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.:mErcy
[Chapter 14]
***Both A & B lead to here!***

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You zig-zagged your way through the forest, stumbling left and right, tripping over stray, bulky roots, and had your skin torn viciously by unseen thorns and branches. The eerie groans and shrieks of those Twitchy-Headed freaks came from all sorts of directions; it was so dark, you could barely see a few inches in front of your face. Your breathing was ragged and your heart was pounding in your chest; it felt like it was going to give out any minute. You could barely hear anything over it.

Lightening struck a few yards in front of you, bringing you to halt. Thunder immediately followed- clapping so incredibly loudly; you had to plug your ears, but it was a tad late. Your ears were ringing, and you soon experienced a terrible, terrible headache.

You knelt down, holding and pressing your head tightly. Lightening flashed again, shedding bright light on the Twitchy-Headed monster standing a few feet in front you. The curious thing was that it's head seemed perfectly; it's eyes were pure white and it's jaw was extremely, disturbingly long and open- way beyond the normal length of a human jaw.

You quickly covered your ears before the thunder clapped groundbreaking loud again. You squinted up to the beast. Lightening flashed again as it toppled over, falling on you. You shrieked, panicking and squirming under its dead weight. The lightening faded and thunder shook the ground again; you couldn't see anything anymore. You could only feel the monster on top of you.

You could feel the cold, dead, uneven and decaying, rough skin. You could feel some oddly warm liquid oozing on your skin. The liquid was a bit warm at first, but after a few seconds, it started hissing and began burning you.

By now you were hyperventilating, fearing the monster would tear into your flesh any minute now. That, or the acidic feeling liquid would burn through the layers of your skin.

By the grace of God, you were able to pry the monster off of you and quickly scramble and kick yourself away from it.

Lightening flashed again, and you shrieked at the monster's appearance. The spine had been ripped out, resting awkwardly outside of the back of the body. Covered in sliced muscle tissue, pulsating veins, and dripping dark, hissing ooze. By a few strings of flesh, it was still...sort of...attached to the monster. You covered your mouth, hoping it would hold back any potential projectile vomit.
Thunder clapped again, shaking the ground once more. You ears started ringing again, head and heart pounding. At the same time, the monster's spine began to rattle loudly, throwing itself in all directions, spilling steaming ooze and muscle tissue on everything, including you.

You squeaked as the gory mess hit you in the face and hissed, frantically crawling backwards til you thought your back was against a tree. You rubbed your face, trying to get the ooze off, but it continued to burn. Lightening flashed again, and you waited impatiently for the loud clap of the thunder to follow. You covered your ears, prepared.

Then you felt the heat of something's breath on your neck, then something dripping on it.

A deep, dark growl shook the earth. Similar to the sound foxes make when they scream, but taken several octaves down, and louder. Uglier. More eerie. Much more frightening. It was not hard to tell that it was not of this earth. The chilling sense of overwhelming fear sparked through every bit of your spine and filled your senses. You didn't even give yourself time to scream.

You jumped up on your feet quickly and bolted, crunching over the spine and monster. You kept on running, the immense sensation of that thing breathing it's wet breath on your neck never leaving.
You kept darting through the forest, praying for some way to escape it. The sound of those Twitchy-Headed monsters had resurfaced, cooing from different directions all around you.
You couldn't feel anything, or hear anything. It seemed like your senses were all eaten up by your panic.
You kept running, running running- until you came to a clearing and tripped over something very hard, a rock, stubbing your toe. You curled in a fetal position, fearing the worst.

But the Twitchy-Headed noises had stopped. The grotesque breathing had disappeared.

You quickly collected yourself, sitting up and brushing the dirt off. You surveyed the clearing you had found. It was an empty place, surrounded by the trees. However, a peculiar circle had been made with rocks in the middle, where you had landed. It was a fairly decent size- pretty big.
The even more peculiar thing was that there was nothing but dirt in the circle, and a few dead plants. It was as if nothing grew inside it. The forest life outside the circle seemed relatively healthy, so why wasn't anything living in the circle?
It was just dry, dusty cracked dirt.

You heard the trees rustle, all at once. You looked up, and saw a mob of Twitchy-Headed monsters step out and surround you on all sides. You gulped, and quickly scrambled to your feet. They all took steps dangerously close to you, but stopped just outside the circle. Their heads were moving rapidly, like always, splattering ooze and God knows what else on each other and all over the place.

Except none of it would enter the circle. It was like none of it was allowed to...

Lastly, your beloved best friend shoved her way through them, stopping right at the circle and staring daggers at you.

