Chapter 19: 19 – Murderers

“Who dares burn my forest!? Cut down my trees!? Become enemies of nature!? My enemies!” 

Her threatening voice resonated through the forest.

Far away, a distressed father looked for his children. “Joseph! Marian! Where are you? Gods... please...” 

His older son joined the search. “Joseph! Marian!” 

In their desperation they didn’t notice the forest’s silence; not a single chirp, squeak nor chatter, only their coarse shouts cut through the thick atmosphere.

After several tense minutes they found Marian alone and standing still with her forearms outstretched, holding on to her invisible firewood. Her wide-eyes darted on the forest’s ground looking for her missing wood. Blood tainted her clothes and visible skin, it took all of her will to take a step, trembling, then another.

“Marian!”

 She turned around. “Father...” But Marian stood frozen, unable to take one more step, tears fell down her delicate face mixing with fresh blood splattered on her skin and staining her blue dress. 

Her father ran towards her and put his arms around her shaking small frame. 

“What happened? Where’s your brother?”

“We... I... she.... he...,” she floundered, her words couldn’t keep up with reality. A terrible shock took hold of her mind, in her disturbed state logic broke down. Marian shook uncontrollably under her father’s embrace. A muted cry escaped her pale lips. 

“Bryan,” the father spoke to his eldest son while he picked up her daughter. “Take your sister back home, protect her and your mother.” 

“B-but father...,” Bryan stuttered. His dried mouth threatened to choke him, speaking hurt his nerves more than his throat. He didn’t want his father to go away, he wanted them to return home away from what his instincts warned him awaited behind every tree. 

“Take her! I have to find your brother. If I don’t return before dawn, go to Kargraz, talk to the guards-”

 Traversing dark corners, a sudden gust of wind sowing dread in its wake interrupted the father before he could leave her daughter in his oldest son’s arms.

A vicious being with a twisted smile and a confident gait, prideful, inhuman, made its entrance. 

“Sons of men, daughters of women.” The female form before them raised her head. “What have you done to my forest...?” A sweet and gentle voice enveloped them.

“What the...?!” Bryan’s eyes itched at the sight of her.

“Dryad...” The father remembered once in his youth an encounter with a similar being. “Did... did... you took my son?” His voice cracked.

“Oh, no no, poor farmer, I only watch the forest, my forest, and its wellbeing. I do no more, nor less to your kind than you all... deserve. I am a dryad, protector of nature, and if you did nothing wrong you’ve got nothing to fear.” 

Her words ringed with a somber tone, a veiled warning hidden under a soothing voice. But the father had no time to contemplate her nuanced actions.

“Have you seen Joseph?”

“Joseph?” the dryad repeated his intonation.

“Yes... my boy, this tall, black hair-”

“Ah! I remember.... I saw him earlier, crushing a plant to apply it’s delicate remains on a cut he had.” The voice coming from her insides turned less sweet with each word, weaving anxiety and doubt in their weary spirits.

“A-and... is he alright?”

“You can ask him yourself.” Her smirk had vanished, her serious semblance bound them in place. 

“Oh my... Gods be praised! Joseph...” His face lit up, a cautious smiled colored his tense semblance. Her daughter hid her head on his chest trying to forget about her presence and foreboding figure.

“I told you Bryan, everything would be alright. The Gods provide those who love them.”

The eldest son doubted, in the back of his mind a desire grew louder; to run away fast, very fast.

“Why?” The dryad’s intonation of the spoken word made a complete turn. It carried rough, commanding vibrations.

“Eh? What-?” It caught the father by surprise.

“Burn my plants?”

“It’s the start of-“

“Cut down my trees?” She looked down into a group of flowers, then raised her gaze with fire in her eyes “Crush my flowers?” She pierced his soul with each utterance, forgoing language for guttural articulations. “Mine.”

“I... but... the forest... f-f-farming... Our f-family...” 

“I know what you mean, don’t worry, none of you are misunderstood. I understood too well. Like the little boy I saw earlier, he likes to crush flowers, isn’t it...? Isn’t it!?” She finished one frequency away from shouting. Her tearing voice left them paralyzed in place. “I’ll bring him, so you can ask him yourself why.” 

A rising riot burst behind her, several vines moved to her whim, manipulating her rib’s outgrowth she brought those green appendages forward. But those didn’t come alone, she delivered the family present an arm, a partial leg still attached to a single buttock, some organs, a foot, one eye, and half the skull of the boy called Joseph. Their hearts plummeted, paused in time, not being able to reconcile reality with a hope past due its expiration date. They denied their eyes’ horrid visions. Unbelievers. 

The dryad contrived a malignant child’s voice puppeteering Joseph’s detached jaw. “Why dryad? Why did you crush me!?” She stopped and returned to form. “Because I am nature’s guardian... You little shit! And I’ll kill anyone who hurts my forest!” She threw Joseph’s remains towards the shocked family members. Guts landed over farther and daughter, this last one screamed out their terror. Her shriek brought everyone back into horrible reality.

They ran as fast as they could back to their farmhouse. The burning fields guided their dash through her woods. The dryad smiled, flashing her blood covered teeth at her escaping prey. She spit out a chunk of brain stuck in one of her molars and disappeared behind the fleeing pieces of shit.

Back at their parcel the mother walked at the edge of their farm awaiting their return. Three shadows emerged from the bushes, her husband, daughter and eldest son. Their crumbled semblances and blood-soaked clothes sank her hopes.

“What happened? Where’s Joseph!?” 

No one answered. Father and son were catching their breath from the sprint, her trembling daughter, gone in mind and spirit, held on to her husband.

“Where’s Joseph!?”

