TRIGGER WARNING!:
This chapter's later half will feature the aftermath of sexual assault victim.
By the time they reached the edge of the woods, and broke through the flora that acted as a border to the heavily wooded area, both Ren and Bethany were both red in the face and gasping for air while hunched over beside one another.
Once they were able to regain some of their stamina back, the two children began scouring the ground for props that they would use in their game of pretend; both eventually finding their own branches that they spent time smoothing out, with the use of their own daggers that they kept concealed on them.
Through the use of their colorful imaginations, Bethany pretended to be an elegant sharpshooter, while Ren used his carved branch to take on the role of a gallant knight; the redheaded girl making up a prompt-to narrative of how they were both legendary adventurers, whose inconsistent quests were constantly changing along the way to the creek.
Knowing their way around the woods that were only fifteen minutes away from their village by foot, the confident sense of direction Ren and Bethany both had allowed them to immerse themselves in their game of make believe. And upon reaching the shallow shores of the creek, the two eagerly removed their socks and shoes before rolling up their pant sleeves up their legs.
Much to her credit, Bethany was practically unphased as she hopped into the foot-deep tide— laughing away the icy discomfort she felt, even as droplets of the creek's water flew upward and soaked into her black denim overalls.
"INCOMINGGGG!" Bethany shouted as loud as she could— somersaulting straight into the water, and sending a soaring wave of icy cold water toward Ren.
Wincing and clenching his jaw, Ren went wide-eyed and took a shaking breath as he felt the cold water beginning to seep into his entire front of his long-sleeved shirt.
Kneeling down on one knee and holding her stick like it was a musket, Bethany made a "KAPOW" sound under breath— imitating the sound of gunfire. Pretending that she was in highly stressful situation, Bethany muttered under her breath in a gruff voice, "Heck, I gotta freakin' reloaded," before beginning to move her hands around— as though she were adding more gunpowder and primer to her pretend musket, after having done the motions to show that she had rammed an iron ball down the barrel of her firearm.
And while Ren was slowly treaded deeper into the creek and poorly accumulating to how cold the water was that day, Bethany pretended to act shocked as she reached into her denim overalls with her freehand— making a pretend flintlock pistol with her index finger and thumb extended outward, before shouting out, "Watch your six!"
With how dedicated Bethany was to her role, Ren actually dove forward— remembering that they were only playing, after he heard the redhead making another explosion noise with mouth.
Blowing the invisible smoke from the tip of her finger, Bethany slid her pretend flintlock back underneath her black overalls before splashing her way over to pick the wide-eyed boy up from the now ankle-deep water.
"Look alive, Sir Knight! There's evil, demonic zombie-clowns surrounding us; it's an ambush, I say— AN AMBUSH!" Bethany screamed out loud dramatically, before ducking and turning around to swing the butt of her stick out towards the air— pretending to bash one of the aforementioned undead clowns in his red nose, before taking a step back and yelling out, "POW!"
Experiencing second hand excitement from how much enjoyment he was getting from just Bethany's acting alone, Ren steadied his hand around the lower half of his branch— holding it out in front of him like a greatsword, and taking a defensive stance as he raised his pretend weapon up above his head.
"SEI! KEAH!" Ren shouted without holding back at all— slashing through the air, while envisioning himself chopping through several demonic clowns, each time he swung his branch out.
Battling the forces of evil and trickery, Ren and Bethany had their backs to one another throughout the entire two minutes of them shouting and pointing their branches at thin-air. Eventually though, it became apparent to Bethany that a change of scenery was needed.
"This is useless! We're sitting ducks out here!" The redhead shouted in a pretend voice that conveyed a sense of urgency and dread. "Tch, we need to go upstream! I think that's where the treasure of the Fairy Queen is!" Bethany declared, while using improv to further advance their imaginative quest.
"R-Right! I'll go first!" Ren declared bravely, and felt more empowered than he did since he felt humiliated by the guardsmen earlier. Raising the grip of his branch up close to his right shoulder, Ren sprinted through the creek— splashing, and kicking up large droplets of water that got on both him, and Bethany.
Following behind Ren with one hand grabbing the invisible stock underneath the barrel of her pretend musket— and the other resting on the grip, and near its trigger— Bethany had to stiffen a few giggles, from how cold the water felt when it got on her face.
"Teh, hehe…! S-Sir Knight! What's up ahead?!" Bethany asked, while cracking an immersion breaking grin— one that soon went away easily on its own, after accidentally bumping into the back of Ren, when he suddenly came to a skidding halt.
Stunned from the acute pain that was radiating from where she had bumped her nose against the back of his head, Bethany was able to regain her balance after having knocked Ren forward— causing her to fall right on top of him, as his entire front became submerged in the creek.
