Dark Hearts

Chapter 4

A/N: How I imagined the Dark Forest.

"That's kind of a ridiculous name if you think about it," Cade commented, scanning his eyes around the rest of the map and taking note of the vast ocean and mountain range they would have to cross before they would be able to come close to the kingdom. This journey was turning out to be a lot more than what Cade had envisioned in his mind. Truthfully he hoped that when Ivory saw the map and realized exactly what they would have to endure she would back out and they could return to the safer world.
"Not like I named it," She remarked, clearly not accepting the subtle hints that Cade was throwing to her about him having one foot half of their boat.
"She could have chosen something more menacing than Poisana though. It's not very scary," He muttered quietly. In a quick instance the name of the dreaded kingdom slipped from his mind and he thought about the situation in which Ivory was in; she was about to travel to the palace of the woman who tried to kill her mother and father, twice. He looked at her in that moment and found her staring intently at the small blotch of ink with no emotions on her face to distinguish the inner wonderings she possessed. "Are you going to be alright doing this? I mean, considering who it is we are going after."
She removed her eyes from the paper and Cade noticed the swirling behind the glassy layer. "She is not going to stop me from achieving what I want, no matter who she is or what she can do. But she better watch out, my parents may have forgiven her and her wrongs but I am not my parents." A dark look coated her eyes briefly as she gazed past his head and out into the abyss, one that worried him slightly. Cade had to give her credit, she had a lot of bravery packed into her tiny frame but with bravery comes recklessness and something irked him to beware that he might end up being the anchor holding her down. It seemed strange though, how easily the royals were able to grant pardon and forget all the memories that came along with the woman.
"Easy there, killer. Don't go throwing yourself off a cliff without knowing how far till you hit the bottom. Focus on what we originally planned and worry about your vengeance plans later."
Ivory scoffed quietly at his comment but seemed to let the effect of the woods leave her body until the thoughts lay dormant for the meantime in the furthest corners of her mind. "Oh shove off, Cade." He chuckled at her, enjoying that he was still able to crawl underneath her skin. "Don't tell me you've never had your fair share of devilish thoughts. I can see it in your eyes, you are much darker than you think," She accentuated the last word with a large grin that told him that she was mostly joking about the topic but he knew deep down there was a semblance of true curiosity.
She had no clue the extent to which his thoughts traveled, the lengths they went to find a pole whether it be normal or dangerous. "Trust me, princess, you don't want to know what goes on in my mind and you definitely don't want to find out the answers to your questions. If I am so much darker than I think maybe you should reconsider your traveling partner." He avoided the attention she was giving him with her eyes, instead opted for focusing on their path of travel that twisted and wound around bends that would take weeks to travel. There had to be a shorter route, something that didn't take them through the Heartlands where he had heard a queen fascinated with decapitating people's bodies resided in company of her field of ruby roses.
"Or maybe, having a partner with a dark mind is exactly what I need for this journey." Cade could not help but let the shock he felt at her words take over and snap his head up to stare at her with a cracked mouth. All she did was smirk back at him coyly.
Cade shook his head in disbelief, still gaping and trying to connect her ideas with reason. "You know I stopped thinking you were crazy a little bit ago but I am starting to think that I thought too soon."
Ivory chuckled at the confusion he wore proudly; clearly he wasn't the only one that received entertainment from the other's discomfort. "This place, it isn't meant for people like me to survive easily. I barely made it through that village back there without being exposed and if I were to have gone through with this along I would probably either be dead already or crying like a baby. So yes, I am glad that I chose you as my partner because you do have that air of darkness around you, the one that is going to get us through this alive, and because you must be just as ruddy insane as I am if you agreed to come with me." It felt as if a slot had been filled in his mind so that everything rested peacefully.
There was something so insanely brilliant about the girl in front of him that he had trouble putting the words together to tell her. She degraded herself too much for the intelligence that she possessed and Cade silent corrected himself for ever believing that she was anything else other than brilliant. For an instance her words offended him, he had never been characterized by someone before and being charted as something uncommon to the land's nature bothered him but then he realized what a compliment he had been given. There was nothing wrong with him for not standing complacent in a crowd he did not belong in. Although he was not sure what she meant by an air of darkness he assumed it just meant that he did not think in the same way that most others did.
