Chapter 7
CHAPTER
During the night, we took turns sleeping.
Two awake keeping watch, while the others got some rest. Ashley and I took the midnight watch; it was uneventful, some crickets sounded, the air was gentle but cold.
We refrained from conversations, trying not to bother the others or draw attention to our location.
Ashley grew restless, being still wasn’t her strong suit at all. She began gathering straws of grass and braiding them together, silently teaching me.
When I tried, the grass only broke… another try, the same result. I blew a strand of my brown hair away from my face, my impatience quickly turning into frustration. When the fourth broke I took a sharp breath, almost letting out a scream.
A wide smile appeared on Ashley’s lips as she tugged on my sleeve and placed her well braided grass bracelet around my wrist. Confused, I stared at it and then at her.
The warmth in her smile made all the anger inside of me evaporate.
Her blue eyes almost seemed like glass, her mind seemingly far away, yet her smile was for me.
I took her hand in both of mine and squeezed, as I mimed, “Thank you.” I had no idea how much this meant to her, or what memories had been awoken by it, but her feelings were real and that meant everything to me.
I kept struggling to make a matching bracelet for her, desperate to repay her, but the end result was terrible. Regardless, she gracefully took it before I tore it apart, and slid it onto her wrist.
Finally, it was time for Carolyn to take the next watch. Our Lieutenant was supposed to join her, but when she tried to wake him, he shrugged her off and turned away. Ashley and I sat against a trunk, shoulder to shoulder to gain some warmth, before we dozed off.
Something was chasing me, in the darkness. Why was it so damned dark!? It was warm, like a desert, I felt sweat building up around my forehead.
“Ethalyn,” a voice echoed. Was it my own? Was it a woman, a man? I couldn’t tell.
Fire erupted all around me, caging me in a circle. The smoke rose high up and beyond it was only darkness.
The heat from the flames was unbearable, my skin felt as if it was melting. The air was hard to inhale, the thick smoke tearing at my throat. Embers sparked from the flames, threatening my feet.
Shit!
Desperately, I searched for a way out, for a small opening somewhere in the flames. There was none, instead my eyes found a shadowed figure lingering on the outside…
“Who are you?” I shouted, but that cost me what little oxygen I had left, as smoke claimed my lungs.
I began coughing, it hurt, my whole body ached.
The glow brightened until it seared through my eyelids and I woke up, choking.
Heat licked at my face, real this time. Shouts cracked through the night.
Nate was carrying his sister, who was coughing violently, towards open ground.
Carolyn was swearing in panicked bursts, and Ashley clutched her satchel as if her bombs could help against the flames that had already devoured the trees.
For a breath, I stayed still, disoriented, my dream tangled with reality. My palms were sweaty, I had been too close to the fire, and I had been seconds away from being consumed by it.
The Lieutenant’s voice cut across the crackle, sharp and unshakable.
“Fire demon,” he barked. “It has to be. Stay alert, stay together!”
Carolyn’s eyes went wide. “Here? In the middle of nowhere?!”
“Exactly where they’d strike,” our leader snapped back, not leaving room for doubt.
Our squad scrambled tighter around him, their panic clinging to the explanation like a lifeline. I rose more slowly, my pulse still thrumming to that dream rhythm. While the others gagged on smoke, I felt… a sudden steadiness.
I tore my gaze away from the enchanting fire.
We stumbled clear of the burning trees at last, the morning air thick with smoke.
Ash drifted in lazy flakes, clinging to sweat-slicked skin.
Nate dropped to his knees, hauling Mey down with him, checking her for burns.
Carolyn paced in tight, panicked circles, every crackle in the underbrush making her twitch.
Ashley muttered curses at her satchel, shaking it to make sure nothing had ignited or was missing.
The Lieutenant stood tall despite the soot streaking his face, eyes sharp on the dark tree line. “No ordinary fire spreads like that. It was a demon’s work. Everyone stay sharp; fire demons don’t just ignite a forest fire and vanish. They watch. They wait.”
Carolyn made a strangled sound. “They wait for what? For us to… to-”
“To slip,” the Lieutenant cut her off. “So we don’t. Not today. Not ever.”
Mey clutched Nate’s arm, whispering, “I thought fire demons only lived near the desert and warm places?”
“Guess someone forgot to tell this one,” I said grimly, tugging my hair inside of my shirt, sheltering it from embers. “Question is, if it wanted us dead, why hasn’t it killed us yet?”
The squad fell quiet, the question hanging in the air.
I stayed still, eyes fixed on the glow fading behind the trees, as rain slowly smothered it. The fire was gone, but its warmth lingered on my skin, like a terrible reminder of what could’ve been.
We gathered further into the forest where the greenery once again took over, smoke curling like ghosts between the trees behind us. The fire’s glow was dimmer from here, only an angry stain on the horizon. Everyone was coughing, except for me, as I silently watched the sparks fade.
Nate broke the quiet first. “How the hell did it get that close without us hearing?”
“Wasn’t someone on watch?” I muttered, fiddling with the straps of my harness. “I’ve heard that they strike when you least expect it, is that true?”
“Yes, I was keeping guard,” Carolyn snapped, too fast, her eyes wide and wet. “It was quiet, there was nothing there… I—”
“You had the last watch before dawn, and you fell asleep?”
All heads turned. The Lieutenant’s gaze fixed on her like a hawk.
Carolyn stammered. “I-I didn’t fall asleep! I-I wasn’t supposed to—”
“You did,” he said flatly, with no room for debate. “Or the demon slipped past you because you weren’t sharp enough. Either way, it nearly cost us our lives.”
