Cannon Fodder To Villainess

🏮78. Ice and Fog

Amber breathed heavily with her face in the dirt and the hot sun beating down on her back. Uncontrolled ripples of purple magic floated around her in the air. The pain from her bleeding nose helped to snap her out of her panic attack. Her breathing started to slow down and she pushed herself up off of the ground. She sat on her legs a couple of minutes longer, trying to collect her bearings. Then she reached up and touched her nose, to make sure that it wasn't broken. It was fine, just a bit bloody, and swollen. Amber pulled out a little bottle of mana water with herbs and gently patted it onto her face.

[You can go ahead and drink that, if you want.] Arabella said.

"Don't talk to me," Amber said.

[Alright... I'm sorry.]

Then there was silence.

Amber felt her heart jump when she realized that she couldn't sense Arabella's presence anymore. However, she quickly pushed down her feelings of concern. She wanted to remain stubbornly angry.

Once she was done mending her face, she looked back towards the door. Only to see that it had already mysteriously opened. She frowned while standing up and looked around for any hidden enemies. Seeing no one else around, Amber cautiously walked through the gate.

Amber walked three steps past the gate and then heard it loudly bang closed behind her. She flinched and looked back, only to see that no one was there. The memories from her past life freshly flitted through her mind. While sweat trickled down her face and her hands shook.

"I'm d..d..dd...different now," Amber said and took a deep breath, feeling angry with herself for stuttering again. She clasped her shaking hands tightly together. She wasn't that weak little girl anymore, she wasn't!

"I'm a completely different person than I used to be," she said quietly to herself. "Pull yourself together. You can do this. I can do this. I...can...do...this." Amber said. Then took a couple of deep cleansing breaths. Her heart started to slow down and her hands stopped shaking.

"There, see you're good. I'm good," Amber said. Then rolled her shoulders, trying to get some of the tension out. Amber yawned, feeling emotionally exhausted.

All around her, the green fog was thick to the point that she could barely see anything in front of her nose. She saw vague shapes, shadows that she couldn't quite make out. Some of them were obviously trees, but others she had no idea what they could be. Her mind was raw and paranoid. It was on high alert from reliving so many of her horrible memories in quick succession.

"Everything's fine," Amber said while slowly taking a step into the fog.

It swirled around her, curling and turning, but it never cleared out enough for her to be able to see. She was walking through the most dangerous part of the Shadow Forest, at night, blindly, and her claustrophobia had started to rear its ugly head. How many times had she been locked into a small closet as a child, because she hadn't performed to her parent's high standards?

"Everything's fine. Nothing's going to come out from the fog," she told herself. Although, she knew that there was a high possibility that something would.

Amber stopped walking forward and felt for her large paralyzing needle. Holding the needle's handle tightly in her hand, she felt a small amount of relief wash over her. Then she slowly crept forward. She moved as silently as possible, hoping to not disturb any creatures nearby. There's no telling what kind of horrible monsters could live this deep into the Shadow Forest.

Amber continued to walk in further, barely breathing, and on high alert. Then she heard a strange sound, as if the wind was unnaturally shifting. She stilled, listening, and holding her breath. The wind pitched again. She could feel it twisting around something, as the wind blew against her face from an odd angle.

Then she heard a different sound. Indistinct at first, but then it became more clear. It was the sound of many feet scraping up against rocks, along with a strange clicking noise, and an odd sort of hissing. It was impossible to tell what kind of creature it was, or how many feet that monstrous thing had.

Amber stayed perfectly still and silent while hoping that the creature wouldn't notice her. As the clicking sound steadily became louder, she could hear it more clearly. It was a strange sound that she'd never heard before; like a million giant pincers rapidly clicking up against each other. Whatever this creature was, it was huge, and it could see her through the fog. It was headed right towards her.

Amber's eyes widened as that realization hit her. She spun away from the creature and ran. She didn't bother to be quiet anymore, there was no point in it. Her feet beat against the gravel path, pounding away, as if the loud crunching could make her move faster. All the while, the wind howled behind her. The clicking became louder, and louder, as the monster closed in on her.

Then Amber slipped. The ground was not where she expected it to be. She fell into a hole and found herself immersed in a freezing cold, dark liquid. Shards of ice danced along its black surface. They stabbed her roughly in her sides, leaving rips in her clothing, and flesh. Suddenly there was no indication of the ground beneath her feet at all. Still, she could not see. She gasped, startled by the sudden temperature change, and felt the strange liquid travel down her windpipe. It choked her, while it froze, and burned at the same time.

She coughed and gasped. Amber tried to paddle back up to the surface of the frozen water. She tried to find something solid to grasp. All the while, the cold seeped deep into her muscles and quickly sapped away her strength. She turned her hand down, trying to freeze the liquid beneath her feet, but it would not freeze. There was something wrong with this strange liquid. Something terribly wrong.

Amber's frantic movements slowed down, until they stilled. She slipped beneath its cold and dark surface. Only a small ripple remained where Amber had been. Soon the surface of the pool became still once again, and it rapidly froze over. It was as if Amber had never been there at all.