CHAPTER 477: A SLOW, SEEPING POISON

It was at the two day mark inside of the gate that Kellen found another sign outside of the markings. The others were still moving together as far as he could tell, and since he was traveling on his own, he could cover more ground then they could.

It wasn’t a good sign though that he was two days inside of the gate and he hadn’t gotten to the core of the gate yet. He had hoped that the gate, while being very dangerous without the suit he was wearing, would be on the smaller side.

He should have realised that wasn’t the case when he’d seen it in person and it was practically four storeys high.

Kellen had taken to doing most of his resting during the night, and traveling more during the daytime. He could feel a little more confident while sleeping during the night because the trees and plant life were less active.

That didn’t mean that they were completely docile. He’d nearly been dragged away by vines several times so far, but always managed to wake up in time. It was a rather grim realisation to face.

The fact that he wasn’t really using his own skills to survive, but instead a mythical gut feeling. He wasn’t sure if that was the case, but given that this was a very dangerous place, he hadn’t lost a limb yet nor had he been eaten yet while cat napping, it had to be partially true.

Either way, Kellen wasn’t happy with the discovery that he’d found.

It was another clearing, the glowing blue night slowly shifting into a brighter, more purple shade as dawn approached. Kellen was able to tell with all of the light that a scuffle had happened, and not only that...

Kellen bent, touching a stain before bringing it up closer to his face and stared as he rubbed his gloved fingers together. It was blood.

Kellen let out a deep sigh, looking before him as he saw that the group had split. There were now two paths, and Kellen’s job just got so much harder. Why had they fought? Why had they split up?

There were so many options that Kellen could see before him. The first was obvious.

Their suits weren’t as good as Kellen’s. The poison could have gotten, no, had to have gotten into their suits by now and had made them hallucinate. Had made them paranoid, delirious. They could have found something silly to argue over, tensions had gotten too high, and a scuffle had broken out.

It was a classic tale, and one that Kellen had wanted to avoid.

There was also the chance that two leaders had formed in the party, and they had wanted to go two different ways. They had argued about what that direction was, and ended up splitting the party that way.

Or...something more horrible had happened, like someone had been caught doing something they shouldn’t be to one of the other members of the group due to the poison in their system, and they had been forced to go out alone.

Whatever the reason, whatever had actually happened, Kellen had to keep moving, and unfortunately for whoever had diverged off of the path, Kellen had to keep going as straight as he could.

Towards the core.

Kellen stood up fully, letting out another sigh as he glanced around the clearing. It was a smaller one, not big enough for them to make camp, and there weren’t any signs that they had made a fire either. So clearly someone had taken the time to get mad here, split the party, and Kellen couldn’t let the fork in the road get to him.

He had two jobs. Touch the core, and save as many people as he could.

Glancing wistfully at the path that took a sharp turn northwards, Kellen sighed, shaking his head and turned towards the path that continued eastward. He kept his eyes out, scanning the area around him, and found a torn piece of suit, soaked with dried blood, and his heart sank.

It was as the dawn was actually creeping up above the trees that Kellen found a shallow grave. It was obvious, and Kellen’s heart ached. Whoever had made it had taken their time with it, and Kellen let out a heavy sigh.

So, whatever had happened back there in that clearing had taken a rather serious turn, and Kellen felt his gut twist. There might have been another reason, but from the clues that Kellen had, this was the only option he could circle back to.

Kellen didn’t want to, but he needed to know who it was. So, slowly, he unburied the top and the bottom of the mound, looking for the head. Kellen let out a shaky breath, his fingers trembling as he came face to face with another of his students.

He closed his eyes, his body shaking for a second as he let the grief rock him. This was never easy. Retrieval missions had always been hard, but this? This felt like he was ripping out parts of himself.

He had never thought that he would be the one retrieving his own students. It was something he hadn’t put into his head. This was the very reason.

Kellen had tried to keep a little distance with them. Something he had also noticed that his own teachers and instructors had done. Kellen only realised why they had done that after he’d lost the first of several Field Guides that he’d offered suggestions to on the front lines after he joined. It wasn’t even a conscious effort on his part, but he’d still done it.

So had Brent, but he’d been a little less obvious about it.

Yet here he was, because his sister was also in here, and it twisted his gut as he felt happy that he hadn’t found Gwen in the ground. It made him feel ill. The guilt nearly choked him, but Kellen couldn’t stay in these feelings for long. The forest was waking up around him, he could hear it, and he needed to get something to take back to the family.

Kellen brushed off more of the dirt, finding something to identify her by, before burying her again and promising that he would come back, whether it was him or someone else, but she wouldn’t rot here. Not alone.

Kellen stood up, putting her mementos away properly before he continued down the path. He had a feeling he was going to close in on the group sooner than later, just simply because he was more prepared, had more experience, and was by himself.

He took out a water bottle, hydrating himself as he continued moving. He could feel it. The poison.

It wasn’t obvious, but Kellen could tell that it had slowly been seeping into him. The rate was slow, very slow, and he knew he had Carlos to thank for that, but it was happening. It was one of the reasons he had suggested that hallucinations were what caused the fight.

The reason being?

Kellen could faintly hear Rhys calling his name from the forest. A man who should not be here. Could not be here, and would not risk calling Kellen’s name out in a such a dangerous place. Not as an Esper, and certainly not as a damn Captain of a fucking Guild. The man wasn’t an idiot, and he’d made a promise to Kellen.

So, Kellen had taken it as it was. It had been shocking, and had happened shortly before he found the clearing, but he was a professional.

That was what he told himself as he heard Rhys call for him from a distance.

~

Kellen kept moving, the knife in his gloved hand soaked with a sticky sap that poured out when he sliced the vines up as they reached for him. There was no point in wiping it away. It was better to wait for it to harden so that he could pick it off.

It basically meant he had a knife hand, but that was pretty useful so he didn’t mind. Kellen had taken one break so far during this day, not pausing for long since the space he had chosen as ’safe’ had been the furthest from it, and he’d barely made it out of there before he became food for a damn vine monster.

He hadn’t seen the core of the vines that were chasing him until then, and it was disgusting. It was a writhing mass, and it wasn’t green or purple like the vines that chased him. It was a sickly white colour, almost flesh-like, and as it kept moving and twisting making a disgusting squelching noise, Kellen had wanted to throw up. He’d shot it, of course. Waste no opportunities, and that was what had turned his ’safe’ resting spot into a deadly nightmare.

It had been calm until he’d injured it.

Kellen didn’t even know if he’d killed it, but that was also the reason why his hand was now coated with the blood of its...tentacles? Babies? Arms? All of it felt wrong, and right at the same time. Kellen wondered how many of them were in the forest, if they were interlocked like what he assumed the rest of the forest was like, or if they were solo creatures.

Kellen was muttering quietly to himself, listening as another vine tried to sneak up on him when he heard a shriek in the forest.

A distinctly human shriek, and not one that sounded like the Captain. It sounded like a girl.

Kellen gulped, his body going on high alert. It could be a creature, he couldn’t just rush off towards the noise. That was the surest way to die, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t pick up the pace. He kept following the path, another shriek going up, and Kellen could feel his heart pounding in his chest.

He really hoped it was something pretending to be human. He really hoped that was the case.

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