Corruption

Running through the forest I tried to avoid straight lines and choose to zig zag through the area. Once or twice I climbed trees leaping from one to another to hide my footsteps. I faintly heard Kana screaming in the back of my mind to save the people we left but I ignored her, I wasn't going to get myself killed over strangers regardless of how kind they were.

After an hour of running I stopped looking around I saw nothing but large trees. I spun around trying to figure out where I came from but a thin mist now covered the floor and in the tops of the trees hiding the exact position of the moon. I choose a random direction and began to quick walk, watching my surroundings.

Placing my hand on a tree, my hand sunk into the bark as if it was turned to mush. Pulling my hand back left a sticky residue over my palm that I quickly cleaned off on my pants. The spot I touched came loose and slowly slid down the tree, looking up cancerous looking bulges dotted the trunk and the leaves looked withered and black.

Looking at the rest of the tree showed the same bulges and I tried to avoid any more contact with the weird plants. I heard a slithering behind me but when I looked I didn't see anything the, thick fog covering the area made it hard to see past a certain point. Continuing I tried to keep on ear out for any other sounds. I heard the sound again but it was much further this time, sighing in relief I moved.

I heard the sound of water running and I made my way in that direction, I could follow the stream out of here.

The sound grew louder and I found what looked to be a thick liquid of unknown composition running down what was once a stream. Sniffing the air didn't tell me anything and I wasn't going to touch it and find out. Walking a good distance away from the stream I followed the flow down into the fog. For what felt like an hour or two I continued to follow the stream, the sound of slithering and wet plops became more and more frequent as I walked but try as I might I was unable to locate the source.

In the end the liquid ran into the center of a small clearing, the trees made a near perfect circle, their knotted roots and bulbous trunks making it hard to see past them. Walking out into the clearing I felt that the ground was softer here, and squishing sounds could be heard as I walked.

As I drew closer to the center the sound of slithering in the trees around the clearing grew louder and faintly I could her a woman's voice. Listening closely I tied to catch the words "me" I waited and listened as I moved the voice became more clear "Help me"

The voice was like a whisper, a haunting sound that sent shivers down my spine. Distracted by my thoughts I almost failed to notice an extremely large tree in the center of the clearing. Looking down I saw that the stream ran right into the trees roots where a small hole drained the viscous fluid into its depths.

I looked to the other side of the tree only to find the area clear of the strange liquid, what ever this was it ended here. "Help me" the voice echoed again, sounding like hundreds of people were talking over each other. The noise repeated itself "Help me, Help Me, HELP ME" getting louder with each passing until it bacame a scream that demanded to be heard. The rustling began, trees swayed violently and the enormous tree in the center begun to pulse strongly as if it was an enormous heart.

Looking up into the branches I saw what looked like cocoons of various sizes. The largest was the size of a black bear while the smallest looked to be about the size of a hare. With the pulsing of the tree and the rumbling from the trees one of the larger cocoons fell and burst open on the ground.

Liquid like that of congealed blood burst from the inside coating the ground in a massive amount of red. Inside hundreds of blood covered rabbits spilled across the clearing, one by one they began to twitch.

Their eyes opened revealing sapphire spheres, their mouths lined with jagged, sharp teeth. As one they froze and slowly looked my direction, trying to summon my mana, I realized it was still sluggish. Cursing I turned and ran up stream. Reaching the edge of the clearing I ran as fast as I could before halting my mad dash. Sliding across the slick ground I stopped inches away from a wall of tree roots and branches, the tips pointed inward as if to stab me if I tried pushing onwards.

A cacophony of help me came from the hoards mouths, but never in unison. Their voiced overlapped one another as they slowly made their way in my direction. Pulling out the Dagger given to me before I jumped out the mansions wimdow, I readied to defend myself. I doubted they would play nice and go one at a time, I hated being on the defensive and would have rather rushed in blade singing. But without a sword in hand, I felt inadequate, the Dagger was too light and short to be comfortable.

The first one leapt at me mouth open wide and I swung my blade into its open jaw. Right after a second one leapt for my hips and I have it a round house kick sending it crashing into the center of the hoard. This irritated them and they began screeching at the top of their lungs before rapidly jumping at me with a single minded ferocity.

One by one I punchef, kicked, stabbed and stomped the little critters into mush. After each kill, they desolved into the same nasty liquid the stream was filled with. Only small white bones were left behind, remnants of what was once living creatures of the forest. The stench was sickening, unable to hold my stomach I retched onto the blood soaked ground. I watched as my vomit was quickly absorbed into the ground, the way the earth just rippled was unsettling and I hoped it didn't happen to me.

For a short while the entire forest was deathly silent, not even the wind wanted to interrupt the moment. Then all the trees shook at once and th center tree pulsed violently, a slight red glow coming from the inside. The fuzzy outlines of various skulls flowed rapidly within the tree, many were the skulls of humans mixed in with creatures of the forest. Bones like femurs, thighs and horns also filled the cocktail of nastiness.

A red mist begun to fall from the tips of the large tree and the largest cocoon in the batch fell from the tree. It landed behind the large oak, the sound of an egg breaking and a large spray of the blood like substance covered the floor. The liquid slowly dissolved into the ground. The trees around the spill pulsed to the beat of the central tree, creating a pulsing wave.

This time I didn't see anything mixed in with the oozing blood pool. That was until a wet slurping plop came from the other side of the tree a slow. Squish plop, squish plop slowly made its way around the tree. I held my breath and quickly checked the clearing wall for an escape but none was found. I did however notice that while I was distracted a vine oddly shaped like a noose was hanging behind my head. The perfect size to loop over my head and tighten around my neck, one more step and I would have effectively hung myself. The inside of the noose had sharp thorns that would have been extremely painful if I was caught.

Started by that I took several steps away from the wall of vines, I between a few of the vine and eyes blinked open before closing. A deep growl came from behind me and I spun on my heels. A large blood covered face stated back at me.

The massive beast was easily three or four times my size and it vaguely reminded me of someone but I could place my finger on it. The massive man's skin bubbled and bulged until he rippled into an enormous grizzly bear, it's sapphire blue eyes a stark contrast to its blood colored skin. It was missing one eyes and it looked ready to pounce. I bent my legs and readied my blade.

I suddenly recognized the man, he was my kidnapper Max the Demi-Human bear hybrid clenching my jaw at that memory I took a step back. 'I guess I get my revenge after all but this wasn't exactly how I envisioned it going down'