He had never thought that the ideas running through his mind at various times would be considered bad, albeit sometimes they did startle him more than usual but he just assumed that it was natural for everyone to picture such things as he did. It made him realize the advantage other people possessed while they experienced the benefits of interacting with other people rather than remain holed up to observe instead. He wondered how Ivory was able to distinguish that he did not assess situations in the same way that she did, or how she had the justification to even declare that there was a difference between the two of them. But then the moments in which he felt a chill run down his spine at his thoughts came into view, the times when he had to shake himself out of the daze he sunk into, and knew that she did speak correctly.
"I must be insane," Cade muttered in agreement, releasing a breath of air at the revelation and the weight that seemed that have been placed upon his chest. "I'm going to take that as a compliment though, the part about me being 'dark'. Even if it is slightly rude, I am choosing to ignore the fact and take into account that you indirectly complimented me and said that you wouldn't be alive without me." He tried to ignore the growing pit of doubt growing in his mind the longer he dwelled on the knowledge.
"Don't go getting a big head, it's not attractive." Ivory scolded lightly as a joke, but Cade could feel that he wasn't the only one with a growing interest about himself.
"If that makes you happy, but it shouldn't matter too much since you already find me attractive." A light pink overtook her cheeks like dust and Cade smirked at the embarrassment pooling out of her. He never imagined that it would be satisfying to see someone blush about him but the sight made his head airy and a rush moved through his veins.
Ivory glared up at him when she recognized that he enjoyed taunting her, a hot shade of red replacing the precious pink. "I do not find you attractive. Not even in the slightest!" Her voice bounced off the hollow bodies of the trees and lingered in the air around them. As soon as the last word left her lips Cade surged forward and shoved his hand against her mouth, pushing her backwards until they were hidden underneath the shade of the surplus of tree branches.
The two remained silent, trying to meld their shallow breaths into the absence of noise, while their eyes- opened wide- flickered around their surroundings. Cade could feel the hot pants of Ivory's breaths against the skin of his palm and he hoped his body was large enough to cloak the pair into the darkness. Ivory had stopped glancing around the forest and instead focused on Cade's face with fear coating her eyes. Something screeched off in the distance- a high pitched caw- before the sound of fluttering and snapping drifted in, the quickly out, of their ears. They waited, barely breathing for something to happen. But nothing did.
After several agonizing minutes that dragged their fear until it held on by thin threads, Cade slowly removed his hand from Ivory's face, never looking her in the face. Small beads of precipitation were left on the palm of his hand but he knew that being uncomfortable was better than being dead. When Ivory moved to step out of the shadows Cade held up a hand in a signal for her to stay back. As quiet as possible, if it even was in a place that absorbed the sound into nothing, he moved from the tree trunk to the path where they had been standing minutes before. It seemed so much lighter in the path rather than pressed against the tree and he wondered how it was possible to feel safer in the darkness than the light.
He felt vulnerable, exposed while he stood in the middle of the path, spinning around on an axis as he examined the area around him. Never before had he felt the pressing weight of fear so heavily upon his shoulders; he constantly felt as if there would be imminent danger any time he turned his back to an area he had already checked. The shadows appeared to twist and shape themselves into things that were not actually there, jumping from spot to spot in the blink of an eye. Ivory stood still, so much that when Cade's eyes flickered over her for a moment it seemed as though she was not breathing at all. Whenever he would slide his feet to turn his body the sound of leaves disintegrating screamed against the silence and the pair would hold their air again.
When Cade finally deemed it safe enough for Ivory to return from the shadows he motioned with a slender finger to his lips and a gesture towards his chest for her to walk slowly and silently. Although he doubted after what they had gone through that she would ever dare to be so reckless again. She paused for a moment casting hima look that said she was still uncertain about subjecting herself to the light. After he repeated the motion a second time she finally swallowed down her fear- Cade could physically see the bulge in her throat- and walked on her toes into the path.
