The air was static. Hostile. Placid. Something was there, just out of sight. Moving just enough to rustle the leaves on the ferns around the ring, stationary enough to not be visible for long, and I was terrified. My heart was beating at an uncertain sprint, jolting and dashing and much too fast, leaving my palms clammy and sweaty and my hands jittering. The slightly thinner canopy of leaves left me with just enough visibility to make out the flowers around my shoes, and as long as I stayed inside I knew I would be okay. But I was alone. And it was sickening. I thought to Juno - were they also afraid to be running through the woods on their own? How far had they gotten? Were they out yet? It didn't cross my mind that they had run into Corvus once. I knew for a fact it was firmly keeping its eyes on me. My eyes darted left, then right, then left again. I had to be able to see it somewhere. If I could use a light rune then there was a chance I could catch them, but I was too scared to try - I didn't know how the flower field's protection magic worked, and whether casting a rune would break it. Better to live in uncertainty than die.
I held my breath. It was silent for a moment. But only for a moment.
"Tobi?"
I spun around, greeted with mocking darkness. "D-dad?" I called out to the empty greenery. He sounded like himself again, not some half-monster out for my blood. Not like Corvus. "Tobi, are you there?" His voice was shaky, afraid. It broke my heart a little, it didn't sound right hearing him sound so broken - how had he managed to take over control? "Dad, I'm here. Are - are you okay? Do you remember anything?"
I struggled to keep my breathing under control. If it weren't for the adrenaline of the night coursing through my bloodstream, I certainly would've passed out. My muscles were cramping, shaking, trying to work out how to respond to the cortisol practically dripping from my body. "A little- I don't know where I am. Where are we?" His voice carried, seeming at once both distant and right next to my ears, and I couldn't determine which direction it was coming from. "W-we're in the forest next to the town. Do you- do you feel different?"
"I did. I felt so wrong, Tobi, it was- it was like I wasn't even there. Where are you? Can you help me?"
I felt my lungs tighten. I couldn't step out of the circle, but what if something happened to him? "I'm sorry, I need to stay here - can you come here? Follow the sound of my voice."
"I can't. I can't move. Tobi, please- please help me, I'm scared, I don't know what's going on."
My hands were shaking more violently now, shivering as though holding up the weight of the planet, and so I clenched my fists together and put them back into my pockets. "Y- you can't move?"
"I can't- please Tobi, don't you love me? I need your help. Please..."
Then I was ten again, watching my dad cry on the sofa begging for my help. Begging, because he was too lost and broken to care that I was ten. Too lost and broken to care that I was too, that I was dealing with the death of my own mother. He said the same words then, just as he would say them so many times afterwards. Maybe, I remembered thinking, it isn't normal for a kid to have to look after their father. But I didn't want him to do anything to himself, and so I did everything I could to keep him safe, to keep him well.
I dug my fingernails into my palms, and looked down at the flowers beneath my feet. Something felt wrong, very wrong, like the air itself was trying to warn me. The air, I noted, tended to tell a lot more about a situation than I had realised.
"Where are you?"
"What do you mean? It's dark, I can't see anything - here, follow my voice, just come quickly, please..."
And there again was the wind, seemingly pushing against me, trying to keep me inside of the ring. I needed to stay inside, but was my life more important than his? If Corvus killed him because of my selfishness, what would I even do with myself? I lifted up a foot to step outside, thoughts and actions blurring in my mind as I tried to form a coherent thought, make a decision, do something. I couldn't just leave him to die.
