Crowned 2 - left to die.

 

CHAPTER 2

 

“Mhm…arrgh…”

Elvira’s eyes blinked in an attempt to open. The sudden light was blinding so she placed a hand over her eyes. The action birthed instant regret as a goop of mud landed on her face. Her left hand stung and the pain shot through her entire arm.

“Arff-argh-thoo-thoo!”

Elvira spat the gross wetness from her mouth and forced herself to get up. She opened her eyes and confirmed her surroundings to be the Humid Linch forest in the East. Her torso was soaked in mud and quite possibly Linch dung, she guessed from the stench of it. Her head and feet were relatively dry, covered only in dirt and moss.

She grimaced as she looked around to spot a giant tree with a hollow bark behind her.

“Ha--!” Elvira scoffed, “How kind of them to provide me with a new home,” she scoffed again, exasperation dripping off her frowning face. “In a Linch forest, no less, three towns away from home!” she grumbled to herself as she stood up.

All she had on was the white ceremonial dress and the excuse of a tree-house. “Not a single penny, nothing, pfft,” Elvira spat again, blowing the mud off her lips. She looked around at the short bushes, prickly vines, blue berries and lilac flowers around her.

“Perfect place they picked,” she snorted, “Not a single thing that isn’t poisonous! Well, the mud isn’t, yet—but who knows?!” she exclaimed to the bushes and the bees, whosoever was listening.

Linches were giant creatures with cylindrical body shapes and an inflated middle abdomen. They were characteristic for their more-than-a-thousand mini tentacle-like feet which possessed enough suction to suck the living juice out of anything that came in contact with it. They thrived on Purbush Berries and their poison, which made their skin equally venomous. They had a soft sheen of hair over their skin, both of which were lethal.

“One touch and you’re dead,” Elvira giggled to herself. “What am I supposed to do now?” she grinned at the flowers. “Why am I behaving like this?” she giggled again, “Zinna must have given me a big boost. Ahahahahaha.”

She stopped talking and her face fell. Carefully, Elvira got up. Her stiff limbs ached with every step she took towards the hollow tree-trunk. Only to find it empty and narrow enough to only let her stand and move her arms.

“What was I expecting even…?”

She picked up a thick branch from the foot of the tree and inspected it. Though, before she could draw a conclusion—her ears picked up the subtle rustling of mud and leaves. Her academy teacher’s words resonated in her head. She remembered her class, the small muddy glass bowl everyone was given and the angry little Linch inside it.

“Linches want to be as stealthy as snakes but the sheer number of their so-called feet affects their mobility, quite a lot. Remember to never come in direct skin contact with a Linch or you will die before you could even call for death. Now, you see that thin membrane below its head and over its body? That is the only weak point of a Linch. This right here—hey! Pay attention! This, this is the vessel that can burst—”

The crawling closed in.

Goosebumps travelled all over Elvira’s body.

She struck the stick against the bark of the tree and created a, albeit weak, lance for herself.

“Distance, distance, I must maintain distance…”

She looked around in order to determine the direction of its location. Her left hand was still covered in mud, which was seeping through the open gashes from last night. If Elvira did not find a water source as soon as possible—she would have to lose a hand.

She needed to escape fast but the only way out of the Linch Forest of the East was the Linch cliff. Beyond it, Elvira closed her eyes to imagine the world map, “Come on…what’s beyond Linch Cliff? I know there’s Amoris Town but what’s in between? Forest? What forest? Marshes?”

Leaves rustled.

Elvira put her right leg out and leaned slightly, readying the makeshift lance.

“What am I doing…I should be running away?” she mumbled to herself, head jerking per second in all four directions, “But mother did not raise a quitter…” she whispered, subconsciously enough.

Then, Elvira grimaced, halted her fighting stance and got back into talking position, as if explaining to herself, “No girl, mother raised no one.”

The words were confirmation enough for Elvira to nod and shrug. “True that,” she mumbled.

“Are…you talking to yourself?”

“AAAAAHHH!” Elvira screamed, jumped to switch her stance, slipped over a wet leaf and fell face-first into the mud-dung puddle again.

“Woah, woah, easy there!”

Elvira jolted to a stand, her wooden lance wielded as a sword. She looked around only to find a Linch nearing her.

