(TLO) Chapter 53: Thudding and Groaning (Patreon)

Seth did not look back as he ran. He did not check to see if anyone had noticed him. He did not check to see if any had followed. He simply soared through the distance, passing foliage in the dark and bumping into plants and trees he did not see well enough.

“You, count,” he commanded no one in particular as he ran.

Noted, one mind answered.

“You.”

Yes. This from another.

“Keep me away from the trees. I don’t want to be useless when we find him. He might need assistance.”

Noted.

What of us? Another mind asked.

Dread filled Seth as he gave this one its instruction. “Make sure we’re ready to die when we find him.”

Who knew what monstrosities lurked in the parts of the forest Clint did not allow them venture into.

Like in the Lucid Dreaming? The mind asked.

Seth nodded, the wind rushing past his ear so that he didn’t hear himself when he answered. “Like in the Lucid Dream.”

He ducked under a tree branch a mind pointed out, though he did not see it.

“Only this time,” he continued. “We won’t be properly armed.”

He did not know how long he ran, and while he knew how many trees he passed before taking a turn, he did not count. Only after a significantly long while did another piece of his mind stop him.

We’re here, it thought, and Seth came to a stop.

“Here?”

Yes. In its thoughts Seth thought he heard an anger centered at itself. This is where we lost him.

Seth ignored the anger as he took a knee surrounded by trees, mist, and darkness. He studied the ground before him and frowned. “I can’t see a damned thing.”

High above him the moon was more than a crescent tonight, but it wasn’t full. It gave him enough light to see his hand in front of him. But tracking with it was almost impossible.

Put your hand over the ground right there, a mind told him, a bit more to the right.

Seth obeyed without question. He moved his hand under its guidance until it was satisfied.

Now bring it down very slowly.

Again, he obeyed. He lowered his hand, slow, like a man walking in water yet afraid he would drown. When it barely grazed the surface of the dirt beneath him, his mind bade him stop.

Now just move it.

Seth frowned. “What we need is light, not this nonsense. We need fire.”

We do that and we won’t be the only one’s looking for a human.

“We can’t find him like this,” he protested. “We can’t find him by touch alone, or whatever this is. We can’t track like this.”

We can, it chastised. And we will.

Seth had a few choice words to say, but considering he was useless and devoid of ideas right now, he held his tongue. This was all he had to work with and he would use whatever he could

…………………………

It was an hour before Seth made any breakthrough in his search, and even that was not by his power.

Through the hour he searched quietly and slowly. His hands wandered the surface of the earth, all three minds tracking and searching, devoting their attention to the task at hand. There was a broken unity amongst the three of them so that when one grew distracted by the initial task given it, the next took its place. In this manner Seth kept awareness over his surrounding, keeping himself safe from predators that may be.

Each patch of land he moved on from was a patch he did not return to. It was strange having his minds lead him, surrendering that level of control over to them. But somethings seemed more important than his sanity. Timi was his friend, an important one in the seminary where he did not truly have any other, brothers though they had been forced to be.

But his refusal to believe he would consider the possibility of sacrificing his sanity for the boy led him to lie to himself, to tell himself he did this to curb the growing guilt that suffocated his chest. He willed himself to believe he did all this because he did not like the guilt. Should anyone ask him, it was the guilt that spurred him. But the truth did not elude him. Timi was more important than he’d ever thought the boy would be. He was aware of it now.

It was somewhere in the second hour when a howl caught Seth’s attention. He was deep in the forest now, a part uncharted by the children under the guidance of Reverend Clint. In these parts his caution was heightened. His fear was a walking companion that left him jumpy at the slightest sound, like a skittish horse.

The sound echoed all over the forest. It was like the sound of something dying in an empty room. Seth hated the echo. It made him unable to place from whence it came. Worse, farther down the mist was thicker. It meant he would be able to see less, and that was if the sound was even coming from its direction.

Bracing himself for whatever may be, he crossed the distance and plunged into the lands of the mist.

He would find Timi there or get lost with him.

Not a proper determination, but we guess we’ll take what we can, a mind thought almost absently.

Seth ignored it as he walked forward. The growing mist rose with every step until his feet were swallowed in a mist of white. This, too, he ignored.

He kept his ears primed as he moved, listening for the next sound. The next disturbance. The next guide on his path to Timi.

The mist was halfway to his knees when it came. It pierced the air like an arrow, a shriek most inhumane. His minds picked it like a homing beacon.

There!

Seth did not question it. His steady feet and cautious steps were abandoned to the mist beneath him as he fell into a sprint, his mad dash guiding him forward. He weaved and ducked, jumped and scaled. The path his minds led him on was a challenge on parkour. There were no flat grounds, only bumps and rocks, trees and vines, each so haphazardly placed that it seemed a forbidden forest designed to keep people out. It was a cacophony as compared to the nigh woods-like nature of what he was accustomed to of the place.

But why do you think he’s out there?A mind asked as Seth ran. We mean, it could be something else.

The thought had his steps slowing. He did not stop running, but he did stop sprinting. The possibility had not escaped him; he’d merely depended so much on hope that he had ignored it. To have his minds point it out for him was troubling.

He continued forward a while longer in what was a crouched jog before he was forced to hunker down behind a tree.

Something’s wrong, a fragment of his mind thought as he crouched behind the tree.

He frowned at the thought. “You don’t say. We’re in a forest filled with mist, looking for a boy we aren’t sure is even here.”

There was something dismissive about his minds as a fragment responded, not that.

“Then what?”

That sound.

“What sound?”

It’s your ear for reia sake. Listen.

Seth didn’t like the tone of his thoughts, didn’t like the chastisement in it. But it was right, it was his ear. So he calmed his breathing, chaotic from his run, and listened. The sound of leaves rustling in the night air teased at his sense of sound. He felt the night’s chill on his skin as it seeped through his cotton shirt. This he ignored, placing his focus on the sounds around him. In time, he heard what his mind intended him to.

It was a faint echo of thudding and groaning. It was so feint he knew he would lose it to the slightest distraction.

He followed gently after it, struggling to keep hold of the sound as it repeated in a broken rhythm, one coming after the other. A steady repeating cycle of two sounds.

The closer he drew to it, the more he noticed there was a third. It was the tired breathing of an overworked person. The steady panting of one who had overexerted himself.

He still didn’t see clearly in the misty night, so when he was close enough to see the silhouette of action, he eased himself behind another tree, squatted, and watched.

What he saw was disturbing.

Seth watched a moving silhouette. It was no doubt that of a human. But while his heart leapt at the thought of finding Timi, he needed to ensure his brother owned the silhouette. It was not impossible to believe Timi was the heap lying in the mist, the victim of the ever rising and falling hand.