I need to figure this out.
The root, it must be the vines—my hands race along the length of them, trying not to tug too hard and cause them to constrict tighter. I just need to work out where they start from and sever them.
I continue to follow them, my heart racing dramatically with each step. There, just as I suspected, they all feed together like rivers joining a lake. The root stares at me, one vine threading into several like a vein.
The reason my friends are trapped—I need to cut it—fast.
The dagger unsheathes from my thigh in one swift movement as I work through the stem. It fights my blade as it saws against it, my arm beginning to ache with every movement, though with a last push, it finally breaks free; the vine is severed like a cut wire, but its tendrils replenish in an instant, the severed vines clutching each other and fusing again.
Kill it twice.
I work my blade into its flesh again until it eventually breaks away, and Nala gasps for air.
The hands wrapping around my lungs release for a moment as I turn to see if the vines have relaxed.
No.
This can’t be.
I thought I did everything right.
I destroyed the root.
Somehow, the vines have reclaimed their prey, tighter. The colour in their skin is fading, and I know I don’t have long left.
Think Asha.
Think.
Seek the root. Seek the root. What if it means the root of it all… the reason we seek out the gem, not the roots themselves? The decay of the world outside this forest. The rot in the greenhouse, the sun slowly dying—
Death.
It’s all death.
The grave stares back at me.
I run as fast as I can, my fingers sifting through the dirt in a heartbeat. The helpless groans of my friends are driving me faster—deeper—until my nails are black with dirt and my wrists ache. Finally, I feel something. A cool, waxy surface; stiff and soft all at the same time. The more the dirt is sieved away, the more evident it becomes.
A body.
But whose?
The familiar texture of skin is still there, but the warmth, the spark, the tiny subtleties of a living being are missing. It’s unsettling, as if my hand is expecting a response that will never come, and the silence of that stillness presses on my chest.
Hands—dig—fast, and soon the face is clear as day. An image that I never thought I would see staring back at me; mouth open, flesh blue, worms eating at the skin. My skin.
The same mismatched eyes, the same unmistakable auburn hair and dusty freckles. Everything is the same…except for the dark purple and blue bruises that tarnish the pale skin on my neck, as though someone had squeezed the life out of it.
Ryder.
The mountain
My hand trembles on the hilt of my blade, the realisation taking my breath away.
Kill it twice.
Killmetwice.
