Chapter 5: 3 : A Ringing From The Past

I still remember the story I would read aloud above your bed
in the sanctity of our misery.
I still remember how warm the coldest nights were

 

Tsuki slowly woke up from her sleep covered in dirt that she slowly brushed off. She found it strange that she didn’t see any insect. Not that it bothered her or anything. Even though she should be fine with them from having lived outside for most of her life, she had a phobia of them following some work-related accident. Well, it wasn’t that she would scream at the sight of a small insect but more that her heart would start beating faster while having the distinct feeling of something crawling over her body.

Just trying to sit was painful as this body had never before done so many movements. To be honest, it was what Tsuki thought. Alice used to be very healthy when she was younger but caught a rare disease that mostly rendered her white cell useless. Since that day, her health degraded until Tsuki’s mistress had to step in. She did receive some good care, but it still took many years for her to get in better shape.

❀

 

The cloudless sky was filled with thousands of beautiful stars which weren’t dimmed from the sharp light of the city she was used to and the mist which blanketed the forest all year long was thin that night. As for the young girl, she had found a small berry bush that she was collecting from. After waking up from her dream, she felt, for an odd reason, as if there wasn’t any real danger in this forest. Even the small cookies she had thrown the other day should have been fine for her to eat. They tasted like date cookies. In a way, it would have been strange if she was carrying poison for herself after all. She bit on one half of a berry and waited for a reaction or the lack of one before eating the rest. It didn’t look to have any effect for now at least.

After having taken some small berries that she wrapped in a leaf, she took a large stick on the ground to use as a walking stick. This time, she wanted to travel slowly to get used to this body. The length of her steps was different and even the way she breathed felt different with this body. It was an odd feeling that was hard to get rid of.

She tried to follow a small creak since it gave her a direction and was her only water source. All in all, it was a calming walk in a misty forest. There was a lot she didn’t know about, even more for the dream she had in her sleep. Usually, she would never dream when sleeping. She once heard that people can only dream of things they know about, and it was enough to convince her that every night she would try to dream about her forgotten past. It was a flawed way of thinking, but she was young and only learned about allergies a few years ago so, she wasn’t the most bright-minded. Yet, it was this flawed thinking which gave her the conviction that Alice was still somehow alive.

At one point in her walk, she discovered a strange sight. It was a small dead bird with a broken wing. It was the first bird she ever saw, and it looked to have only died a few days ago if not recently, even. From its mouth, eyes, and other orifice were small gray maggots that crawled inside and outside of the dead bird. It was disgusting yet interesting. They moved as if they were only after the meat and were taking care to not damage things like the feathers. Tsuki was entranced by the beautiful violet feather of this bird. She wanted to write the dream she had in the case she would somehow forget it and she used this as an excuse to pluck a few. As she did so, a few maggots exited the bird’s mouth like puss, but it was something that Tsuki didn’t even care about as she left with her violet loot.

When midnight came, she laid down in a clearance in the forest to look at the sky for some time. There were many things she didn’t quite understand about this seemingly empty word other than it was beautiful to look at when she took the time to do so. It is hard to notice the fanning flowers in a field when you simply run from one side to the next. The way to save Alice had to exist somewhere. She simply had to take her time to carefully look for it. And this started by taking care of her new body. After all, she would break one day if she was constantly exhausting herself.

As such, she did some stretching Alice’s doctors had told her to do. It wasn’t much but they had helped Alice to walk on her own again after a year and a half. Tsuki also understood that she absolutely needed to improve her body since she was bound to face some danger by walking alone in an unknown forest at night. She tried her best to evaluate her strength but concluded that in a fight to the death, she might even lose to a fat house cat.

She rewarded herself with a few berries when her stretches were all done. After, she had a somewhat displeased look on her face. The remedies that she despised the most from the doctor required Alice to bleed herself a bit. It increased the production of blood cells as well as white blood cells to an unhealthy amount with more side effects. In all honesty, Tsuki was certain that the medicine Alice took was bad for her as it wasn’t the first she was prescribed but was forced to change due to a money restriction. Also, when she first took it, her health turned for the worst with vomiting and dizziness. It was disgusting but she had to bleed herself. It was because her blood needed to be forcefully filtered. The doctors said it was because Alice’s liver wasn’t good enough for the medicine. They used strange machines and tubes to help filter Alice’s blood... But there obviously wasn’t any blood-filtering machine in a misty forest. Thus, she used the first sharp stone on the ground to do an ugly hack at her wrist... Thick and dark blood left Tsuki’s wrist and produced an awful smell. She would need to drain herself like this a few more times until the medicine wears off.