“Keep running! Take Marian and keep running I’ll-“

“You’ll what farmer? Burn more forest?! Cut more trees?! Crush more flowers?!” 

Shivers crept through their ears, ending in increasingly tense movements. Fear threatened to squash the three escaped family members’ last bit of sanity.

You are reading story X the Elf at novel35.com

The mom saw the creature behind such an evil voice. She immediately recognized it from her own mother bed stories where dryads had always been a rare sight since ancient times, mystery surrounded them. 

“Mark, where’s Joseph!?” But the mother only wanted one answer.

“We’re sorry! I swear my family will never do it again! We’ll leave! Today! Please-“

The dryad commanded her vines towards father and daughter.

“Aahhh!”

“Aahhgggh!”

The father dropped in three pieces. A vine cut through his left shoulder, all the way down, exiting at his right thigh and another vine entered through his right kneecap, in an upward motion, lopping half his leg off. With his head spared, pain, shock and terror awaited his final moments. Along with her father, Marian had her legs and both arms severed. She fell down in pieces followed by a dry thud.

A symphony of screams perturbed the night. The flames from the burning field diminished, a dense smoke rose vanishing in the darkness engulfing them.

“Ahhhhh! Marian! Mark!” The aghast mother’s shrieks could break glass and hearts alike. But not hers, not the dryad’s. Tired of her screeches the dryad chopped her head through her mandible. She died instantly. 

Blood splattered the eldest son’s face tainting red his world and making him fell backwards. He wiped his mother’s blood from his eyes and saw the dryad strolling towards him. He crawled away from her but a sudden painful burn in his right arm made him stop, he turned his head to see it gone. Writhing in pain he rolled on the floor grabbing his wound and fell down into a ravine. She stood still, looking down, her fiendish eyes shined through the darkness. 

*

“And I ran and ran!” Bryan sobbed the whole time while recounting what happened to his family. 

X peered into the young man’s emotional state. 

“What’s a dryad?”

 Certainly it was another kind of beast, a freak creature. But this one seemed really demented, X needed more information. Lost deep within his own thoughts, the altered human male couldn’t hear anything or anyone but his own consciousness.

“I'm a coward! I left my family behind and ran! But what else could I do!?”

“You're right, you're a coward. But alive.”

“You, friend... please, help me, take me to Kargraz.”

X had a full plate of problems to deal with and those were more than enough for him. He wanted more information about the creature but didn’t want to associate himself further with the young man.

“What’s your name?”

“Bryan,” the young man answered in a less agitated state.

“First, you need to rest. I don’t think you can make it far in your current state.” X saw Bryan’s arm, he had applied a paste on his wound which stopped the bleeding, but his pale face betrayed a life living on borrowed time. “And it sounds... you incurred in something’s wrath.”

X wanted him gone, out of sight, out of mind. Every second he spent near this distraught man was a second to many. He knew the demented creature could be not far behind following the human’s trail and worse, Bryan was too unstable. And X knew unstable, knew it too well to leave it to chance. Even with the young man’s mind half gone, one-handed and hurt, his weak self would be no match for him. 

“Look-“
 
“I don’t understand what we did wrong... We did the exact same thing as last year, and then nothing happened. We’re modest folk, don’t dwell on wants or haves longer than the next fellow. My family got that piece of land from a distant relative, all legal... I didn’t want to move away from Kargraz... Clarissa, my love... Is she still waiting? I told her to wait. Damn! Maybe she already married Jean. I swear if she did they’re going to feel my wrath!” Bryan spewed a flurry of words with no other purpose than to numb his mind from reality. 

“Your family’s death... and your gal mating with that other better-looking fella... is the least of your problems.”

[Such tact. I’m beginning to remember why I went away.]

It appeared sitting amongst them.

Then go and stay there.

“What did you say?”

“Well, obviously, I don’t think she’s going to choose you anymore. Not that I think she is even waiting. Bi- Piece of mind snatchers don’t wait. I certainly wouldn’t.”

“Eh? Clarissa wouldn’t do it! She is pure and isn’t a- Is this a joke to you!?" Bryan’s grasp on reality receded piece by piece.

“It is funny. Your family just got murdered in a brutal way, you’re missing one arm and here you are, getting all worked up about forgone pussy.”

“Say again!?” The young man got up.

“Oh, but I’m laughing with you, not at you. That mind you have... still has its uses. If you only had your other arm... Are you a lefty or a righty?”

“What? Why?”

“You see... for beginners it’s difficult to rub one out with their non main hand... Look at it this way, when you see your... girl again, tell her your sobbing story, about how you can’t wank off to your full potential. What girl doesn’t like tear jerking stories?”

[You just don’t know when to shut up.]

And his perennial shadow, the voice he couldn't quiet down, spoke truth. X used to get carried away until someone’s face ended broken, sometimes his, other times not his. But back then at least he had some power to himself.

Bryan lunged at him. “Ah!” 

X couldn’t put any serious resistance, like a doll fashioned for abuse his attacker pinned him down flailing his remaining arm at his face. And it didn’t look like a fight at all, it resembled a scene of two deranged bums fighting over the last can of soda after being under a blistering summer sun for days on end. A sight to behold.

“Why... you!? Is my pain a joke to you?!”

Bryan’s wound opened and blood flowed down on X who tried to cover himself best he could. But alas, he couldn’t do much. In this enchanting time they didn’t hear the steps nor the plants murmuring in the wind.

“What a ruckus! If you wanted to hide you made a terrible job of it!” 

Chaos stopped, both stared at the creature before them.

She was here. She had come.

You can find story with these keywords: X the Elf, Read X the Elf, X the Elf novel, X the Elf book, X the Elf story, X the Elf full, X the Elf Latest Chapter