A tickling sensation first appeared on his arm, then he felt it in his forehead, following the tickling he felt a liquid dripping down. The clouds had gotten grey quickly, now there was rain trickling down slowly.
With the clouds the road got a bit darker, a mist had formed due to the moisture. They could only throw their sight about twenty meters away. More than enough to see the road, but anything could be lurking in the forest without them noticing.
They said the man was not scared of the dark, rather he was scared of what hid in the dark. The unknown frightened the man, the mist surrounding them made every direction feel like a source of fright.
Nevertheless, they could not afford to slow down, Alexander had to arrive at the examination on time. The dirt under them had gotten muddy, they could smell the wet grass in the air; sometimes they would open their mouths to enjoy the sudden cold release they would feel of the rain.
Something peculiar happened. As Alexander was travelling he heard a noise and as they kept on following the road, the noise got louder and louder and eventually, a faint smell appeared which only got stronger with time. The noise was a bunch of voices, each more enthusiastic followed by laughter; the smell was unmistakably the smell you got when you were hungry and smelled food from a restaurant tens of meters away, it was delicious.
New people to talk to, a new experience or adventure to be held. Alexander had decided that he had to travel to these people if not for merely saying hello. He asked Orion if he wanted to go to the smell, at this remark Orion looked at him with confused eyes.
"What smell?","What do you mean", Alexander asked as he squinted his eyes. "I can't be more precise than that, what do you mean smell that. All I smell is the forest." Orion responded.
Alexander was quite shocked, "the smell is incredibly strong and allurin...." As Alexander thought of that word he had a bad gut feeling. Alexander decided to ask about the sound.
"Do you hear anything particular?" "Nothing except the rain hitting the leaves, are you okay man "
This confirmed Alexanders suspicions, there was certainly something off about this, otherwise, why could Orion not hear or smell things. Was he imagining things? Alexander decided to stick with his gut and not go to that spot even though he wanted too.
For every step, he took the smell and sound got louder. Eventually, they felt like they were only a few steps behind him. Then it was 10 steps, then 9 steps, 8, 7 6 5 4. Alexander had an incredible urge appear at that moment similar to the one you get when you are walking alone in the middle of a forest and something just feels off.
Alexander stopped and jerked his head towards the sound. He only saw the dim covering up the forest. Orion had noticed that his teammate had randomly stopped and was confused. Then Alexander decided to keep on walking.
Alexander thought about what was happening. Alexander was the only one perceiving these senses; they also kept getting stronger. Normally, A smell or sound got stronger as you got closer to it or as it gets closer to you, the strange part was that he sensed them from behind him and they still got stronger.
Alexander looked at Orion and told him to run with a voice that made it sound like a command. Orion still slightly confused turned around to meet Alexander but in the middle of doing so, he saw Alexander run past him. Orion not wanting to be left alone in the mist decided to run after him even though he was confused.
When Alexander had started running the smell and sound had started fading before, strangely, abruptly stopping. He looked behind himself and saw Orion but his heart jumped as he saw what was behind Orion.
Three creatures that had a humanoid shape, their skin was like the moon, they had no pupils only a spider net of veins crossing their white eyes, their fingers ended in claws, their mouth was closed; they looked serious.
They were gaining on them.
The pulse of adrenaline that came from being chased made Alexander run a lot faster. When Alexander had seen the creatures his eyes had widened, Orion which noticed that Alexander was looking at something just past him noticed the creatures and instantly started running with newfound energy.
The creatures had stopped getting gaining on them, but Alexander could only hold out for that long, he did not want to fight whatever those creatures were. He simply kept on running, he ran fast enough to sound like a millipede. Every now and then he would spare a glance to look behind him, there he saw Orion and the three creatures.
This time they were sincerely fucked.
They kept on running however Alexander felt his legs burning and his lungs cramping. Orion was even more exhausted, he had to keep up this pace but it looked like he was throwing each foot forwards instead of running.
It had started getting dark; Alexander's eyes traced everything trying to find a way out of this predicament. Then he saw it, his saving grace. Two lights penetrated through the mist, as he kept on running he noticed it was a carriage.
On the carriage sat two men, one with a sword the other one with a spear. They stopped their horses when they saw Orion and Alexander run towards them; the swordsman unsheathed his sword and got off the carriage.
Alexander was literally stuck between a hard place and another hard place. He threw his spear on the ground as kept on running towards the side of the swordsman. The swordsman did not flinch. However, as Alexander got closer he realized that the swordsman focus was not on him. His heart skipped a beat as he wondered if it was Orion, he stopped and looked behind him. He relaxed as he saw that Orion was only a few meters behind him.
However the creatures were not behind Orion anymore, instead, they stood in front of the swordsman and hissed furiously. Again the swordsman did not bulge, he stood still as a rock with his sword.
"Scram" he muttered coarsely
The three creatures had stood there bent over and hissed, they smelled not an ounce of fear from whatever was in front of them.
One of the creatures had enough and lunged forward at him, almost like a bolt of lightning they saw a few after images of the sword before they noticed that the creatures head was separated from the body. The blood that came out was a deep blue and it poured fiercely. Alexander's eyes widened as the words "badass" flashed in his mind.
The last two creatures were now even more hesitant on whether they should fight or not. They took too long and the swordsman started walking towards them, the creatures had no choice but to fight.
Both creatures ran towards him, one of them lunged forward. The swordsman sidestepped the attack. The other creature swung his claws at him, the swordsman took his free hand and placed it on his head before front flipping whilst pressing the creature towards the ground.
In the end, they both landed on the ground, they hissed before they got up and tried to hit him. The swordsman took his chance to launch an attack, diagonal swing from his sword, it struck one of the creatures perfectly cutting his torso in two killing the creature.
The other creature now left alone started walking backwards slowly before turning completely and sprinting away. Too slow. An ice shard had been launched straight through the creature's heart. It fells on the ground lifeless, it had been the mages doing.
The man spits on the creature in front of him before muttering "fucking asuls (Luna = moon in latin, anul is luna backwards and asuls is that but slightly changed). The man walked over to the two boys standing huddled together.