Alone

10- Walking Through The Forest

Vesim:
Whether I liked it or not, the death of my only three friends, was ultimately inevitable. I kept telling myself this was all for the best, reciting those lies in my head over and over, the way an actor would recite their lines before a performance. Only, my audience was made up of only one person, me, who for some reason believed everything I told myself. The sun rose again, yet it didn't wake us up. Like I said, we didn't sleep at all that night, we didn't speak, we just sat around the fire until it burnt itself out. Reluctantly, one by one, we got up and packed our temporary camp up. "Come on, we..we should get going. You wanted to go down the less beaten path, right Vesim?"
Natasha's voice was slow, each word she spoke seemed to take her breath away, she was exhausted. Not that I really blame her. Kata wasn't fairing any better; she had stared into the fire all night, not caring how bad it burnt, her and Aster were close, so close that if you told me they were actually twins separated at birth, I'd have believed you. She didn't move at all whilst me and Natasha packed up the camp, but eventually she got up and took my hand as we head off down the path I had harshly suggested we take, the day before.

The Red Forest was pretty, despite it being so strange. However, whilst pretty it was also deceptive. After every turn there was more and more trees, their crimson coated branches intertwining with each other, wrapping long, spindling vines around the trunks, suffocating them and the vines that weren't latched to a trunk, hung down from the leaves above like serpents, only they didn't hiss. Thankfully.
The floor of the forest was odd in its own way too, thousands of pine needles, or at least what looked like pine needles, littered the ground like a scarlet carpet, so much so it was like walking through lava or a pool of blood, that's another thing about this forest- it wasn't bright and green and full of life like forests I used to see, or like the orchid. It was bright red all around, even the trunks of trees were a dark shade of cherry. I didn't feel like I was in a forest, I felt more like I was walking through hell. Leading my friends to their deaths all because I had made a deal with the devil. Speaking of my friends, they were also taken aback by the beauty of the foreboding trees around us. The reflection of the Golden Sunlight on the vermillion foliage, lit up their faces, especially Natasha's. Now, normally she is beautiful regardless, her dark skin compared with her honey coloured eyes made her look ethereal, some have described her to resemble an angel. Yet when the leaves reflected off her skin and highlighted her features, she looked more like a statue made of the finest copper than a living, breathing human. Even Kata, who was normally quite pale, shone brightly in the sun, her skin the colour of pearls and her hair cascaded down her back like a waterfall made of coffee, but with small strands of Aurelian as well. But, if they looked that good due to the sun and The Red Forest around us, then I had no doubts I looked great too, (as per usual).

Eventually, the thick lining of trees cleared out, but to our dismay we weren't free. The trees opened up into a clearing, next to a pond. The strange thing about this forest was the lack of animals. There were no deers, bears or even frogs, like you'd expect in a forest. But when we drew nearer to the pond we found an assortment of flies, dragonflies and other small bugs. They hovered over the water, others darted between the leaves above. We didn't know if any of these bugs were venomous or dangerous so Kata suggested that we spray ourselves with the bug repellent she brought along. We actually took a few things from Aster's bag before we left. I told the girls that burying him here would not only be a waste of time, but also useless as supposedly an animal would come along and dig him up just to eat him. But really I knew The Superiors would come collect the bodies of my friends once I called Katie and told her all three of them were dead. I had no idea how I was going to get rid of Natasha and Kata, Natasha was strong, she would more than likely put up a fight, and I'm shamed to admit in the past, she has beaten me in fights. And not even because I let her win. Kata was a different story. She was and still is my best friend. I wasn't sure I had the strength in me to kill her, she was like my other half, as cliche as it sounds, I loved her. So whilst the girls started setting up yet another camp (Natasha said being close to the water may be beneficial to catching prey as they may come to drink here), I climbed a tree and let my thoughts run free.