For now, she would have to rest until the wound closed, and even with all the issues in Alice’s body, the one thing that it was good at was healing fast. She took this time to write the dream she had with some of the drained blood. It looked more like reddish ink than blood. She felt disgusted to have something like that in her body. It was no wonder that Alice would often be dizzy whenever she moved too much. She only wrote for an hour before having to leave since all the blood she had drained was absorbed by the ground.

❀

 

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She wanted to find something to eat and a safe place before sleeping. Thus, she continued to follow the small stream in the hope to find some fish or more delicious berry. Tsuki was in a good mood and hummed a song she would often sing to Alice, but she was often interrupted by some cough. It made her remember a promise she once made to Alice: “Alissse, shay, since you like that, I be your voice and body. S-ayyy s-ayyy. Sing for me when you be ok. Ok?” She was really young when she said this promise and even if it might have been something simple for some, it meant so much for her.

Slowly mixing with the humming, her delicate voice would at times sing a few words that got taken by the wind. Her music blended into the surrounding of dancing leave and flowed with the calming stream. Sometimes, it would be interrupted like some crunching dead leave or the sharp rocks piercing the water surface by intermittent cough.

Her soft music reverberated in peace with the surrounding until an intruding sound made its presence. It sounded as if something had walked over some small rocks not too far from Tsuki. Hearing the sound, Tsuki froze in an instant. She did think that it might have been another awful and forsaken fish, but the current wasn’t deep enough for a fish to be swimming inside. She hid behind a tree to look at the source while doing her best to not step on a branch and she saw it a bit further ahead on the other side of the current. It was a small and wounded wolf pup who looked at the water with an absent look. The pup looked to have a hard time staying on its legs as violent trembling would take hold of it and make it fall on its side, producing the same sound Tsuki had heard.

It got up with difficulty as its glazed eyes looked in a random location on Tsuki’s side of the current. It almost looked as if the pup was about to die of old age with its thin and sullen body that lacked any energy. The pup simply looked into emptiness while trying to stay standing, something which was a real challenge when small gusts of wind would delicately pet its side.

Tsuki didn’t know how to react. At first, she felt fear, then pity which was followed by the idea of taking its life for food, and finally fear again since a parent of this animal should be close. She tried to reason that it might have been abandoned or that it was separated from its mother after having run from a fight. Thus, explaining the wound it had. She tried to make herself believe that it was safe to finish the pup for precious food and that she would be safe. But something deep inside of her, almost insidious and lacking any reasoning, was screaming at her of an unknown danger. It was a gut-wrenching sensation that griped at her small heart with a strong clawed hand which forcibly made it beat out of tempo at an escalating rate. It was as if something venomous was trying to push all of her reasoning out of her body by erupting a torrent of cold sweat all over her skin. It was as if a thousand voices of her ancestors all screamed at once in a cacophonic unison: “RUN”.

But her body was frozen by the cold sweat and her mind was enchanted with the rhythmic pulse of her heart. She couldn’t even move if she wanted to and this might have been what saved her as a monstrous and undulating creature that looked to be a man with every limb, its head included, replaced with a long worm-like appendage that each opened like flowers to present shifting and moving sharp teeth. Its skin was a rippling mess of flesh with what looked to be incomplete jaws moving around freely by distorting the meat like water. It moved while making less sound than Tsuki’s own explosive heart toward the small wolf. Tsuki could even see it slowly change color from a mix of green and brown into a bluish color with dark veins. It didn’t have any eyes, but its body was filled with many small dark holes that might have been used as hears to it.

The abomination was only a few meters from Tsuki, but it hadn’t noticed it yet as it crept toward the wounded pup like a looming shadow of death. It stopped just in front of the water where its movement became a bit more erratic and wilder as its appendages tried to reach the animal but couldn’t find it. At one point, one of its limbs came just in front of the pup and the disgusting breath of the monster might have scared it as it moved backward in panic just to then fall after having its balance disturbed. The rocks moved, a distinct sound was produced that wasn’t the flowing water, and the monster lunged, putting its strong leg forward in the water before attempting to surround its prey with three of its limbs. But it then fell on its side after having lost strength in a leg. Flying through the air was the same little snake with a white belly that Tsuki was scared of. It had bit the ankle of the monster and poured its poison which disturbed nerves signaling before being kicked around by the monster. It still had a swirling green liquid pouring out of its sharp fangs.

