Echoes Of Ascended Sorrows (RAIN WORLD AU)

4

(art by me. Silly drawing of zestor
tor the zesty zest 😘😋 anyways um)

Cycle after cycle we continue to hunt for food and ancient slugcats with no success besides small green and orange centipedes and large piles of dead batflies that have been mysteriously dropping dead everywhere. I stay behind in our long line as we stroll through the woods, most of the group taking none of this seriously. Gosh, I'd much rather be having lunch right now instead of having the responsibility of something that is supposed to be the adult's jobs. I scowl and kick a rock, watching as it causes some dead leaves to rustle on the ground. It hits nightcat in the tail and she growls. "Hunter! Watch it!"

I cackle, pointing a finger to tease her and she glares, turning to look back ahead of her. When the rock bounces off her tail, it rolls down the hill and in-between a gap in the bushes. One of my friends' gaze, Leo, follows the rock, and his face lights up. He points at the bush with his pale blue hand, shoving Nightcat's shoulder to get her attention. "Hey look! There's something moving down there! Could be our dinner!" Leo says with excitement, his voice slightly above a whisper. Nightcat nods and one of the other kids whom i don't know and don't care to, looks at Survivor, her grey eyes narrowing. "Make yourself useful and watch the area for us, mouseboy." She says quite rudely, spitting out Survivor's nickname like a slur. I narrow my eyes at her, not really liking how the nickname that I came up with is being used as something mean. I just did so to tease him, not to actually bully him. Not that i care though, i could watch him get swallowed whole by a leviathan and i wouldn't care. I slide down the hill with the others, leaving Survivor behind.

As the rest of the team disappears into the bushes, survivor stands still, gripping his spear with both hands. He's never properly killed or fended anything off properly alone or without supervision. He feels himself trembling a little, so he clears his throat, standing up straight. Survivor sighs and as he starts to relax a little, he jumps when he feels the wind beginning to intensely fly past him, branches breaking off of dead trees and petals ripping off of some flowers. Survivor jabs his spear into the ground and holds onto it to stay in place, holding one arm in front of his face to cover his eyes from debris. "Holy-" survivor grunts, gritting his teeth, but the intense wind suddenly comes to a halt, and Survivor's feet stop, no longer being pushed back and his grip, which he was unaware of how tight he was holding it, on the spear tightens. He stands up straight and slowly lowers his arm, his eyes slowly unarrowing as his vision adjusts, seeing something from straight ahead moving closer to him.

As Survivor tries to focus on what is approaching him from the distance, I rush up the hill, panting and unaware of whatever is ahead. My hands are on my knees from running, a huge flock of miros birds having previously chased us. I take my pack of arrows and bow off of my back to take a break from the weight, setting them on the ground next to me. "We gotta go. Our prey was taken from us by some stinky miros birds."
I pant, standing up straight and stretching to pop my back. Survivor just stares straight ahead of him, his eyes wide and his body frozen. "Hey, did you hear me?! We gotta go!" I snap at him, but my eyes narrow and i arch an eyebrow as Survivor begins to try and pull his spear out of the ground in a panic. I open my mouth to speak, but my gaze subconsciously replaces Survivor's as his focus is now on getting his spear out of the ground.

My heart drops into my stomach, and i stare in pure shock and fear as i see a black silhouette of a tall Slugcat walking forward, the silhouette emerging from the fog and becoming visible as the same Ancient Slugcat that murdered a mass half of our hunting team. "Holy fuck, holy fuck, holy fuck!!!" I exclaim and as Survivor manages to yank his spear out of the ground, we turn around immediately and begin to run and i move to pick up my weapons. Normally if the offender would be something like a lizard or centipede, I'd call Survivor a coward and make fun of him for running away for assumingly the next twenty cycles, but in this situation, I'm running too.