Empty as my Heart

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

I watched, shoulders tensed, as the figure removed its hood.  It was all I could do not to make a sound.  The face was bloated, nearly coarse with purplish skin.  Veins spoke out, more prominent at the nose.  Their eyes frightened me the most.

At least three made their way across the clearing, capes billowing without wind.  I looked to James.  He was hidden well, only a few yards ahead of me.  I feared for him, anyways.

My ears were filled with a whooshing sound, hands clutching a branch for support.  Eyes locked onto the strange human beings, latching back onto the trees where we lie hidden. 

Were they hunters?  I bit my lip, trying to discern my unease.  They seemed...fragile.  Almost so frail that a hearty push would disarm them. 

But those eyes...

Something wasn't quite right about them.  Nobody would be able to trudge through this underbrush blindly.  They'd have to have some kind of animalistic senses to acomplish such.

Yet, I found them groping.  Searching for the nearest tree to grasp a hold to.  To cling to.

James didn't move.  I felt my way towards him, moving as slowly and quietly as possible.

Our eyes met, both knowing of the situation that gleamed before us.  We both knew, well and certain, that this could be a trap.  Any sign of weakness could kill us without blinking.  Anything at all.  We stood there, me reaching him silently, and I thought of a plan.

Those things were definately blinded.  All of them, as they groped the earth, crouched in the rocky territory of the clearing around them.  We had to find some means of killing them, quietly.

But what if that were the means of the trap?  What if they were so feeble that the hunter would come to use them as his own, personal bait?  I looked more closely.

These creatures made no noise, almost as if they were terrified of the sounds that would come out of their ragged mouths.  Horrified, even.

If I had a light, I could see them more clearly.  But these things seemed closer to man, than beast. 

I looked back at James.  His eyes were troubled.

An urgent hand placed firmly onto my shoulder as he told me to run.  I glared, only pausing for a moment's notice, and mouthed my complaint.

"Go!  I'm right behind you...Go!"  he whispered, eyes burning with a fire that I knew could only be an urgency between life and death.

We turned away from the clearing, skidding on our heels down the steep valley and up the hill onto the mountain.  The mountain was where we placed camp.  Getting there would mean exposing ourselves. 

 Not getting there would mean deserting Ariana.

She wouldn't last long, even with the little food we'd salvaged from the underground village.  I closed my eyes, hands pressed to my forehead.  We were a good five miles away from her.

How could we leave her now?

James had stopped when he saw me standing there.  Moonlight had just bathed his tattered coat, and I saw the pain in his face as he watched me.  We stood alongside each other, and I felt my arms go limp in his.  James's embraces were always short and sweet.  Yet, somehow this one felt longer, like he was no longer only just comforting me.  He was in love with me.

I melted in his arms, tears rolling like liquid fire down my cheeks.

They mingled with the sweat and ash that blended onto my face from the days in these wretched woods.

"What are they?" I whispered.  My face was hidden into the creavice of his collarbone.  The words were small, yet a sense of power fell beneath them, mixing fear and emotion into our own thoughts.

"I don't know," he whispered back, hand in my hair.  I felt his warmth radiate about me, yet I felt cold and withered.  My hope was disinigrating in his arms.

"We have to go back.." I looked up, forcing the tears away from my eyes.  They only made my body weaker.

James looked at me, pain written deeper than the cuts on his face.  He didn't want to tell me no, but we both could see that it was unquestionable.  Going to Ariana would mean not only endangering us both, but her aswell.

Yet leaving her would mean leaving her for good.  How was I to know we'd last through the night?  How could she live longer than a day without James to protect her?  Me to warn her away from the dangerous paths.

At least she was safe now.

We stayed, holding each other.  Moonlight seemed comforting enough to settle my breaths, but the sounds of the night were lingering closer.

A silent twig snapped in the distance, making the deafening air full of whispers.  We both jumped, me shrinking ever so slightly. 

If lightening were quick enough to outrun them, then this was swifter. 

We heard the scream, only minutes away from us, and I knew it wasn't human.  Shrieks erupted from all around us, ripples of agonized harmonies.  They cried out with numbing horror.

Invisible, yet so near.

I couldn't find my own lips, couldn't take in a breath to scream.  My body was useless, bound in James's arms.  We stood, helplessly.  Only to stare around and about us, seeing nothing.

And then, we saw the wolf.