Chapter Nine

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- Pandæmonium -

The blue glow above the trees kept my vision high as I walked along, as it was still the only source of light besides my own blue flame only loosely lighting up the ground, the trees and dark fog around me. But in a strange way, it was as if my vision was not always dependent upon the light, almost as if the environment was luminous in a way.

It was still easier to see clearly when the moon occasionally peered through, but it would seem as if it was only a different kind of 'clear', as if just a different point of view, as if I could actually still see in the dark, only a much darker and viler side of it, as if the light not only made it brighter and revealed what the shapes of the environment truly was, but somehow changed the environment itself, as if turning the vile and harrowing aspects of this world into something purer, something less wicked and more like a regular forest, like the world, I was used to.

I made my way around the trees, and claw-like branches as well as around the great roots preventing me from walking in a straight path, up, down, and around. I had been walking for a while since my strange encounter with the odd creature; ວjinn. I wondered what he was, how he could talk, and why he had interacted with me.

I thought about the white faceless ghost-like man that had been able to merge with the ground and travel around within the earth and through the trees, branches, and vines, like electricity. He had been able to sculpt and restructure the environment, all the while ວjinn had been tearing it down, cutting holes in the fabric of space while bending and twisting it in insensible ways.

I thought about the masked ghosts, remembering how they had flown around, changing shapes, creating these strange puppets.

There were so many impressions, so many weird characters, shadowy figures, and phantoms, and they were all around, roaming freely within this forest. Things had been quiet for a while, but I was starting to hear and see signs of activity again. I could see shadows move again. I could see the ghost-like figures of transparent men, like lost souls, walking aimlessly around through the forest, as if coming in and out of existence, some appearing more real and solid than others.

Then in the distance, I saw something new. It looked like a group of creatures walking. They were quite far away and I couldn't really make out what they were.

I stood back. It was best to not reflect too much about them and just let them pass by, as they seemed to be just another type of the many strange hostile demons that roamed this dark world. I didn't even want to find out what they were, it was very unimportant so long as I wasn't forced to interact with them.

I stayed hidden.

Suddenly, I could begin hearing excited and alerted sounds almost like very tuneless barks of hounds with vocal cords that were cut. It seemed they had spotted something. Fearful that they had somehow detected my scent or somehow heard me, my body became tense. But very soon the creatures began spreading out. I realized it wasn't me they had spotted as 'I' then spotted what 'they' had spotted. It was another group of the many types of malformed and disgusting creatures that inhabited this forest, some bigger than the others, some uglier than the next.

The beings slowly began to surround them and move in on them. It was all very dark and far away and many trees blocking the view, I could only pretend to know what was going on. I saw hectic movements, I could hear sounds of struggle and pains. Then, I could begin seeing red eyes glow from among the trees. A bunch of the imp-like creatures decided to interfere. They came crawling down from the trees, and jumping down from the branches as if they just wanted to get in on the action.

All I could see were the chaotic blurry shapes and red-glowing eyes hectically moving around in the distance, clashing and slashing sounds, while dark-red liquids stretched out here and there among the demonic shouts; a loud and hectic scenery of total havoc.

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