We go down, together

Sebastian

I needed to stop. I needed to rest, to catch my breath. To let Ominis catch up.

I can't.

I continued sprinting through the trees, in the direction of... of... no.

Why am I doing this? Where am I going? Why am I still chasing shadows?

When will I learn to let go?

She doesn't want to see you. That was made abundantly clear, stop deluding yourself into thinking she still loves you.

Skidding to a halt, my surroundings finally settled in around me. All of my senses went on high alert, I hadn't realized I had been running headfirst into the fucking forbidden forest. I spun around hoping to obtain some semblance of where I was. Except there was no trail, no dirt path, nothing except for trees in every direction. I had been running straight into the belly of the beast.

And I had left Ominis behind.

Oh shit.

I took off running for the second time. The forest stretched around me, a never ending sea of greens and blacks. It felt like hours had passed before I finally saw a break in the trees, to my dismay it was not the the street I had been hoping for but an open patch of earth at the mouth of three adjacent trails.

A fork. Bloody fantastic.

"Sebastian Sallow! Are you joking? Have you gone absolutely mental? What the fuck is your problem? I should hex you!" A very disgruntled and filthy Ominis came stomping down the right path.

I bit back my laugh, "what happened to you?"

"You. Left. Me." His words came out in pants, "you fucking imbecile!"

"Are you okay?"

"Do I look-" a loud snapping sound echoed around us. Ominis' grip tightened on his wand so hard his knuckles began to whiten. "What was that?"

"I don't know." There was a blur of motion down the center path. "Stay behind me." More rustling of brush, unseen dangers lurked in the shadows around us.

"Let's go back. Now."

Despite all logic begging me to leave this godforsaken forest, my gut insisted I continue forward, towards the noises. "Ominis, I need you to trust me."

"I don't." I ignored him and started moving.

Each step along the winding trail spiked my heart rate. A creeping sense of unease gnawed at my insides, as if something sinister was hiding just behind the wall of trees.

A dark shape lay sprawled across the distant moss covered ground. I slowed my pace as the shape began to take form.

A person.

A girl.

I shook my head to clear it. The picture in front of me was wrong. It was my eyes playing tricks on me. It was the forest feeding off of my fears, manifesting an illusion of my worst nightmare.

It wasn't her.

She wouldn't be here.

My mind and body fought for dominance, my legs refused to move the last few steps. To close that small gap between myself and the body laying in the dirt.

"Sebastian, you are making me nervous. What is it?"

I had forgotten Ominis was with me. His presence forcibly grounding me back in reality. Shoving my trepidation down, I propelled my feet forward and carefully turned the small body.