Instead of watching her as he should have his eyes watched the trees for any movement, anything slight that would shove the girl back into the cover of darkness and make them fear for their lives. He could vaguely see the whites of her eyes switching sides on her eyes as she too looked around. When she was close enough Cade stuck out his hand for her to grab; he felt more assured that the two would be safer if she was touching him rather than being held close with their eyes. She took the gesture gladly and let him pull her close to him so that once again she was hidden beneath his shoulders and chest.
Cade reached his hands up and softly grabbed the edges of her hood and pulled the thick material over her head until it covered her forehead and her eyes appeared hooded to him. A personal shadow cast itself upon the rest of her face so that anyone standing at a reasonable distance would not know what lay beneath the cloak. The moment ended up being more intense than what he imagined when they could not pull their eyes from each other. He could see his reflection against the glassy texture of her eyes and found himself lost in the rich green color for longer than he intended.
Moving a step back to break the thickening rope but not far enough so that he could not reach out and touch her, Cade released a breath that got caught in his throat. "Well if you didn't think the trees were watching us before they sure as Hades are now," He whispered, throwing a light grin her way which she responded to with only tight lips and creased eyebrows. Clearly the stomach corroding monster had taken residence within her mind and body. He sighed heavily at his failed attempts. "Don't worry so much, Ivory. It's not your fault, I pushed you too far. This time it's on me."
"No, no you don't get to do that, you don't get to take the blame for something that I caused, Cade. That was my fault, alright, and not yours." Ivory shook her head repeatedly, never looking into Cade's face. The ground appeared to have entranced her more than the sight of his face.
Cade chuckled lightly in an attempt to make the situation lighter than its reality. "You're a princess, isn't it my duty to put you before me, take the fault before you do." His intent wasn't to put their titles before their situation but he could tell by the way her head snapped upwards with a heated glare on her lips that it was taken in the wrong way.
"Don't be rude. I'm serious this time." She grit out with a deep scowl, her eyebrows furrowed down in a perfect angle. Cade hated that he did not know how to interact with people in the way that most would; he hated that he kept screwing things up.
"And so am I. That was not your fault, Ivory." He stopped and put a hand on her shoulder, speaking softer than he was previously so that their proximity would be the only thing that heard them. Also because if she were to continue to wind up like a toy there could be catastrophic consequences, ones that they would not so easily escape the second time around. Unfortunately his idea burned before it could be beautiful.
Ivory let her face twist into a vicious anger that had his insides squeezing together to get away. "It was!" She hissed in a normal voice, her lips pulled back into a snarl so that the front of her teeth could be seen through her lips. Although he knew that the girl had no problem showing off her emotions, he did not think that it would be so pronounced. She continued to surprise him more than he believed possible and it endeared him more, kept him moving closer to the flames without caution of their biting heat.
For the second time that day, Cade slapped his hand against her mouth to keep her from lining them up to slaughter and leaned in close to her face with his own small scowl. "Well it's about to be again if you don't keep your voice down! Hades, Ivory, do you ever learn from your mistakes." He bit out sharply, hoping to get his point across so that she would finally snap out of her phase; he hated this version of her. The trees blew with the wind, their branches shaking and creaking in their deteriorated state so that the boy drew his attention from the anger melting out of the girl's face. Now would be the ideal time to scatter as far away from this location as possible but the fading light was beginning to trap them.
When a small sniffle hit his ears Cade looked at the girl and found her eyes cast down in regret, shoulders slumped as the weight of her decisions took over. He removed his hand from her mouth and waited for the silence to be broken between them but Ivory remained quiet for a while longer. Finally she whispered softly, looking up to gaze into his eyes. "I could have gotten us killed, Cade."
Something hit against his chest and he began to curse himself for making the glassy texture take over her eyes. Ivory focused on the ground again with her hands folded together in front of her stomach, and she twiddled the thin appendages through the leather of her gloves. Cade sighed, more to himself than her, and grabbed one of her hands with his own but never made eye contact with the girl to see her reaction. He turned them forward again and kept searching around the woods for any prying eyes and ears.
