Ria
The captain tried to attack the spirit, but he failed every single time. Every time his sword hit the spirit it just went straight through, not even giving him a single scratch.
I laid on the ground, laughing like a maniac as I saw the captain getting more and more frustrated by the second, his eyebrows furrowed in an angry expression.
" Die!" The captain screamed and launched forward, straight to where the spirit was now taking his second man's heart.
The snow turned red as the spirit killed the second officer, an eerie smile on his broken lips.
The captain looked at his men's corpses, laying on the cold ground with blood all over them and made the only right call.
He spread out his wings and took off.
Too late.
I smiled when I saw the spirit floating towards him, catching up in seconds.
A second later the captain was dead, his decapitated head falling to the ground a few milliseconds before his body hit the ground.
They got what they deserved.
I tried to get up, failing again and again. My whole body screamed at me to fight against the spirit, to find a way to live, but I was too tired. My blood loss was heavy and everything was beginning to blur.
My body felt colder than ever as I stared at the spirit floating my way, coming closer with each passing second.
I tried to get up again, fear gripping my heart. All I managed to do was bleed out even more. At this rate even if I managed to outrun the spirit, which was highly unlikely, I would end up dead from blood loss.
I couldn't win. Well, at least I wasn't going to hell alone.
I closed my eyes when the spirit walked closer. Deep in my heart I hoped that if I ignored him again he would go away. I should've known better than to hope.
The spirit's hands gripped my neck and started taking all the air away from me.
On instinct I opened my eyes. The spirit's face appeared right in front of me. The blood coming from his ears and eyes mixed with my own on the snow. The spirit opened his mouth wide, showing me his sharp fangs and I shivered, panic taking over.
I thrashed, trying to get him off of me. All I managed to do was get even more out of breath.
Life was escaping me with every passing second. I tried to do anything at all, but all I managed to do was go limp on the spirit's hands.
As the world went blurry and my eyelids fluttered shut a dark shadow leaned over the spirit and bit his head off.
The pressure on my neck disappeared and I fell to the ground, clutching my neck as I took a deep breath.
What had just happened?
I twisted my head to look at the spirit only to see that his head had been cut off, landing on a patch of snow far away from his corpse. There was blood all over the ground as I looked at his corpse. A dark shadow was looming over the spirit, eerily looking at me with it's sunken eyes.
The new spirit had his whole body covered in shadows. Only when he walked closer to me could I finally make out his factions. His eyes were dark red, as dark as blood and his black hair moved like a curtain of water over his head.
I gasped, he was one of the most handsome men I had ever seen in my life.
The awe went away fast as soon as I saw the blood on his mouth and fear took over.
The new spirit took a step closer to me, his eyes never leaving mine.
Fear gripped me again. I had to get out of here.
I cast my gaze downwards, but no matter how much I ignored him the spirit kept walking towards me. What the fuck was this spirit? Spirits had rules, and one of them was that they couldn't interact with anyone that didn't akwnoledge them, so why was this one looking at me?
I tried to move, to run away. My body failed me once again.
All I could see before the world went white was the spirit looming over me, his red eyes looking straight into my soul.
A few hours later
I woke up with a pounding headache and pain all over my body. When I looked down at my myself I saw all my wounds were closed and healed. How had that happened?
I tried to get up and this time I managed to get on my own two feet.
After checking to make sure that I wasn't bleeding out anymore, which I wasn't, I turned to look at my sorroundings.
From the heat coming from everywhere around me I had expected to be inside, but to my surprise I was still in the same place where I had almost died to the spirit. The corpses and the blood were still there. What I didn't see was the creepy spirit that had saved my life.
Fine, I guessed that I had to call him something other than a creepy spirit. He had saved my life after all.
No matter how much I looked around there was no trace of the spirit and no trace of whatever was making the surroundings so warm. I tried to move a few steps and thankfully my legs held out which I really wasn't expecting.
No matter how much I walked the temperature remained the same as if I was in the middle of a room and not in the middle of winter outside, at night. I didn't know what hour it was but I was sure we were in the middle of the night. The sun couldn't be seen anywhere and the air was cold, even if that coldness never reached me.
Great, now what should I do?
I had run away hoping that Illiana would come back to fetch me after everything had blown away, but now that I knew she had betrayed me I was on my own.
I sat down on the snow again, not knowing what to do.
I was thinking about where to go, I had no money and no clothes, maybe I should go back to look for my bag, where from in between the trees I saw a white ball of fur running towards me.
I smiled and opened my arms.
" Arf!"
Lilu ran up to me and I hugged him tightly.
I wasn't alone. I wasn't alone.
