“..good point.” Yukio agreed. He got up, as soon as he went even a small amount of distance away, he began to get extremely cold. As a perfectly sane person would do, he went back near the mirror. That’s when he and Haruto noticed a dead body, but the man’s body was not eaten or seemed too damaged in any way. He looked more peaceful.
“HOLY CRAP– another dead body. But with flowers surrounding him?” Yukio quickly backed away from the body.
“Apparently someone paid their respects to this guy. Hey at least the organs aren’t all over the place. But I do wonder what happened.” Haruto got a little closer to the body, filled with curiosity. At that moment, a large, white wolf came out of the dark corner, growling.
“Woah, woah. E-easy there..” Haruto backed away in a defensive stance.
“Hey Yukio… on a count to three… let’s make a run for it.” Haruto whispered. Before Yukio could warn Haruto about the temperature, he already started counting.
“One…. two…. THREE!” Haruto started running, Yukio hesitated, but the wolf had no hesitation. So Yukio ran as well. As they got closer to the way out of the tunnel, it got colder and colder. Until they got out into the open, in this place, it wasn’t a pit. It was dark, clouds everywhere in the sky. Haruto was shivering, it was incredibly cold.
“W-we need t-t-to find some s-shelter..” Yukio managed to say, he was trying to warm himself up. Haruto nodded, though it was hard to see. There was snow everywhere, snow was falling. Luckily, it wasn’t a snowstorm quite yet. Surprisingly, that day was much better than they might have expected. Haruto nudged Yukio and pointed towards some buildings. The two rushed over to the buildings in the distance. A majority of them were made out of wooden planks, quite a few destroyed for the most part.
“C-c’mon..” Haruto said to Yukio, he also took his jacket off, giving it to Yukio.
“Th-thanks.” The two went into the building that looked the most intact. Haruto shut the door behind him, shutting the wind and snow out.
“I guess it’s a little warmer. How are you holding up?” Haruto asked. Yukio just gave a thumbs up with the hand that isn’t injured. The two noticed how big the building was, not to mention it was suspiciously intact. Haruto peeked out the window, looking to see if the wolf was still out there. But, he couldn’t tell. The snow storm began.
“Wanna come with me and look around?” Haruto offered. Yukio nodded, getting up from the ground. There were multiple claw marks on the walls, indicating that there was some sort of monster in there.
“We should be careful, can’t guarantee we’ll be safe if we don’t even know if whoever made those marks is still here.” Haruto said.
“Yeah, never know.” Yukio said, looking out into the distance. “Hey, what’s that over there?” Yukio began picking up speed, finding the thing that he saw. It turned out to be a person, chained to the wall. This one looked much better than all the other people Haruto and Yukio had seen. The man had a black tie, a nice looking classy shirt, along with nice pants and shoes. His head was down, and when Yukio looked closer, he saw that the man was breathing. His head was dripping blood, staining the white shirt.
“Bushida! Come over here!” Yukio yelled out. Haruto rushed over there.
“What’s wrong?” Yukio pointed at the man, who slowly opened his eyes.
“He’s alive..” Haruto said in awe, it was surprising finding someone alive in the places they were.
“...he left me here.” The man muttered weakly. He was still looking down.
“What?” Yukio kneeled down, inching closer to the man.
“Alpha… that..” The man sat up a little. Yukio went a little closer, trying to listen to what the man said.
“TRAITOR!” He shouted out, putting the chains around Yukio, trying to strangle him.
“LET GO OF HIM!” Haruto tried to loosen the chains around Yukio’s neck, just to end up with two broken fingers.
“HE LEFT ME HERE TO STARVE.” Yukio struggled, until he got too tired. Or at least the man thought. Yukio stabbed the man’s chest with the knife he stole from him. Yukio finally got out of the chains, backing away.
“You alright, Yukio?” Haruto asked worryingly.
“Yeah, but I would be more concerned about your fingers.” Yukio pointed out.
“Yeah, that hurt a lot. There might be something we could use to bandage this up.” Haruto began looking around. Yukio stayed back and looked at the man who tried to strangle him for a good few minutes. Guilt, that’s what Yukio felt. Yukio had never actually hurt someone before, it was a horrible feeling.
“YUKIO! FOUND SOME STUFF!” Haruto yelled. The walls were pretty thin, so Haruto’s voice wasn’t that hard to hear. Yukio rushed over to where he heard Haruto’s voice. Instead, he got lost.
“Where the hell is he..” Yukio murmured. He looked in the rooms, yet many of them were empty. After awhile, he found a room with a piece of paper on the floor, it had writing on it.
