CHAPTER 475: A SAD DISCOVERY

Kellen made sure to watch his feet, watch his sides, watch everything around him. He was on high alert, as he should be. The smallest of crunch, his feet sinking into the damp soil made small iridescent...spores float into the air. Kellen hated that, hated what it probably signified as he made his way eastward.

He came to the small river, noticing for the first time a few cracked branches, a few marks on the trees.

Hardened sap surrounded the marks, clearly made with a knife, and his chest swelled as he recognised the marking technique he had taught his students. It might have been the older Esper who had been sucked in with them that had told them to do so, but that didn’t matter. Kellen was just glad to see signs of life, and that they were signs he was able to follow.

It was clear that they hadn’t crossed the river, like Kellen had no plan to. At least not yet. It looked so damn toxic that Kellen could almost feel how it would dissolve his clothes. His bones.

He shivered, glancing around him. His gun was still in his hand, his eyes open, wide. Watching everything that he could. The soft sounds through the trees, the shifting sounds of the night. He was working hard to take in all information, every last sound, anything he thought was amiss.

He was surprised that it was light enough at night that he didn’t need to use the flashlight he’d brought, but he wondered if it was just around the fluorescent river. Since the colour of the river matched the colour illuminating the shimmering colour of the leaves around him.

Kellen kept moving, kept observing, trying to see if he found anything out of the ordinary.

It was about two hours later, while he was following the trail made by his peers when he found the first body, or what remained of it.

Someone had slipped, stumbled, tripping over a well placed root and had slid into a pitcher plant. Kellen winced as he stared at the closed plant, the torn pieces of fabric telling a grim tale. Kellen paused for a moment, saying a prayer for who had been lost. He wouldn’t know until he found more survivors, but a knot twisted in his gut. He hoped and prayed that it wasn’t Gwen.

Honestly, it was a bit heartless of himself, but he hoped it was one of the Espers that he hadn’t trained personally. It would still hurt, but it would hurt less. Not that body recoveries were ever easy.

Still, he was a bitter man, and Kellen, wanting to be able to bring something back to the family members, even if it turned into a box of ashes, shot the stem of the plant. He knew that he shouldn’t be agitating any part of the forest since he had no idea how it was connected, but a cool anger filled his body.

This fucking gate wasn’t going to feast off of his people, no matter who they were. It could starve for all he fucking cared. He wasn’t even good at keeping plants alive, a thing he’d never told Miro.

Miro would never need to know, and he was fairly certain the man would agree with him in this circumstance. He watched with a cold detachment as the pitcher plant deflated slowly, and Kellen sped that shit up by firing another hole, grazing the side to let more liquid spill out like a damn faucet.

Kellen waited, checking to see if anything else had noticed Kellen’s attack, but nothing came to investigate. That either meant nothing was around, or everything was in deep sleep.

Kellen had no doubt there were some fucked up monsters in this gate. He had a feeling most were plant based, like this fucker. It wasn’t unknown, since pitcher plants weren’t just native to other worlds but to earth as well, but this was still a C Class monster. The fact that it had taken a life was clear evidence of that fact.

Kellen watched as the poisonous liquid drained, eating away at more of the roots and other plantlike around the pitcher plant as it emptied. Kellen was sure the smell and poison filling the air was truly noxious, and he was glad for the new mask.

He waited longer, watching the plant deflate more, until he grabbed one of the knives strapped to his body and began to cut away at the giant plant, revealing the body inside. He wasn’t a man who liked to live in unknowns, and if this was where he came face to face with Gwen’s passing, this was the moment.

Tragically for the body, it wasn’t Gwen, but one of his students. Kellen’s heart ached, somehow able to make out most of their facial features since it appeared their head had been above the poison. Kellen closed his eyes, fighting tears as he realised that they hadn’t drowned in the poison. It was a cruel, terrible death.

Kellen bowed his head, grief flooding him as he took a moment for himself, for them, before he pulled them completely out of the plant. He knew that the body had a chance to keep decomposing and potentially attracting others to it, so he turned to his bag.

One of the things that his Field Guides should have packed for him were body bags, and he was right to assume that they had.