"But you didn't. Now, pick yourself up and out of the mud; princesses don't let people see their tears do they?" Only out of the corner of his eyes did he catch a smile on her face, it was small but there nonetheless. "Come on, now we really have to get a move on. Sun's setting and it's not safe to dawdle anymore." All she did was nod once.
Another breeze rattled the trees and their hands became closer to one another. It seemed as though the woods wanted them to continue onwards as well, as if it had placed bets on them lasting more than one night surrounded by danger. There was an orange glow that peeked through the occasional opening of branches and Cade realized it was the last glimpses of the setting sun between the overcast clouds and the scrawny branches. Even if the majority of the woods already had been casted in shadows it seemed as though everything around them began to darken more, allowing the creatures of the night more time to roam freely. All he wanted to do was get as far away from those areas as possible where more than likely something lurked in the dark for them to slack on their vigilance.
The map provided no use to the pair for the moment and it lay awaiting in the leather sack bumping against Cade's thigh while they walked in silence. He knew that it didn't matter how long they had until sunset the two would never make it to the nearest village before the paths filled with creatures no longer afraid to wait in their hiding places. It was a matter of choosing the best place to try and shield themselves from the predators that were more than likely already stalking them as they walked unprepared and unaware. A fire would be out of the question and knowledge about the temperature of the woods had not been thrown around in the conversations about the beasts that resided in them. They would be sleeping unguarded, without warmth, and surrounded by the unknown; what could possibly go wrong.
Cade did not know for how long they traveled along the path without words but it seemed to draw on for longer than he anticipated as the light slowly vanished from the sky until it was not only deadly silent but barely seeable(fix) as well. He wondered about the thoughts running through the girl's mind, if they were still focused on the previous events or if her brain could only focus on the anticipation of what was to come. A few times he could see her body visible tense, her shoulders rise and head snap, whenever a slight disturbance of the silence overtook the forest even if it happened to be the cracking of a twig she had stepped on. One of her hands lingered stiffly around her right thigh just underneath the flap of her cloak but still visible to him when he glanced at her from the corner of his eyes. She had to have known that he kept glancing at her but she never once moved her gaze from the area in front of them; he didn't know what he did to upset her.
He thought better than to bring it up, especially now that the tension between them and the forest had builded to the point of a mountain, so he kept his lips sealed and eyes trained ahead. The breeze that once provided a cool wash against the dry heat now ran icy against their skin and chilled their faces with tiny bumps. The further they traveled, the darker the sky got, the more the forest seemed to come alive from the ashes of its eerie exterior with cracking of branches and noises of the creatures that waited to burst from the shadows. When Ivory's arm brushed against his own Cade realized how close the girl had moved towards his body, as if being closer to him would protect her from the dangers around them.
"We're almost there, just keep quiet for a little while longer and try not to draw attention to yourself," He whispered, barely audible enough that his own ears had trouble hearing the words he spoke. If he could do one thing for her in this moment he could try and console her, but after this night she would be on her own in trying to stay sane. That would be his second deed of charity; getting her to fend for herself in a world that would sweep her feet out the second it was given the chance.
"How in Hades are we supposed to not draw attention to ourselves?" She responded in a voice that made him strain to hear the exact words she spoke. Her head never moved from its view of the path ahead of them that was slowly sinking into darkness.
"For one stop standing so close to me, people here have no fear. Two, try to keep your hand away from the knife at your side, it's obvious that you are too tense and apprehensive." As he spoke Ivory followed his instructions, moved away from him a step and detached her hand from her side. There was apprehensiveness on her part, Cade could tell by the way she twitched her head in question and her fingers flexed repeatedly while they tried to get used to not being near the blade. It did not surprise him that she was not fully trusting of the boy but he was shocked that she followed his rules(change) without hesitation.
"What does me pretending not to be afraid do? It's not like the bloody place can tell if I'm scared or not." Again she spoke softly, this time glancing at the trees as if she suddenly began to doubt the words her brain had made sense to until they filled the air. Cade wanted to laugh at the innocence she possessed but restrained himself with a smirk instead.
