In The Trees

TING!

I erupted from the ground and spiraled in the air. Before my feet could even touch the ground, my eyes began scanning the dome-home in front of me. Below, Isaac had awoken, his hairy chest exposed to the grim night.

With his sword in hand, he deflected an arrow. The arrow ricocheted to the ground joining a sea of arrows that Isaac had deflected already. But as my eyes flowed from the ground to Isaac's sword, then to his chest, I finally saw the two arrows lodged in the burly man.

One arrow tore through his thigh, not the center thank god, but completely pierced the outer edge, its arrowhead shimmering from the other side. The second arrow dug into Isaac's left shoulder, but it must have hit bone, as the arrow failed to escape from the other side.

Without fully analyzing the situation, I sprinted forward and charged down into the dome-home! As I ran, I noticed the black rock above shifting and warping in strange ways. Before I made it to my teammates though, a body dropped in front of me.

I leaped back and my arms sharpened instinctively, but before attacking the cretin, I realized its figure was too large to be a Goblin! Haphazardly approaching it to get a better look, I quickly recognized the dirty hair that Jenny wore so proudly.

I grabbed her shoulder, pulling her towards me to see the front of her.

"Jenny?!" I shook her.

I put my ear against her chest.

BOOM!

White light! Incessant ringing!

My shoulder slammed into something hard and I felt something crack! Then, I got the sensation I was falling and the same, fucked up arm, hit something hard again!

My shoulder dislocated!

But the white light finally started fading so I began to tear at my eyes, wiping the tears before they got a chance to fall again. As my vision cleared, sound started to filter into my ears and the first thing I felt was the violent shaking of my body!

"CAIN!" Olive screamed.

But I couldn't hear her yet. I couldn't function yet.

Olive pushed her hands between my arms, she snuggled her elbows right underneath my armpits. Clasping her hands together, she lunged backwards and began pulling me away.

With clarity returning to my eyes, I peered through my bobbing consciousness and gazed at the dome-home I was so fond of. A Goblin had its teeth in Cole's neck. Another snapped its crazed jaw onto his stomach, ripping his intestines from his body in one fell swoop. And those were only the two that had sunk their teeth into him, as beyond him, Goblin's piled on top of one another. They hung from the roots above, climbed along the walls, they converged like monkeys – only they were green and held razor sharp bone daggers.

Then, I looked for Lily and a small smile crept up my lips.

Thank god she's so small.

Huddled in a ball beneath Isaac's legs, Lily covered her head and buried her face into the dirt. With one of her hands pushed into the ground beside her, five flowers bloomed behind Isaac. It was a flower I had never seen before, its petals white.

"It's ready!" Lily screamed, her voice shaky and crackling, her life likely flashing before her eyes.

Hearing her signal, Isaac spun around with his sword extended. Remember, one of his shoulders had been neutralized, so without his dual-wielding, Isaac is much worse at defending oncoming attacks.

But with one sword remaining, he slashed horizontally, cutting into the necks of the approaching horde and slashing the five flowers' stems in conjunction.

Immediately upon severance, white light exploded underneath the night! Strangely though, the burst of light had no effect on sound. Typically, flashbangs produce some sort of mind-hazing or ringing effect, but this white light did no such thing.

Allowed the graciousness to use my ears, I continued to receive a vivid description of my surroundings without sight.

"Now RUN Lily!" Isaac's voice boomed through the white light the moment it appeared.

Grabbing Lily's arm, Isaac dragged her to her feet and began sprinting towards us. Realizing Lily was too slow, Isaac launched the blonde girl onto his shoulders and made a run for it.

Amidst the distraction of the white light, I picked myself up and prepared to run alongside everyone else. I crept forward, still leaning on Olive's shoulder, when a feeling of electricity shot down my hamstring and snapped my ankle up.

Oh I'm not okay!

Noticing the light fading, I looked back to find Isaac, but I couldn't see anything other than a sea of swarming, rubbery flesh. I kept running forward, only a handful of steps behind Olive who's now running parallel to me, but on the other side of an expanse of growing trees.

I looked back again, taking a noticeably longer time to absorb the chaos that preceded me. And although I wanted to check on Isaac's and Lily's situation, the strange movement within the darkness captured my attention overwhelmingly. Luckily, just then, one of Isaac's miraculous luminescent sword blasts shot into the sky, illuminating the wall of stone and the tree entangled within it.

The leaning black slab of stone was covered in Goblins with barely any splotches of black remaining. Above the stone, Goblin's jumped from the trees to the stone as the sheer height of the wall far exceeded the growth of the trees. Tracing their descent from the tree, my eyes widened in horror.

The fucking trees!