Having plunged head deep beneath the surface of the fridge water, Ren had accidentally inhaled a mouthful of its foul tasting liquid— causing him to immediately begin choking, and begin panicking as Bethany's added weight made it hard for him to resurface.
Thankfully for him, Bethany was not only able to pick herself up off of him shortly after he began suffocating, but she even managed to pull him up from the water and back onto his feet— wrapping her arms behind him, before performing a heimlich maneuver to help expel the water from his airways.
Needing only a few strong compressions to clear his lungs, Bethany continued to use her upper body strength to keep Ren balanced as he gasped for breath— quickly inhaling and exhaling small amounts of air, as she felt his entire body tremble in her hold.
"It's okay, it's okay; I gotcha— you're alright," she said reassuringly in a comforting voice, all the while wincing and scrunching up her nose, as she felt lightly trickles of blood beginning to run down her already soaked upper lip.
Although he was still shaken up from what she could tell while still holding him from behind, once it became apparent that he was more stable, it was then that the redheaded child finally decided to ask him, "Hey, uh…?! W-Why did you stop like that, all of a sudden?! Did you actually see something, like for real, or-"
"-Shhh…!" Ren interrupted in a trembling voice— after finally building up the courage to speak. "L… Look over there, t-to the right," the gray-haired boy whispered in a genuinely frightened voice that made the hairs on the back of Bethany's neck stand up.
Now holding onto Ren's waist for an entirely different reason, Bethany swallowed the sudden lump that had quickly built inside of her small throat— her small and numb fingers tightening around the wet fabric of the boy's soaked shirt, as she slowly, and hesitantly leered her head over his left shoulder.
There, near the shore of the creek ahead, laid a sideways trunk of a long fallen evergreen tree— a landmark amongst many others around the woods that would have been easily glossed over, had it not been for the copious amounts of dried blood that was splattered along its bark facing toward their direction.
While normally such a grizzly scene could chalked up as simply being the aftermath of a predator shedding the blood of its prey, what set the current instance of violence apart from anything else the two children had previously stumbled upon in the woods was the fact that there was a small body slumped over the fallen evergreen— long strands of brown hair dangling past their face, which of course concealed their identity.
Frozen in place, it wasn't until he felt Bethany beginning to loosen her grip from his shirt did Ren suddenly find himself taking action. "Wait," he whispered quietly while still facing in the direction of what looked to them to be the corpse of a child. "S… S-Stay here, alright…?"
Conflicted as to what to do, Bethany let out a low whimper as she turned her eyes away from the fallen tree— staring worryingly at Ren, who slowly pried his own gaze away from the small body, to look back at her with an equally unnerved expression on his pale face.
"Y…?! Y-You're not actually considering going over there to CHECK that, a-are you…?!" Bethany whispered back with exasperated and concern in her hushed voice, before subtly raising her hand slightly out past Ren's shoulder to point at the aforementioned slumped over body.
After no immediate response from him, the redhead's pink eyes grew wide with dread, as she threw her arms up and quietly exclaimed, "Oh god...! Y-You totally are, aren't you…?!"
Slowly nodding his head in an apologetic manner, Ren offered his distressed best friend a gentle and cathartic smile, as he argued with her, "What if they're still alive, Beth…? They don't look that big from here, and… And maybe we can bring them to your farm— have your father take a look at them, and tend to their wounds…?"
Looking at the eleven year-old like he was off his rocker, Bethany scowled at him with a bewildered expression across her dripping wet face. "Did you hit your head or something when I knocked you over, Ren…?! Don't you see all that blood— there isn't any way that whoever, or whatever, is still alive…!"
Not letting that deter him— even though the overwhelming logical part of him agreed with Bethany's observation— Ren stared empathetically into Bethany's puzzled and frightened eyes, and let out a quiet sigh before speaking quietly.
"Chances are, you're probably right Beth… But even so, it's a man's job to protect women— and that certainly looks like a girl, doesn't it…?" Ren asked— sounding at first as though he was making a rhetoric, before beginning to actually ask Bethany her input, as he really couldn't tell from how far away they were standing. "D… D-Doesn't it…?"
Unable to help herself, Bethany face-palmed after hearing what her best friend had just said— immediately regretting it after, as her already injured nose squirted out a small stream of blood after doing so. "Eugh, ow…!" Bethany groaned, and let out a gruff groan as she pulled her slightly bloodied hand away from her bleeding nostrils.
Stuck between feeling the urgency of inspecting whoever was slumped over the fallen tree, and wanting to make sure Bethany wasn't too badly hurt, Ren began slowly walking forward with his head still turned over his shoulder— giving the annoyed and frustrated redhead a concerned glance, as he asked quietly, "Are you okay…?"
