"Are you satisfied, Mei?" Kai asked as they both forged a path forward through the uneven terrain of the forest.
Mei quickly pulled a knife out of her hair in a flash of red and sliced a tree branch out of their way, sending it crashing to the ground, just narrowly missing Kai's head.
"Of course, we finally can get out of here." Mei trudged forward, humming under her breath as she led the way. She quickly turned to Kai, "By the way, how far are we? If we really have been detained by Gaia this entire time, I want to get out of here as fast as possible."
Kai shrugged. "We probably could have been out of here an hour or two ago, but you refused to carry me and run. We should reach the edge very soon… I think…"
"I didn't want to carry you because I was tired; who knows what's beyond this? It makes sense to recover while we can. Also, you're the one that didn't bring the food-."Mei's ranting was put to a screeching halt as her foot splashed in some kind of strangely warm liquid. She quickly jumped away, the shock of the unexpected taking over her system, and looked down to see a puddle of dark liquid that, even at a glance, obviously wasn't water.
Kai looked over her shoulder curiously "What the hell is that? From the smell, I think it's…"
"It's blood." Mei, now kneeling down next to the puddle, kneaded a bit of the substance in her fingers. "From the looks of it, a few hours old, not bright enough to be fresh, but not dark or dry enough to be older than that.""Can you tell what kind it is?" Kai knelt down beside her, looking at the blood running down her fingers.
Mei flicked away the blood and stood back up. "It's human- well, that or something human adjacent since it's darkened like this. The real question is, whose is this, and what drew it? With the amount here, they're probably dead."
Kai hummed as he looked at the blood. From the corner of his eye, he spotted specks of red on plants growing around the base of a tree, along with a mess of frenzied footprints in the mud. "Look here, Mei." He stood up and drew her attention toward his finding.
"Since we're on the path, I think it's safe to assume it was that girl and her group. I don't see animal footprints, so they were being chased by another person."
Kai pointed up toward a branch jutting out from the large tree. "You killed that bird thing a couple of weeks ago, right? Did you understand it enough so you can hop up there and look ahead? I have a feeling we're safe, but you can never be too sure."
Mei sighed and waved her hand. "Fine, fine. Let me see." With a powerful push, Mei jumped into the air, and in a flash of red, a glowing tail sprouted from her lower back, which she used to hang from the branch to avoid the obstructions from the treetops above.
In another flash of light, glowing eyes appeared over hers; she squinted and held her hand above them to block out the light. "Ah shit, this really hurts. Remind me not to use this if we're in trouble. I'll get a headache." She shook off the pain and focused her eyes far down the path.
"Yeah, there's a lot more blood a good way down the path. It looks like there was a big fight, but I can't tell. Let's go check it out." She gracefully hopped down from the branch and landed next to Kai, quickly dispelling the tail and eyes on the way.
After walking for a few minutes, they came across the scene Mei had glimpsed from the tree. Blood splatters covered the ground, plants, and trees in the small area. On some of the trees, scratch marks from sharp claws were deeply indented, clearly intended to kill. Along with some of the claw marks, it looked as though the trees and plants were singed by some kind of flame around them. But out of all of it, what seemed the most odd to them was the body of one of the men impaled by multiple branches tossed to the side of the road.
"That's just gratuitous. One through the chest or head would have been enough." Mei walked up to the man, observing that his hands and feet all had branches through them, as well as multiple non-vital areas around his body. She quickly plucked a knife out of her hair and cut the man down, laying him on the ground.
Suddenly, a bundle of vines erupted from the earth around him, quickly encompassing the man and wrapping him tight from head to toe. "Burying isn't my forte, so that'll have to do," Kai looked off toward the rest of the path, his brow furrowed, "Whoever did this is rancid." He grumbled, his voice laced with a hint of anger.
Mei nodded in agreement and sighed while putting her hand on his shoulder. "Come on, I'm sure we'll find out what's going on soon enough."
Kai felt her grip tighten on his shoulder as she spoke to him; the force was almost enough to crush his shoulder. He quickly jumped away in pain. "Ow! Hey! You're more upset than I am. Control yourself, Mei. You almost crushed my shoulder. Did you forget my body isn't like yours?"
"Sorry, sorry. My anger bubbled up a bit too much." Mei snapped out of her trance and began walking forward, narrowly avoiding another puddle of blood on the ground by quickly sidestepping it.
"Well, save it for whoever did that. We should be coming up on the clearing any second now." Kai rubbed his shoulder, wincing, as he trailed slowly behind her.
As the two continued forward, numerous more claw marks, splatters of blood, and thick gashes in various trees and plantlife, along with contorted branches, some singed and some tipped with blood, lined the path.
Their bubbling feelings and thoughts of disdain, confusion, and disgust were quickly pushed to the back of their minds as they laid eyes on a glowing white light, peeking out just beyond the end of the path. "Mei, look! This is the end." Kai shouted before breaking into a sprint.
"Finally!" Mei quickly caught up to him, wanting to experience the moment together. As their feet crossed the edge of the trees, the sight they were met with was a sea of a mixture of white and gray clouds as far as their eyes could see.
They both stood there in awe, taking in the vastness of their surroundings, with their mouths agape at the beyond-peculiar sight. "Clouds?" Kai whispered under his breath.
Mei took a couple of steps forward toward the jagged edge of the earth, where their land suddenly ended, and looked down below them. "Kai, they're down here too. I think we're floating!" She yelled back at him.
A bead of sweat ran down his face, its path broken by a wide grin that had plastered itself on it. "Floating…there wasn't anything in the old texts back at the village talking about this…" He slowly took a few steps forward, standing with Mei. "This is amazing. Just what else is out there beyond us?"
Mei pointed above them, her face mixed with an expression somewhere between fascination and confusion. "More importantly… probably… what the hell is that?"
Kai followed her finger up to the sky far in the distance above them. The first thing he saw was what seemed like another landmass, just barely in sight if he squinted really hard, but above even that, far up in the sky, was a giant crack, running from somewhere behind them and past the point where they could see with an aurora trailing out from the center along its length.
"This is far more than I could have ever hoped for…" He stared above them with disbelief, then turned to Mei. "Mei, we're going to find out everything about this world. Starting there." He pointed out toward the landmass floating above them in the distance.
Mei chuckled, met his gaze, and clenched her fist. "Of course. I'm with you, Kai. But there's something wrong here. Something about this world feels broken…"
Kai's gaze shifted to a giant white and blue feather that was to their side. He stepped toward it and picked it up curiously. "Then maybe we're the ones to make it right."