CHAPTER 476: THIS ISN’T QUICKSAND, IS IT?

Kellen had already had to fight off several plants from trying to swipe him from his feet, steal his bag, and to wrap around him. It was horrifying to realise that the forest he had been walking through during the night had a damn second phase.

It was alive before, but now it was awake.

Kellen stopped slicing and dicing the pitcher plants, more because he had a sneaking suspicion they would fight back now. He also noticed how the forest was getting denser, the trees closer together, harder to move through without touching them. Kellen did so, but he could see how this could be difficult for a group.

He kept moving, following the trail made by his people, but at a severely reduced pace. Kellen had a feeling that they might have had the same issue that he was because the next camp wasn’t too far away.

One thing he found out is that there was clearly a struggle of some kind, but no body, and no evidence of anything related to a body. Some torn fabric, but it looked to be too little to say that something major happened. Kellen did notice how the fire pit was much bigger, and not being a fool, he took that as a sign.

He began gathering things for a fire. He hadn’t set up a tent or anything yet, since he wasn’t sure he could sleep like that, or if he could even sleep fully. Fighting trees and plant life for ’dead’ wood was a task in and of itself, and it took Kellen a while to do so. Once he’d grabbed enough to light a fire pit, he turned back and used his flint and steel to do so. It was in one of his pockets on his person because it was a vital tool. As soon as he had done so, and the fire caught the wood, he could feel how the forest around him shivered and shrunk.

Kellen felt his lips curl up in a small moment of victory.

It seemed that when awake, the forest knew what its greatest fear should be.

And Kellen, and hopefully the others, had used that to their advantage.

Even though the sun was now high in the sky, Kellen sat next to the fire, setting himself up so that he could have a small catnap while he had the time, and to conserve his energy. He felt good, even after finding the body.

He only let himself sleep in small intervals. Something he had trained himself on for years, and even if he had been away for a while, he was still able to pick up. He didn’t set alarms, didn’t want to alert anything else in the forest to his presence, and as he rested a few times, he found that nothing bothered him.

Not anything obvious.

He noticed on the third cat nap that the ground beneath him was strange, different, and Kellen jumped up immediately, not playing games. He was right. Something had shifted the ground under him, making it more liquid then ground but he’d caught it in time. He wondered what fucked up creature would be capable of something like that, since when he moved, he watched as the ground slowly grew hard again.

Kellen grit his teeth. Yeah, there was a reason he liked going into gates that didn’t have this much excitement. He liked learning patterns, having information that spanned months. This new gate shit?

He was almost glad that his Class at the time had been viewed as too low because he probably would have thrown in the towel over shit like this.

What do you mean that the ground became almost liquid? It didn’t even behave like quicksand, and Kellen was very upset about that. The fire pit had even shifted, and Kellen wondered if he was the reason the ground had gone like that, or if it was because of the fire pit?

He wasn’t going to stay around to find out.

He slung his backpack back on, found the marker that showed what direction the group was going, still west as Kellen had taught them, and continued moving forward. Kellen just kept his head down, making sure he was following their path. Slower, focused, fighting the damn forest around him.

It wasn’t his first time in a plant overrun gate. This wasn’t the first time, but it was the first time poison was a very serious concern. Kellen had to be careful of every thorn, thistle, everything. He was being stalked by a beast that was all around him. As soon as he stepped into the gate, he’d basically stepped into the mouth of a monster as soon as he stepped onto the soil.

He knew how integrated plants were under the soil, under the ground. He had time to think about what had happened while he was resting. Was it roots? Was it the plant life shifting the roots and thus making the ground sink and shift? Or was it something else? Another creature of some kind?

Kellen just hoped that his peers, his people were aware of it as well, and that no one had been swallowed by the damn thing. Kellen kept himself quiet, his breathing calm, focused, as he continued to fight the forest that wanted to use him as fertilizer.

He didn’t find another body. Even as he began to see the night fall again, the forest growing quiet once more. The leaves began to rustle less, the stalking became...quieter, softer. Kellen had to defend himself less and less, and then, not at all.

Like how it had been when he’d first stepped into the gate.

Kellen took a moment to think about whether he should rest now, given that everything was still, or should he keep moving?

In the end, he valued having a clear mind versus covering more ground. He found another clearing, smaller in nature, made a small fire pit and took several cat naps. Enough to feed his drowsiness, and nothing strange happened while he was napping either.

No ground shifting, no vines creeping, nothing.

His body felt lighter being able to get more rest, and after taking a moment to eat and take care of some other things, Kellen set off once more. He did wonder how deep this forest was. How big the gate was. The group who had been sucked into the gate ahead of him had quite a bit of time to continue moving, and honestly, Kellen felt grateful that he’d only found two ’people’ so far.

That was a good thing. It meant that they were still travelling in a group, and that they were being cautious. Of course, there was a chance that things could go horribly wrong and they could have gone missing in a different way and left no trace of themselves after, but that was the worst case scenario. One of them.

Kellen just hoped that he could get to the core soon. He didn’t really care what he got to first. His people, or the core. He just hoped that they weren’t wandering the forest, hallucinating out of their minds while the gate fucked with them, picking them off one by one.

He already knew from the pitcher plants that the gate didn’t care about quick deaths.

Kellen paused as he needed, making notes on new plants he saw, what he saw, and everything in between during the night.

He liked the night better than the day in this gate. It wasn’t just because everything was trying to kill him less, it had more to do with how pretty everything was at night. The bioluminescence of the plant life at night was too startling and pretty to ignore. The sky was prettier, not quite dark enough for him to need his flashlight, and made walking easy since he could trace his steps in the moss and dirt since they were outlined in small, pretty spores.

During the day it was completely different. The sky was a toxic purple tone, not even blue. The clouds were of a similar colour, making the sky look fake, or made Kellen feel like he was in a strange frosting filled world. The trees lost their pretty colours, turning to more normal, neutral shades. He couldn’t tell where it was dangerous to step anymore, or follow his trail.

It just honestly felt less enjoyable. He had a feeling that if the gate was like the nighttime all the time, it could have had a chance to be an enjoyable place, maybe saved as a place people could go to study.

Too bad that wasn’t the case, and it had already claimed several lives.

Kellen froze when he thought he heard something bigger moving in the distance, towards him through the dense forest. Kellen wasn’t sure if he should go lower, or if he should go higher to see if he could observe what was coming at him.

Then, it stopped, and he heard it began to wander in a different direction.

Kellen was a bit curious, wanting to check out what the creature was, but also decided that he shouldn’t take any risks. Not a single one, and after checking his compass, he kept following the marked trail his students had made.

Kellen felt the ground crunch under his feet, watched as his footsteps followed behind him, and sighed. This was going to be a long trek, he could feel it.

2 people found, 10 more to go.