Flash Fiction Month 2016

Day 12: Two Roads (TT)

It was snowing.
Snowing and bloody cold. But the Titans were on a mission, so they'd just have to deal with the weather.
It was actually a rather beautiful night. Raven tipped her head back to admire the stars, glittering through the flurries of white flakes drifting down from above.
Starfire was more interested in the snow than the sky. Raven couldn't help but smile as the alien girl batted at the falling flakes like a cat chasing a light. She caught a snowflake in her hand and stared at it until it melted, then laughed as another landed on the tip of her nose.
"Oh, great."
Robin's sarcastic drawl snapped Raven from the beauty of the moment.
They were standing at a fork in the road. The forest path they had been following split at the base of a massive, shattered tree stump, continuing in two directions.
"We'll have to split up," Robin decided. "Cyborg, Beast Boy, you're with me. We'll take the right path. Star, Raven, you take the left."
Raven looked at the left-hand path.
It was not the most appealing of destinations.
The path was less well-trod; the dirt gave way to pine needles and dead leaves not far ahead; trees loomed over it, as if reaching out to their neighbours on the other side, throwing dark shadows.
It was actually quite cool, in a gloomy, frightening kind of way.
Starfire thought otherwise.
"Um, perhaps, Robin, we could -"
But the ninja was already leading the others off along the bright, neat right-hand path, leaving the girls at the fork.
"Come on, Star."
Raven started down their path, and Starfire followed nervously.
They lost sight of the fork almost immediately, the path twisting and winding through the forest. The shadows grew darker, the path rockier, the trees more twisted. Only a few solitary snowflakes found their way to the ground through the canopy of branches that were bent overhead, turning the path into a tangled tunnel.
"Raven, I do not like this place," Starfire informed her apparently fearless companion, following so close on her heels she actually stood on them a couple of times.
"Star, it's just a forest. The worst things here would be bears, and I'm pretty sure we can handle bears."
Raven tried giving Starfire a reassuring smile. Starfire smiled back, but the fear didn't leave her eyes.
They continued in silence for a few minutes. The ground grew so pockmarked and lumpy that Raven turned her ankle, and both girls resorted to flying as a safer way to proceed.
Starfire started to feel something watching her. When she did a full 360 for the third time, Raven finally spoke up.
"Star, what are you looking for?"
Starfire looked sheepish, but fearful.
"I feel we are being watched by unfriendly eyes."
Normally, Raven might've rolled her eyes and told Starfire there were no 'unfriendly eyes' here. But she herself had been enduring the same ill-feeling for the last few minutes as well.
"We'll just have to keep our eyes-"
A carcass crashed through the trees and landed on what remained of the path before them. Starfire screamed and Raven clapped a hand over her mouth, smothering the sound.
"Shh," she urged quietly.
Starfire whimpered and nodded, and Raven took her hand away.
The great shape on the ground was torn, broken, and undeniably dead. Thick fur was slashed with deep crimson, flashes of flesh and innards showing under slicks of blood. Steam curled from the body, pluming in the frigid air before vanishing without a trace.
"Raven," Starfire whispered. "Is that a bear?"
Raven was shivering in her cloak. The forest around them suddenly seemed to be listening intently to their every word.
"I think it was a bear. Now it's just a corpse."
Starfire floated closer to Raven, wide green eyes sweeping the forest while Raven's lilac ones did the same, glinting from under her cowled hood.
A deep rumble from somewhere up the path startled them both enough to make them jump in the air. Starfire dove behind Raven, peeking over her shoulder.
Up ahead, half hidden by the shadows, something monstrous was moving toward them.
They looked from the dead bear, to the shape, to each other.
"I believe now is the time to be doing the 'legging it', yes?" Starfire asked in a whisper.
"Yep."
They turned and bolted back to the fork.