With great effort to not destroy the body further, Kellen slowly packed them into the bag, scooping up parts of them with measured hands, not flinching at the reality he was faced with. He could grieve, he could feel rage, but he couldn’t let himself think too hard when it came to death like this. He could be ill later.

He could not be ill now. It almost felt disrespectful to the poor Field Guide before him, who had been so excited to continue their path forward. Cut short by this damn gate, by this damn plant.

Kellen took a few metal pieces from them as identifiers, slid them into a plastic bag for safe keeping and wrote her name on the bag. These would be mementos for her family. The Guild would polish them up, make it not obvious what had happened to them. A small act of kindness that Kellen had done for many family members.

Once the body was zipped up, and Kellen felt a bit more at ease, Kellen stood back up. Determination sat in his gut, and from that point on, he made sure to destroy every pitcher plant looking thing as he moved through the forest.

He’d watch as its own poison would consume it, watching it wither and die as Kellen stole its life. It was cruel, something that Miro would not approve of, but Kellen didn’t care.

He could tell that he wasn’t the only one from the group of survivors who had felt the same.

Similar situations littered the path Kellen took, tracing their steps. Any plant, any root that got in the way was sliced, methodical. It was filled with rage though, and Kellen wondered who was responsible for it. He approved of their actions, but he wondered if it was one of his grief-stricken students, or if it was an Esper. Kellen wouldn’t know until he got to actual survivors. If there were any.

Kellen eventually found a spot where he was sure they had set up camp. It was a flat area, burned off any plant life and had clear marks of tent peg holes. A small fire pit had clearly been put up as well, even expertly put out and Kellen stood there for a long moment.

It had been hours since he’d entered, an internal clock inside of him keeping track. It felt a bit like he was stretching old muscles the more he moved in the gate. He had been teaching his students, but it was one thing to teach someone, and another thing to actually experience it himself.

It was lonely, he admitted, without Brent or anyone else at his side, but that was also a good thing. He could imagine Brent throwing a fit at the sight of the dead Field Guide, and the somber expression of Rhys as he helped Kellen pull the body into the body bag.

It was nice to imagine them here, even if they weren’t. He hoped Brent wasn’t in here. Truly. It wouldn’t make any damn sense if he was, since he was supposed to be near the front gates of the front lines. He just also hoped that he hadn’t been eaten either.

Kellen shook off the thoughts, needing to focus on his surroundings. He could settle down here, try to keep pace with them, but he needed to discover them soon, and he wasn’t all that tired.

So, after a quick break, letting himself take a moment to eat some food, not breathing when he was biting into the food. He took a moment to draw down what he had seen, document the plant life he had seen so far, and what he had observed. It was something he should do in his down moments, not just for him, but for the others that would see his notes once he got out of here. Once he’d written down all that he could, he tucked everything back into his bag and then he kept going. Kept moving.

All the while his thoughts kept circling back, kept thinking about the people in the gate, the people outside, and the people who he didn’t know where they were.

He blamed part of it on the poison in the air, and the other part on the fact that he was alone.

Kellen didn’t find another body or anything else as he continued to move through the night as the time slowly ticked forward and soon Kellen felt like dawn was approaching. He could hear how the forest was slowly awakening, and Kellen felt a drop in his stomach.

Something was warning him that he had been playing on easy mode so far, as if he had been given a training period to get used to this gate, and now the gloves were coming off. He had no idea why he felt that way until he began to hear the slow dragging sound of something heavy, something plant based following him around.

He had no idea what it was, but Kellen didn’t feel as safe as he had felt during the night as the sun began to peak over the tree line. That was when Kellen remembered that most plants ’went to sleep’ at night and woke up with the sun.

Kellen’s expression grew grim as he braced himself for a hell he hadn’t expected, but wasn’t completely unprepared for. If the forest wanted to fight him, Kellen had no problem setting the whole thing on fucking fire.

Especially if he found out that Gwen was dead. He was fast, he could run quickly. He had no problem letting the whole fucking thing burn, so it had better hope that Gwen was still alive because it didn’t matter how he touched the core, as long as he did.

If he had to walk through a desecrated forest to do so, burnt down to its very core, he would. Poison be damned. Plants were fucking plants.

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