Instead of giving him the answer he would have wanted, Bethany shot him a dirty look before gesturing frantically toward him and the body with furrowed eyebrows. "N-No, not really…! My nose freakin' hurts, you're misquoting guys you just met today, and you're trying to act all macho, and crap…! And for what…?! To prove to yourself that you're not scared— that you're a "tough guy"?!"
"Bethany, I-"
"-Newsflash, Ren: you're not fooling anyone; you're STILL just a kid— whether you want to believe that, or not…!" Bethany snapped with as loud of a voice as she was willing to broadcast— tears beginning to trickle down from the corners of her narrowed eyelids, as her extended hands began to tremble.
"But that's okay…! You're scared, I'm scared— everyone gets scared, Ren— and it's usually ourselves who make us feel the worse about feeling that way…! But you…?! You have a tendency to be more hard on yourself than you have any right to be— and that needs to stop, before you end up like THEM one day…!" Bethany vented accusingly; saying things she had been holding back on saying for a while, and immediately raised her finger up sternly to cut Ren off, before he could get a single word in.
Exhaling a deep breath, and calming her nerves the best as she could— knowing that there was possibly a corpse of a child within walking distance of them— Bethany took a moment to wipe her eyes along the sleeve of her white blouse she had on underneath her overalls.
"… We might have just been playing pretend out here, Ren, but… If either "Sharpshooter" or "Sir Knight" were facing those demonic zombie clowns alone, they wouldn't have stood a chance without one another looking out for each other's backs," Bethany explained methodically while trying to lighten the mood for not only her sake, but Ren's sake as well; as she could tell from the way that he was avoiding eye contact with her, in favor of staring at the rippling waters below, that her words struck a chord inside him.
Taking a step closer towards him and reaching down to grab his trembling hand into hers, Bethany gently squeezed her fingers around his as the two of them stared down at their conjoined hands. "Besides… One kid with a sharp stick isn't all that intimidating," she mused half-jokingly, before lifting his hand up to the level of their chest to capture his teary-eyed gaze into hers. "But two kids with two sharp sticks…? Now that's a party…!"
Though what she said half-jokingly certainly did carry a unnerving weight to it, it was still enough to finally crack a smile across Ren's still dripping wet face— his eyelids momentarily closing as he let out a soft chuckle, before slowly opening them to lock eyes with his best friend.
"T… Thank you, Beth… I… I guess maybe I, uh… I-I needed to hear that; even if you did hurt my feelings," Ren said half-playfully with a throaty chuckle— causing Bethany to roll her pink eyes jokingly at him, before squeezing his hand once again.
"Heh, yeah…! M-Maybe I was just a SMIDGE too hard on ya," Bethany admitted while agreeing with Ren, as her wet cheeks began to quickly turn a shade of pink. "S-Sorry about that, hehe…!"
"And to think, you accused ME as being the one who was too hard on myself… Oh, the irony," Ren continued joking— the two of them finally warding off the lingering discomfort and fear that had struck them in their hearts, ever since first stumbling upon the grizzly sight.
Despite the bizarre circumstances, Ren was beginning to feel better about himself than when he first entered the woods— even as he turned his head over his shoulder, to give the slumped body another contemplative glance.
"In any case… If whoever did… THAT to them was still lurking around, they would have attacked us by now," Ren reasoned, as reality began creeping back into their adolescent minds— although, their raised spirits, combined with the initial shock of having first seen the body having worn off by that point certainly did play a key factor as to why they were far more level headed then how most adults would be, in that given situation.
"Heh, true— very true," Bethany muttered with a quiet sigh, and couldn't help but to chuckle humorlessly as she joked, "We should probably go see if they're alive, like you said; that's if they didn't die while I was yelling at you— that would have sucked for them…!"
Although he was more ready to inspect the body than he had been before Bethany put him into his place, Ren would have lied if he said turning around with the intention of actually approaching the aforementioned body wasn't giving him cold feet.
But even so, with Bethany's hand still in his, Ren led her as they both approached the bloodied evergreen tree that was lying a meter along the shore of the creek ahead— neither one daring to let go, as they nervously threaded through the cold water.
Upon getting closer, it was then that both children took immediate notice of the way the body's bloodied and cut-up hands appeared— short fingers laid open and curled inward, with twinges of light green visible through the few areas along her knuckles that were soaked in dried and brown material.
"They… T-They don't smell like they're rotting, d-do they…?" Bethany asked with growing nausea beginning to form in the pit of her stomach.
"I… I-I wouldn't even recognize that smell— even if they were the case," Ren nervously replied, and began overthinking the possibility of them approaching a diseased body that was in the late state of decay.
