Giving up her attempt at pursuing Leo, she finally spoke words that Leo so much wanted to hear all this while, " what you seek," she paused and continued, " what you seek lies between two corpses and three lives." Before Leo could make sense of the witch's words, the witch disappeared without a trace.
"Great," Leo muttered silently as he lightly kicking a branch that was on the ground next to his feet. Moving through the woods, his eyes searched thoroughly, ensuring that he left no stone unturned. One simple mistake would lead to him missing even the tiniest clue.
Advancing his search deep into the woods, he found himself before a cluster of wild purple flowers. The flowers ran quite some distance ahead of him. "Is this it?" Leo asked himself. He wasn't sure whether those were the flowers or not.
He then stooped a little to have a closer look and just as he was about to reach out his hand and touch one, he picked up little movements.
His eyes darted around so fast and finally caught the little wavering in-between the flowers. A grey hare then hopped out of the flowers, continuing ahead of Leo. Leo keenly looked at the hare as it hopped along.
It then stopped to munch on the flower it had picked, dropping it's rooty ends. Before the hare could hope any further, it collapse onto the ground foaming as it twitched a little. 'Those are poisonous I guess', Leo thought to himself pitying the poor hare.
He continued along that path slowly while still looking around without seeing any traces of the weed or whatever that witch was speaking about.
Advancing a little, Leo wondered if he should continue ahead or just turn around or maybe towards another direction because at this point he could not place well what he was seeing. A few steps ahead of him were wilted and dry vegetation beneath his feet.
It was almost like a sign that whatever lay ahead or beyond it was definitely not a good thing. He then thought that perhaps this was just a test and something to hinder him from finding what he was looking for.
Without thinking twice, he stepped onto the ground and inched ahead leaving the sound of dry leaves and twigs cracking up in the forest. He hated the noise it made but he just had to go through with it.
"Are you kidding me!" Leo cursed inwardly as he stood right in front of a big trunk of tree that looked like it had fallen over during a storm or a strong wind. Looking at it and how far it blocked the path, the trunk was pretty big that it was almost unavoidable for him to just turn around and follow another path.
Battling with time which he was now not sure if he had, Leo decided to turn around and find another path as fast as he could. He walked back leaving the trunk behind and heading back to the same direction of which he was coming from before.
Passing the dry vegetation, he stopped and looked around to see if he had any little luck left. "This dead place sure has it's ways of getting into my nerves," he sighed and looked further onto the ground towards the left at the dead hare.
"At least there was something breathing in this pit," he had a long stare at the dead hare and finally continued and he was soon past the purple flowers. Just before he could completely leave the purple flowers behind, Leo took out the little rag that he had and unwrapped it looking carefully at the pattern and color of the leaves.
He then went ahead to try and see if at all the leaves would be similar with those of the purple flowers. Leaning towards the flowers, Leo got back up quicker than expected. With a long face he remarked, "which kind of flowers grow straight from the dirt without coming from a plant or leaves."
He wrapped back the beetle weed leaf and kept it away, his face displaying clear irritation and displeasure. "Yea 'two corpses and three lives' and that does the magic. Very helpful," Leo mimicked with his fingers forming quotes in the air. His frustration was pretty much mirroring at this point.
He then halted as his eyes lit with a clue' "two corpses and three lives! Of course that must be it!" Leo immediately turned around and looked behind him, trying to put all the missing pieces in his head together.
He then walked back to the purples flowers and looked ahead and further walked back through the dry vegetation to the big tree trunk. "Leo then went ahead and ran his fingers across the trunk and felt it's moldy surface.
He then walked back again pacing a little and stopped, immediately darting his eyes to the dead hare on the ground. "Two corpses...the two corpses are the hare and the trunk..."
Deciding to follow his instincts, he raised his eyes towards the purple flowers, rulling then out as one of the 'lives'. He then looked at the dead hare again and recalled when it was still amongst the flowers.
"That's it, the hare is also one of the 'lives'." Flabbergasted, Leo wondered what the third life could be. He looked around searching for any visible clue but there was none on the plain sight. Calming himself with steady breaths, he recollected himself and started arranging the clues in his head in order again.
He then walked towards the trunk again, "two corpses..." He quoted again and walked again towards the purple flowers, "this has to be right." Leo then stood near the flowers and looked at the distance between where he stood and where the tree trunk was.
"It's me, I'm the third 'life'...," the moment he uttered those words, he saw a little cloud of dust rise right about the dry and wilted vegetation. What was revealed after was very dark green weeds that were distinctive from the other surrounding plants.
Leo then saw the green weeds move as they were growing right on the spot revealing blossoms of fresh flowers that were cream in color. Leo was very much puzzled by what had just happened and he realized that it was until he solved the riddle that the weeds appeared.
Just a while ago he was walking on those dry plants and never once could he have ever guessed that they would turn out to be the weeds he was looking for.
He then walked towards them and noticed that they had leaves similar to that of the weed that he was carrying. He carefully went ahead and picked out one flower and kept it safely and was about to pick another one just incase the first one got spoilt.
He was immediately stunned on the site of the weeds beneath him that had immediately wilted and dried right back. It was once again looking like before, just bare dry dead plants. "I guess I can only pick one," he spoke rising from the ground careful enough with the single flower he got.
Getting back didn't seem great of a deal as he could somehow sense the right path back to the opening that he used to enter into the witches' forest.
In no time at all, he was back next to the bridge. He let out a sigh of relief the moment he saw Lily still standing on the other side of the bridge waiting impatiently. He was relieved that he could still see her on her feet.
Leo immediately stepped onto the bridge and steadied himself on it, carefully taking keen steps ahead. He then felt the the bridge sway a little, "it didn't do that the first time," Leo said out loud. The slight sway was followed by a creaking sound which made it feel like the bridge was breaking somewhere.
His next few steps were careful and planned as Leo saw to it that he did not take a false step and sink into whatever abyss it led to. Seeing that he was halfway across the bridge, Leo looked at Lily and could see her more nearer to him than before.
He was sure that judging from how Lily was staring into his direction, she must have seen the sway too and heard the creak. He did not want her to worry and he sure as hell did not want her to rush to him towards the bridge.
"Don't worry Lily everything is okay, I got it!" He spoke flushing a smile to reassure Lily. He however noticed that the was not much of a reaction on Lily's face which was strange. Just when he took one more step, Leo heard more creaking and looked towards Lily's direction and saw her shake her head in terror.
"Why is that happening! Why is the bridge collapsing and I can hardly see him!" Lily shouted with confusion. "He is right there," the gnome pointed towards the bridge further and Lily could finally see Leo almost halfway across it.
The only problem was that she could also see the bridge begining to collapse. "Make it stop!" She shouted. "It doesn't work like that sadly," the gnome answered Lily looking at her wearing a less bothered face.
All this while Leo could see and hear everything that was happening as well as the conversation too. He then called out Lily's name loud enough but still Lily wasn't concentrating on him. "Just look at me Lily!" He shouted loud enough, this time sure that she heard him. He was shocked upon realizing that Lily could still not hear him.
"There has to be something we can do come on!" Lily still frustrated continued. "There is however something that could help him," the gnome interrupted. " The shell was just a one way ticket, there is something I sense might work," the gnome continued eying Lily's pendant. Leo realizing what was just happening, stared with horror as he made sense of what he was witnessing.