"Left! Left! Left!" Isaac's voice roared over the battlefield, through the thick jungle trees and the web of foliage that hung from them.

Responding to Isaac's order, I immediately veered left. Arriving next to me, Olive matched my pace and we sprinted into the unexplored jungle. As we ran, Isaac and Lily eventually caught up. By making Olive and I turn left, all Issac and Lily had to do was continue running straight and our lines would eventually intersect like so.

"What do we do!?" Olive yelled, our ears still buggy from the blast earlier.

"The river!" Isaac replied restless, "It's faster than the Goblins! And it'll erase our scent!"

Olive looked at me and I nodded my head.

That makes sense to me!

Bleeding heavily, ravaged and spit on, we ran through the jungle. The electricity in my leg eventually went away, but to be fair, the entirety of my left leg has gone numb. I'm pretty sure the only reason it's continuing to move is solely thanks to perpetual motion. I fear the moment I stop – I won't be able to start again.

Beside myself, Isaac is also torn and abused. The two arrows continued to mangle his body to shreds, well – the arrow lodged in his knee is slowly approaching freedom. Each stride Isaac takes is another slash from the arrowhead, slicing the skin and meat around his knee until there'll be nothing left.

Meanwhile, the arrow penetrated in his shoulder is, too, continuing to wreak havoc. Running at his max capacity, Isaac is essentially forced to move his shoulders to and fro, in stride with the exchange of motion within his body. And with each gallop, Isaac is able to feel the tip of the arrowhead scrape against his bone, carving into it, stripping it ever so gently of its toughness.

Also, here's another downside of Lily's Ability while we're at it – can't exactly grow flowers while running for your life!

Maybe she can carry around a pot of soil?

"Jump!" Isaac commanded, signifying we had made it to the river and now, only a single leap delayed us.

Without even thinking, I looked to my right and grabbed Olive's wrist. Then, I stepped on the edge of the cliff overlooking the river beneath. For some reason, on this world, the water glows at night. Maybe there's some sort of fungus that absorbs sunlight during the day and emits it at night or a bacteria in the water with similar properties as lightning bugs.

It didn't matter, because either way, the scene before me could only be described as magical.

A ravine of luminescent, golden water tore through the skyscraper tree's around. Above the river, stretched atop its roaring rapids, vines and fruits adorned the sky – all grown from the monstrous jungle trees.

Beyond the foreground, the river and the trees, the impending sense of doom that I won't let ruin this once-in-a-lifetime moment, stood the moon – perfectly encased between the towering trees. The moon, robustly large, occupied the sky. Its presence toppled the darkness as a brilliant golden glow painted the surface. It was then, that not just the water, but the leaves and flowers, flora of all kinds, began to produce their own golden radiance.

Mesmerized, my body acted on its own, and I leapt into the air with Olive. Then, our bodies quickly plummeted into the surging depths of the Enchanted River below.

I'm not sure how long it took, but the sick sense of endlessly floating in the water, rocking back and forth, eventually subsided and once it had I felt my consciousness get pulled away. The suction force was weak at first, but it very quickly multiplied to a strong pull on both my mind and body.

Before falling unconscious, however, a soft voice bid me farewell with some not so comforting words:

[Resuming System Integration]

And with that, my consciousness got cut.

***

A sharp pain erupted within my chest. Immediately, I burst up and bent over. A tsunami of water exploded past my lips and crashed into the ground. Coughing and crying, my lungs burned and my body felt pathetically cold and weak.

Wiping the spit from my face, I began to collect myself and cast my eyes towards my surroundings.

Barren land. Orange, dry soil for as far as the eye could see. A dull, lifeless sky hung above me. Not a single cloud or bird to be seen. Struggling to stand, as my muscles ached from the bruises and exhaustion, I gathered the strength to shout aloud.

"Hello?! Olive?!"

But unfortunately, nobody returned my outcry. Nobody alive at least.

[System Integration Complete]

[Materializing System Avatar]

Then, with the flat and barren land behind, a rip in space appeared before me. The black tear caused ripples in reality as the air and earth naturally bent to its will. From within the tear, a small black paw pushed out.

Then a chest, head, and legs. The tear suddenly closed and space returned to normal.

The small creature raised its paw and scratched its head, almost like it was confused, as it scanned our surroundings. With unnaturally large eyes, red like blood, the creature looked up at me and smiled revealing an endless sea of crazed fangs.

But for some reason, I didn't feel afraid. I didn't feel any sense of unfamiliarity at all.

The small creature walked closer to me and extended its paw, mimicking a handshake. Maybe it's because I've already died twice, but I bent my waist and grabbed its paw, shaking the little guy's hand.