Her last appearance was her battered and scarred, torn and ripped. She had become one of them, the last time you saw her.

But now she looked...

"Aria...?" You called, reaching towards her.

She was inhumanly beautiful; her blonde braid was loose over her shoulder, like it always was, but that was the only throwback to her once older, friendly appearance that you knew. Her skin was perfect, not a scar in sight. Her face was perfectly still, and her eyes were a deep, gut-piercing bright red, with small black pupils. She was wearing a simple, white dress, knee-length with fairly wide straps. She seemed perfectly emotionless, even when a small smile appeared on her face.

You glanced down to see that she was holding an incredibly sharp, sabre sword.

"A-....Aria...!" You took a step back, body flooding with fear.

She hoisted the sabre up, pointing it right at you. Her smile and eyes grew wider in anticipation, and she took a step into the circle.

"Aria!"

A few seconds after she took a step inside the circle, all the Twitchy-Headed monsters snapped and stampeded inside the circle. You screeched, and quickly ducked and covered your head.

As their fingers tips grazed and reached for you, an incredibly intense red light burst through the ground, covering every inch of the circle. The ground began shaking heavily, some immense force blowing through the ground. Your clothes and hair were fluttering around as the light ate up the Twitchy-Headed monsters, burning them into nothing. You couldn't keep your balance, toppling over and landing on your hands and knees. You looked up at Aria; a shocked expression covered her pale face as her hair whipped around her. She stared at you, with no other emotion besides shock. The red force blew her out of the circle, causing her to land on her back. She propped herself up on her elbow, only to continue to glare at you.
You slowly stood back up on your feet, and stared right back at her. The violent shaking calmed down some, but continued. The red light was still shining out from the earth, covering the circle.

The circle began to sink into the earth, as if it going down like an elevator. You broke the staring contest to glance around, seeing the earth's crust growing higher as the circle took you steadily down below the earth. You looked up to see Aria staring down at you, then see her turn and disappear.

Then you heard a loud SHINK behind you. You turned to see that the sabre Aria was formerly wielding had cut deep into the circle's ground, only a few centimeters away from you.
The damned thing would have cut you right in two if it had hit it's target.
You gulped.

Then the circle began descending faster and faster...and faster...and faster.
You swallowed nervously and fell to your feet; the sensation felt similar to when a roller coaster takes a steep dive.

You began to feel incredibly nauseous, like you were going to puke at any moment. You could've sworn you were turning green.

Thankfully, it began to slow down.

As the strange circle began to slow to a more comfortable pace, you stood up again, dusting yourself off, and scanning the new-found area.

It seemed like you were still at an enormous height, and the large landscape around you was only like the ones you heard in stories or folklore.
All of it seemed red, rocky, and hot.
One large part of the landscape was a massive, dark lake. Inside of it, were light, ghostly figures, some moaning, weeping, or simply chatting. In the middle of the lake was a simple, small boat, with a light shining brightly on it. A cloaked figure could be seen rowing in it.
Another large part featured several dark volcanoes, all of various sizes and spewing constantly, bits and pieces of the landscape overflowing with lava.
Another was an immensely thick forest, shadowed by it's tall, dead and eerie trees. It looked as if all sorts of demons and monsters inhabited it. You could see black tendrils shooting out at one end, a tree covered with knives, and random, old, little children's toys scattered about. After a few seconds of staring, you heard a horrified scream coming from one end.
You sighed, silently hoping it wasn't real (but you knew better, by now).

The stress and exhaustion of your misadventures began to catch up to you, and you started to breath a bit deeper. You even started to yawn as your eyes began to droop.
You had gathered several injuries, from the plane crash and your dash through the forest, and whatever else.
Strangely enough, you hadn't bothered to notice any of them til now...And as you did, you began to bleed heavily from them. You scanned your body, worry rushing through your veins at your injuries. You were truly wrecked...

Suddenly, the circle stopped moving. A confused look crossed your face, and then suddenly the circle slammed into the ground, the force of it slamming you into the ground, knocking the wind out of you. The sudden force only encouraged the already heavy bleeding from your wounds.

You stayed sprawled on the ground, the exhaustion, tiredness, and weakness overwhelming you. You did not want to put in any effort to get up. You sighed, yawned, and slowly blinked your eyes.

Your vision was starting to blur a small bit, but you could make out the image of small feet standing in front of you. You saw them walk around you, and heard it pull Aria's sabre out of the ground.
You closed your eyes, slowly drifting out of consciousness.

Right before you passed out, you heard a small, polite voice mumble something quietly.

"Oh my, oh my, oh my..."