Carolyn’s fingers fidgeted, ripping against her nails, trembling. “I swear I didn’t—”
“Swearing won’t change what happened,” Nate cut in, sharp as flint. “If we’re lucky, next time we’ll get a warning before half the forest lights up.”
Mey pressed out of Nate’s embrace, wobbling on her legs before her eyes darted towards the smoldering smoke. “Will it come back?” she whispered.
“It will, if we’re careless again,” our leader said, his voice carrying over them all. “We can’t afford another mistake.”
Silence fell, heavy as the smoke in the distance.
I kept my gaze lowered. Right as I thought we were opening up, taking our first steps towards becoming a team. This happened and shredded apart the small trust we had built in a matter of seconds…
We continued walking, with Nate taking the lead again, silence eating the space between us. Was it because of the rough start of the day, or was it simply our hope that had taken a beating? Surely our squad could figure this out and recover our confidence.
I opened my mouth to say something, anything to change the mood, trying to bring us back on track, but Ashley beat me to it.
“Do you think demons are capable of all emotions like us, or simply doomed to only feel the one emotion that birthed them?”
“Why would I care?” Mey scoffed, glancing down at her hand, wrapped in bandage. The fire must’ve burned her, I hadn’t even noticed when she covered it up.
“Because, what if it survived on fear, and all of us just laughed at it? Would it die or simply be incredibly embarrassed?”
Carolyn grunted, as if pained by the question. “Ashley…”
“I think the war would’ve ended long ago if it was that simple,” Mey snorted, giving Ashley a questionable glance.
“Maybe no one has tried it yet,” Ashley shrugged.
“Got to admit, it would’ve been the last thing I’d try against a demon,” I chuckled, as the other’s heads turned towards me.
“Don’t encourage her!” Carolyn sighed, but Mey tried to hold back her laughter.
Nate came to an abrupt stop, with his hand up in the air, signaling us to halt.
I tried following his gaze, and saw further ahead how the greenery of nature had just…
died. The flourishing bushes that had been vividly green, suddenly were naked branches, or with only a few blackened leaves left.
It didn’t stop there, the moss turned into a sickly brown, the trees’ branches sagged together, the trunks and leaves like ichor.
There, in the middle of the sickened nature, a dark stone tower lingered. It looked old and it had clearly seen better days, holes gaping like open jaws riddled the walls.
“They’re… gone?” Carolyn asked, her voice barely holding.
The Lieutenant chuckled dryly, as he bent down and picked up a rock. He played with it in his hand, before he threw it at high speed against the tower. Shadows erupted out of nowhere, enveloping the pebble with a hissing sound, before it dropped to the ground.
Only, on second look, they weren’t shadows, at least not completely. The demons had no legs, they were levitating like smoke; they had long thin arms, with sharp claws and black tattered wings. Horns were jutting out from what would be heads and teeth stuck out of their mouths like rabid hounds.
In front of us, three of them growled at the rock that had tricked them, before they slowly locked their sights on us. Their eyes, completely white, made it almost impossible to gauge what they looked at.
“This is where you shoot them,” our leader’s voice shook us, snapping us out of the horror.
I swung my weapon up and stepped out of formation to get a clear view, before firing.
Nate placed himself in front of Mey as she crouched, saving her ammo for when he needed to reload.
Shit, that was smart, they worked perfectly as a team.
Ashley searched her pockets, fumbling, but she didn’t seem nervous. The monstrosities staggered as we hit them, the lead bullets only angered them further. They swept around, making their way towards us.
Nate grabbed Mey’s collar and forced her to follow him to the side, while she fired at the demons to cover their movement.
Ashley made a cartwheel, landing a few feet forward on her feet again, before she threw a bomb. It exploded on impact, sadly against a tree that began falling into pieces.
“Timber!” Ashley shot out.
Carolyn acted like a deer frozen in terror. I sprinted and shoved her to get her moving. She stumbled a couple of steps before her wide terrified eyes met mine and she bolted.
“Stay together!” I barked, realizing we were spreading out too much.
A demon appeared in front of me, catching me off guard.
It was even more horrifying up close. My hands searched for the gun hanging around my shoulder, but it slipped in my sweaty palms. I tried to throw myself out of its reach, but its claws ripped my arm and pain seared through me.
I finally managed to grab my gun and fired right at the creature, bullets ripping through its chest. It hissed, baring its teeth at me, as it raised a clawed hand to take another swing.
I leapt to the side, catching myself into a roll along the ground.
When I looked up, the demon was coming back at me, ready to deliver the finishing blow.
Its head burst, black ichor splattering me and the ground. Confused, I looked around until I was met with a smiling Ashley. “Sorry, I need to warm up my throwing arm!”
I chuckled in surprise, before pulling myself up on my feet again. Nate and Mey were still fighting against one of the demons, Ashley quickly joined them after saving my ass.
Where was the third? Where was—
A scream echoed towards my left and I spun around. Carolyn was gone. “Stay here, I’ll look for Carolyn!” I yelled, and without waiting for permission I ran towards the sound.
This was bad.
We weren’t supposed to split up, what if there were more demons lurking out here?
A blue light caught my eyes and the power surging through the air almost knocked me to the ground again.
I stopped, my breaths ragged, eyes wide as I stared at Carolyn, covered in blood.
But that blood wasn’t the problem. It was the demon lying next to her feet, frozen in ice and the lingering blue magic that swirled around her.
I looked down at my own hand, seeing the frost that had stuck to my glove when I had shoved her away… why my gun slipped before the monster struck me.
It had been her magic.