A Breeding Darkness (Complete)

(17)

After almost an hour of walking, Lucy began to wonder if the compass was indeed corrupted. No matter how long they walked, it always seemed they passed by the same landmarks over and over. Every ten minutes or so, Lucy saw the same two trees growing out of a single trunk, and a fallen log with mushrooms growing on the surface.

Lucy clenched the compass as she checked their bearing once again. It always read north, yet the forest looped around them endlessly. She glanced over at Joon, wondering if she should bring it to his attention. He seemed so determined, walking swiftly in front of her, as if he was finally sure of something. She hated to be the one to make him doubt once more.

After a little space of silence, Lucy finally spoke up. "I feel like we're getting nowhere."

Joon paused, looking back at her for the first time since they'd started the journey. "I know. I noticed too."

"Why didn't you say anything?" Lucy asked, sighing in frustration. "If the compass is broken we should have given up on it and found some other way. Now all we've done is waste time."

"It's not the compass," Joon replied, beginning to walk again. "It's the forest."

Lucy frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"The woods don't want us. They are trying to confuse us and send us back."

A shiver ran down Lucy's spine as she looked at the twisted gray trunks that appeared so briefly in their lantern light. "What do we do?"

Joon slowed his pace enough that Lucy caught up to him. As she approached his side, he reached down and took her hand in his, lacing their fingers together. For a moment, Lucy felt like protesting his forwardness and snatching her hand away. Yet, as she looked out at the darkness and the trees that were now their enemies, she realized just how welcome the heat of his hand was against her palm.

"Don't worry," he replied. "We have each other. The darkness is only one thing. We're two. It can't win against those odds."

Lucy smiled softly and laughed under her breath. If only the darkness wasn't a single thing that was big enough to cover two worlds, perhaps Joon would have been right.

This close to Joon, she could sneak a few looks at his face as they walked. Her lantern cast strange shadows over his cheeks and eyes, but otherwise he looked remarkably like he had when they were children. The same mournful brown eyes and heart-shaped lips. She wondered if he'd have remembered her if he hadn't lost all his memories. She didn't flatter herself in thinking he would.

Perhaps sensing her stares, Joon tilted his head to look back at her. Lucy shifted her eyes away from his, landing them on his neck. The bandages she'd wrapped around it were already soaked through with blood.

"Joon!" Lucy said, pulling him to a stop. "Why didn't you tell me your neck was this bad."

Before he could protest, Lucy reached up and tried to steer his head so that she could take a look at his neck. She only saw a brief flash of the skin under his ear before he squirmed out of her grasp. But she still saw the veins tracing their way through his skin, ever so slightly visible beneath his moon-like skin, and saw how they were a deeper shade than normal. It was not crimson blood tracking up through his veins toward his scalp, but something darker. Thicker.

Joon shrugged away from her, shifting his bandage up to cover what little of the veins she could still see. "I'm fine. You don't have to worry."

Lucy opened her mouth to protest and demand he show her whatever it was that was going wrong with the wounds on his neck, but he quickly grabbed her hand and pulled her onward at a quick pace. As she looked at his stare, trained ever northward, she let the subject drop. For now.

They'd only walked a few more minutes before the lantern stuttered. The flame flickered, casting them into darkness for a brief second before barely coming back. Lucy's heart dropped and she scrambled to look through the panel at the wick that was now over an empty oil well.

"Oh no," she said, her voice cracking. "No, no, no! We can't let it—"

She didn't have time to finish her sentence before the flame vanished as easily as a breath. The darkness consumed them like a wild beast, whipping them into its embrace. Lucy reached out for Joon with shaking hands, not wanting to lose him. He gripped her wrist and moved close to her side, his breathing quick and shallow.