Reece takes a deep breath to calm himself. He knows what happens to people when they die, this person's soul must've passed onto somewhere better... Hopefully. 'Rest well, Poor soul... May your god be kind to you.'
He steps around it and walks with determination also with a bit more speed as there's something in these woods. His kobold tails flicks side to side from the hidden emotional turmoil under the steeled surface he's put on.
The forest around him only held ambient sounds of the trees and the nearby river in the air. Each soft footstep he had against the mossy dirt had minimal noise but every step forwards, there's a slight fear that it wasn't him...
[This is painful! :<
Where the heck is that ball?]
Reece jumped at seeing the red holographic screen appearing in front of him before nearly tripping on a rock hidden under the mossy soil. He growled after a moment of unbalance and frowned towards the system screen as anger formed in his gut. 'Could you not startle me!? Ugh...'
[Ah- Sorry, I wanted to break the tension.]
'It's fine, Sorry... Just be mindful of the stress I'm under in situations like this, please?' Reece sighed before moving on to walk even deeper into the sea of trees. The river is his guide in this alien woodland, a single mistake and leaving its path could mean wandering through an endless forest maze.
After a minute of walking, the stream seemingly got more violent as Reece found himself going down a steep hill. Every moment his small legs struggled to not slip from the mossy dirt and leaf litter on this hillside, however, thankfully this gives him a view on a pond with Volker's ball drifting around its watery surface.
"Finally." Reece let out a sigh of sigh seeing his target in the murky waters of this forest pond. He carefully dashed over to it but the ball was slightly outside his arm length from this body being only nine years old.
He quietly curses his young body before looking around the area for anything to help his unfortunate situation. Among the forest floor, the only thing Reece manages to find is this moss and mushroom covered branch that likely fell ages ago down here. It buckles in the middle from its own weight while lifting it up.
"Only need at least a foot of this." Reece mutters to himself before snapping it into a third of the original length. He moves over to the murky edge of the pond and shakily reaches over with the stick towards Volker's lost ball.
It rolled on the water's surface from Reece's nudging but something in the pond left a nasty stain on the side of this children's toy ball. His face scrunches while grabbing it with his small hand before tossing into his castle almost instantly including that stick.
Whatever was in the water smelled rancid and stuck to his hand. The rotting stench hits his nose so vile that he gags on instinct but another instinct pops up at the back of his skull. This pond smells like rotting flesh-
From its depths, this body of water began to bubble as an armored hand broke the murky surface. Reece reacted instantly to that sight, running with the full force of his small body, his mind blanked about caring which direction he went. The sound behind him made no sense with it being like wood snapping and crunching.
In-between those sounds were heavy thuds as Reece ran past the various giant trees but then a noise echoed throughout the area, It was whip-like and followed by striking pain in Reece's lower back. 'My tail-'
He turned his head in shock at whatever chased him from the pond, It wasn't anything expected as his ignorance of what monsters lurked within this world. What he saw was a mass of vines, roots, and a mud covered upper half of an old knight's armor. It has whipped a long thorny vine towards him but only managed to hook around his kobold tail.
There wasn't a single second he could spare before grabbing the base of his tail and yanking it hard enough to pull it free. The thorns tear at his skin and fur leaving a blackened blood to leak from his wound. He didn't have time to process the discoloration of it before running forwards again but that creature seemed to have paused?
'I don't hear it following me, Did something happen?' Reece paused after running for a time that blurred together. He looked around to see it's gone from his view but the pain reminded him of that fear. 'I can't stand still, there might be more but where am I??'
A step forward is met by a dizzy spell consuming his head nearly instantly. His breathing became labored while forcing himself towards where he'd assumed is the direction of the village. His tail hurts, it hurts so badly that the pain overwhelms the exhausted feeling in this body's small legs.
[#####! ### ### ####!?]
[#####! ## ### #### ##??]
Reece sees those menus appear but he can't read them, everything is blurring together. He can't tell how far he's walked like this but the sound of birds, are they guiding him forward? A dirt path stretched across his vision and before the hope filled him, his small body collapsed into the ditch dividing it from the forest.
A giant of a cloaked figure steps forward along that forest path notices a child had fallen, their footsteps betraying the size of this person being so quiet that one would assume a mouse walked by. A dusty green skinned arm moves up to stroke a grey beard.
"Well, for a bookworm like yourself, you got rather lost, Wolfhard." An old man's voice spoke out from the cloaks obscuring shade. "Irma wouldn't like her friend dying to... blood loss."
As the elder saw that blackened blood, his gaze became softer knowing the weight of the situation. While he goes to pick up the boy, that songbird which Reece followed suddenly flies away into the thick tree cover.
CRUNCH
A wicked hand covered in a liquid shadow snatched the songbird from the air before that sludge envelopes the innocent creature. It sizzles for a moment to reveal the broken bones of the once beautiful singer in her palm. They fall onto the forest floor below with an uninterested expression on her face.
"I wonder why a servant of the Folklore Lord was so far from his holy place..." She muses to herself laying in the tree's branches before gaining a wide grin. "That smell! One of my lesser demons did it!"
Her form slinks into the shade of the tree and disappears. That monstrosity of vines and armor holds perfectly still with that vine covered in Reece's blackened blood upwards, almost in an offering pose. A wet sound happens as her body reappears in front of this monster.
"With this, we finally have an excuse to go on a hunt." That grin twists into something much more wicked. A pure and utter glee in the promise of bloodshed.
---------------------
The sound of rainfall outside fills his poorly lit bedroom. Reece Ashworth types away on a bright computer screen in front of his home work desk. In the late hours of chipping away on a word document, the light from his monitor almost causes everything to blur. He leaned back in his old chair for the sake of giving his eyes some respite from the burning light.
A knock is heard on his door, it's less about someone requesting an invitation to come in and alerting him to her presence at his door. She's already opening the door to his bedroom with a sweet smile. A sliver haired lady walked in with her giant braid resting on her shoulder and wearing some cheap lion themed cozy pajamas bought off of an online shop.
"Heya Reece, You want a hot drink?" Reba spoke up, walking up to him with a mug of a steaming hot drink. She takes an old cup from a drink coaster on his desk and replaces it with the mug. "So how's the ghost writing?"
"If it's a gift then I can't reject it." Reece reaches to pick up the mug with a grin. He sighs looking down at the brown hot drink. "If I have to write another animal themed story for that company then I may go insane."
"Just because you can pay some of the bills with that work, doesn't mean you should... Jeez." Reba lightly hits Reece on the shoulder with a look of clear pity and shakes her head. "Write your own shit like that guy hiring you wouldn't have the fans without your hard work!"
"You know he could just pay someone else, I'm just going off the notes that he sent me for this stuff... I'm nobody special." Reece somberly lifts up the mug and takes a sip but his expression becomes confused. He looks at Reba with an eyebrow raised. "Did you give me hot chocolate??"
"Hell yeah, I hate coffee especially after work, man." Reba steals a spot on Reece's bed and crosses her legs while getting comfortable. "Another coffee machine broke today and I had to hear people complain about how long their orders took."
"Must be awful-" He pauses while looking down at the hot chocolate in the mug before a drop of red falls into it. He feels something warm leaking from his mouth and a vile taste of iron. Everything clicks into place. "It must be awful how I left you, huh..."
That room falls away into a fuzzy mess with Reba's voice echoing behind him, moments with his sister in that apartment they lucked out on. He looks down at his gut to see that copper colored knife which killed him. Those final seconds were filled with stinging pain...