CHAPTER 83: THE VEIL

The vines kept dragging her deeper into the depths of the forest. She clawed at the soil but it instantly turned to ash under her nails, as if the forest did not permit any grip or salvation.

Theodora dug harder, desperate, but the vine dragged her over roots that writhed like veins beneath the earth.

She tried to kick free. The vine only tightened.

Then another curled around her wrist. Another seized her waist too, and panic exploded through her like fire.

She tried to scream again, but something snapped up from the darkness as fast as lightning, winding around her mouth tightly and cancelling out any sound before it could escape, making her scream suffocate into silence.

The deeper she was pulled, the more the world changed.

The trees grew taller, older, their trunks split with pulsing veins of black-green energy. It was as if something had fed on them for centuries, twisting them beyond nature.

The air thickened and the oxygen felt wrong. It was too cold and made her lungs shrink as though she was now breathing in memories of death, not air.

Her heartbeat thrashed against her ribs, and the pendant glowed softly.

Then, the ground beneath her dragged body shifted from soft dirt to a smooth, cold surface. It was too dark to tell what it was, and her claws scraped again, but the surface offered no mercy.

And then, she was falling.

Her mind reeled, and white-hot panic kicked in so hard she almost puked.

But the vines only grew tighter around her skin. It was as though they fed on panic, allowing them to constrict even more around their victim.

She landed with a loud thud into a clearing. Her head slammed into the ground, but her groan couldn’t make it out with the vines so tight around her mouth. She could only grit through the pain.

And then, she felt it.

Wherever the vines had brought her, it felt even more alive than other parts of the forest. And whatever made the forest feel alive, was right here.

Theodora’s body hovered above it, suspended by vines now wrapping her torso, thighs and calves. It snaked around her body completely, and she gasped as the vines gripped and tightened around her neck.

She couldn’t move anymore.

Every part of her was being squeezed.

The vines lifted her higher and higher till her toes left the ground. Her breath vanished entirely, and she thrashed as much as she could manage, trying to kick her feet and hands that refused to move.

Her lungs burned for oxygen that didn’t come, and seared with pain from the feeling of being tightened.

It was all happening too fast, and her vision began to weaken.

Once again, the vines responded like predators sensing weakness and tightened even further, slow and deliberate, as if savouring her fear. They slithered more and more around her skin, cold like ice, till every part of her, other than her face had been covered.

Fighting was like falling deeper into its trap, as it only bit harder and squeezed. She could feel her ribs beginning to crack under it, her bones grinding against each other

Her head went light and a buzzing filled her ears.

And then, through her hazy eyes, she saw it.

Suspended like a tear in reality itself was a shimmering rupture in the air. It was not touching ground or hanging from anything, but simply existing.

But darkness leaked through it. The colour wasn’t exactly black, but a colour no language could hold.

It was more like a void-within-void. A presence. A hunger. A thousand shadows layered upon themselves, flowing like smoke but thicker and alive.

It slithered across the clearing like mist searching for something to consume.

What remained of her breath hitched.

And then darkness felt her. She didn’t see eyes or anything but she sensed it. A gaze heavy enough to crush bone.

Ancient and Predatory.

Something spine-curling.

The worst part, it did not feel like a wolf.

It looked back.

Her body trembled so violently that the vines vibrated with her.

She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t.

Then, a whisper crawled through her skull. It didn’t speak into her ears, but into her mind. Almost the same way she communicated with Seraphina.

"Come," It said.

Her heart plummeted.

She tried to scream again, but the vine around her mouth only pressed deeper. Her lungs convulsed, begging, burning, and tearing inside her with each second she went without air.

Theodora’s throat convulsed around nothing and her limbs twitched.

Then, her heartbeat began to falter.

She needed air. She needed the constriction to stop.

She needed everything to stop.

*Seraphina* She gasped inside her head.

*No, no... don’t you dare give up!* Seraphina growled back to her, worry and panic flushing her system.

*I... can’t...* Theodora replied, her voice was too weak, "It’s too cold...,"

"No!" Seraphina groaned again, trying to break free and emerge. She was very desperate and scared too, her pulse thundering, *You can’t die!* She cried, *You can’t let us die! You can’t!*

*I...I...* Theo couldn’t.

Theo’s vision tunnelled even more as she tried to fight again, shrinking into a narrow circle around the Veil, and her consciousness wavered.

The pain was taking over. It was overwhelming.

It was swallowing her.

She was slipping.

Lights flickered behind her eyes, and her chest seized.

She was dying.

She was actually dying.

Her last thought was surprisingly not of escape, but a faint question at the back of her dying mind: Who was calling her?

Then, her body went slack, and her eyes softly fell closed.

She felt nothing again.

Suddenly, Light burst outward from the pendant like an explosion. The light burst through the vines, and they instantly recoiled, slithering away from her body like they had just been burnt.

Theo’s body fell to the ground, but her eyes remained closed.

More power pulsed from the pendant like a heartbeat, and the trees trembled. The ground itself vibrated like the hallow was afraid of what it could do.

And then, the Veil responded.

The darkness behind it convulsed. The mist curling from it pulled inward at first, as though retreating from the power of the pendant, then it burst forward like something enormous turning awake.

Behind the Veil, a shadow moved.

And, then, a voice whispered into the darkness, "Mine,"