Holding her breath and stiffening a gag, Bethany let out a disgusted groan before muttering, "I know what that smells like— which is why I'm not gonna risk it…!"
"F-Fair enough, Beth…" Ren responded in a slightly nasally voice, as he started to breathe out of his mouth as well.
Once they approached the fallen tree where the body laid, Ren's heart by that point was thumping hard enough for Bethany to hear, over the sound of his shallow and shaking breaths he was taking in-and-out— his mouth feeling dry and his legs bucking from underneath him, as he cautiously used the blunt side of his stick to push aside the body's long strands of hair.
"Is…?! I-Is that a…?! I-Is that a g-goblin…?!" Bethany asked with sincere confusion in her voice, as she titled and narrowed her eyelids while leaning her head over Ren's shoulder to get a better look at the body's beaten, and bloodied face— the abnormal amounts of swelling beneath their facial skin making them genuinely indistinguishable from a human and a monster. "Really— I can't tell...!"
"I... I don't know..." He muttered back in an uneasy voice, and became deep in focus while trying his hand at identifying exactly what they were staring it. "I... I think its nose is supposed to look like that...? M-Maybe not THAT bad, but-"
Before he could finish his thoughts, Ren flinched and stumbled backward from the sudden loud gasp he heard escaping from Bethany's mouth; the gray-haired boy nearly tripping over where she had accidentally dropped her makeshift spear into the water, as the two splashed around loudly while flailing their limbs in an attempt to regain their balance.
"W-What?! W-What happened?!" Ren asked with a flabbergasted look across his face— his naturally monotone voice betraying the sheer confusion and anxiety he felt in that moment, as he spun around to be greeted with a look of absolute shock across Bethany's face— her usual tannish skin now as pale as his.
With her hand raised up to cover her gaped mouth, Bethany's widened eyes and small pupils were practically staring right through her concerned best friend, as she silently kept staring in the direction of the slumped over body before slowly lowering her trembling hand down.
"Beth?! Hey, h-hey— t-talk to me, okay…?! You're starting to freak me ou-"
"-It o-opened…! T-That thing's eye— i-it opened…!" Bethany finally uttered out in a panicked whisper, and started to point frantically with her free hand toward its direction. "T-They're alive, Ren…! I-I don't know how, b-but they're hanging on…!"
Processing his best friend's sudden anecdotal, Ren felt a chill coursing down his back as he and Bethany both froze simultaneously— the sound of incoherent crying and frantic, but weak, screams alerting them of that whoever they stumbled upon the fallen evergreen tree was not only alive, but was in bloodcurdling agony.
"H…! He…! H-Help…!"
"H-Help m-me…! Help m-e…! H-He-e-e-e-lp…!"
"Oh g-god...! He-e-elp me— p-ple-ea-easeeee…!"
Still taking precaution— yet unable to ignore the helpless cries of what was clearly a female being that was in such distress— Ren and Bethany let go of one another's head to rush over to the tormented soul's aid.
With Bethany taking the lead and Ren assisting with administering what she knew about first aid to the three-foot tall creature, it wasn't long until the two of them made the horrific discovery of what cruel and ill fate had fallen upon what they believed to be a goblin.
Not only was her entire back grosteusly covered in deep gashes and burn marks, but unlike her upper body, her entire bottom half was bare naked— her bottom beaten black-and-blue with hundreds of cuts slashed across her flesh. What was most disgusting about the stomach churning sight wasn't the apparent knife wounds and burn marks that littered her backside, but rather what they saw of her defiled vaginal folds; thick, copious amounts of blood mixed in with a milky substance that Bethany recognized as semen. still dripping out from her stretched out genitalia.
Knowing better than to use the creek water to wipe away her wounds, Bethany used their shaved branches to create a transport stretcher, using Ren's shirt and her blouse to create a stretched out fabric for the whimpering goblin to lay flat down upon.
Careful to keep her in a similar position as to how they found her, Bethany and Ren began rushing as fast as they could out of the forest— the two of them unintentionally finding the mutilated remains of other goblins along the way, which only further upset the already barely alive one they were trying to rescue.
On top of all the horrific sights they had been forced to endure along their mission to do what they knew was right, the final straw that brought the two of them to the brink of despair was having to hear the female goblin using her strained vocal cords to scream out for those who she clearly recognized and loved.
The most impactful and soul-quaking parts of that terrible experience was listening to her hysterically trying to shriek out for her "mama" and her "papa".
Neither crying child stopped running while carrying her, until they reached the vicinity of the Heim Famiy's farmhouse. Having heard the commotion long before the two kids even reached the front porch, Bethany's parents and her uncle came rushing outside— all three adults were left speechless at the unspeakable sight that awaited them.