You reach in and take it out with nimble fingers.
You pull out the paper strip with a swirl in black in on it. It flutters like a leaf in the fresh autumn breeze as you hold it between two fingers. The breeze also blows the smoke billowing from within the engine into your face, making you cough and retch your way out of the clearing into the forest. Your eyes water and sting, and every attempt of yours to see leads to more agony than the last. Temporarily blinded by the tears, you stumble across the woods, gripping onto the tree barks and trying to use your other senses.
Your ears suddenly pick up the horn of a vehicle and you squint your way towards the direction of the sound. Brown, red, yellow and orange blur before your teary eyes into uneven strips of colour. The strip continues to flap within your fingers, smelling of cherry and oddly, fish.
A fading roar coming from behind you prompts you to hobble faster. The albino cougar belonging to the trickster goddess was not far behind enough for comfort.
When your eyesight clears, you find yourself panting and bending over the recent leftovers of a campfire.
Tall trunks of maple, birch, oak and elm kiss the sky around you, waving their leaves in the most nonchalant manner possible. The pain in your stomach and chest digs deeper as saliva drips from your open mouth. Your throat is set on fire from your blinded run for cover. The cougar looms behind you, well hidden within the vast forest.
Then you remember something. A flash of memory, a hunch born from your exposure to the supernatural perhaps presents itself to you. Your breath hitches as you look at the forest floor littered with burnt cigarette butts and paper coffee cups. Your knees bend and hands dig up dirt and leaves till the glass and metal hit your skin. You grab it and shuffle the slippery thing between your fingers.
You hope the lighter is still functional despite the leaky reservoir of oil.
Something tells you to burn the paper.
And you do so without the slightest bit of hesitation. The paper darkens and curls away from the flames licking it. Your fingers shake like the leaves on the trees as you steal glances behind you. The world around you is a fever dream.
In that moment, you feel softness washing over your palms. When you look, you catch the white petals of cherry flowers in the place of paper ash, dancing across your skin in the wind. Confusion seizes your mind as you watch them fly away while spreading their fragrance, lifted up by the draughts of autumn air. You grab your hair and let out a moan of utter desperation.
What the heck just happened, goes your mind, what did I just do?
A sudden tug at the hemline of your jacket makes you scream your head off and fall back into the leaf litter. Your nerves are just done with the stimulus you've been getting today.
｡:ﾟ.*･
Who could that be?
Turn to chapter 17 to FACE THEM.
｡:ﾟ.*･
YOU ARE READING
Foxfire || A Nine-tailed Fox Fantasy
Werewolf(Discontinued ) (Work Dated: May 24 2021) The streets of Shikagami City have a secret. To save themselves from paying their severe debts with their soul to a Verdish Goddess of the Underworld, a desperate restaurant mascot has to help a Junhic fox...