“What does this say..?” Yukio picked it up. “I see everything, yet all they see is themselves, I long to be seen. Yet they don’t pay close attention.” Yukio read. “What does that mean?” Yukio was puzzled.
“Yukio! There you are! I’ve been looking all over the place, finally found you!” Haruto walked over to Yukio with some sort of medkit. He had already bandaged his broken fingers.
“Oh, hey Bushida. Had me worried there for a second.” Yukio folded the paper and put it in his pocket.
“Here, I’ll have to change that bandage since it’s really bloody.” Haruto gently grabbed Yukio’s hand, unwrapping the old bandages. Yukio winced. Blood came pouring out, it was still bleeding a lot. Haruto got some bandages and wrapped it around Yukio’s hand, making sure it was somewhat tight, but not too much.
“Thanks. That helped a lot.” Yukio said as he took out the piece of paper to show Haruto.
“I found this, but I have no idea what it means. Along with a square drawing on the bottom.” Yukio handed it to Haruto so he could read it. After reading it, Haruto had a look of confusion on his face.
“That’s just plain weird. The square picture might relate to the stuff that’s written on here.” Haruto looked at the back of the paper as well, yet there wasn’t anything special about it. The only thing that stands out is the texture of the paper, it felt weird.
“Crap–” Haruto accidentally dropped the paper, and as the perspective changed, words appeared for a moment on the box drawn on the piece of paper.
“Wait, hold on.” Haruto picked up the paper, changing the angle the paper was seen.
“Look at the mirror. That’s what it says… I got it! Whoever wrote this is stalking us from inside the mirror! Holy crap. We’re being followed.” Haruto didn’t know why he was even excited in the first place.
“You sure that’s it though? Doesn’t seem to be specifying us.” Yukio questioned.
“Even so– we should get out of here. In this kind of situation, we’ve got to be VERY cautious” Haruto explained as he already began making his way out of the room. Yukio followed Haruto, not trying to explain why Haruto might be wrong. He didn’t feel like explaining. The two walked out of the room, but it felt different. There were no windows. When the door shut, there was no room. It was just a hallway. A narrow hallway.
“The hell?” Haruto reached out for the door, but it was just a wall.
“I think the only choice we have is to walk further down.” Yukio nervously said. The two slowly walked down the hallway, it seemed as if there was no end.
“How long have we been walking for..?” Yukio complained.
“Don’t know. It feels like it’s been at least an hour.” Haruto responded. Right when they stopped talking and began walking, they both bumped into a door.
“That wasn’t there before.” Yukio said as he turned the doorknob. The door opened to a village, when they took a step out of the building, the door disappeared.
“Great. We’re lost. AGAIN.” Haruto complained, plopping down on the ground.
“I give up. This is just insane. We can’t find Kuroki, and there’s who knows how many monsters out hunting for us. Maybe it’ll be less painful this way.” Haruto just laid there in the snow.
“Please tell me you’re joking.” Yukio gave Haruto the dirty look. Haruto shook his head no.
“Get up, you’re gonna get frostbite–” Yukio began tugging on Haruto’s arm, trying to avoid using his other hand because of the injuries.
“Get–” Haruto pulled his arm out of Yukio’s hands.
“CRAP! That hurt!” Yukio yelled out.
“Just get up! We’re still really young, we have a full life ahead of us, and that includes you too!” Yukio hadn’t given up yet. Yukio began pulling on Haruto’s arm once again, yet Haruto wouldn’t budge.
“GET” Yukio pulled even harder.
“UP!” Yukio fell back, Haruto was standing up when that happened. Right when Yukio finally got him up, he quickly got up, making sure Haruto didn’t go back on the ground.
“What’s the point of still trying–” A loud sound was made from the slap that Yukio gave Haruto.
“SNAP OUT OF IT!” Yukio shouted. Yukio was clearly angry, he couldn’t stand how Haruto was acting.
“LISTEN! I’M SORRY! I-it’s just–” Tears began running down his cheeks. “I-I don’t know if I’ll ever s-see my mom.. or my sisters again. I’m terrified.” Haruto explained, he was trembling from both the cold and fear. Yukio’s eyes softened, being filled with pity for not only Haruto, but himself as well.
“I know how that feels, in fact I’m scared everyday, knowing that there’s a possibility that I may never see my siblings again. It’s OK. But you can’t just give up.” Yukio admitted. Haruto looked down for a moment, in deep thought.
“OK. Let’s do this.” Haruto said with determination.
