Run.
Trees blurred past in streaks of green and brown. The wind roared in the boy's ears as his boots slammed against the forest floor leaving behind bloodied footsteps. Crimsom blood dripped from his temple, sliding down the curve of his jaw. His shirt was torn in several places, snagged and shredded by branches in his frantic escape. His breath came in sharp bursts, eyes wide and wild.
He was running like something had broken inside him, like, he wasn't sure if he was still sane, but even then there was only one thing one his mind, RUN!
A few minutes earlier...
The teleportation was rough, not like the last one. It was sudden. Zeke's shoes landed hard on the slightly damp soil with a squish, the blue morning sky overhead was blocked by a thick canopy of twisted branches, trees all around him for as far as the eye could see..
He spun around, scanning the area for clues to where he might be then it click, "This is the Wildlands."
No plaza. No teachers. No signs of Kaito, Tala, or Rian.
Just a dense forest... and three strangers.
"Ahh, Fuck. This damn academy, That damn good looking ahh headmaster motherfu..."
A boy with dark brown hair and a scowl. A girl with dyed pink streaks, too much makeup and the third who was quiet, short, with a tired look in her eyes and a scar across her nose. All of them looked just as confused.
"Where are we?" the makeup girl muttered.
"The trial," the scarred girl said. "This must be the Wildlands."
"Your right, shit there's no signal, just tried," the boy added grimly, tossing a stone that vanished into a shrub. "We're cut off."
Zeke said nothing, his eyes scanning the trees this new environment, it was his first time being in a place like this, he decided to change his persepctive, he wasn't trapped in the wildlands, he was on a holiday in a tropical jungle, with three strangers, no signal...no food...no water..."Stupid ass academy."
"Hey you, What's your name, you got anything to contribute to the conversation?" the pink-haired girl asked.
Zeke looked up at the girl, "She ain't talking to me right?"
"Are you talking to me?"
"Obviously! Who else would I be talking to, your the only one who hasn't said their name." She rolled her eye's before looking back to the other two people. Zeke shook his head wondering why he had to get put with an annoying girl like this.
The group started talking about finding food, shelter and other basic survival, Zeke sighed before turning around and walking to a nearby tree hopping to sit against it while the others continue their conversation.
"Where are you going? Geez ofcourse we had to get put with a Eek!-" The sudden scream made everyone freeze, the forest went silent before the Zeke and the others looked up the at the girl who was talking, they froze.
They watched as her face contorted in pain, the blood draining from her face leaving her sickly pale, but the thing that made them freeze was the fact that she looked as if she was being lifted into the air.
Slowly.
Silently.
Her eyes widened, mouth opening in confusion. "Wait...Huh…?"
"What the f-ARGHHH!"
A scream.
It was sharp. Raw. A sound of agony.
An invisible force tore straight through her chest from behind. Blood splattered over the group but they were still frozen in shock. The girls limbs twitched in the air like a broken puppet, tears rolled down her pale face.
Behind her? nothing.
No shape. No creature.
Just a distortion in the air. A ripple of light.
Whatever it was... was holding her up.
Zeke's mouth moved before his brain did. His voice came out hoarse.
"Run."
The other two were frozen.
Then the thing flung the girl's body like a discarded rag. Her scream cut off.
Zeke's voice cracked. "RUN!"
The three of them bolted in the opposite direction weaving through the treeline.
Branches snapped. Leaves slashed their arms. Behind them, they could hear air moving, thrashing about as whatever it was began chasing them.
"No, no, no, please save me!" the quiet girl with the scar cried out behind him, her voice cracking like glass under pressure.
Her foot had caught on a root, no, something had wrapped around her ankle. Shit, run faster.
A horrible, wet crunch echoed through the trees. Her body jerked backward and disappeared into the darkness of the forest behind them.
Zeke didn't look back. His heart pounded in his head like war drums, his muscles in his legs burning as he bolted away. The voice in his head continously screaming at him to get out of the forest.
The boy was still running beside him gasping for air, boots slamming the ground, arms pumping wildly. Zeke felt the boy's presence lagging slightly, trying to keep pace through the chaos of the trees.
Zeke had always been a fast runner, relatively calm under pressure and quick on his feet but the other boy was already stumbling, pushed to his limit just trying to keep up.
