Passion (Book 1 of "The Fantasy of Life" Series)

Chapter 20

Ashanaya

The 6 of us walked into the forest slowly. This forest was strange, it was nothing like the forest the Evenura stayed in, the trees were thinner and the leaves less dense. Everything felt darker and more jagged, cursed or tainted perhaps. It all felt wrong and evil, I began to understand why the humans who built Hope didn't expand farther than they did. Surely the forest has been like this, and they noticed. It's very unnerving.

Each step was loud and very consistently made a crunch, I wasn't sure if I was stepping on leaves or very old, brittle bones. I didn't want to look down to check, I was too scared of what it might actually be. Cullen stayed pressed at my side and held my hand very tightly. He looked very pale, maybe he looked at what we were walking on. I looked back at York who was nervously clinging to Valen and laying his head on his shoulder. I was really happy they were together, made Valen happy and kept my life from getting complicated.

Kel was skipping beside Marhara, the crunching from her steps was especially annoying. She was bugging Marhara about how it was weird that he was with us because he was so old. I suppose it was a little weird since he's twice most of our ages, but he was there at the beginning, this was just as much his fight as ours.

That was only a few days ago, one or two. Why did it seem so long ago? Time just seemed to move so slowly without my mother. I didn't have much to go home to and that's especially heartbreaking. It angered me that she was taken from me, there was nothing I could do or say that could express just how angry that made me. I didn't show most of the group, Cullen had seen some of it in the tent when I woke up in the middle of the night having a panic attack.

I had sat straight up in the middle of the night pulling at my hair and internally screaming, he told me that my face was so red that I might as well have had my face skinned. That's an extreme comparison but he said it was the only thing he could think of that was accurate. I hyperventilated, screamed, sobbed, I attacked the ground in frustration, I attacked Cullen, thankfully not that much but once I realised I did, I only got angrier. I opened up the void that we stored out stuff in and threatened to jump in. I don't quite remember what triggered all of it, but I do know that it had something to do with my parents.

I suppose it'd be easier if mother wasn't just taken from me, if it was natural causes I might not be as bothered. I'd be completely grief-stricken but not so angry. I just want to kill Valerie with my own hands, it infuriates me that it's taken so much to find her. If she's not here we better at least find something for me to beat the hell out of.

Cullen pulled me to the left, we were getting close to the quarry. It was kind of overwhelming, I was anxious to get there, I wanted so badly to hurt something, to find something new to go off of, and best case scenario, end all of this. It's only been 2 or 3 days but I want this to be over with, it wasn't fun to be away from the clan, especially with a new matriarch, they probably weren't functioning well; I don't doubt Ceylorn's capabilities, I do doubt the Evenura's ability to accept change. Everytime there's a new matriarch there's at least a decade where everything is very hectic and people don't exactly get along, everything at those times is very off balance. Every decision made by the matriarch at first is questioned, it's just chaos.

I saw a large dip in the ground and excitement cleared my thoughts. I broke from Cullen's side and ran forward, where I saw a long stairway carved into the side of a semi-short cliff leading down into the quarry. There were tents, campfires that were just embers now, there were stakes in the ground, dotted around in random places where the top of them was very wet and red. There were a few bodies on the ground, but some of them weren't bodies of the Ashen, which confused me, but only a little. I suppose it made sense considering what they did to Wilhelm.