Curse creeping through the woods
It bit down hard on its bottom lip, the pressure causing a thin split across it. The moisture from the tangled overgrowth slipped past the rust coloured overalls and struck at its legs while it crawled closer. Long bundles of cloth hid its arms and hands as they guided it gently through the foliage of the wild bushes and trees, avoiding the twigs and other traps that lay in her path. Lay in the way of its target.
His back lent against a thick tree bark, one leg propped up, his hands pay folded against his chest as it raised and fell.
It closed in, sweeping its tongue on its lips: the tinge of blood.
Closer still it crept, softening its breath.
There was a faint metallic smell that ghosted around the unsuspecting sleeper.
Less than a meter away it pushed upward and stood on its two feet, leaning slightly above him.
Its left hand approached the air with a clumsy speed as a sword swiped too near to its hood. Poisonous orange pupils woke and held the gaze of the stranger with a vicious air that settled around him. There were no eyes for him to see into; rather a faceless hood, but he held his glare regardless. The tip of his weapon, grasped in gloved hands, held the delicate balance of the scene, their actions paused.
A sing-song wind ruffled all life in the woods; its melody was soft spoken yet too beautiful to not hear.
Drawing up to its full height, the perpetrator took a step backwards.
Turned.
And prepared to run.
The impact of the sword thrashed into its cloak trailing behind it forced it to the ground, spluttering.
A single green leaf fell from a nearby tree; it swayed and danced through the sky before laying in its final resting place ready to give back what the earth had given to it.
“Want to tell me what the hell you’re doing before I slit your throat?”
Pulling its legs from underneath itself, it turned back around and sat crossed legged in front of him, hood down.
The sword swiped down, slicing through the top layers of the forest floor, inches from where it sat. He lifted it up in the air, the sheen of the icy metal reflecting the rays of the sun as it snuck through gaps between tree leaves. It came down again harder, much harder, much closer. “I never repeat myself.”
Still there was no voice, as the sword ebbed closer a finger trailed hard in the dirt, words formed from jiggered, childlike lines, they read: you know about forest Curse, must do.
His eyes briefly scanned the ground than focused back on the figure. “Leave, now. Don’t bother me with such trivia.”
The hood rose sharply then fell just as fast; the finger swept the floor more forcefully: the Curse. Then the finger lifted and pointed to its owner.
The boy stood as he picked up his sword, and now ‘the Curse’ could see a fatal wound scratched across the bottom of his chest. “That’s enough; I think I’ll just kill you now.”
He was quick.
A few miles away a toad crouched, it struck at its prey with its long lethal tongue, plunging it in the abyss of its throat.
With a professional confidence the sword sliced through the cloaked figure, sliced right through as though it was made of nothing but air. Like an unfocused photograph it had split into two separate, blurred pieces, where the sword had travelled, with rust coloured wispy tendrils spiralling in-between them.
Then both fragments of it burst into a flare of a reddish brown vapour, it blew away deeper into the forest, further than the boy could see, concealed by the gates of the trees.
The sword was sheathed and the boy waited for a moment before he collapsed to the ground and shifted his weight onto the tree once again with a mute wince.
Alone, he finally surrendered to the pain as his conscience slipped away.
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