Derek's POV
We had been riding for a while. Morning had come, but shadows still clung to the land; not quite dawn, not quite night. The sky was stained with the colors of a new day. The frost of the night and the horror it brought still lingered in everyone's minds—a constant, morbid motivation to quickly arrive at our destination.
We had lost fifteen of the Templar Knights during the night's evils, and I was left with just two of my own men.
This pointed out the importance of a defensible area which we could not really afford on this trip. The elves had departed, heading to their city, and surprisingly, the strange girl, Luna, and her party had decided to continue with us. Everyone wore a grim expression on their face or they wore their helm.
After a while, we arrived at the boundary of a forest. The commander, whom I had been riding alongside, spoke after a long silence. His face was a mask that revealed nothing, which was one of the many unsettling things about the Church. For their cause, they could pile up bodies with a calm in their voice that masked the fanatical madness simmering beneath.
"We could cut through the forest," he said, his voice flat. "It should reduce our travel time."
The passage through the forest was uneventful at first. Massive trees stood like pillars, holding up the dread of the unknown, yet also bringing an air of mystery and calm. The birds sang, and then—boom! A commotion erupted in front. Dawn had arrived, but with it, something else broke the morning.
"Ahhhh! Monster!" a voice cried out, and then silence. There was a sickening crunch.
"Formation!" one of the knights bellowed.
"Sir, what are your orders?" one of my men shouted, riding up to me.
"Have the other carriages that were not caught up in the fire retreat," I ordered.
"Yes, sir," he replied, turning and riding away.
Hmm, a suppressed scream was barely heard. I whipped my head around and saw a troll's hand around the squashed head of one of my men. Its mouth opened to feast on him. I lifted my axe, charging at the troll.
Splat!
I turned to see the commander's fist through my chest. Through my armor and out the other side. The skin on his face was dying and peeling off. He had lesions and was weeping tears as black as ink.
"Ahhh!" someone screamed.
The air was filled with a new, vile presence. The chimera now had fungi-looking things sprouting from its back. Its eyes were weeping the same black fluid as the troll.
What the...
The carriages halted as the animals started panicking. I shook Regina awake, ready to leave. But then she started coughing. Violent coughs.
"Regina!" I shouted, shaking her.
She looked at me, her eyes sparkling as black fluid slid down her cheeks. Her body was burning, peeling off.
"Regina!" I screamed. "Alpha, Omega! Do something! Mésos! Help!"
They had stepped out at the first sound of trouble, which meant I was alone with Regina and the nun. The nun had stopped moving, her hands frozen mid-reach. Her skin was falling off like wet paper. I scampered toward her bag, emptying the contents onto the floor. A vial with a gold-like fluid fell out.
"Sister!" I tried to wake her, but she was no more.
I rushed back to Regina and tried to give her what I thought was medicine. "Here," I said, lifting her head to feed her the drug. My hands shaking. A single tiny drop came out, and nothing happened. In my panic, I broke the bottle and fed her the whole content. Just then, like candle wax thrown into a holy fire, she started melting. Her skin and hair were falling off.
She was being dissolved, not by the black fluid now dripping from her body, but by what seemed like light. The golden fluid seemed to be breaking her down, like a purification gone wrong.
"No! What is this? What's happening?" My hand was now burning; some of the golden fluid had dropped on it.
"No! No! Noooo! Regina! Regina! Alpha!
Help!" I screamed, my hands frantically trying to put her together even as the pieces dissolved and corroded my hand as well. I ignored everything else, getting a break from my descent into madness. Her purple and blue eyes had lost their light.
Her lips curved into what seemed to be an apologetic smile, or it was just the final undoing of my mind seeing things and trying to pour dust from the sandman on it.
"Noooo. Regina!?" I stammered, then let out a laugh of pure horror. "Ahhhh!" Vicious red, black, and gold fluid seeped through my hands, falling and forming a puddle on the carriage floor, each drop burning my clothes and skin.
And in the thicket, eyes lurked, watching the event unravel.