"After everything I've told you so far, you still doubt the capabilities of the things in this world. Until you have seen for yourself what something can do, never question its ability to do so." That lesson was one he learned a long time ago, and he had the memories engraved in his mind to remind him constantly.
"To be fair, you have told me relatively little about this place."
"Trust me, tomorrow your head will be so filled with what I know that it will throb as if it is going to burst."
"Sounds fantastic."
Again the pair drifted into silence, this time one that did not squeeze their throats out of tension but left them walking comfortably with each other. When the last glimpses of sunlight hit their eyes, Cade stopped Ivory from walking with his hand on her shoulder. "Here. We have to stop for the rest of the night, we can continue tomorrow at dawn. For now, let's get some rest." He gently nudged her towards the right side of the path until her mind followed his urges and moved into the brush. The faint outline he was once able to see of the girl vanished when she passed the outline between the trees and the path and she vanished into the darkness. It almost seemed as though she were in a trance when she walked forward without hesitation or even an indication to the boy that she heard him.
Just as he was about to follow the girl into the trees Cade felt something blossom in his chest and spread a cold chill through his veins that halted his movements. He had one foot on the surprisingly soft, grass covered ground while the other remained on the crushed leaves of the path. All that he could think about at that moment was the undeniable urge to suddenly scamper back the way they had come without waiting to grab the girl to come back with him. It felt as if someone had frozen him in his spot and prevented him from moving until whatever it was that paused him came out to snatch him from the woods.
Slowly, with cautious breaths that mimicked the low breeze that blew against the carcases of natural life, Cade turned around so that he faced the other side of the woods with the path standing as a border in between the two sections. By now everything had been dipped in the color of the night sky and only the vaguest of outlines stood out to his eyes, shaped by the shards of moonlight drifting through the branches. There were small cracks and snaps of fallen twigs being broken off in the distance but he suspected that the only reason the noise traveled was because of the absense of life. Yet the chill remained underneath his skin, causing it to erupt into tiny little bumps that cascaded from the tops of his feet to the span of skin separating his neck and torso. He could not place from where the feeling originated or even what the feeling was but it irked him so heavily that he almost considered himself afraid of his own thoughts.
Cade began to think that it was only a figment of his imagination, the one Ivory had called 'dark', that caused him to believe in something that was almost completely unlikely when he heard it. It was low, so much that a flock of birds perched somewhere flew off into the sky in a fright. It was deep, and reverberated against the bodies of the trees so that the thinnest corpses shook from the vibrations. It was terrifying and sent a chill scampering down his spine that froze him to the ground. Even though his mind was screaming at him to find his partner and ensure her safety before tailing it back to the decaying village, his feet remained planted into the ground while his eyes stared ahead into the darkness.
There was absolutely nothing there that he could see except for the void black that began to twist into different shapes when his eyes remained focused on one spot for too long. He could hear something off in the distance, something very large that was pounding against the ground and causing a ruckus on the dead shrubs. He hoped, prayed, for the ferocious howl he heard moments ago to be from a creature other than what he assumed but when the silence filled with its enormity he knew it could be nothing else; somewhere out there was a volhound stalking freely for its next prey. It was in that moment that Cade realized the unfamiliar feeling that had taken over his body minutes ago: terror.
Cade would have remained staring into the darkness until morning overtook the forest or until he had been killed if not for the small scream of his name by the forgotten princess. Without hesitation or a gauge for safety, he whipped around and sprinted into the brush with a bandana over his eyes and hopes to not run over a cliff. The scream had not been too loud that the entire woods would have turned its ears but it hit his ears loud enough that he knew the beast would be close on his tail. Sharp branches grabbed at his clothes as he ran through the trees, trying to rip the fabric from his body and tear the thin layer of skin upon his face. Once or twice he knew the tips broke his face and he winced at the quick burst of pain but he never stopped moving forward.
Suddenly the trees cleared and left a small patch of open earth before the bodies continued again. In the center of the circle stood the girl he originally arrived with who turned around quickly in fright at the sound of Cade entering her space of solitude. Her shoulders shook slightly and Cade could vaguely see the outline of her eyes widened from the edge of her cloak hood. She opened her mouth to speak but stopped when Cade hastily thrust a single finger to his closed lips.
