Chapter 19 – Suffocating

Syl was dreaming, the woods around her real but not real. She was connected to it again.

Her muscles flexed as she sprinted between the trees, and not so much as a leaf stirred at her passing. How can something so big move with so much stealth? But she couldn’t let herself focus on that question.

It was wary, cautious. It moved in sudden bursts, only to stop and sniff the air. It was looking for something. Or somebody. The stones of the small path blurred past, and if she could feel it, it had to be close. Somewhere outside the cave she was sleeping in, it was prowling.

Syl needed to wake up, to warn the others, but she couldn’t. Her mind was too fully caught in the dream.

But it didn’t seem to know where they were. Its confusion assaulted her mind as it retraced its steps. What it smelled, Syl smelled. For a brief second, she caught a whiff of something it identified with her group. And just like that, it was gone again.

Its frustration grew with each pass. It knew they were somewhere close, but it couldn’t find them. A slight sound got its attention, and it dashed off in that direction. It didn’t go more than a few powerful steps before all trace of the sound was gone. It stalked the woods as its anger intensified, on the verge of lashing out.

Something primal, something powerful built in its chest. It wanted to kill. To destroy. Its hate for the people of the valley was beyond anything Syl could believe. A hate deep and ingrained in every fibre of its being. A hate that existed before it did. A hate older than the valley itself.

Why do you hate us so much? No answer, but the emotion was so vast and consuming it threatened to swallow her whole. Her sense of self frayed around the edges as the sheer power of the hatred battered her from all sides. She needed to escape, to wake up, but it held her firm.

The pressure was suffocating and Syl curled in on herself for protection. Fear wasn’t an emotion she had a lot of experience with. She didn’t know how to deal with it.

And that made her angry. How dare it hunt her and her friends? How dare it kill people because of an inherited hatred? How dare it make her afraid!

Syl’s formless ‘self’ stood in defiance against the enveloping hatred. It wanted a fight? She’d give it a fight!

Something built inside her, just like in its chest. The same sense of power demanding release. Syl raised her ‘hand’ without knowing why, her ‘body’ acting on its own. The energy crackled around her ‘fingertips.’ She would destroy it before it had a chance to kill her.

But the oppressing hate extinguished so abruptly Syl’s mind stumbled and the power slipped away. She grasped and struggled to get it back, but it was ephemeral like a dream. And then it was simply gone.

Should she try to reach for it again? No, she had more important things to worry about. Where had its hatred gone? Reaching out, she probed its mind, and where its hatred was, she found cunning.

It was planning something.

Syl focused her effort on piercing its mental defences. It didn’t seem to know she was there inside its head, and she’d use that to her advantage. If she could learn what it was thinking, then maybe they could finally kill it.

But she couldn’t get in. It was only the strong emotions or the bodily sensations she could feel. Somehow, it unknowingly shielded its innermost thoughts from her.

And then it was moving. Racing through the woods, searching again, but not for Syl’s group. No, it was looking for something else. Had it given up on finding them?

Syl’s connection to it faded as it sped away. She tried to hold on, to slow or stop it, to find the power again, but her mind fell behind, and then finally let go. She drifted there, briefly, between her connection with it and the security of her own body. In that limbo, she could feel the whole valley around her, the tall mountains reaching to the sky, and beyond their tips, something else. A power. No, it wasn’t just one power. Or dozens. Or hundreds. It was thousands.

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Thousands of things just like it.

The shock sent her mind plummeting back to her body, where she fell back deep into real dreams.

She chased after her father, though he always seemed to be just out of reach.

She danced the Ka-Sho, but not to the sound of drums. Thunder guided her forms as rain poured around her.

Reylo fought against something in the darkness, nothing more than a shadow. But it took him.

“Syyyyyyyyl,” he screamed as it dragged him away. As she ran after it. Foliage slapped her face and stung her cheeks, but she didn’t let that slow her. He was calling her name. He needed her. And she couldn’t let it take him.

But as hard as she ran, she wasn’t gaining.

The ground heaved, croaking like some massive toad, and Syl was in the air. Branches clawed at her with unnatural life. They caught her wrists. Bound her ankles. Then she was hanging, suspended by thorny vines piercing her skin.

She started to scream but movement stole her breath. Something stalked in the trees around her. The binding creepers held her fast and she tried to follow the motion with her eyes. It was too quick, always in the corner of her sight. She knew it was there but she couldn’t get a good look at it.

Her head whipped back and forth as she searched for it. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end.

It was coming for her.

