I woke up in a way that was meant to knock people out. My breath was stolen from me. I was floating in the air by the tight grip around my neck that kept me from falling. The rope strangling me loosened and I collapsed. I lay on the ground while the monstrous creatures were bound around me by their broken necks.
Even in their deaths their stares bore holes into my body. I couldn't move myself. The pain all over was paralyzing. My trembling hand tried to console my bleeding stomach but I didn't have the guts in me to put pressure on it. I was a bloody mess. My heart was pounding not only because I was always scared to death but also because I was bleeding profusely.
"Smoyashi, Aki!" I weakly called out.
Berg was still rioting in the background. They were close but were not in the same area as I was.
My head fell back on the floor. It felt so cold. This series of near death events was getting really repetitive and it was close to being a routine.
"I'm so tired ..." Half of my lips raised into a grin. "I'm so fucking tired..." I laughed.
Wood snapped, the twig women fell around my body like petals blooming. I sniffed a bit and sluggishly covered my eyes with my arm. If an animal came over to poke a toothpick into me like a tea sandwich I wouldn't be able to struggle much.
Whoever hanged these creepy female Pinocchios was a real sicko.
I winced from the loud explosion, lifting my head when a black object came rolling like a log. The thing rolled over our flower circle and landed exactly on top of my cushion pin body.
"Aki!"
He was unconscious and badly beaten up.
"Are you dead? Hey!"
Nothing.
"Don't leave me alive man. At least take me with you!" I cried.
The bear's voice erupted into a thunderous growl that shook the entire forest. I have no idea where Smoyashi was but it must still be staying underneath his paw and became a permanent resident there.
I reached out to Aki's neck to feel his pulse. It was still beating. If he was dead I would lie here with him and wait for the end, but now I had the responsibility to keep him alive. Welp, he was doomed. I shouldn't have checked; ignorance really was a bliss.
I sat up, groaning. It felt like I was run over with bodybuilders wearing stilettos.
The tongue was on top of some tree roots which reminded me of what we were supposed to do but had no idea on how to actually do it. I glanced at Aki and then back at Bergelmir who had completely ignored us.
"I can't believe I have to do this."
I was dying anyway so might as well kill some time or make the death quicker.
I dragged Aki as I limped and hid him in the bushes. Just moving a bit was putting myself in an unspeakable torture. I held the tongue like a satchel. The banshee from before appeared beside me like an omen. I didn't mind her presence as much as before.
"You should clean the blood on your teeth or people will judge you like I did." I cleared my throat from her unresponsiveness. "It's your choice, you know..."
A pipe fell over my head. My hand automatically came to soothe the throbbing pain.
Why did that thing keep on falling over my head? Aki saved me from the first incident.
As I picked the pipe up, my heart raced from the sudden flood of missing events from earlier.
"Holy shit, I did that." I was the one who hung them. "How?" I asked the banshee.
I needed to do that again and it wasn't because I was a sicko who gets entertained by it.
"Will you help me?"
She snarled but a little bit milder. I assumed that was her agreement to give me a hand that was icky and bloody. I couldn't believe I was working with a banshee.
And I couldn't believe I used Aki as bait for this plan.
The cat was dragged back into the middle of the forest. With his unconsenting sacrifice, I collected the right amount of air into my lungs and shouted as loud as I could, bringing in the adrenaline that was keeping me alive.
"OI BERG! HERE'S YOUR CAT MEAL!"
If the cat was awake and listening, I would probably be skinned with a potato peeler.
Berg, who was already on his two hinds, dropped back down in search of me. Once he spotted Aki who was the best at playing dead and vulnerable, he charged ahead like a bull, ready to sweep the cat into his mouth like a fish to a seagull.
I dropped the huge loop of rope that Miss Sheek (a name I came up with from banshee and her shrieks) magically handed to me, catching Berg's neck with it. The tree that the rope was tied to leaned forward.
Berg threshed. The plan was only effective for a few seconds. It was a long shot. I sprung from the tree down to his back. Miss Sheek did her usual funk of shriek. I held on to his stinky fur like a pesky flea and began climbing. I wasn't making any progress with how I was climbing like Sid the Sloth. Since his back was as wide as a road runway, I got up and ran on the unsteady pavement made of furry flesh.
My scowling appearance gradually split into a proud grin. The neck was right there. It was right–
"Shit shit shit!" I screamed. I hurriedly tilted forward to grasp some fur as I fell backwards but I grasped two leaf sprouts that were drenched in something sticky.
"Smoy?"
"Smoyashi!" It muffled.
I managed to stick back to Berg who opened his jaws for another menacing growl. The sprout popped out and ran forward with an undeclared purpose.
"Smoy Smoy!"
"I hope you meant to throw the tongue to you!"
I hurled the tongue to Smoyashi that gave me a confident thumbs up. It threw spheres of light that were able to stay afloat, using them as stairs to get above Berg's unfurled mouth.
Smoy caught the tongue and plucked the two leaves on top of its head. With one last stair it leaped and threw the dead muscle and leaves inside. Bergelmir firmly shut his jaws with resounding vibrations.
There was a long line of silence prior to me howling like a hyena.
"We did it! We did it! Oh thank you, Smoy!"
Smoyashi dove like a professional skydiver, latching onto my back.
"Smoy smoy smoy."
I leaned my head against the fallen guardian. The monster was unmoving. He seemed as if he was flashed with Medusa's powers and became a stone. It was very quiet. A soft breeze of fresh moss, rain, and wet earth overwhelmed my sense of smell. The adrenaline was running out. The fatigue and loss of blood had caught up.
"Smoyashi, are we going to be okay?"
The sprout became warm. It tightened its embrace from behind me. The stabbing pain I learned to cope with washed away.
"We will be..." Someone answered. It was a girl.
Green and yellow lights circled slowly around us. There were only two at first and then as they moved faster more of them appeared, consuming Berg's image.
The pestiferous flies were scourged and blown away like sand. The colors shrank towards his body, cleansing the festering disease he had—a disease that cost the lives of everyone and everything in the forest that he was assigned to protect.
"We did it..." Sleep started to rip my senses in the kindest way.
My fingers uncurled unbeknownst to me.