Page 151 of Monsters in Love: Lost in the Underworld

What the fuck is tha--?

A blinding flash cuts off my thoughts as a deep, freezing blast encompasses us far worse than the touch of the wraith’s shadow form. It is so cold that it feels as if it is blasting me apart into tiny shards only to suddenly be replaced by an inferno of heat drawing everything back together again. Cliffs rise up on either side of us, the lower portions dense with dark trees, the tops of which barely seem to penetrate the heavy fog below that reaches towards us with ghostly fingers.

A portal! We passed through a portal. My thoughts are sluggish but uninhibited by the alarm rushing like a high-speed train through me. Where the fuck did the portal come from?

Then—awareness. It was a trap. The wraith had laid fucking trap and led us straight for it. I would cuss a blue streak if I felt like my lips could move wards and if I hadn’t been distracted by Jugong’s wings crumpling with the shock of the portal as we begin to rapidly lose altitude.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck me!

The arm I was abusing in protest of his grip suddenly doesn’t feel nearly strong enough and I cling to it with a deathlike grip. Although this fall is unlikely to be what is capable of killing either of us, it will still hurt like a bitch and incapacitate us for a dangerous amount of time in the wilderness of the outer reaches. Fortunately, Jogung’s stubbornness is proving invaluable because even as shocked as his system is, he is putting up a hell of a fight to keep us in a controlled drop with weak, rapid flicks of his wings.

His arms tighten slightly as the space between the cliffs narrows into a deep valley plunge. Between rising tree tips and the snaking ropes of mist, red splatters of what appears to be blood stains the rockface in an eerie way that makes my hair prickle on the back of my neck before it disappears completely as we plummet into a white sea of fog.

Somehow,either by luck or Jugong’s superior navigation as he releases sharp cries largely beyond my range of hearing and beats the air with his wings, we manage to avoid the worst of the trees. The landing is still hard, violently tearing me from his grasp. Despite that Jugong manages to twist us at the last moment to absorb most of the impact. It is still enough, however, to knock my breath out of me in a hard wheeze, immediately shocking my etheric body when it fails to respirate energy correctly. I lay there for a long moment, with my eyes closed before rolling slowly to my back. I wince as theundergrowth and rocks poke me and squint over at him in concern.

“Ju-ju, are you okay?” I croak.

He groans in reply and raises one wing and then the other experimentally before finally rolling and flopping heavily to his belly. His head is facing me, however, and his eyes open slowly to give me an annoyed look.

“Foul tricks,” he hisses unhappily. “The wraith tricked us and got away. I hate portals,” he adds with another groan as his long, tufted tail twitches like an angry kitten.

“I don’t think he got away,” I mumble in reply as I sit up, my hand going instinctively to my head as a sharp pain pierces it. Every inch of me hurts, it is only knowing that it could have been much worse that has me powering through it to push myself slowly, and unsteadily, to my feet. “He led us here on purpose. That means it is for a reason—there is something he wants us to see. He won’t have gone far from here.”

Jugong makes a disgruntled sound of agreement as he slowly pushes himself to a seated position. I am practically yanked against his broad chest as he pulls me over and begins to nervously inspect me. I tolerate his sniffing at my head and his hand quickly running over me for a few minutes before I sidestep from his grasp with a short giggle. Although the pat of his hands is warm and comforting, the sniffing never fails to tickle just a little.

“I’m okay,” I reassure him.

My gaze skims over him and I am relieved to see that his wings are whole. Although torn wings would mend in time, a flightless Giwung is a panicked and paranoid Giwung. Becauseof this, I am not the least surprised when he proceeds to meticulously inspect his wings. He would bear a broken limb without complaint, but the smallest damage to his wings could potentially threaten his life. Perhaps both of our lives given our surroundings.

I glance around uneasily. Although trees tower overhead, the ragged sides of the cliffside are far more up close and personal than I like, the pale yellow-green stone gleaming with the red pigment staining it. It definitely still looks like blood as close as I am as if the trees themselves are bleeding. I slowly tip my head back as my gaze rises and I shiver in response to the shadowy shapes taking form within the fog. Corpses sway above me. Although it is just an illusion made by the dead as they are caught in that endless loop of suffering, it still has the appearance of numerous bodies hanging from ropes among the branches of the trees. Hundreds, maybe thousands of bodies stretching out ahead and behind us for miles. It is not the wind moaning between the rocks and trees, but numerous voices moaning and sighing together, each one distinct and layered upon the others.

I swallow thickly, a shiver rushing through me. “That Lamentari forest… what did you say it was again?”

“Forest of sorrows,” he replies distractedly. “It is haunted by those who died in great sorrow that they cannot move beyond it. It is inhabited by many terrible eaters of the dead that enjoy consuming their oozing energy dripping from them in bloody rivers and regenerating fleshy bits.”

“Right,” I mumble as I instinctively take an uneasy step back as a new trickle of blood spills off of a large leaf nearby. I make a desperate attempt at taking a steadying breath and nearly choke on it. “Well, good news is I think I know where we are at.”

The way he freezes would almost be comical if I wasn’t slightly panicking now. From the corner of my eye, I see his head turn toward me and then slowly tip back as if following my line of vision. His snarl of dismay, however, as he whips his head around to peer at our surroundings, I can feel straight down to whatever passes as bones in my current existence.

“That idiot wraith. He dumped us in the middle of the Lamentari Forest and through a portal no less—my wings will not work right for hours yet!” he announces with disgust as he gets to his feet and folds his wings carefully around him, the wing claws clasping over his chest. “This does not bode well. More fools become lost in these woods than not.”

I shake my head. “I don’t think we are lost, precisely. Lost suggests an unknown randomness factoring in location. I do not think that this place was chosen randomly. Whatever Nygohl is up to, it is clearly intentional.”

“Then we find him and beat the directions out of him,” Jugong replies sourly. “I am certain that I may even conveniently forget for a space of time how much I dislike the taste of wraith if he resists.”

My lips briefly tip in amusement, not believing for a moment that he would sacrifice his own tastebuds to actually eat the wraith. Bite a chunk off him as a warning—yes. Eat him—not a chance. And that is only if we can find him.

I turn slowly, my eyes gradually dragging away from the swaying forms and their gaping mouths and pleading eyes directed sightlessly towards me and drifting back to the rocks. Blood is running over them in continuous streams, but there are some places where the blood seems smeared beyond its usual path. Tipping my head with curiosity, I step closer to the nearestrock and lean forward to peer at the blood, my fingers rising to trace in the air over the patterns I see there.

“Interesting,” I murmur.

It seems as if the blood in these places is streaked as if fingers were drawn through it by someone touching the rocks of the cliff as they walked in a specific direction in the woods. My gaze lands on the nearest tree and notice a trace of the streak there as well as its dark bark. The next tree beside it bears a similar stain, marking a distinctive trail disappearing into the fog. I eye it for a long moment, considering my options.

We could always just stay put until Jugong’s wings recover and then get an aerial view of a possible way out of the Lamentari Forest. Chances are that we will even get more lost, however, since the outer reaches have never been mapped, are of an unspeakable size to my understanding, and there is no knowing how big this forest specifically even is.

Waiting can also have some rather unfortunate repercussions if the predators lurking here realize that there is something tasty and new dumped into their woods.

The other option is to follow the trail and hope that it leads to the wraith. That is not any more appealing as it is likely a trap. Unfortunately, it is also the only option that seems even remotely viable.

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