The gasps and croaks rouse me, but I feel so weak that I can barely open my eyes. Who is it? What is it? I wonder, confused and scared, with absolutely no idea where I am or how I got here.
If anything's for certain, I'm outside. I can feel the cool breeze on my skin and the rough ground beneath me. However, it's not bone-chilling cold. My hands aren't buried in snow nor is my snot frozen. You could even say it's just short of balmy (in comparison to what I'm used to or last remember).
After another five or so minutes, I have the energy to open my eyes, but am met with a brilliant white sky that ushers them closed. I then try opening them a lot more gradually and find myself surrounded by trees, the tallest trees I've ever seen, the hole in their canopy being my window to the overcast sky.
What the hell's going on? I wonder. Where am I?
I sit up on my elbows, feeling so drained of energy that I can barely support my own weight, but seriously, where the fuck am I? It's a forest, yes, but the staggering trees are simply monstrous. Their light-gray trunks resemble the foot of an elephant at the base before thinning somewhat as they reach into the clouds like skyscrapers. I would say they were coastal redwoods, but they're not red, they're too big and their roots sprawl across the ground in a woven mat of waxy wood (unlike redwoods).
Just then, something fidgets behind me. I turn over, feeling a pang of fear, and spot a man lying flat on his back, his head resting to one side.
I scramble backward at first, but then warily approach him on all fours.
He looks at me, his chest rising and falling with each of his wheezy and strained breaths of air; and I can sense that he's in pain. But who is he and why are we both covered in blood?
"What's going on?" I ask him, almost growing hysterical. "Who are you?"
His sickly-white complexion almost glows in the cold twilight of this forest clearing, which is in stark contrast to his jet-black hair that serves to absorb it. An odd smoke or steam leaches from his skin, meanwhile; his wounds also. It's as if he's just been extinguished, except there are no other signs of a fire (no burns).
"The..." he mutters.
"The what?" I ask, unsure if I should fear him or not.
"The third..." The words bubble up the back of his throat, but fail to establish meaning.
With a great deal of hesitation, I tear open his buttoned shirt and inspect what look to be gunshot wounds, but I can't understand why they're 'smoking' like the barrel of a discharged gun... I reach for my phone, ready to call the police, but it isn't there. Either I've lost it or, more likely, I've been robbed—mugged.
Without warning, his condition appears to rapidly deteriorate, with his breathing even more short and labored and his eyes now unable to focus. "Help me," I shout, pressing on his breastbone like they do on TV. "He's dying... Somebody help." But no one answers, and after a few more labored and wheezy breaths, the man falls still and silent.
I fall back into a kneeling position, horrified that I've just watched a man die. It's the first time I've seen death up close, if at all. But with him now dead, I'm left in a state of clueless isolation... I don't know who he was, I have no idea how we came to be here, and I have no fucking idea where 'here' even is; because this isn't Montréal, that much is obvious.
Now able to stand, I brush the mulch-like litter from my clothes and nearly faint at the sight of me, as there's blood drenching my whole front, right down to my shoes. My skin is caked with it. Even more unnerving is the fact that it looks like I have bullet holes in my sweater, except when I check for wounds, there aren't any. Surely this can't be all his blood?
"Don't panic," I tell myself, heart racing.
Wherever I am, half of it is obscured from view by the massive trunk of a fallen tree, the same tree responsible for the formation of this clearing, I'd imagine. I spend the next ten minutes climbing it and eventually make it to the top using the deep grooves of its bark as a natural ladder. But far out... I must be at least three-stories high when at its peak.
The view of the surrounding area is a lot better from up here, but the forest is so dense that I can't see anything beyond it, the light fading to pitch-black about ten meters in. "Hello," I shout, cupping my mouth to help amplify my voice. "Is anyone-"
"Fucking cram it," someone hisses from down below.
I'm so startled that I nearly fall.
"Careful," that same voice then berates.
"Nath?" I say, crouching so as to not fall as I peer over the side.
He waves at me from the ground.
"What the fuck is going on?" I yell at him.
"Keep it down," he scowls.
"No, tell me what the fuck is happening," I shout even louder than before.
"Eloise, please."
Deciding to humor him, if only to figure out what's happening, I lower my voice to a whisper: "Tell me what the hell is going on—and start with what happened to that man and why I'm drenched in his blood."
"Hunter shot him," he replies.
"What?" I prompt, unsure if I heard him correctly.
"Hunter shot him."
The words aren't sinking in. "Huh?"
"Goddammit, Eloise. Hunter fucking killed him. That man was a traitor."
My brain stops responding like a Windows program, but quickly reboots. "This is fucked," I say, pulling away from the edge (the edge being the point in which I'll slip off this curved log). I then scramble to my feet and start running because I have no idea what else I can do other than escape this maniac.
"Eloise, where are you going?" he calls out.
Ignoring him, I hold my arms out wide like a balancing pole as I follow the log as if it were an oversized tightrope.
Don't look back, I warn myself, knowing that one false step will mean that I hit the ground from a height of three stories. However, I can't help myself... I look over my shoulder the moment he calls my name: "Eloise!"
"Leave me alone," I cry in a state of extreme panic.
"Eloise," he grumbles, except it comes from in front of me this time.
I look forward, confused as to how he's throwing his voice, but come to a fumbled halt when faced with him standing right in front of me.
"The fuck..." I gasp, and fall onto my ass.
He casually approaches me with his hand extended.
I don't take it; I crawl backward on all fours.
He jigs his hand. "C'mon, let me help you up."
"How did you appear in front of me?" I shout manically. "Tell me."
He stands up straight, giving up on his attempts to lend me a hand. "I can teleport."
YOU ARE READING
A Clockwork Mana: Twisted Souls
FantasyEloise is a seventeen-year-old girl from Montréal whose life takes an unexpected turn upon meeting the boys next door. At first, they seem friendly, but their behavior confuses her, and so does that of her own family. Unnerved yet intrigued, she eve...
