Sick Blood | ✓ (2016)

Part 1

Sick Bloods

Part 1

His ears perked at the eerie descend of silence. The crickets faded out as the whistle of the wind cut short.

Something was wrong.

Ryland's pulse quickened at every rustle of leaves and groan of the tree shifting. He stretched his neck towards the curtain of leaves that hid them both.

He unwrapped her hands from his waist, the cool air hitting his hot skin as he rose.

"What's wrong?" Delilah's voice came out in a coarse whisper.

His ears perked beyond the glowing willow tree they laid under and towards the northwest side of the mountain. His back snapped upright.

"Ryland!" she called, but he pushed off the ground, his heels already thumping against the grass. He moved the curtain of purple, glowing leaves aside, and sunlight spilled across Delilah's face.

She used her hand to shield her eyes.

"Ryland," she repeated, voice strung on a sudden urgency. She scrambled up, tangling her feet in the sweater laying by her dress. She scooped it up, tugging it over her head as she tripped after him. "What are you doing?!"

She pushed aside the swaying vines, and saw him stand still on the top of their mountain, spreading his gaze throughout the other mountains before them. His senses tingled on the edge.

It was always sunny in the mountains—that was why they fled to The Land of the Lost Children; Ryland's people were much friendlier than the demons. But today, darkness consumed all edges of the land, clouds absorbing its natural, glowing warmth.

"It's nothing! Can you just come back?" Delilah spoke.

She grabbed his wrist, it stiff between her fingers and she quickly placed a hand on his chest. She pinched her fingers between his chin, forcing him to look down at her. "The hunters told me they were going to be in the north. It's probably them."

The defiance in his eyes told her enough. Ryland was the type of creature to follow the gut feeling rather than the outsiders. Delilah once found it to be one of his many attractive traits—now she hated it the most.

"Hunters can't move mountains like that." He looked out again at the dark skies. "What if it's the Legend?"

She clutched tighter on his chin. "I thought you said the Legend was a myth. Beasts like that don't exist anymore."

He opened his mouth to deny her assumptions and say some something stupid like, "Stay here" or "I'll be back."

But the canon going off was enough to capture both their attentions.

He broke out into a sprint down the hill, his white hair whipping back over his head. The wind cut into Delilah's pleas to return, and she quickly ran after him, her button down still open as it flapped behind her.

He removed the golden pocket traveller from his waistband—a privilege tool for any solider of the Lost Children and threw it out, the black warp opening enough for a single person.

He disappeared through, and just as it was closing, Delilah leaped through as well, feeling it snip off a piece of her brown hair as it sucked shut.

Ryland swiftly landed on his feet and kept running as Delilah stumbled her way into their new location. She hardly ever pocket travelled with Ryland. Mud flew from the soles of her feet as she chased him down another hill.