal. She threw open the door and ran out into the blue mist that surrounded the deck. She heard a great creak and felt the ship rock beneath her, causing her to fall to her feet. She dared a glance backwards into the door.

The wall was gone and so was the creature. It could be anywhere. Mizu resolved to be as quiet as possible as she backed up to the mast of the ship and looked towards the doors that led to the belly of the ship.

Nothing was moving, even the breeze had stopped. Mizu hugged the mast as she began to breathe heavily. "It can't be here." She said to herself, shutting her eyes as she sank to the deck. "It was only in my dreams. It can't be in the real world." She opened her eyes and checked behind her.

"But it is here." She dreadfully realized. "It was in the woods up north. It was in that Crystal Crater before the general attacked me. It was there when I was a baby. It's been here all along." She heard a faint noise and quickly whipped her head in every direction around her. Nothing. The ship was bathed in blue mist so it would have been difficult to make anything out anyway. She heard something again, this time from above.

She looked up to see a large shape, twisting down the pole towards her. It grew larger through the blue mist. It stopped a bit above visibility and began to sway above her. She stepped back as she stared up at he thing staring back at her.

The legs grabbed her feet from bellow, ripping through the deck. Mizu shrieked as the same sucking sound was heard and more legs began to grab at her as the monster thrashed its way to the deck. Mizu shot her hands downward and a jet of flame burst forth, sending her flying and the monster screaming to the depths of the ship. Mizu hit the sand hard as she got up. The ship's side broke open as the centipede like monster charged out of it, heading straight for her. An inhuman screech was heard as it reared its front half and made to get her. She gave a kick and then flick as a wave of sand flipped it over and shot it backwards into the rocks surrounding the ship.

Mizu scrambled to her feet again and began sprinting hard down the beach. She gave a burst of airbending and flew the rest of the way. She would head into the woods and hopefully lose the creature as before. She was almost inside the safety of the woods when she remembered. "My pack! It's still on the ship!" She made to go back but the water split open and the dripping wet monster caught Mizu in the chest. It made to devour her but she summoned another wave of sand to knock the creature over from beneath. She again flew down the beach with her airbending and reached the wrecked ship. She climbed the steep rocks and ran from the deck to the hall where her pack was. She bent down, grabbed it and made to run out.

The monster blocked her path again. She gave a kick and wood closed the entrance. She descended into the bowels of the ship, noticing a larger amount of water than before. "When did this get here?" she asked aloud, not expecting a response from anything. Hoping she would not get a response. She struggled through the floating boxes and jumped into the one she had emptied previously. She closed the lid as she heard another break in the wood. She heard something slither into the water and began to swim around the compartment. Mizu sat in cramped silence as she felt the box shift as the creature passed by it.

She finally heard another splash as she surmised the beast had left to continue its hunt somewhere else. She sighed and went to open the top.

It would not budge.

She kicked on it but felt something much heavier on the lid. Her heart stopped for a moment. The water had risen so high that the box's lid was closed by the roof of the room. She started banging on the dies, not caring that she was drawing attention to her location. The box flipped, causing Mizu to hit the lid and let the water seep in, sinking the box quickly and leaving Mizu with no way out.

She gave a final kick to the box and swam out into the water that had now filled the room. She made to swim out of one of the doors, but the eyelid stopped began the sucking sound again and the water began to shift towards the eyelid and its unknown contents. Mizu spun in a circle and used her water spout to fly out of a window near the ceiling of the ship. She breathed air on the surface and gave a mighty burst as she headed for land and hopefully safety.

Kizu woke up in the middle of the night again, a hot flash having come over him in his pain. A maid hurried to his side and placed a cold wrap on his forehead, cooling him down. "Thank you." Kizu sighed as he lay back down on his coach. The maid curtsied and left through the door. Kizu looked into his dying fire and thought of his brother, some ways away on the farm, doing twice the work now that he was not there. He sat there and wondered what happened to his family after he fled. What had the assassins done? Why were they after him? Where were they now and did they have his family as prisoners? Kizu pressed the wrap to his head further and closed his eyes.

The songbird sang him a quiet lullaby as he drifted off into nightmares of his family. Oma walked over to his side, the bird resting on her finger. She patted his head and took the wrap of. She placed it in a bowl of cool water for the next time he would wake up. She patted his head and walked over to her bed where she blew out her candle and went to bed, her face gazing out of the balcony widnow and the cherry blossom in a vase on her night table.

