(Rose)
The ground truly is moving. A fissure appears on the suddenly dry ground, slithering toward us.
Closer to us, it explodes before we could get much further. Whips and threads are catching me. I'm entangled and tied up. I think Ann is too.
It's strangling me as it drags me around. I'm suffocating. I can hardly move.
I try to catch my knife as I'm being dragged away. I manage to catch it and begin to cut the brambles that tie me up and choke me.
I can breathe, but it's like I'm drinking alcohol with every breath. I feel awful now, it's too much.
I heard Ann scream somewhere. It reminds me of the sounds I heard when the others died. I manage to cut myself free and fall to the ground. I look around. We're closer to the asymmetrical forest. The tentacles dragging us are slowly being pulled back to it.
Something hits me behind the head and I roll to the ground. A beast again...
I don't have the time to grab my rifle properly but I'm still holding the knife.
I grab its arm on the next strike, but my hand slips through. The flesh is melting. My legs fight back around its head. The head almost falls off. It doesn't matter. By the time takes for it to do with what reminds of its body, my hand covered its eyes and stabbed it in the neck.
It looks painful... It surely is.
I rip its throat out. The beast empties itself as it softly falls now. I stab the thing a last time in the chest. There's pale blood flowing everywhere when I pull the blade off.
I stand up and run toward the forest, not noticing how faster things begin to decay now.
The song that daiûa is humming is still playing in my head. I hate it. It sounds and feel awful.
I almost can't see the nets that caught Ann anymore. I run for it. Other monsters are still after me, dripping and melting their own selves.
I enter the strange forest.
~
It's a maze of gigantic corals, taller than me. Giant empty husks and remnants of trees not looking like any I've ever seen. These shapes slowly grow and sway. I step over thick roots that move under my feet.
Everything is moving and reacting to my presence.
The giant vegetal links move away from me. It's opening a path for me, instead of trying to tie me up again.
I think I heard someone saying welcome.
I'm entering the lion's den... Or something far worse actually. But I think that is really where I need to go...
I hold the weapon ready and step in the path that opens for me, leading to the heart of the forest.
Rapidly, the strange plants, husks and shapes are replaced with gigantic brambles, like immense snakes that are entangled together. The thorns are not much taller than they should be however, they' re not overgrown.
I reach a very large tree, taller than a six stories building, and as large as my manor. It's a giant bouquet of flowers very tightly arranged stems, as thick as large trees. It's seems stuck into a broken part of the ground, or as if it grew from seeds buried below, very suddenly.
I can't quite see the flowers that should be on top, but I see some gigantic leaves here and there.
Everything is an iron red rust colour here. I think I saw human leftovers on my way, but I might be dreaming.
The bouquet is opening itself on my approach. I'm not sure I understand what's inside.
It looks like guts, when you open carefully an animal's abdomen, without damaging the intestines and organs. The way they're shaped, shining slightly, all soft and warm but morbid. It looks like a giant's innards.
I don't know what happened to Ann. I've lost her track.
The moving walls of intestines open themselves further as if welcoming me in between their folds. There's a new path opening just for me...
I stay still a few more seconds. I hesitate. It really feels weird. I know I'm not thinking rationally anymore. But I can't think anymore.
Another new world I'm invited to step in. One that really doesn't look appealing...
This time I have seemingly a choice however. I could step away, maybe...
What do I want?
To save Ann? Not that much really... If I can, it's a good thing, but not being able to save her life... I don't care much about it anymore.
How quickly feelings can fade... I'd rather see Zeslinry again than Ann.
But if I can still save a life, I want to do it.
I'm aware that it's mostly not for her that I step inside. It's for me, and what I want to know.
I wanted to go home, to know what happened to her.
I want to go inside, to learn what happened to me.
And deep down... I think I still want to meet a daiûa...
I know how dangerous it is to play with fire, to talk with daiûas.
I want to believe I've been cautious enough; that I'm able to enjoy the goods things fire can offer, without burning myself...
The truth is in hubris. I've been quite reckless. I'm not as smart as I wish I were.
But in the end, it doesn't quite feel like this one is trying to kill me like the beasts created along the way did.
Here, something is opening itself to me harmlessly...
After it tried to capture me, it may still be a convoluted trap. I might just be naively running inside its mouth.
Then why do I still feel that I'm free? That the choice is truly up to me...
The stairs inside that fleshy giant bouquet are waiting politely. No more brambles or vines trying to catch me.
I think I'm not myself anymore... Because I find only partially reasonable or smart my will to step inside.
I hold the weapon tight. I step inside the tower of strange fleshes.
I chose to enter that world. There's someone else I want to see.
Something I want to meet, despite how hazardous it is for me.
Well, it still took me some time to make up my mind. I tried to think. I can't judge the result.
The place is strange at the top of the fleshy stairs. There's a wide and deep red though glowing flower bud. A bulb, metres wide. It looks like a giant soft egg or warm fruit. I can walk on it.
I wander on it, unable to see where to go from there. Then it begins to move. It's rising slowly. It goes up, sliding between the giant stems and sometimes leaves. I'm being lifted by this organic lift through the bouquet.
The air gets slightly better. Everything still looks black or red though. I avoid leaves taller than gardens could be.
They slip aside this rising fruit I'm standing on, a little agape.
I wonder what the flowers look like up there.
I wonder what the daiûa at the end of this dream is...
~