Reia ran after the Duskwalker as they made their way outside the village gates, which were promptly closed behind them with a definitive thud.
She paused, turning to face the wooden gates that had kept her trapped inside the town for years, feeling a sense of foreboding and yet... freedom. Well, a kind of freedom. It was more like she’d traded one prison for another. Just how tightly will he hold the chains of my metaphorical shackle?
For now, she needed to come up with a plan to get away.
As she stared at the gates, she wondered what she should do now.
“Hey!” she yelled when one of the wolves gave a terrifying, heart-sputtering bark at her ankles.
Her skin crawled at the harrowing sound. It sounded like the final crying bark of a dying animal, and vaguely like the mixture of a bear and dog at the same time.
“Get away from me!” she yelped at the other one when it snapped its jaws at her other ankle. She attempted to shoo it away by kicking her leg out.
It jumped back before the side of her poorly dressed foot could hit in the face.
“Unless you want them to bite, I would follow,” the Duskwalker said calmly, his cloak hem flapping in the
distance.
It opened into an arch around his legs when the wind caught it from his long strides.
With a groan, Reia shuffled after him, surprised by how far he’d gotten in such a short amount of time. He had already reached the forest on the other side of the large, mostly snow-covered clearing that separated the town from the woodlands that surrounded it.
The bells hanging from her headpiece jingled wildly as she moved.
“We are leaving, just like that?” Catching up to him, her neck twisted so she could look over her shoulder.
The trees were already beginning to shield her vision of the town, each step taking her further and further away from it. Despite how much she hated it there, it had been Reia’s home for twenty years. She felt a sense of loss at seeing it disappearing from her life – most likely forever.
Her warm breaths came out in quick huffing bursts of fog against the cold, chilly air with how much energy she’d used in sprinting.
“Why should we have remained?” She noted his voice seemed further away than right next to her, and she turned her head forward to find he was metres ahead of her. Once more, she quickly ran after him. “There is nothing there for either of us. It is no longer your home, and I despise being near the humans.”
She turned her head back when she was next to him to find the village was gone. Her shoulders slumped when she looked away completely, knowing there was no point in checking over her shoulder anymore.
He was ahead of her again!
Fuck! He’s so freaking fast.
“You didn’t even allow me to collect my things.”
Not that she really had any.
All she had on her was her clothes and a satchel of food they’d given her so she had something to eat along her
travels with him. It wasn’t much, only a few days’ worth, and she imagined it would only last her until she made it to the Veil.
Then she would be at the mercy of the Duskwalker to feed her, if he ever did.
“If you wanted to bring anything, you should have brought it with you when you greeted me.” He turned his head down to side to look at her. She guessed he was peering, but it was hard to tell with his lack of real eyes. “Was there something you left behind?”
“No, but no one told me to bring anything, so I didn’t really have the chance to think about it.”
Now that she wasn’t looking over her shoulder, she realised just how difficult it was to stay next to him with his long, yet unhurried, strides. He was much taller than her, towering over her by nearly two feet. Her shorter legs just couldn’t seem to stay with him without sprinting between certain steps.
It didn’t help that she kept eyeing the branches above, worried that a Demon would drop upon them. It’s not safe, even in the daytime. The shade, thicker in certain places, was enough to protect the Demons from the sun, and they could fall upon her at any time.
She sincerely hoped the Duskwalker would protect her even though she had a feeling he would eventually end up being her demise.
“H-hey, slow down. You’re too fast for me.”
As if to demonstrate this, when she ran those few steps to catch back up with his strides, her dress twisted around her feet.
Reia fell palms down into the snow that was thicker in the forest since the trees shielded the ground from the heat of the sun. Her forearms sunk into white powdery coldness, sending a course of shivers throughout her body. Her dress wasn’t warm enough to keep the cold at bay, and her feet
were freezing, one of her slippers already stolen by the snow.
He didn’t assist her, and as she was getting to her feet, one of the nightmarish wolves – since they were more horrifying up close – barked at her. She stepped away from it in shock from the sound and fell into the other. Or rather, through it!
She gasped when its body broke apart like someone waving their hand through the wispy body of a ghostly figure. Darkness swirled before it came back together, and it snapped its head towards her when it was once again whole, snarling its muzzle silently.
“What the hell!?” Reia yelled, scrambling away from it on her hands and feet as her arse slipped across the ground.
“What are those things?”
Nobody had known what they were, but no one would have guessed they weren’t physical!
