Girl of the Unorthodox (UNDER REVISION)

One in the same

((A/N: so heads up that this chapter contains slight descriptions of gore n gross stuff like dry heaving so if that ain't how you roll then just skip past the paras with brackets around em, keep safe ya'll))

In comparison to the fluorescent lights and overall bustle of the city, the forest was awfully desolate and a lot more disconcerting than Vanity had initially recalled it to be. She thought that she knew these woods, but every trail she had ventured throughout as a child seemed lost and forgotten in the ceaseless maze of woodland. One could practically see nothing by way of darkness. Everything was obscured, and it evoked a sense of claustrophobia inside even though the land stretched undoubtedly for miles. The trees were densely packed, practically looming overhead with a presence unlike any other with their barbed, leafless boughs spiking upwards like spears towards the sky. Even the soft susurration of the branches felt heavy on the ears.

Vanity followed a narrow path, which was made uneven by the knotted roots which crossed it, lead blindly forward only by a meagre strip of light from a cheap torch she had managed to fish out of the clutter drawer. Trust her not to bring anything to eat but remember to bring her charger and her phone like she could even use them in the forest. What was she even looking for? She couldn't see a single thing in this unending darkness anyway, so it wasn't like she would have a heightened chance of uncovering anything worthwhile. Vanity's legs were expectedly beginning to ache now, and she hadn't the faintest idea of how long she had been traipsing around for. It could have been hours.

Now, with the adrenaline fuelled determination slowly beginning to diminish, Vanity was becoming increasingly agitated. Admittedly, she knew she had gotten herself lost for a little over a few hours, and she wished she hadn't come out here at all. A forbidding breeze had long since claimed the air, subjecting everything to a glacial chill which took more and more of a toll on Vanity the deeper she roamed into the forest like an absolute dunce. It didn't help that she recalled the rumours of a so called 'grey' entity which inhabited the woods- though she quickly played it off quickly as middle school nonsense. She wasn't the type to read into superstition.

"Me and my bright ideas.." She griped indignantly to herself, her words shaken with how her jaw trembled in the relentless cold. Her voice echoed off of the thick myriad of trees before falling upon her own ears. While the air was crisp with the cold, there was a sudden loam in the earth and the decomposing smell of leaves made the atmosphere close and thick, smelling of decay even. Was it even leaves? It burned in her nostrils, foul and piercing. Like... like something was long dead, and rotting.

A trickle of fear grazed down Vanity's spine, and she paused abruptly beneath the trees, listening for anything moving in the dark. It smelt suddenly... much more rotten. It was there before, but now it wasn't nearly as subtle. It was almost overpowering. Her arm instinctively rose from her side so she could illuminate the canopy overhead. It was what greeted her which caused her to yell out, and draw back in immediate horror.

(((The dim light fell upon a shadowed, small form in the trees, suspended from the branches to hang in the air like a Christmas ornament. Upon further inspection, Vanity was able to place it as that of a hare. The expression on the creatures face was terribly unfeigned, eyes bulging and rolled back into its smashed in little head, jaw unhinged with its tongue missing. Instead, rivulets of blood dripped down its chin as if the muscle had been completely torn from its mouth. It's stomach apparently followed a similar fate, the carcass hollowed of all its insides and left to dangle freely from the trees.

A wave of nauseating fear gripped at Vanity's stomach. She quickly pulled the flashlight away from the harrowing display of gore and keeled over in disgust, and on instant the urge to be sick caressed the top of her throat. Her temples throbbed, and her windpipe burned as she retched dryly. When she finally managed to recuperate, she found that her vision was dancing, and she felt lightheaded with terror. Was there a wolf or something prowling nearby? How did that... corpse get so high up in the branches?)))

Before Vanity had time to dwell on it, there was the audible sound of a twig snapping which caused her head to turn to the side so hard she could've given herself whiplash. Even in her dizzied haze, she could discern the patent presence of something advancing towards her, a shadowy form which manifested and flitted between the tree lines. And all at once, the roaring, hot static lapsing in her head tore through, and made her head pulse viciously as the figure advanced towards her by the second. Vanity scrambled backwards, backing up into a tree and attempting to distance herself from whatever was approaching. She was paralysed against her will with her eyes trained on the forwarding form, gaze remaining unblinking even as her eyelids burned.

Through the overwhelming clamour in her head, she could make out a single series of words, as if the entity was addressing her in her head, broken, murmuring syllables buzzing behind her synapses.
"What a sad little prospect..." came an unearthly whispering, echoing harshly in every corner of her mind with an utterly disdainful and outright disgusted tone, "meandering into my forest... unassuming and blissfully ignorant to the dangers which I bear within this vicinity. There's something.. odd... and.. impure in your presence. I could sense you from a mile away, you pathetic human. I'll be glad to take your plaintive little life, you repulsive, unworthy intruder."

Vanity's throat tightened with sheer volition, and by some miracle, she managed to croak out a single phrase through the suffocating pulsing in her head.
"P- lea- se!" Her hand trembled viciously as she plunged it towards her pocket, effortfully straining against the paralysis even as her nerves flamed and screamed in protest. Even in the circumstances she was stupidly attempting to retrieve her photo- and though her fleeting line of sight, the shadows clumped together completely to form a terrifying specimen right in front of her, a being which was pitch black from head to toe, stark white eyes menacing and pointed upon its mantled features, with it's slender, skeletal limbs fashioned entirely from these shadowy, thin tendrils.

After a few moments of tireless grappling, Vanity managed to retrieve the crumpled paper from her hoodie pocket, and with every ounce of strength still left within her person, she tossed it weakly to the forest floor, only for it to be automatically engulfed by those thin, wriggling threads of matter. The entity paused for a brief moment, kneeled and held out a spindly, emaciated hand which clasped Vanity hard by the throat. The girl could feel the icy sensation of the coils crawling across her flesh at their own accord, eliciting a shiver of repulsion through her entire body.

All at once, the overwhelming nausea, the dizziness, the staticky, white-hot deafening noise, the unbearable throbbing in her head- they all just ceased the moment this thing laid its wicked, glaring white eyes on the photo.
"How in the name of any divinity above do you have this?! How do you know who this is?!" And it's voice was now cold, demanding and grating, but distinctly feminine. It assumed to a kneel beside Vanity, it's presence even colder than the surrounding chill.
"M-" Vanity's voice chafed against the raw, barren corners of her throat, though she continued with a small, broken voice "my mom... she's called Lydia. S-Sh..She.. told- me in a note that I have- family- here. And th- at woman... is-"

"Your mother? She... oh lord. Well, no wonder your presence is repellent...you're an anomaly."
It said something else after that, but it's words fell upon deaf ears, as the weightless sensation of being lifted from the floor was the last thing Vanity's exhaustion-addled mind was able to perceive, before the world around her bled out completely, her consciousness declining and melding completely to black.