The boy overestimated himself, as he tried copied Zekes movements, he jumped up over an overgrown root, but lacked Zeke's athletiscm.
Bang!
He went down hard.
"Zeke wait for me-!" he managed to scream, but the sound was followed by a sickening crunch.
Zeke ran harder. Eyes stinging. Muscles shaking.
Don't stop. Don't stop. Don't stop.
Now he was alone with the beast.
One deep breath. Then another.
Faster. Faster, damn it.
A multitude of thoughts stormed through his mind, trying to find ways to get away from the monster when it hit him, Mana!
He had never used it in his legs before but it shouldn't be too hard right? His body trembled as he tried to control the energy and send it down into his legs. Looking down at his legs which were still moving at his top speed he noticed purple coloured veins bulging through down his legs, then it hit him, the pain. It was as if his legs were being boiled in oil, an excruciating burning sensation lit up his body. He screamed through clenched teeth, but still powered on, "Come on! Move!"
The pain surged. But it worked, he was faster now. The trees tore at his sides. His shirt completely ripped open. Behind him, the sound of trees breaking the only indicator that something was frantically chasing him.
He couldn't see it, not really. It was as if someone drew an outline for some monster but didn't colour it in... It was hollow. A gap in the world. The only sign of it was the way light curved unnaturally and the sound of crashing trees.
BOOM!
Zeke was pushed to his limits. Every drop of energy gathered in his legs forging their own pathways, at this point his legs were completely numb so without the pain constantly annoying him he could force way more mana to spread throughout his legs. A shockwave burst from his body, launching him forward like a cannonball. Branches exploded around him. The ground blurred, the sound of angry roars were heard from far behind him.
"Shit, finally it's gone."
His skin was shredded.
His vision narrowed.
"Even if it can't catch up, I need to keep going, its not safe" Zeke muttered.
The dense forest suddenly thinned.
Before him stretched an open field, wide and empty under the dull gray sky. A thin column of smoke curled lazily upward in the distance, a beacon of hope.
Zeke's heart surged. Smoke. People. Rescue.
He pushed forward, legs pumping harder, breath burning, adrenaline surging through every vein. As the smoke got closer, the ground beneath his feet changed. The soft dirt was marred by scuffed footprints, some deep, others shallow, but all frantic. And then, something else.
Dark stains spread across the soil like spilled ink. Blood. Fresh and dark.
His stomach clenched, but hope drove him onward. He faltered slightly, a waft of air brought a scent to his nose, metallic, coppery, heavy in the air, blood.
He broke through the treeline and froze.
Ahead of him was a camp, a small campfire lay at the center of the clearing still burning brightly but the real horror was around it.
More than thirty bodies lay scattered within a fifty-meter radius of the fire.
Heads smashed in. Limbs broken and twisted in unnatural angles. Eyes wide open, frozen in terror.
To his left, a girl's pale face caught the dull light of the campfire. Her mouth was open in a silent scream. Nearby, a boy's hand twitched, fingers curled against the dirt like he was trying to grasp something just out of reach.
Zeke's eyes widened as his body trembled. He staggered forward, heart pounding unbelievably loud in his ears.
There were no signs of a fight, just a complete massacre.
He scanned the area hoping to see one of the bodies move, but there was nothing. His gaze locked on something hanging from a low branch near the fire.
Walking forward hesitantly he reached the branch, stretching a trembling hand out towards the object, his hand paused for a second before he grasped it, a single cuff.
Leather, worn, familiar.
His mind began to turn at an insane speed. "Why is this familiar? It's a girls cuff, so maybe it's...shit..."
Tala's cuff.
The forest seemed to close in, the shadows lengthening as the sky dimmed.
"No. This can't be real. no, maybe they just look similar right, there's no way it's Tala's."
But deep down he already knew the truth. It was.
The nearby leaves swayed gently in the breeze, a silent witness to the nightmare.
Zeke swallowed the lump in his throat, struggling to process what this all meant. He sank to his knees, eyes darting body to body desperately, hoping, not see the familiar face of his new friend.
But the clearing was silent. Dead.
And the only sound was the faint crackle of the dying campfire, still burning, unmoved by the world's chaos.
A quiet witness to the destruction that lay before it.