Enter the Forest

The roadway only continued for another fifty feet ahead of the group before it was devoured by the alien trees. Huge stalk-like trunks ripped through the asphalt, uncaring of any obstruction. Domison could only just make out the shattered chunks of road, still creating the semblance of a path through the newborn alien forest.

Domison looked back at the young couple, "We continue through. I can still make out a path if we follow the torn-up road." The two nodded slightly as the older man continued. " It should keep us on a straight path towards Old Town. From there, you'll have to find your own way."

At his last words, Mel and Michael stopped moving. After several moments of Domison continuing to march down the street, Mel called out after him, "You're just going to leave us when we get into town?! Do you think those monsters or something worse aren't in the city? You can't do thi-"

"Enough," Domison said as he finally came to a halt, "I have my own things to do and shit to figure out. I'll get you as far as the city out of a guilty conscience but after that, I can't be babysitting you two anymore." Before either of the young pair could argue or retaliate, Domison turned. "That's final." He punctuated those final words with a slice of his hand through the air, then turned back towards the treeline and continued marching onwards.

Once the group reached the first of the large trees, the sun had completely set. The darkness that followed allowed them to see a truly wondrous sight. Everywhere that had been colored a red hue in the forest was now glowing. A beautiful red luminescence filtered between long, reaching branches, and the shadows cast on the foliage along the ground swayed in a mesmerizing dance. The fat red leaves that completely shut out the night sky with their size, cast a warm glow down on the nature sheltering underneath their protection.

"This place is stunning," Mel said with a wide, childlike grin. "Can you believe it, Mike?" She began shaking his arm with her last words and hopping in place with giddy excitement, the horror of their new reality fading for a moment.

The young man hadn't taken his eyes off of her since the luminescent glow of the forest had begun playing across her features. 'You're the stunning one,' he thought to himself as he answered lamely aloud, a dumb grin playing across his lips, "Uhhh, uh-huh, su-sure." They only enjoyed a moment of being enamored with the ambiance before Domison raised his voice. The sound of his voice took a second to penetrate above the beating of  a racing heart that filled both their ears.

"-nyways. We'll continue forward for another few hours. If we haven't reached the city by then we can stop. We don't have any supplies to set up a camp, so I guess we will just have to scrounge what we can from our surroundings, as alien as they may be." He looked over his shoulder then, looking at the couple for the first time and seeing a noticeable blush flush both of their faces. "Uhhh, well, let's go then," Domison said with a confused expression as he took in their equally embarrassed visages.

Shaking his head, Domison began forging his way through the hanging vines and dense weave of branches. Whenever the group reached a point they could not continue through the tight packing of plant life, a sword darker than night would appear in Domison's hand and rip through the dense foliage. By the sixth time this had occurred, an irritated voice angrily whispered into Domison's mind.

'That is YOUR soul-bound blade you FOOL. You created that sword with your own essence, empowered by the Abyssal energies gifted to you by the master! It is not a glorified MACHETE you goddamn asshole.'

Domison chuckled lightly, shaking his head before responding, 'Well look who decided to come back. This is what it took for you to get over your tantrum about me saving those two?'

A feeling of absolute affront raged through Domison's psyche. This only caused him to chuckle a bit louder and it started drawing attention from the young couple, who began to whisper amongst themselves. Before Domison could start to make out what they were saying Raze decided to respond, seemingly appalled by Domison's words.

'I was not throwing a TANTRUM. I am an ancient entity older than your goddamn species. You're an infant to me! How dare you-'

Before he could finish his rant, Domison interjected, 'For an ancient entity older than my entire species, you sure know how to throw a fit. You're quite touchy aren't you?' Raze only grumbled to himself in response, 'master help me.' this was the last thing Domison heard before the shadowling's presence dissipated from his mind.

The group continued along, Domison cutting a path through dense underbrush that had sprouted through the cracks in the asphalt. After two hours, sweat had begun streaking ichor down Domison's torso. He came to a stop, hand resting against the trunk of a tree as he panted. The bark was soft under his palm, almost like a velvet material was stretched across its surface.

"We stop here," Domison said once he regained his breath. "If I continue without rest we'll hardly make any additional progress. As beautiful as this light is, I'd prefer some sunlight so I can climb one of those trees and ensure we're still headed in the right direction. Try to gather some scraps of wood or anything that looks like it may be flammable." After twenty minutes of scrounging and labor, a fire began to flicker within the small space between tree trunks, filling it with warmth.

"Tomorrow I'll try to hunt us some food first thing and track down a water source but tonight, we will need to have a watch set. We have no idea what might be in this forest and the fact that we haven't run into anything yet doesn't make me feel any more at ease. I'll keep watch first and we will switch every two hours. If anything happens, and I mean anything at all, you wake me before you do anything else, understood?"

The two nodded, before quickly gathering up the plush bark they had secured as makeshift bedding and falling to sleep minutes later. The first two hours of watch swept by in a blur, Domison clinging to consciousness toward the end. When his internal clock counted down the entire two hours, he shook Mike awake and fell into a patch of stomped-down bedding.

Visions of his silhouetted form, curling around a miniature black hole at his navel, filled his mind as his mind finally began to fade into the abstractness of sleep. In the final moments of his wakeful mind, Domison thought he could feel a slight current flowing from the world around him into his halfway slumbering body.

As Domison slept, the glowing of luminescent plant life seemed to fade. The beautiful green glow started to cast long and sinister in the immediate area and the world around his slumbering form grew slightly darker and slightly colder. It was as though he was absorbing every last drop of energy that came within a hair's breadth of his body and the glow of the forest rushed in to fill the empty place left over. This ravenous absorption of energies created a slight black outline around his form, like a demarcation line between himself and the vegetation surrounding him.