With quiet but quick steps he approached the girl until they were again in the same position as earlier, her body tucked beneath the fit frame of his. He really needed to stop putting himself in positions such as these.
"What happened?" He whispered without looking down at the girl for he feared that if he took his eyes off the woods he would not escape with his life. "Are you hurt?" Another set of thundering ensued off to their left, bouncing off the circular oddity until Cade doubted that the sound began where he thought.
"I'm fine. I started walking forward like you implied until I got here and realized you were not behind me. Then that- that noise happened and I panicked," Ivory explained in a quiet voice that shook when she mentioned the howl. For that brief second he pitied the poor girl in front of him and he wished that she never thought to bear the responsibilities of her parents in order to prove that she earned her title. A branch snapped, this time to their right.
"Get behind me and never take your eyes off those trees, do you understand?" Cade did not give her the chance to respond to his commands before moving her body so that he faced the direction in which he imagined the beast to be hunched in wait. He felt her back rest solidly against his and any time he shifted her feet followed, stepping on the back of his heels. There was a flicker of red between a shrub in front of him that made him tense but its disappearance made him believe it was only a figment of his fear. Each tiny sound that might have just been the shallow breaths of the girl against his back made the pair tense.
"What in Hades is out there?" Cade did not want to answer her; not for her sanity but for his own. "Cade, what the hell is it?" Ivory hissed, finally snapping from fear. It turns out she was either stiff and shaky when faced with danger or she was bursting at the seams with anger. Cade was not sure which he preferred.
He gulped, feeling the spit get lodged in his throat briefly. "I-it's a," He had to swallow again. "It's a volhound." The words came out in a whisper that not even those with the largest ears could hear, and it barely reached Ivory's ears. A chill took over his body at the statement and Cade felt the real fear take over his body at the confirmation of his worst nightmare. He wanted so desperately to appear brave and unaffected by the beast lurking somewhere in the dark but his tremors gave him away. He had hoped that the one encounter would have filled his life with enough experience but clearly some greater power had a twisted sense of humor.
Ivory stilled when the words registered in her mind and a terror similar to the boy's blossomed in her mind like a poisonous wildflower that dripped down her veins until it ran freely through her blood. "We are going to die aren't we? Oh gracious we are going to be slaughtered as this thing's late night snack. Fantastic, I'm going to rot inside the belly of a wolf." He couldn't tell whether she was going into hysterics but it was better than being unresponsive. The thoughts traveling through his mind seemed to be moving faster than light and he could hardly latch onto one of them long enough to focus on a response.
"Technically it's not just a wolf. Part human remember." He hated himself for his pathetic excuse at coping with the reality of the situation but it was the best he had at the moment.
"Not helping," Ivory hissed in response. A part of him wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all but the motion died before it could occur. "So instead of being ingested by a wolf, I am going to be torn to shreds by a human who's a wolf but is really a human. Bloody fantastic."
"Could be worse." They had unconsciously begun to turn in a small circle with their feet barely leaving the ground, but never removing their eyes from the trees.
"How could it possibly be worse?"
"You could have your soul ingested by a daunter. Then you would just be a thin pile of skin and bones. Or you could be ravaged by the washdows. That would be a far worse way to die."
"The first thing I'm going to do after we get out of this- alive- is punch you in the face. Then you are going to explain what those are and why they are so dangerous."
"Intrigued?" He felt smug knowing that he was able to remove her mind from the danger while his still fought brutally to refrain from running and hiding.
"Of course I am, I don't know how you aren't." It sounded as though she were surprised that it was difficult for him to be excited about this topic. He continued to be taken aback at how little she retained from his speaking.
"Never said I wasn't."
"Well you don't really say anything, do you? Especially right now," Her tone had a bitter edge to it, one that melded to a point but had been dulled enough to run a finger along it and not draw blood. There was some meaning to her words for he had been reserved from the girl, with good reason, and he could read her easily. It was an advantage Cade could say he was glad to own.