The creature struggled on the ground and let out grueling screams of pain and anger as the poison the snake had injected was wreaking havoc in its nervous system. All this time, both the small wolf and Tsuki were frozen in place for different reasons. As Tsuki put her terrified eyes on the wolf’s body, she could see the snake and a blue-breasted bird trying to coax it to move and escape, something that they were too small to do. The small blue bird then locked eyes with Tsuki, and it almost felt intelligent for a moment. It was as if it was pleading her to help them save the young pup from this monster. Those dark eyes which could pierce souls were trembling with fear and horror of what could happen and begged for her help. Pleading for her leg to move and push her in a dash. Shouting for her arms to take this dying wolf so that it doesn’t die from the squirming monstrosity. Those dark eyes filled with guilt, wanting to trade its proud blue wings if it could just have the strength to save the young pup.

Tsuki could feel something enigmatic surging from the deepest part of her soul. It destroyed the claw gripping her heart and silenced the many voices screaming to run. The sensation was coming from the root of who she was, her nature, and grew fast in a refreshing blanket over her mind. Her very reason to exist screamed so loud that it woke her up from her stupor with a sort of burning fire that nourish the engine that was her body. At first slow and prudent until it slowly turned into a full-on dash toward the young, wounded wolf that she took into her arm. The bird seeing this took the snake in its claws and took flight in front of Tsuki, guiding her forward in this forest.

She ran with what little strength she had while putting her own life in danger. When she had just begun moving with the wounded wolf, she could see the abomination tears large pieces of flesh from the leg that the snake had bitten. It was repulsive to look at, but the most disturbing aspect was the constant maddening scream the monstrosity was producing. It didn’t shout in rage or pain, but in a manner to be heard far and wide by its kind. And not after long, its call came back from somewhere. Then another, and another, and another, and... The forest was filled with a maddening scream that was filled with ravenous hunger. They echoed with one another to produce a wave of nauseous power that spread like a thick liquid throughout the forest. This strange malignant power tried to drown Tsuki with a disgusting smell. But a furlong wind came from behind and protected her in a sweet embrace.

She did her best to ignore her surroundings and simply focused on following the bird in front of her. It moved quickly between the trees on the right and the left to not be too far from Tsuki and also able to scout the forest as much as possible. It looked to have a destination in mind, but low screaming in front would make it change direction and it had a hard time escaping the labyrinth it was stuck in.

After a while, Tsuki could hear a clear and distinct clinging sound that was produced a bit further ahead of her. The new sound, even though it wasn’t loud, was able to stand pure in the chaos of scream and lament. After going around a broken tree, all she saw was an empty field with a strange glass structure in the middle. She had expected a hidden location that could protect her from the many pursuing monsters. Not an open field. Her mind was blank until panic took hold of her again. Why did she even trust in a dumb bird she thought. Her mind was racing to make sense of everything that had just happened, but it was interrupted by a familiar sound from the glass structure. It entranced her, enchanting her, she moved slowly toward it and every time it would produce a sound, she would feel a wave of nostalgia wash over her mind.

When she was just a few meters from the structure, she could understand what it was, even if she didn’t understand its uses. It was a small temple made entirely of glass wind chimes. Whenever there was a breeze, a soft melodious sound would be produced. It enthralled Tsuki’s mind like an enchantress who forced her to move forward to join the bosom of this temple. The bird and the snake were both waiting by the glass temple.

Tsuki moved slowly as if she was fighting a flowing river. The wind danced around her as the ringing coming from the temple was getting stronger. She had completely forgotten the threat she faced just a moment ago and it came back to damned her. A twisting sludge of flesh latched to Tsuki’s leg as its teeth gnashed and rash at her flesh while trying to pull her away from the temple. Before it could take her away, something jumped on the disgusting fleshy monster and saved Tsuki before she forcefully fell into a slumber caused by the monster’s saliva. In this perilous situation, she fell asleep, not able to defend herself from anything...

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