Chapter Five
Yulia stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the streak of green liquid smeared across the small pile of stones she had set up as a noise trap. Her blood froze in her veins, and she strained against the darkness to try and see if the creature she had injured had returned; her eyes wide. Even with the light of two moons, it was still extremely dark.
She was completely unaware that she was only an arm's length away from it...
Suddenly, she became aware of a new sound. The sound of breathing. She thought perhaps it was her own, so she sucked in a breath and held it. Silently.
The breathing continued.
At this, Yulia's survival instincts told her to remain perfectly still. She relaxed her muscles and then quickly shut her eyes. She continued to breathe, but her breath was quick and frantic, as if she were having a panic attack. She tried her best to calm herself down and convince herself that she would survive this...
The invisible creature saw this as his chance. With her eyes shut, she would lose some of her bearings. In a bold move, the creature fired a single blast out of a weapon on it's shoulder, sending a small streak of blue energy hurdling past Yulia, and landing with a sizzling hiss in the river. As he hoped she would do, Yulia spun around to see what made the noise, exposing her back to the creature.
Yulia's eyes darted to the steam rising from the river. She had not seen or heard where the noise had come from, and was now beginning to feel more frightened than she had felt since waking up in the forest earlier that day. Her heart pounded in her chest like never before. But she remained as still as she could.
The creature could have taken this opportunity to kill her, or even to turn and run. However, his curiosity got the best of him, and he found himself more intrigued with her. In an even bolder move, he took a step towards her, crunching gravel under foot.
Yulia's eyes flew open as the crunch of gravel echoed through the silence. Whatever it was, it was obviously still there, and now she didn't have any weapon to defend herself. She could do nothing except listen to the footsteps as they got heavier and closer.
The invisible creature was now close enough to her that a few dark tendrils of her long dark brown hair danced in the light breeze against his cold metal face mask. She could feel the air displaced by his huge body directly behind her. At this point, she knew that this wasn't some wild animal, but she still didn't know if it was human. It had a wild smell to it, not of sweat or any kind of body odor she was used to, but the scent of blood, and of the forest. She could feel warm breath on her shoulders, causing goosebumps to form up and down the backs of her arms. Every sound in her ears was now of the shifting around of this creature; the sound of bits clanging around, metal rubbing against metal, and steady, heavy breathing. Her eyes widened with fear as she felt warm liquid pooling around her feet. Tilting her eyes down slowly, she saw the green liquid running through the gravel and in between her toes...
The creature was amazed at himself for getting this close to her. Her heat signature was rising, her body obviously going into a panic. From behind the eyes of his helmet, he watched as her body temperature continued to rise. He was tempted to reach out and touch a fingertip to the skin on her back. He could feel her heat penetrating his own skin. In the chill of the night, her warm body caused condensation on the metal of his chest armor. A bead of it trickled down his chest and landed with a plop on the back of her calf. Yulia left out the softest gasp in shock of this sensation.
He was so close...