Alice and I were in the middle of nowhere, besides the willow trees and the mountainous shrubs. Alice also mentioned that we reached one thousand kilometres from the cave. She left a mark on the stone, which Alice had pointed out for me.
"I don't know what goes beyond these trees," she confessed, and took a burdensome gulp of saliva.
Alice's hands shivered in fright as we went past through the boulder. Despite being morning, the mist occluded our sight, making it arduous for us to march onward. The leaves danced in our direction, as if signalling us to our inevitable doom.
"Do you hear that?" Alice asked. "Something's rustling behind."
I shook my head and glanced at our rear. "Let's just hope that's just the wind, Alice. Let's go before a beast comes and stops us."
Alice heeded my instructions as the two of us sprinted towards the empty road. We headed North, wishing that there was some light at the end of our road.
The noise never ceased to exist and created an unpleasant atmosphere surrounding us. If it were not for the light coming from the sun, the forest would have frightened Alice and me to continue in this realm.
"I don't like this place," Alice expressed, and went behind my back.
I caressed her head and assured her that the two of us would eventually leave this place alive. But my point proved me wrong as we saw a mob of enlarged bats feasting over a gigantic boar as their meal.
The bats had the same sizeable appearance as the one we faced yesterday. It also had massive wings and two razor-sharp fangs, baring in front of their faces.
These winged animals preyed upon the blood of their victims. Bats would feel delighted to suck at any living organisms. They usually hunt during the night, but these bats were on a different level.
The morning never discouraged the eutherian mammals, and they were even stronger during the night. This occurrence made a vital shift in the food chain inside the forest, making the animals fear these mighty beasts.
"These bats only hunt during rare conditions, meaning they don't go on their way to kill any animals they find. Sometimes these bats follow a schedule, which is their leader, the dracogre," Alice explained.
"This way. Follow me. I know how to bypass them," she added, and motioned her hands for me to follow. "My teacher taught me this! He said that 'you will never know when you can use this knowledge!', which sounds funny, am I right?"
Despite the danger that lay upon us, Alice's delightfulness remained on her face. We continued crawling on the soil and reached for the open trail once again. The two of us planned on using the creeping plants as our barrier against the bats. Although these winged beasts relied on their hearing senses, we wanted to avoid moving in their sight.
But what we wanted never happened.
The vicious creatures who craved for our flesh turned their heads like robotic machines and aimed their sight in our direction. Those bats bared their fangs and extended their wings, showing their hostility over our figures.
They did not even bother finishing their food. Those bats leapt from the ground and dove towards us.
"Duck!" I shouted.
"Quack!" Alice screamed.
The two of us lowered our heads and used the boughs as our defences. Those pointed wings slammed against the thick branches, making the bat's movements sluggish as a snail. One bat even tumbled to the side, hitting its head over to a bark.
The hit rendered the single bat confused. But there were two of the mammals behind its back, waiting for another opportunity.
"Run! We need to run, right now!" I ordered, and urged Alice to sprint forward.
We had nowhere else to go but to move onwards, away from the scene. According to Alice, the forest's exterior part was around sixty miles away from here. It meant that we needed to travel to at least a city, in my terminology.
But as long as we could arrive at the other side, that distance would never stop our brave and beating hearts. If there were a glimmer of hope in front of us, Alice and I would seize it.
We ran as fast as our legs could into the forest. But we knew that running alone would not be enough to create some distance between the bats and our figures.
Alice thought of a way to amplify our speed by using magic. She motioned her hands and applied a spell below our ground. The girl mumbled a few words, which summoned a magic circle on our feet.
"What was that?" I asked. The spell piqued my curiosity, hoping that I could conjure that ability too.
The high-pitch sound rang through my ears as the circle twirled clockwise. It was my first time to see such elaborate spells that I could only watch from movies.
"I placed something on our feet! Wind magic that could levitate us out of here! But don't use it to fly upwards, since the bats would come and get us! We need to stick onto our trail and just use this spell to boost our speed," Alice explained.
After one complete minute, the sounds that I heard a while ago disappeared. An automated voice called inside my head, saying that Alice activated the spell on my feet.
My body levitated above ground. As I gazed down, my feet did not touch the ground. The world around me defied gravity, allowing me to fly like a professional hero.
'All the physicists on Earth would flail their heads if they saw this,' I thought. I couldn't help but chuckle at my joke. Alice wouldn't get that jest, so I had to keep it for myself.
She held my hand and launched ourselves beyond the still trees. We passed hundreds of monsters through our journey, but the two of us paid no attention. Even the bats glued their eyes at our tails, thinking that we were much of a golden price than those vulnerable creatures wandering around.
"Are you getting the hang of it?" Alice asked, and flashed me a grin.
If I had an actual mouth and could feel any sensation, my lips would have become distorted. I would have also felt the insect crashing against my face, unable to break free from the speed. But I didn't have any of those or feel anything.
I was a puppet! My body gave me a positive and negative mental attitude about how I viewed the world. And right now, I could see both sides of the same coin.
It was like what Alice had mentioned. That gothic girl unlatched her hand from mine and allowed me to travel in mid-air without Alice guiding my directions. I transformed into a superhero that had repulsive rays from each hand. My lips wiggled, wanting to say his name.
But I couldn't. It was not the time to say that.
The two of us had travelled around ten miles from the two bats. Those winged beasts were chasing us at the ends of this world. We only needed fifty miles to exit this forsaken place. Thanks to Alice, who installed these magic circles around my feet that allowed me to travel at the speed of sound, our trip became quicker.
However, our fun came to a halt. The bats also had something hidden behind their sleeves. With a loud screech, the two bats had already caught up from our figures.
The environment surrounding us changed into a dimmer look. It was as if the world became dim, obstructing any form of light from entering the atmosphere. As we gaze our heads into the sky, what we saw weren't clouds.
Those shapes that blocked the sunlight were none other than bats. They were the same gigantic size as the two who had been chasing us for some time.
All of those placental mammals gave a blaring screech. I did not have any eardrums, so the pain did not go through me. As I looked to my right, Alice flew to the sides. I used my body as a cushion for Alice before she crashed and landed against the bark. My hands snatched her head and embraced Alice's entire body, hoping she would not get injured during our descent.
The two of us rolled at the forest's far end, hitting some bushes as a pillow of some sort in our landings. We were like Jack and Jill but did not fetch any water.
We fetched some bats along our way.
The magic circles on our feet deactivated by themselves, showing that something terrible happened to the mage. I turned around and noticed Alice groaning in pain. She tried expanding her fingers and moving her arms, but failed to do so. The only fortunate thing that happened to her was that she could walk.
Alice stood up from the ground and directed her gaze in front of us. "They're here."