"It is vaguely unsettling…" Sarra voiced her concern as she lagged behind, following the footsteps of the Envy who was boldy venturing forward into one specific direction.
The land beneath their feet was dark rottensque like charcoal and mud, it was also at the same time somewhat fleshy yet solid. Even as they were walking on it with their shoes on, they could somehow feel the distinct disturbing feedback from the ground, vastly unlike the solid ground back on the earth.
As for the scenery, it was vastly different from what Adele had met with during his first Dream Walk so much so that in no way they appear to be in the same realm altogether. The area around the young women was somewhat dimly lit, but with no apparent source of light in the sky. In addition,the seemingly vast landscape of nothing in front of their eyes, enriched the creepiness of this land.
This empty feeling surroundings made the trespassing visitor's heart feel uneasy. It was difficult to put in words but in short it was like that this land was not 'that' foreign looking as what they expected the realm of Dreams to be… and at the same time it was something distinctly different from the familiar landscape of the earth.
"There is nothing to see for miles and miles.. It is empty yet so… "
"Familiar looking." Sarra stopped as soon as she heard the reply of the Envy. She frowned and carefully surveyed the landscape around her and to her horror amidst realization, it was true. The land here, though not feeling exactly right, is just like a normal landscape of the earth's terrain.
Envy too stopped after a few steps as she realized Sarra had left far behind. She turned back to face Sarra with her mask that was hiding most of her facial expressions, but her empty eyes were surprisingly not that blank like before. It was like life was slowly being rekindled back into them. Unfortunately, Sarra was too uncomfortable to pay notice to such subtle changes in the demeanor of the girl.
"Has she contacted you yet? "
Sarra shivered as she broke out of her overthinking, with Envy's question she looked down to the script etched on her arm and noticed them to be still dull red. Meaning…
"No, she still hasn't contacted me. Do you think something might have happened to her? I mean.. It has already been two hours.."
Envy nodded and then shook her head, in that order. "No, you need not worry as I said, the old woman is too resilient to be in trouble. In Fact you should worry more about us, since it's been so long and we have yet to come across anything moving in this piece of land."
"But that scream.." Sarra pointed out in a hurry but stopped midway as she decided to forcefully curb her distracting thoughts to focus on their situation. Envy was right, there was no way that 'Witch' who had reached that level, could be harmed by anything on the Earth. She should instead worry about themselves, who were trapped here.
"Okay, I will try to focus. What about that shard of blood? Is this direction really correct?"
Envy glanced at the shard in her hand that had dried blood flaked upon it. It was giving her subtle summons from the particular direction in which they were traveling till now. But other than this flimsy feeling, there were no other clues if this thing even works correctly or not.
Sarra needed not to wait for Envy to answer as she herself was doubting the method of tracking given by the Maya by now. According to her, with their subtle connection to Adele they would be teleported close to his location when they would enter the realm but here they were walking for two hours with nothing in sight. Therefore, she decided to try something of her own.
"Let me try something. Just for sake of clarity, don't try to shake me or do any such thing since it could appear that I am being possessed but it would be a normal process. Nothing to worry about as it is a relatively harmless spell. "
Envy raised her hands in acknowledgement, also same time mumbling 'F*cking creepy ass witches' under her breath. Pretending not to hear that, Sarra fetched her dagger from her hoodie pocket that was deep red in color, a valuable artifact given to her by her teacher for her safety. It was the thing that was most reliable in her belongings that had the ability to give her a little sense of security. From the start, only because of its constant presence could she remain calm in even dangerous situations.
As Sarra was about to call for the directions from beyond the veil, a sudden trepidation spooked her out of her focused state. She suddenly looked towards one side, and saw a dagger aiming at her neck from behind. At the sudden ambush, goosebumps rose over her body while she stood there stuck to the ground in shock.
The attack was so sudden, and at such an intricate angle that the only thing she was able to do timely was to spot it coming towards her neck. Sarra stood there in anguish, watching dagger reaching for her neck by each passing second with no resistance from her side.
But at this moment, the dagger in her left hand flashed bright red once, and at the same time the assaulting dagger held by the ambusher reached her neck.
Clang!
A loud clinking sound rang in the empty atmosphere, as the ambusher's dagger clashed with something invisible and was shoved back. Gathering her wits at this sudden chance, Sarra hurriedly stepped back to open distance between them.
But the assaulter was as fast as her despite being a step back in reacting due to the sudden appearance of a barrier over the body of Sarra, as she hurled a kick at her stomach at the same time. This time no barrier appeared, as her kick connected aptly with the ribs of the Sarra who felt a rush of pain in her lower chest.
Sarra was thrown several meters away due to sheer force of the kick and rolled pathetically on the ground a few times, until she managed to bite her lips to hurriedly raise her hand in defense.
"You f*king bitch…..why?"
Sarra's words were prematurely interrupted , as the Envy was upon her once again, with her eyes burning with intense fire of emotions completely unlike the dead empty eyes she had back home. Sarra was confused but more than she was scared as she was completely unprepared and this ambush was already able to kill her a few times over if not for her teacher's dagger.
And the fact that she was completely outclassed by the enemy was also stoking her fear instead of anger at sudden betrayal by her supposed partner. Sarra wanted to ask her why, wanted to gain some time to do something instead of dying straight away, gain some time to do something…anything.