“But we should probably find somewhere warm, if we don’t we’ll probably freeze to death.” Haruto said, wishing he was joking when he said ‘probably freeze to death’. Yukio smiled and nodded. The two walked a little further down into the village, at that point, it seemed that fate was a little kinder than it had been for the past day or two. There was no more snow, simply torches with purple fire. The area was much warmer, there were more buildings surrounding the area.
“Damn.” Yukio stood there in awe of the warm place. But it had a gloomy and calm atmosphere to it. There were red spider lilies everywhere. When the two investigated even more, they found multiple graves, pictures of the dead people as well.
“Whoever set this all up definitely wanted to honor whoever died. I looked in the buildings and all there were was more pictures, flowers, and candles.” Haruto said.
“Kind of sad if you think about it. All these people might’ve been their family and friends.” Yukio pointed out. The two stood there, looking at the pictures and names of the dead people.
“Yukio, let’s check the book and see if it has information on any of these people. They might be pretty important.” Haruto requested.
“Yeah, give me a second.” Because the book was more of a pocket book, Yukio could easily put it in one of his pockets. But it could also be easily stolen or lost.
“Crap.” Yukio began panicking as he felt all his large pockets for the third time.
“Did you lose it?” Haruto asked worryingly. Yukio checked one last time before nodding.
“I-I’m sorry… I didn’t think I’d lose it..” Yukio apologized.
“It’s.. fine.” Haruto was clearly sad and scared. It was understandable, there was no more guidance for the two. It became awkward quickly.
“Here we are again. We don’t know what to do.” Haruto felt hopeless again.
“.. This seems like a pretty useful book.” Yukio and Haruto turned around to see a masked woman with their book in her hand.
“You dropped this a few miles back.” She said, handing Haruto the book. The lady was very tall, much, much, taller than Haruto and Yukio.
“Th-thank you.” Haruto anxiously took the book, slightly intimidated by the mysterious lady’s height. She couldn’t possibly be human.
“You two, you’re both humans, correct?” The woman inquired.
“Yeah. Aren’t you?” Yukio said, trying not to sound nervous.
“No.” She shook her head. Yukio and Haruto began taking steps back, fearing that she would attack them.
“Please, don’t fear me. I do not harm your kind. Let alone children.” The woman reassured the two.
“Sorry, but how do we know we could trust you..?” Haruto said.
“Well, why don’t we start by introducing ourselves. I’m Tari. She kneeled, so that she could hear Haruto and Yukio more clearly.
“Uhm.. I’m Haruto, and this is Yukio.” Haruto said.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. Please do not be alarmed by my appearance. As I’ve told you, I’m not a human. I died a long time ago.” Tari removed her mask and cloak, revealing her large pair of wings, she looked like a fallen angel. Yet that was not what she was.
“I’m a phantom god.” She said, another noticeable feature about her was her curly, white, shoulder-length hair. Her eyes were hard to see, but the pupils were white, while the rest of her eyes were blood red. She had a lot of bloody bandages on, along with some sort of weird dark cracks on her legs and the corner of her face.
“O-oh, you’re a god..? OH. I’m so sorry for all the disrespect!” Haruto bowed down, pulling Yukio down as well.
“Don’t worry, I’ve never really gotten much recognition. The most I would be known as is a legend. I’m not a god who is worshiped. You may stand up.” Tari informed the two. Haruto got up, so did Yukio.
“Why don’t people worship you? Aren’t gods important?” Yukio asked as soon as he rose up from the ground.
“I was never seen as a ‘nice’ or ‘loving’ god. I’m usually known as the villain of each story of a hero. It’s OK though. It’s something I’m used to.” Tari said while she placed more red spider lilies on the graves.
“Were those people your friends..?” Haruto asked.
“Family too. Not all of them deserved death.” Tari opened one of the doors to a building, with red spider lilies in her hands. While Yukio followed Tari into the building, constantly asking questions, Haruto opened up the book that contained a lot of information, looking up some of the names that are on the graves.
“Raku Santaro… god of creation? That’s cool.” Haruto looked through more of the grave stones, but many of the names were not in the book. Haruto decided he would look through the other buildings. He moved some stuff slightly, wondering if there were any hidden rooms. He didn’t find anything, surprisingly. He ventured not far from the warm spot, but wondered if there was anything in the buildings that were in the snow. When he opened the door to the building furthest away from the warm spot, he saw something large covered up with a sheet with a polearm set next to it with a single red spider lily.
“Guess Tari really does love red spider lilies. Wonder why.” Haruto stood there for a moment, wondering if he should take the sheet off or not. That wondering did not last for long, Haruto allowed his intrusive thoughts to win. He took the sheet off, and he became fearful quickly.
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–CHAPTER 7 END–
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