There were no more houses or streets, not even light to be found. What was left were tall trees — cedars — in every direction, adding to the suffocating effect they produced on those around. The humid climate gave them chills, and the smell of putrid flesh took over their fragile noses. Only then did they notice they were in the middle of a clearing; a terrifying one.
Sophie Riviere looked up. Her arms felt weighed, her knees, nude against the dirt, were bleeding, and we could see life leaving her glassy marine eyes as she gazed at the full moon. It was red. Identical to a polished ruby, maybe more similar to blood. Perhaps a lunar eclipse. She would have found it beautiful if not for the circumstances they encountered themselves in. And in case you were wondering, not even for a second did Marion Lianne stop embracing the poor soul.
Except for Sophie and Lianne, each stared at their own feet as if they were mourning in absolute silence. To intensify their grief, a drop of rain descended slowly through Sophie's cheek before a downpour began, covering them in blood, sweat and tears. A majestic cinematographic scene of the vicious scheme from the gods above.
They stood there, unfazed, letting the heavy rain clean their bodies in a vain wish to take away their feelings and sins, too.
One last shout. A cry from the bottom of the throat so reverberant it could be heard loud and clear despite the rain. The cedars shook their leaves, the wind blew harder, and the rain intensified. It was a cry for help, an unspoken wish for death, and a feeling so strong that nature understood it. Sophie's eyes were dry. There was nothing else to cry for.
The rain stopped as suddenly as it began. Sophie did not move, not even trying to look at her friends. Her eyes kept paying close attention to the blood moon up in the sky. As for the others, their expressions harden as they look at each other, not recognising the ones staring back.
"Who are—" asked one of the steel blue-haired girls. This one had another shade of blue as her eye colour, while the other lass had rosy eyes.
"Oh, cut the crap, Lethia. We can still recognize each other. It's just weird. I hope my hair has a normal colour like Maya's," interrupted Marion Lianne, trying to get a glimpse at the colour of her short hair. "Purple. It could be worse."
They all magically changed after the downpour, maybe even sooner than that, but they had no way of knowing. Both the colour of their eyes and hair were completely different than earlier that day, but their skin colour and facial features remained the same. They were still recognizable, after all.
"At least now you can say you have green eyes," mocked the girl whose hair was the colour of the moon Sophie was staring at, looking at Marion. "And a dress."
Only then did Marion notice what Juliette was referring to: they were all wearing the same simple white dress. Her face was enveloped in repulsion.
"A dress," the silver-haired lass said before twirling in delight, her emerald eyes, once brown, sparkling. "It's lovely, isn't it?"
"You're right, Sophie," Maya agreed with Ozanna. She was the one to change the least. Her chocolate skin tone remained the same, her hair which was once brown became as dark as ebony, and her eyes, the most notorious change, acquired a shade of blue out of their world.
As if they only remembered Sophie Riviere's presence at that moment, they all moved their eyes to find her in the same position: sitting on her heels, with her injured knees on the muddy dirt, her arms with no strength alongside her body, and her head facing the moon. She was strategically placed in the centre of the clearing like a sad statue of a heroine who lost everything. Her long and wavy hair used to be a gorgeous shade of brown, and her eyes always reminded Ariadne of caramel or honey, but those traces were nowhere to be found. Instead, both her eyes and hair acquired a saturated and tragic ocean colour. Despite the efforts of whoever changed them to make her marine eyes stand out, she was too depressed for them to look superb on their own. Nevertheless, there was undoubtedly something sublime in those pitiful eyes.
Probably caused by a small animal, the bushes made a slight sound, which resonated throughout the woods. Immediately after, a piercing howl was heard loud enough to startle those young women. It could not be a coincidence.
"We can't stay here any longer," said Maya, frightened. "They might come after us, as well."
"Bold of you to assume they aren't already," ridiculed Marion.
Juliette, overlooking what her friends were doing, hopelessly tried to make Sophie Riviere stand up, but she never obeyed. Lethia Sartre, frowning, observed the situation from a distance without a word. She then squinted, glancing at her sister, Mariette. Shortly, she took the blue-haired girl's hand and ran, leaving her alleged friends behind.
"Of course, she did this..." Lianne, who was already tired of Lethia's selfishness, sighed.
"As if you didn't do the same when you left her behind," were the first words Riviere pronounced after her mental breakdown under the rain.
"C-can we go home now?" asked Ozanna, sobbing. When Lethia disappeared, her new green eyes became wet again.
Sophie Riviere stood up unexpectedly before the others' inquisitive gaze. As if her friends were invisible, she started slowly walking, the ground cutting her bare feet like sharp needles.
Marion Lianne Picard rolled her eyes before running to keep up with the heroine's pace, committing to harm her own feet as Sophie did. It was not enough that they were left behind in the woods wearing tiny dresses in autumn; they had to stand with their feet unprotected, too. We can tell the gods were deviant. Yet, never once did they suffer from the cold.
The others followed in silence, going on a different path than Lethia and Mariette. If they tried to reach the clearing again to find them, they would not be able to.
The walk took hours. They were tired, drained even, their frail feet covered in blood, and nothing to be seen except for trees. The admirable cedars never once left the view, forever penetrating their minds. No bird, no rabbit, not even an insect did they see. Alone.
Sophie Ozanna stopped and squinted her eyes, and they all glanced back in doubt. She tried to clean her view using her hands to rub her eyes once or twice.
"There's a cottage," she said calmly. "Within the woods."
"We are within the woods," Marion Lianne rolled her eyes again.
"There," she pointed to where the cottage allegedly was.
To everyone's surprise, there was really a tiny wooden house near a lake in the place she was showing. It was a miracle no one noticed except for Sophie.
Little by little, step by step, they got closer to the house. They could see it clearly now. It was built close to a small muddy lake, its walls made of cedar wood which ivy covered almost entirely, its windows were broken and dark, and every flower next to it was as dry as sand.