But Envy completely justifying her introduction of being an ex-assassin had no intention of conversing with her prey. She pressed towards the Sarra, reaching her the moment she recovered from the previous fall. She raised her hand and threw the dagger towards Sarra, who with a frightened look on her face waved her dagger awkwardly to protect herself.
Once again the flash of red dagger happened, and this time it erupted with a small force field that knocked away the incoming dagger. Sarra, who had actually missed the timing by quite a margin, breathed a sigh of relief but it was short lived as the predator was already upon her once again.
Envy watched the flash clearly this time, and she was able to make a rough understanding of how this thing works in her mind. Her hand went to her trousers and pulled out another dagger from one of its numerous pockets. She pounced upon the Sarra who crawled back while thrusting her dagger awkwardly towards the Envy, who evaded this clumsy attempt cleanly.
"Stop!" Sarra screamed in desperation. But Envy was unfazed as her hand weaved through the gap left between the extended arm of Sarra, towards her unguarded side and thrusted her dagger at her. It was a quick and swift stab at her stomach.
Once again overcoming the restraints of the common physical laws, the dagger in the hand of Sarra which was quite far away, flashed in red glow and an invisible barrier of sorts appeared just in the path of the Envy's dagger.
But this time Envy was prepared, her eyes narrowed as she lost the strength in her striking hand making the dagger softly collide with the barrier. Clearly, it was an expert feint by her to trick the dagger who seemed to be able to block fatal attempts on her owner. All the while, at the same time her left hand, which was empty, snaked towards Sarra's neck.
But as luck would have it, Envy's fingers missed the neck of Sarra by a hair's margin, as she almost instinctively moved away at the last moment, leading to Envy's nails scratching her shoulder instead. At the same time, Sarra, who felt a thin cutting pain on her shoulder, suddenly let the dagger loose from her left hand and kicked at the Envy who was almost too close to avoid this blow.
The cornered animal flings his legs widely with no aim in sight but such desperate actions are sometimes most dangerous to the predators. Just like that, Sarra's wild attempt was successful as her knee hit the chest of Envy squarely, pushing her back several steps on her knees. While at the same time, Sarra finally got herself away from her reach in one swoop.
Envy struggled back to her feet quickly as she held her aching chest in slight pain, but it was bearable. On the other hand, such a close shave at the death, made Sarra's brain work faster and faster as she looked at the scratch over her shoulder that had now drawn slight blood.
This time first to act was Sarra, who was learning quickly from experience. Her eyes turned black instantly along with her finger tips, as she used the blood over her shoulder as catalyst and muttered a mumble of spell under her breath while closing her eyes to focus better.
By the time she chanted three words, she felt wind rushing to her neck once again, clearly Envy, who had already closed the gap in a few seconds and was just one step away from slashing her neck. But in extreme danger her stubborn nature was once again displayed, just like when she had acted to try to save herself from the failed ritual night.
Sarra remained calm and kept her eyes closed as she rushed to complete her spell but she knew very well that time would not be enough. But she had a plan…
Just as Envy's dagger reached Sarra's now completely unprotected neck, danger level in the heart of Envy rose by several levels suddenly. She had a corner of her attention focused on that accursed red dagger fallen on ground behind her, and now this proved handy as she was able to notice it disappearing instantly which prompted her to stop her attack abruptly and fall back.
'Swish!'
As expected the red dagger, again lit with a momentary bright red flash, appeared in the folded hands of the Sarra. But unexpectedly Envy was the one who got duped this time though not a deliberate action by the Sarra.
As soon as the dagger came back to Sarra, she surprisingly made no motion to attack her. In Fact she had just called her dagger back for getting silver of time it can provide with automatic protection against the first fatal attack of Envy.
But likely cautious Envy promptly retreated, wrongly taking the disappearance of the dagger as a sign for it to be coming for her. Envy's overcautious approach of backing away rather than pressing forward earned more than enough time to Sarra, who opened her eyes and met the blazing pupils of the Envy indifferently. She mouthed last words of her spell finally completing it,
"... I call thee, Svek the unbirthed."
Envy felt warning bells ringing in her ears, as she hurriedly turned back and without paying any attention to protecting her back, ran at the full speed ahead. She didn't even spare a single glance behind her as she rushed at the speed unmatched by even the fastest of humans.
But alas, the empty terrain proved to be her achillie's heel. As no matter how fast she ran there simply was no place to take cover. With not even a single rock in sight, just bare black land with rotten flesh like structure spanning for as far as one's eyes could see.
Sarra felt something cold touching her shoulders as she shivered in response. But she need not turn around to see a huge apparition of a grotesque creature with a long tail like lower structure but almost a human-like upper body materializing behind her. It opened its demon-like mouth and with a long forked tongue licked the blood of the Sarra which was drawn on her shoulder.
"......."
It screamed in the silence, while knowing what it was demanding Sarra tried her best to not show any fear as she resolutely commanded her mentally - first to do her bidding before the payment. The half translucent creature behind her moaned and writhed in silent anger but ultimately acquiesced and in almost disdaining glance towards front, pointed its one bony finger towards the running figure of the Envy.
And blood bloomed like a flower in the distance as Envy halted abruptly midway through her sprint. With wide eyes, she looked down and saw a hole in the place where her heart was supposed to be. Like a lifeless sculpture of meat, her body collapsed on the ground with a loud thud.