A Horrific Figure

The air felt like it was boiling, so much that it was difficult to breathe. With every breath, it felt as if her lungs were burning.

The harsh environment had Aaliyah waking up within minutes of being inside. Her eyes flew open, but she was still in a daze as she pushed herself to stand up straight before the scorching ground burnt her face and arms.

Although she could do nothing about her legs and couldn't find her shoes anywhere.

A sudden whiff of air caught her attention and she turned around sharply to see what was there, but the place was just silent and empty.

She gazed around, wondering how she had ended up in a forest like this. Most of the trees here had no leaves at all, but the ones that did have leaves had gigantic ones... enough to serve her as shoes.

It was now clear to her that this wasn't a dream, and she was completely alone and scared. Yuan's warning about her being in danger never left her mind for a second, and Liya quickly made work of plucking off some leaves to serve as shoes.

She cut off some vines too and tied them around her leg, the leaves serving as soles to protect her feet.

Aaliyah had tried her best to ignore it, but she couldn't anymore. Not when it was so much that she was beginning to scratch her skin to reduce the chills and crawls running up and down her skin.

Her eyes shifted left and right, up and down, trying to see where it was coming from exactly but she couldn't pinpoint the direction. Her guts told her to scream for help and just run in any direction, but her head told her to be mindful of any noise she would make.

This place was dangerous. Dark...and dangerous.

And so, she remained glued to the tree. Praying in her heart that whatever will happen, she should come alive and in one piece. The last thing she remembered was Yuan telling her about her neighbor right before the light was snatched away from her eyes.

"If you had sold those pearls, you would have become rich and wouldn't have had to live like a slave growing up," A voice drifted past her, shrieking with wicked laughter as it went.

Aaliyah's scare tripled, and she grabbed the tree as if that would protect her. What the hell was that?

The next horrifying laughter came from within the tree she had been gluing herself to, and that was enough for Liya to break into a run with her foot almost touching her back. Her breathing was ragged, and her hair danced in the wind behind her as she ran like hell.

She couldn't trust these trees again.

Aaliyah ran and ran until she tripped and fell. There, she laid on her back, trying to catch her breath while staring at the sky. There, as time passed by, she realized...this forest had no sky.

The trees were so tall they stretched till no end, and the darkness up ahead shielded everything else from sight. It looked like...an endless void that just swarmed the place.

She could tell by just looking.

But...how?!

Oh... right. Of course, how could she forget about the bizarre gifts she was born with? Or maybe she developed them over time because she was always stuck in the dark? Aaliyah didn't know, but she knew she could see things that others couldn't.

Her eyes were sharper than a blade.

But, she's always ignored it. She told herself the eerie things she could see that others couldn't just simply hallucinations due to the horrible life she's been living, that it's affected her so mentally deep.

A low and creepy whistle had her on her feet once again, but it was coming from all around her.

"You're in our territory now... Aaliyah," The voice said again, and the whistle followed behind, "But don't worry, we will treat you very specially...since you're a special one,"

Aaliyah did not like the sound of that, "I'm not special at all," she replied.

The voice giggled, and then it was gone.

Nothing could have prepared Aaliyah for what came next. The pump of adrenaline, cascade of goosebumps, and gasps of breath crashed into her all at once, and it dispersed from her mind that she had warned herself to avoid the trees

In mere seconds, she was hiding behind one while struggling to control her shaky breaths and feet.

Something...was out there.

A horrific figure. It did not appear anything like a human.

A monster. She had seen it climbing up a tree, and it had been huge. Yet...it had made no noise.

Had it seen her? She had no idea.

Peeking from behind the tree to see it again, she found it still moving around the tree like a snake. It had double red eyes on each side of its face, multiple arms that gripped the bark of the tree hard, and its skin was made of scales. Most of all, it blended perfectly with the darkness and still hadn't made a sound.

At that moment, Aaliyah recalled something like it in the book Yuan had read to her. They were one of the creatures that only came out at night, and we're nothing but dangerous. They lived away from others, and mostly lived and hunted in groups.

The Dark Creatures...The Nightwalkers.

But they're not real. All those things Yuan had read to her, none of it was real. None of it...was real?!

Aaliyah clutched her heart, begging it to stop slamming against her chest. It just couldn't be real. Only humans existed in this world. The huge thing crawling around that tree can only be a snake... but what kind of snake is that?

Like...it was patiently waiting for her. For the perfect time to attack.

Her head was still yelling at her that it could only be a nightwalker from the definitive and literal qualities that matched what she had heard from the book! And if it was, then she was done for.

It would tear her to pieces in one move.

Aaliyah peeked again, and it was still right there on the tree.

Just as she looked back to her front, she saw it standing right in front of her with a horn and long tail that had a sharp end to it.