Mizu walked out of the water and collapsed on the beach. She took in deep breaths as she turned over on the sand, her pack lying on the soft bed beside her. She sat up and put her hands on her knees. She looked to the shipwreck and saw it begin to shift on the rocks. It turned its nose to the sky and fell onto the rocks, shattering on the rocks that had beached it before.

"And down went the ship, crew and all." Mizu gasped as she mockingly put a hand to her heart. "That's what you get for chasing me." Mizu gave a small chuckle and smile…and then it hit her.

The ship was from a larger fleet, probably heading towards the western coast of this large continent. It had come from where that creature had last been seen. "It is following me. It stowed on a ship it knew would be trying to follow me. It was waiting for me in the wilderness at the north. It attacked the ship because it knew I was here!" She grabbed her pack and quickly fled into the woods, running through the branches. Then something else hit her.

"Why did it stop in that Crystal Crater?" She stopped dead in her tracks as she thought it over. She had seen the creature climb the crystal for her, but what after that? The arrow had chipped the crystal by her head and then she turned to see the general, then when she turned to run the monster was gone. So what had happened?

The arrow.

She stopped and began to climb a tree. She leapt from the branches and stopped inside of a large bunch of leaves, the very few left with the advances of the autumn army. Sure enough, the creature appeared, following her trail. Its eyelid was scanning the air trying to make out where she was. It turned to the left, then the right, then straight forward. It blinked and something strange happened.

A face appeared inside of the eyelid. It blinked twice then began to search the foliage closely. Its spindly legs were clicking rapidly as the face now scanned its surroundings. The face disappeared when the eyelid blinked again. A white face with grey circles now appeared.

"Come out, Mizu." The things said. "I just want to meet you. You and I go way back, don't we. You know that." The monster circled the tree and then the general area, scanning wildly for any sign of life. "I don't want to bite, not that hard. Your face belongs to me! I let your parent's faces slip by out of good faith, but you owe me much more." The monster stopped beneath her.

It was there for sure.

An arrow was sticking out of the tip of the 'head'. The arrow had richocheted off the crystal and hit the creature in the head, causing it to flee. But the arrow had never fully gotten itself out of the head, even after a week.

Mizu crouched and waved a hand. A branch began to lengthen below her, right over the monster's 'head'. She thrust her arm in and the branch lowered quickly, driving the arrow deeper into its exo-skeleton.

It shrieked and clawed at the air and began to writhe on the ground. Mizu leapt down and blasted it with a large blast of orange flame. It swiped at her with a leg, but she dodged it. The creature could not think straight with the pain of the arrow in its skull. It whipped its tail around, sending Mizu flying into a tree and falling to the ground. The white face was gone and the eyelid was back.

"Your face is mine!" came an echoed voice. It reared up the legs around its eyelid spindles flexed. It dove at her and Mizu leaned to the side. It ran full into the tree and Mizu gave a final swing with her arm, driving the arrow fully into his skull.

It gave another scream and curled into a ball on the forest floor. :Now I want some answers." Mizu screamed as she stood over the coiling monster. "Who are you? How do you know me? And why are you hunting me?"

The monster heaved a couple of times and then lay still. "Answer me!" Mizu screamed. "Who am I? What do you know?"

The monster looked at her and vanished in a flash of black smoke and blue flash. Mizu was left staring at the empty space. She fell to her knees and began to pat the grass. It had truly vanished. Then she heard the echo voice again.

"I know who you are, but I cannot fully tell you until you know yourself. I was there in the beginning and spared your parent's faces because of the news I bore to them from the Spirits."

"What?" Mizu scanned the trees to see if the creature had returned. "What did you tell them?"

"That is not my job to tell. Another Spirit will tell you that, but with a terrible price. Mizu, daughter of destiny, you are a doomed person. You and I will meet again, and I will be stronger and you will pay for fighting a Spirit. Your disrespect will affect all that walk this earth. My wrath is not to be taken lightly. We will meet again, and you will pay."

The voice faded and Mizu let her head hang low. She could only grab her pack and begin her long walk back to the beach and along the coastline, knowing full well that her next meeting with this spirit would surely be her last.