“Syl!” Reylo shouted again. But he sounded closer.

“Reylo, help me!” she pleaded, or tried to. Her voice was little more than a squeak.

“Syl,” Dena called, and the ground trembled a second time.

Syl tried to shout for help. For anybody. Nothing came out.

Movement on her right and her head snapped in that direction. But it was too late. Jaws with six-inch teeth opened wide to swallow her. Her eyes closed of their own accord and Syl finally found her voice.

She screamed as she waited for the jaws to close around her throat. For the teeth to pierce her skin. When neither of those things occurred, Syl didn’t stop screaming, but she did open her eyes.

And found Dena sitting on her. Rogar held her right arm down, Edar held her left. Somebody was sitting on her legs, and Kule was standing off to the side, blood running freely from his nose.

Syl’s scream trailed off as she looked at each of them. “What happened?” she asked Kule first.

“O reuws ri qljw tiy,” he mumbled through his hand.

“Huh?” she asked, and looked at Dena.

“He tried to wake you,” she translated.

“By himself,” Rogar said, but didn’t let go of her arm.

“I don’t…” she started, confused. “You can let go of me,” she told them.

“You sure?” Rogar asked. “I don’t want to end up like Kule.”

“Wait, I did that?” Syl asked.

“You weren’t even awake and you literally flipped into Lo-Dal. Kule was on the ground faster than anything I’ve ever seen,” Dena explained. “Even faster than you usually beat Rogar.”

“C’mon,” Rogar groaned. “Can’t somebody stop using me as the example?”

“Last longer than twelve seconds against Syl and we’ll consider it,” Dena responded flatly.

“I appreciate the banter,” Syl said. “But, could you get off of me?”

“Oh, right,” Dena said and stood up. The others seemed a bit more reluctant to let her go, and Kule visibly took a step further back.

“I’m sorry Kule. I didn’t mean to. Let me look at that,” she said. She stood up and stepped towards him. When he took another step back, she leveled one of her mother’s glares at him. That stopped him and she finally got a chance to look at the injury.

“Not broken,” she said, and gave his nose a bit of a tweak. “That’s for making me have to ask,” she said, then gave him a pat on the shoulder. “You’ll be fine. Why were you trying to wake me?”

“You must have been having a wild dream,” Leeze explained. “You were screaming and thrashing like mad.”

“Oh,” Syl said. She could remember being tied to the Anihazi so clearly. The rest of the dreams after they got separated were already growing fuzzy.

“That’s not all,” Edar said. “Reylo heard something from the cave entrance.”

“You were taking watch?” she asked Reylo, and she couldn’t keep the accusation out of her voice. “You were supposed to be resting.”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he said. “And I have to do my part too.”

“Your part is getting better,” she said matter-of-factly. Now she understood how her mother’s patience wore thin so quickly.

“That can wait,” Reylo said surprisingly strongly. “You need to hear it.”

“Hear what?” she asked, but followed as he led her to the tunnel entrance.

None of the others stepped outside the tunnel—something about it felt safe—and Syl followed suit.

“What am I…?” she started to ask, but then she heard it. The screaming.

“Somebody’s out there?” she asked rhetorically.

“Somebody’s calling for help,” Edar clarified.

“Started about ten minutes ago,” Reylo said. “We’ve been trying to wake you since.”

“We didn’t want to leave you alone in the cave with the dreams you were having, but we couldn’t wake you,” Rogar explained.

“Thanks,” Syl said. Edar was right. It was definitely a woman calling for help.

“We need to go help her,” Rogar said and turned back into the cave. “Grab your weapons,” he instructed the others, and they all followed. All of them except Syl.

The dream of being tied to the Anihazi nagged at her. Those last seconds with it especially. It had a plan. It couldn’t find them, so if she was it, what would she do?

She’d lure them out. She’d use bait.

Like a screaming woman…?

Syl closed her eyes and reached out with her other sense. There it was, the Anihazi, out in the woods.

Waiting.

Just at the edge of her perception, further than she’d been able to sense before, but there. And not directly beside where the woman was screaming.

“Just like with Reylo,” she whispered. It would wait for them to get to the woman. Then it would attack from behind. “Just how smart are you?” she asked.

“You coming?” Dena called from further down the tunnel. “Everybody else is ready.”

“We can’t go,” Syl said, her voice barely a whisper.

“Did you say something?” Dena asked, walking up beside Syl.

“We can’t go,” Syl repeated.

“What do you mean? Can’t go where?”

“Out there. To help that woman,” Syl said. “It’s a trap.”