"You have got to be joking with me. You want me to give you my life story while we're being hunted? Sure let me just spill out my past while the volhound chews me to shreds." He wished he could have looked her in the eyes so he could glare at her, until then the snap in his words would have to suffice. Sound began to fill the clearing but the noises fell upon deaf ears and rested in the corner of his mind gathering dust.
"Well it might be a nice way to die, having gotten every problem off of your chest could put you at ease especially as you die. But hey, that's your problem, not mine." In his mind, Cade could see Ivory standing with one hip popped and arms crossed against her chest as she glared at him. Her voice began to rise again but Cade did not have the urge to do anything about it other than continue to argue and hope she saw reason. The pair had stopped rotating at one point and the continuous sight of one section of trees began making Cade see things again.
"Hades can take me with all my problems and he can deal with me complaining for the rest of eternity. Until then I will deal with it myself," He muttered out, thinking to himself about the promise he had bound himself to through his thoughts. But the moment quickly slipped from his mind and he promised to dwell more on it later, after they miraculously escaped the jaws of death.
"You don't have to, you know," She whispered back and, Cade couldn't tell whether it was on purpose or not, he felt the scuffed leather of her glove reach for his hand and their fingertips brushed lightly. For brief second, he wanted to encase her hand with his to try and make the fear go away, to ignore the thoughts pacing in his mind, but he moved his hand forward instead.
He did not want to ignore what she had said to him and the way that her voice called out to him with reassurance as if offering him home in its welcoming arms, but the scene in front of him herded him down a different path. "Ivory." His voice trembled slightly when he spoke her name and he could feel her tense against his back. "I think I'm hallucinating everything around me. I can't tell what's real or not."
"What? What do you mean you can't tell what's real? Cade, how could you possibly be hallucinating?" She let her voice rise slightly on the end of a rope before tugging it back so that it submitted without question at a whisper for their ears were not the only ones listening.
Cade was trying to figure out how to possible explain to her that he was seeing the two red eyes in between a set of trees in front of him, that were just staring into his. They way they moved seemed surreal as if they were gliding on open air without being attached to a body but then they would shift so stiffly that he knew that they had to be real. But then they would glimpse out of existence quickly so that it seemed as though they were never there at all.
"Come here." Cade did not give her a chance to respond before tugging her hand so that she was standing next to him, facing the endless void of darkness ahead of them. His breathing had picked up tremendously, his shoulders growing and dropping like waves crashing against a rocky shore, and he knew that whatever was out there was thoroughly enjoying its prey jumping out of its skin. "You," He had to stop to swallow, "you see that right. Right in between the two giant trees right over there. Please tell me you see that."
"You're not talking about the red, glowing eyes that are staring into my soul, right. Holy Hades tell me that you have somehow put your hallucinations onto me." She whispered back, staring wide-eyed at the two red dots in front of her. Cade could not see the expression on her face, he could hardly see his own two feet from the sheer darkness, but he knew that she was most likely frozen in shock.
"Great so you see them too." They both stood in shock, too afraid to even whisper in fear of admitting what they both already knew.
"You don't think-"
"Yeah," He breathed, moving his hand slowly towards his hip where a sharp dagger rested against his hip. "That is most definitely the volhound. Here take this and don't lose it, I want it back." The knife felt cold to the touch, even though the handle was firmly wrapped in year old leather and the blade remained clean of scratches and stains. A small red ruby lay encrusted in the hilt, small enough that it would be pointless for a thief to barter it but large enough that it would fit atop his fingernails. He mentally encouraged himself to part ways with it for even a little while.
"I have my own you know," Ivory retorted, letting the tips of her fingers brush against the sharp edge but not taking a hold of the small weapon. Any harder along the point and a crimson red would have painted the appendage gracefully.
"If you trust me, you'll take this. For once, if this is the only time you do, please just trust me and take it."
She did not respond but hastily grabbed the end and clutched it tightly so that she would never forget that it remained safe in her hands. Cade released a breath when the dagger relieved itself of his possession as if the small weight had removed boulders from his chest. At least if she would be safe for the time being, even if he may never see a sky other than darkness again.
