Rot || ONC2024

──●Nine●──

    As the time slowly passed and the day got progressively warmer, I found that my cloak did little to nothing. From the forest that surrounded me, the sun filtered through and began to roast me. If the humans we cooked were still alive, I'm sure this is what the inside of an oven would feel like. Hot, stuffy, and insufferable.

    Despite how much this wrenched light burned, there was beauty in the pain

    Instead of the world being painted in shades of dull blue and grey, the land before me was one big, beautiful, and crazy array of colour. The trees around me were deep emerald, standing out among the fiery orange grass. The sky was a lightened blue with little speckles and blotches of white. 

    The colours weren't the only beautiful thing. The world was alive. The trees around me rustled in the slight breeze, and the leaves underfoot crunched. Overhead, I could hear the honks of what I presumed to be geese. Little rodents scrabbled about the forest floor, and I could have sworn I saw a moose in the distance.

    A smile spread to my face, then was quickly replaced with heartache. If Yarrow were here, he would have loved this. Complained a bit, sure, but in the end I knew he would be just a mesmerized as me.

   The thought of Yarrow lead me onto another topic. Did Yarrow see my note? Hopefully he did, and hopefully he wasn't worried. He had encouraged me to seek out answers, after all. To find out the truth that Alastor and the rest of the Council kept hidden from me.

    What was so disturbing about the truth that even we weren't allowed to see? Since Al possessed the files on us, shouldn't we be allowed to view our own information?

    As a lake came into view, I knelt down and began to scoop the cool water onto my exposed arms. I gritted my teeth, trying to keep quiet as my arms stung. Once nightfall came, it would be a good idea to change into a different shirt. That way, I had another layer of protection from that stupid fire sky ball.

    I let out an agitated sigh, then hid my arms under the folds of my cloak and continued on my hike. If only Al had not been so, well, stubborn, I wouldn't be here scooping water onto my arms or thinking about stupid shirts and sleeves.

   Then again, if I wasn't so thirsty for information and just lived in my blissful ignorance, I probably wouldn't be here either. 

    I chuckled to myself. With the sort of visions I was having, it was expected to want information if someone said it was attainable. If I had an opportunity to find out whom exactly I was visioning, I had to take it. It would be stupid not to.

    Maybe I could find out about Night Walkers in general. Upon entering the facility for that first time, the only thing I could remember was waking up in the infirmary with paralyzing pain. I couldn't remember a childhood, like Yarrow did, or even time with my family. The medics said it was probably amnesia of the sorts, that the memories would eventually resurface and present themselves. That's been years, and nothing ever happened.

    Perhaps this trip would uncover something about me, too. If, like the medic said, I was visioning about a past sibling or relative, maybe I would learn about myself. My family, my home.

    Then again, why would my relative be a human? Was it even possible for a Night Walker and a human to breed?

    I chuckled and shrugged off the thought. Hopefully, once the truth was uncovered, I'd finally be freed from the visions that haunted me.