081 Devour

There was no sign on the boy Mason of a rose, or anything growing out of his body. It was just a single rose, sticking out of the poor boy, Tylor's chest.

Could it be an accident? Some seed just happened to grew here? No, that was too odd, too intentional. And there won't be time. The boys went missing two weeks ago. No way a normal rose just grew out of the body by some nature miracle.

The only possible explanation for all these: the boy was lost to his wolf form; there was only one rose growing from the boy who was hidden in the magic field was that--

He was a wizard.

He must had got magic from his mom, but his brother didn't. So when the forest consumed him, it left his brother out. But the poor human boy couldn't leave the forest anyway, and they chose the foot of the tree to wait for death, probably out of tiredness and hunger.

It was the forest. The forest eats magic.

It drain magic from witches and wizard once they step into the magic filed, and it put great pressure on their body and soul so they felt dizzy and tired. But they might leave, and the forest was not gonna let its prey escape, so--

The closer the prey gets to the center, the less pressure they'd feel. The preys would go to the center of the forest with or without intention, and when the time comes, the forest would devour every bit of magic left in their body, and leave them to perish.

Erebus didn't turn back when he just felt the pressure, but he imagined if he tried at the time, it would be tremendous hard and painful -- that was how the forest feed.

It was not clear yet why and how a rose grew out of the boy's chest, but Erebus think it was a mark of the consumption of the forest when it devoured the life and magic. The flower of death.

Erebus put his hand on the tree beside him, and the wood started to flow to his hand -- he had the power of life and trees, the oldest form of life, responded to him the best. The wood flow into his hand like liquid and formed a knife, thin, hard, and sharp.

He buried the knife into the chest of the poor boy and took out the dead rose.

There were roots alright.

Only they were buried deep into the boy's heart, and some of the roots were even holding to the heart as if a crooked hand grabbed that decayed little thing.

Erebus frowned at the sight of the roots, forcing himself to not imagine the pain it had bought to the heart when it was still jumping -- that might be what was happening to his little mate.

Kitty was a witch.

She was the prey of the forest.

A sharp ache flushed through Erebus like a strike of lightening from within his body at the thought of Kitty being in this horrible pain. He took a deep breath to ignore the desperation growing inside him.

No!

Kitty should still have some time. The forest didn't seem to be attacking actively. So far, all the evidence showed no trace of violence. They all seemed to had died without any struggle. Kitty should still be alive, judging by the time she spent in the forest.

Think, Erebus, think!

She had been in the forest for almost 5 hours now. If she could keep on walking all this time, even though in a slow pace considering the pressure the forest put on her, she should be able to walk six miles or so.

If taking the curve line exactly as the blue flowers' directing, she should not be too far ahead from him.

Erebus pulled out his phone and called the young wolf leader to let him know about the brothers, again, no one answered.

They were just there in the forest! What happened???

Just like their master, no one here picked up phone calls!

Irritated, Erebus took off his shirt and left it as a cover for the boys, as a symbol of respect to the dead so that they won't have to be exposed like that, and also as a mark for himself, so he could come back and retrieve their bodies after he found Kitty.

He had to return them to their mom.

This was the best part about him shape shifting alone though, he didn't have to pretend he ripped his cloth apart, like any other normal werewolf. He knew this from the first time he ever transformed -- being a werewolf that has magic, he could actually keep his cloth intact between shifting, but he had been pretending otherwise all his life when there were other people around to keep his secret.

Erebus left for the deeper core of the forest, following the direction of the blue grass on the ground. Yes it was easier now that he was this deep into the trap of the woods, but it was still not easy.

He hated the feeling of being so weak.

It made him feel vulnerable, and this was NOT a good time to be vulnerable.

Kitty needed him.

He didn't know whether it was because he now knew the hidden puzzle of death of the forest, or it was real -- but his human sense of smell tasted a shred of blood now, in the air of the glowing red air of the dark forest.

And that was NOT giving him a very good feeling.

As he got closer to the center, he could tell more and more clear that the blue flowers on the ground was leading a curve path like the pattern on a shell. And judging by the rotation angle, he was not too far away.

And he found another corpse.

Now in his human form, the scene in the dark forest was very different than when he was in his wolf form.

Erebus assumed that what a human could see should be the same as his wolf form, as well as the wolves without magic in their human form--

It was the world the human knew. The forest was dark, but it had its days and nights, its dark secrets and light parts, and it was somewhat normal.

But for witches, the forest under eternal night with the color and smell of only blood -- the color and smell of its insatiable appetite.

More and more corpse began to show up along the blue flower way. Now that he thought about it, he might have already passed some of the poor souls on his way here, he just couldn't see them when he was in his wolf form.

He was so glad he didn't take Uranus's advice and stay out of the woods. The young wolves would never find Kitty. It seemed to be a forest that ONLY werewolf royalties -- wolf with magic -- could handle.

"I wonder why is that..." Erebus mumbles to himself.

He never saw another kid's body after the two brothers though. All the corpse he saw was ancient old, a lot of them pure white bones. But from what he could see, it seemed that the forest had a very specific appetite -- the bones should be gone too by now from the age of it, but they were still intact as if just got rid of its flesh yesterday.

One more mile in...

Another mile...

Erebus started to doubt his judgement -- Even if she walked with normal speed, he should have found Kitty by now.

What if Kitty didn't follow the flowers? What if she tripped and fell and was hurt on the way here? What if she was too weak that the forest had already had her? What if --

Suddenly the flower path thinned out into several narrowed flows, gathering together with other thin flows of blue flowers from other directions. The several new paths squashed themselves into a small circle made by several pure dark, tall, ancient trees as if they were bowing their heads together for a sacred ritual--

The heart of the forest!

Erebus hasted upwards to the dark ritual. This was it. The end of the long journey--

And the circle was empty.