Guardian of Elements

Chapter 15 - Intruder

Kate was woken up by a strange whistling noise. She went out of the hole. Immediately, she found out that it was late afternoon already. She had been dreaming the whole day! Soon, she realized something else. That peaceful atmosphere from the night was gone, replaced by a strange tense in the air. Kate went to explore, but just after a few steps, she saw a light approaching from one side, growing brighter. As it was closing in, she could see that it was a group of spirit animals and balls of light.

A stampede of different animals was running through the forest, every creature sliding back and forth between its animal form and a shapeless wisp. Kate had no time to dodge, because the herd was sprinting at unnatural speed, so she cowered in place. The stampede ran around her without paying her any attention. One animal went straight through her, and as it passed through her body, she could feel its emotions and thoughts: fear, anger and a thought: "They are here, we have to tell Him." In a minute, they were but a distant glow behind trees.

Kate was recovering from the scary experience. However, it was just about five minutes later, when another glow appeared. This one wasn't coming directly towards her but ran past her, about ten meters away. She had to know what was going on, so she went to follow that group.

It took everything she had to keep up with the herd. The speed of ghostly animals was mesmerizing. Now, she could see the way they were running. Each animal jumped high into the air, transformed into a glowing ball and glided for several meters, and before it reached the ground, it morphed back into its animal form for another jump. Kate thought she could use wind to do something similar, but she found it too difficult to do while running, so she had to use only her legs to try to follow the shimmering animals.

The Sun came down and darkness spread pretty fast through the woods. The only way Kate could orient by was the glowing herd. At this point, she knew that she wouldn't be able to find her way back. She was exhausted again. She was running maybe for an hour and she was starting to think that the herd was running randomly and had no destination. She almost gave up, but as the last light of the day vanished, the compact herd suddenly exploded, and the wisps quickly flew into the trees.

Kate realized how dark it already was. The herd was dazzling her before, and it took some time for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. As night fell, she felt nervous once again. That tense feeling from the first day in the woods was back. Spirits were whispering in the trees again, but this time, it wasn't interest what Kate could feel from their whispers. It was fear.

She went further ahead. After a few meters, she saw a different light behind the trees, red in color. A gust of wind brought the smell of smoke to her. Forest fire.

She began to run towards it, but stopped almost immediately when she saw a shadow, moving in front of the small fire. The figure was running around it, picking up something in leaves and throwing it into the flames. When Kate sneaked closer, she could see the person clearly, and also hear his voice, gibbering in a strange language, but she could understand it. Could that be a human?

The man picked up his axe and ran as far as the light of the fire allowed him. There, he began to swing it rapidly against a small sapling, desperately trying to chop it down. Kate could hear him jabbering:

"The darkness...shadows...growing close...have to keep the fire...these voices...stop!!"

He sounded really desperate and afraid. He pulled the tree towards his campfire, quickly chopped it in half and threw it into the fire. A burst of flames rose to the sky.

He made this fire? Kate had never heard about someone being able to create fire, besides herself. And if he could, what else was he capable of? She knew that he was probably under Raya's influence, seeking only destruction. He was burning trees... why? To have some light in the night? The light of day wasn't enough for him?

She was about seven meters away from him, when a stick broke under her feet. The man heard it and turned around, terrified. Kate got startled too, from his looks. His face was interwoven with black veins and the rest of his skin was pale, almost gray. He threw a branch towards the place where Kate was standing. She dodged it easily, but the man's hostility surprised her.

She decided to stop him, to put out that fire at least. He was careless, and he could burn down the entire forest, if that was not his goal already. But as she stepped forward to face him, she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Followed by a long trail of wisps, the tiger-cheetah creature she saw the last night was slowly walking towards the man.

Kate quickly hid in a bush. The animal was walking steadily, and it seemed like it wasn't paying any attention to the blue and orange spirits trailing in behind. Suddenly, many ghostly animals began to appear around the man's clearing. They too, were closing in. A doe passed next to Kate, without even looking at her. They had their eyes fixed on the man. He couldn't see them, the light of the fire was probably blinding him.

The orange cat emerged from the forest. The sight of it drove the desperate man completely crazy. He quickly pulled a burning branch out of the fire and began swinging it in front of him. The cheetah didn't react to it at all. Suddenly, the orange doe, that was standing next to Kate a second ago, shot forward, and as its body went through the man's branch, it extinguished the fire. The doe landed between the trees on the other side of the clearing and positioned itself next to a boar.

That was too much for the man to take in. He threw the branch at the cat but missed without it even having to move. It took a step forward and then, it spoke.

"I see you. Your nature, your sins. You are corrupted. You murdered this doe and her fawn without any reason. Now, you shall pay for it."

The Guardian of Souls' gem enveloped the clearing in cold, pale orange light. The man, Kate and all spirits didn't move an inch. Then, the human gave out a scream, which sent chills up Kate's spine in terror. The man's body dropped to the ground, motionless. At its place, a black ghostly figure of that man was standing, his mouth still opened in desperate scream.

"You shall harm no one again. Not in life, not in death. I bind you to these lands, for you've done no good to be free!" shouted the Guardian of Souls. The black ghost exploded and vanished into the ground. With it, every spirit around the clearing dissipated. Once again, Kate was alone.

She mustered all the courage she had left after witnessing this terrifying scene and went towards the other Guardian. But he had disappeared again. She entered the fire's light circle, trying to not look at the body of the man, wondering what to do next. She decided to put out the fire first. As the area around her darkened, she got an idea. She swept away the leaves on the ground and touched it. As before, she managed to connect with it, to feel through it. Because of the leafy carpet, everything was blurry and unclear, but she could tell that something was disrupting the leaves in one direction, and it was swiftly moving away. Although she had her share of running today, she knew she had to catch up with the other Guardian. She gave the place of the scary act one final look and darted off into the woods.