His moment of peace was short lived when a continuous sequence of growls erupted from the brush in front of the pair, the noises low and menacing to establish that it was still an eminent threat and that forgetting it would make them pay. It almost seemed as though the creature needed to feel a sense of dominance or else it suffered and the fear radiating off of its victims was enough to spread elation through its body for the time being. Leaves crumbling to dark dust filled the air as the beast crawled forward slowly towards the pair, enlarging its piercing eyes as it did so. Red filled their visions as their breaths hitched and the only thoughts running through their mind was how the blood color froze them in their places. Just before it would step into the clearing with them, the monster halted its movements and remained hidden behind the shadows of darkness.
"Why isn't it attacking?"
"Ivory, shut up."
They could hear its labored breaths from their stance only ten large strides away. Even though he was scared senseless, Cade could not help but wonder what the creature would look like in the light when it could not shield itself in the darkness or attack quickly before disappearing. The stories and personal experience did not quell the thirst of curiosity in the boy, even though the thought of being less than an arm's space away from it terrified him.
Yet the boy still shifted his arm down his thigh where he knew a hidden blade lay covered by the cloth of his trousers and material of his cape, not hesitating slightly about wanting to protect himself when the moment they were waiting for finally pounced upon them. Another low growl exited the mouth of the beast as if daring Cade to keep his hand itching down to the sheath against his hip that concealed a second sharp blade from sight. For a moment, he thought about taking the unspoken advice but decided that his own instincts should rise first in rank with past experience holding them high. When his hand firmly wrapped itself around the thin handle of the stolen knife second noise of anger emerged from the creature, and Cade knew that it finally had enough of him.
The next few seconds processed through Cade's mind slowly, as if someone was taking a picture of each second and pausing to show him the fine details. Cade watched as the beast leapt forward from the bushes, breaking one in two completely shattered, so that it stood at the edge of the clearing with the two. It had a large head that rested unproportional to the rest of its body with an extensive snout and skull large enough to beat his own in a contest. The two fore legs were bent at odd angles where he guess that the bones connected with minimal marrow, and reminded him of an old hag hugging her arms to her side with bent elbows and wrists hanging limply in the air, while its hind legs bent sharply at the knees and ankles like some twisted doll The torso of the beast was positioned forward from the rest of its appendages which made the pointed bones of its shoulders jut out in the back, stretching the skin thin. Patches of thick brown hair stuck to the skin all around, coating the body more than the head leaving the edges of the skull to protrude unattractively. Consuming his thoughts and captivating him with the small black splotches it called pupils, the deep red of its eyes held more dominance up close. Briefly Cade could see the set of jagged teeth waiting hungrily inside its mouth; four on the sides of its jaw forming a square were larger and tipped sharply so that it could tear the flesh from its victims easier.
What should have been a quick visual of his death greeting him with rotten breath and blood lust turned to a book of observations that he would have nowhere to write once his brain sped up. Before he could think to remove the knife from its hiding place, the beast howled once more, throwing its head back into the air with tightly knit eyes and puckered lips to release the noise that froze the pair to their spots. Its chant of glee ended and then the beast lunged forward again bearing its teeth in a snarl, tackling Cade to the ground. He was paralyzed to the forest floor by the unmistakable stench of death slapping him in the face with joy and the drool dripping down one of the canines. One of its paws dug into his abdomen while the other kept his arm planted into the dead leaves, but Cade did not have the right mind to try and fight back in the face of death.
The beast did not look into his eyes for long, instead decided to latch its jaw tightly around the meaty part of his shoulder eliciting a shout of pain from Cade before removing his body from the ground entirely and tossing it through the air as if it weighed no more than a twig. Cade felt his back collide with a sturdy structure, bending his body around the mass until something erupted into flames of pain and he fell abruptly to the ground with half his face in the dirt and the other staring at the forest that had begun to blur. The last thing Cade heard was the scream of his name before the last remaining figures melted into darkness.

* * * * *

A/N: As promised, the next chapter. Hope it portrays to you guys as well as I hoped. Until next time.