Tears streamed down my face as I hugged Lilu. I wasn't alone. I didn't know how much I had wanted to hear those words and know that someone hadn't betrayed me and still loved me.
" Let's go get my bag"
I got up with newfound determination. I was going to get my bag, my clothes and my money and start a new life far away from this place. A life for myself and Lilu. That was what I was going to do.
I petted Lilu one last time before I began walking straight towards where the orfanage was. Luckily the blizzard had stopped at some point while I was unconscious and now I could see a few feet away from me, which was a great improvement compared to before.
I walked for long, but the bag was nowhere to be found. At some point I gave up and walked back into the forest. The bag wasn't worth getting caught by those officers. I was sure that by now they would be searching for me. Their companions had never come back and never would. They had died by the hand of a spirit. Even if I knew the truth I also knew that no one would believe me. I had to run away before they caught up to me.
" Do you know where to run to?"
Lilu tilted his head and barked. Of course he didn't. Still, it was reassuring having him around.
As I looked at all the possible paths something in my gut told me a path to follow and I did, walking to where my hunch told me. From now on I was listening to my gut. My hunches had never been wrong before.
As I walked more and more trees appeared, making walking more difficult. Despite the fallen branches I kept walking, trusting my gut.
At some point the sound of the raging wind stopped.
I didn't notice Lilu was gone until I looked down and saw he had disappeared.
I panicked and looked everywhere, but he was nowhere to be found. So he had abandoned me too. Should've expected that.
I wiped my tears and kept walking, my cold feet begging for mercy. Apparently the magic that kept my body warm didn't extend to my feet. Great magic.
My gut told me the direction and I followed, not knowing where I was going. The only thing I knew was that anywhere was safer than where I had come from.
I took another step and a sharp pain erupted in my chest.
I stopped and clutched my chest, the pain disappearing once I stopped.
I tried to take another step and the pain appeared again. So something wanted me to stay here.
I looked around, but all I saw were trees and snow. There was nothing special.
I tried to move again and the pain appeared. I was stuck here.
I begun looking around, trying to find whatever was making me feel that sharp pain in my chest.
Only after looking for hours did I finally find a seal engraved on a tree.
The tree itself gave me an ominous feeling. My whole body screamed at me to stop and go back, but there was nowhere to go back to and if I wanted to escape this clear I had to play by their rules.
When I carefully placed my hand over the seal I felt something moving on my right side.
I snapped my head that way just in time to see a spirit appear out of thin air. That was new.
The spirit floated closer to me, his eyes never leaving mine. Once he was closer I noticed he was the same one that had saved my life.
" Thank you for saving me"
The spirit didn't react to my words. It just stood there, looking at me. Unlike the other spirits it didn't attack me the moment I akwnoledged him. As I suspected he was a weird one.
His eyes never left my hand, begging me to do something I couldn't understand. What did he want?
" What do you want?"
The spirit didn't answer. Tipical.
I got tired of the useless conversation and pulled my hand away from the bark. The moment one finger left the tree the spirit begun screaming, launching at me.
I immediately put my hand back on the tree and the spirit calmed down.
" So you want me to touch the tree" Good to know.
I pulled my eyes away from the spirit and into the tree. No matter how I looked at it it seemed like a seal of some kind. Unfortunately for the spirit I didn't know anything about magic.
" I don't know what this is"
For the first time the spirit's face contorted with emotion.
I flinched, fear rippling through my body. Was he going to kill me?
The spirit did something very similar to a sigh and pointed to my hand.
Yes, I was touching the bark. What more did he want?
The spirit screamed, looking pissed.
I moved away from him with all the care in the world so as to not touch him or annoy him anymore. He didn't seem very stable, not that I knew what he was supposed to look like. Dealing with this kind of spirit was a new experience for me.
The spirit grew claws and I paled. This was it, this was the end.
Instead of attacking me the spirit cut his own flesh, looking at me all the time as his blood dripped into the snow.
His eyes seemed to have an intent behind them as he looked at me.
Did he want me to..... bleed?
" Do you want me to bleed on the seal?"
The spirit's smile gave me the creeps.
My whole body shivered looking at his sharp teeth. Yeah, I wasn't doing that.
The spirit must've read my thoughts in my face because he growled, looking at me as if he wasn't giving me a choice.
I looked at the seal and then at the spirit. What was one more thing for survival?
I took the hand that wasn't on the tree to my mouth and bit hard, drawing blood.
The spirit's expression changed to one of eager expectation as I moved my hand closer to the tree.
I didn't know what I was about to unleash, but I knew it couldn't be worse that the men looking to take my life.
Man, was I wrong.