“AAAAH WHY ARE YOU TALKING?!”

“What do you mean talking?” the creature stopped and stared at Elvira with big beady eyes.

“This—words, what?! I am talking to a CREATURE! Bug-Insect Creature—Linchs cannot talk!” Elvira shouted and grabbed the end of the wood lance with both of her hands.

“Oh! come on, sweets, all creatures talk!”

Elvira grimaced. Her brows mushed, eyes crinkled, nostrils flared and lips flattened to a line.

“Please do not call me sweets,” Elvira gagged, “Knowing that you could literally consume me any moment does not help your case.”

“But mages are desserts,” the Linch replied in a matter-of-fact-tone. It began crawling again.

“The Linchs I saw in class did not talk! You cannot talk! I’ve never read about it!” Elvira exclaimed, backing off into more mud puddles.

“Way to deny reality and awful that you’re getting reality checks from the lowest ranked creature out there…but yes, all creatures, who are naturally bred, can talk.”

“Wow…this is a real low for me.” Elvira dragged out in a breath.

“But hopefully a pleasant meal for me!” the creature exclaimed and pounced at its prey.

“NOO! I WON’T DIE BEING YOUR FOOD!”

Elvira shouted and ran all the way back into the hollow tree.

“Why run when you cannot hide, sweets?” the Linch sang. It had a deep voice with a resounding baritone to it.

“Come on, think about it…what was the weak point of Linchs? We covered it last year, I should remember this…”

The creepy crawling neared with every second Elvira spent thinking. The hollow was small enough for someone with Elvira’s lanky limbs to hide.

“Come out, sweets!”

Suddenly, its forebody was grasping at the edge of Elvira’s skirt, pulling it outside. Its middle abdomen was too big to enter the hollow so it resorted to dragging Elvira out.

Though, his tugs snapped just the right memory.

When the creature recoiled with every pull, the thin membrane hidden between his forebody and middle abdomen would show up.

“Just a little touch would be enough!” the creature sang.

“Just a little touch, yes,” Elvira sang back and stabbed the wooden lance right into his weak-spot.

Mauve fluid oozed out as the creature burst open, its body scattering around the forest floor in hundreds of bite-sized pieces.

“Argh…gross!” Elvira moaned as she placed the wood lance right before the edge of the cloth that Linch had died grasping. Then, she pulled her dress from behind it. What could have been a perfect horizontal tear suddenly ran all the way up to her waist, vertically.

Elvira yelped as she let go of the fabric before it could cross all of her thigh. Though, instead of catching a glance of her pale skin, Elvira spotted a piece of paper taped over her right thigh. She ripped it off, owing to surprise—and instantly regretted it because of the pain.

The paper read: Meet me at Dowdry Lane, FX83551

“Huh? 83551? Zinna? It’s her handwriting.”

Elvira mumbled as she stepped out of the hollow. As if on cue, a blob of mauve fluid dropped from the tree and drenched her in Linch blood.

“Arrghhh, CoMe On!” Elvira stomped as she marched out with the stick in one hand and the paper in another, her white dress-skirt now flailing like a flag of defeat. She tried to wipe the fluid off of her but the more it came in contact with its kind, the more it kept sticking into each other.

“There was something about these…the Linch blood…I remember…what was it?”

She marched past a cluster of dense Purbush Berries.

“Umm…it isn’t deathly, I know that, but…”

She turned back after reaching a rock wall. The deeper she walked into the forest, the more it rustled, as if trying to communicate with her presence.

“What was it?”

Beady eyes glinted behind a tree as they caught the sun.

“Where even is Dowdry Lane? Is it in a town? A city? Who stuck the note?”

Leaves rustled behind her, as if crunching notes of doom in her behest.

“Note? Oh! I remember!” Elvira’s face perked up, “It was in the upper left side of the textbook, in a yellow box reading note to remember! Linch blood attracts other Linchs and in mourning they consume the remanent of the dead Linch in order to immortalise the memory of the lost!” she clapped.

“Well done, sweets.” Another deep voice complimented.

The non-existent colour drained from Elvira’s being. Hair stood up on her face as her eyes widened in the horror the realisation had created.

Elvira did not turn.

Elvira bloody ran.