2 Of Illuded Omniscience

The cool gloomy fog flows through the eerie midnight forest illuding the once beautiful green scenery into a more malevolent one. I walk past a rose bush which in other circumstances I would have paused to smell, but with the fog getting thicker by the second, I decide I have to keep pushing forward, to avoid harm.

I hear a low growl behind me, but I see nothing that could have made such a noise. I draw my pale rapier, the color of the bright light of a full moon, and ready myself for an ambush. I stand there still as a stone, expecting a strike at any moment, but nothing happened.

I sheathe my sword and turn around to leave the seemingly dangerous area when I hear a rustle behind me, and then it happens… The next thing I know there is a Grey-Hound, a magical werewolf-like creature, on top of me.

I thrash back and forth underneath the hound's grasp, but no matter my struggles I remain hopelessly pinned under the beast's grip. Weak and tired from the poor attempt of a struggle, and certain my end is near, I give up and go limp due to exhaustion.

Suddenly, a quick and brief light engulfs the forest, blinding the beast, and the Grey-Hound yelps like a kicked dog, and retreats into the forest, grasping its eyes as if it is trying to claw them out.

After the Grey-Hound is long gone I look around attempting to identify the source of the light. In the distance I catch the glimpse of a darkly robed figure, looming in the shadows of the forest. Curious to unmask my "savior" I decide to approach the dark figure.

Suddenly the figure swiftly and gracefully pivots away from my direction and, while revealing a lock of ashen white hair, she briskly fades into the forest's depths. In a last-ditch effort to reveal who my savior is, I venture into the forest, blindly trekking deep into the anonymous depths of the forest before me.

Over and over I am whipped and scratched in the face, arms, and legs by thorns and branches, as a venture deeper and deeper into the forest after the girl, but no matter how deep I travel into the forest it seems to be an endless loop of tree, shrub, and bush. Suddenly I sense a presence behind me, then with a sharp and abrupt pain, I pass out collapsing to the ground.

When I regain consciousness, I see a young girl, about my age, with ashen white hair, and deathly pale skin, as if she has never seen the sun in her life. Her right eye is an emotionless dead-pan grey, while her left eye is bright orange. She stares at me with curiosity and her left eye ever so slightly flickers to a hazel-ish color. Positive I am imagining things, I disregard the color change. Suddenly she opens her mouth the speak.

"How are you feeling," She inquires, "I do apologize for the violence, but I couldn't be sure if you were either a friend or a foe." She stares at me while her left eye ever so slowly changes to a pale-ish purple.

"I am doing well, but could you kindly tell me where we are?" I ask rubbing the back of my head, which still hurts from being rendered unconscious by the girl's brutal methods.

"We are in the darkest part of the forest, since it is daylight out, I have to lie low for a while," She states. She looks up at the tops of the lush trees with a sense of longing as if she has never seen the sun, "May I ask you of your name?"

"Well, my name... My name is not something I like to share. It is the only thing I own, and I don't want to entrust it in the hands of one who just knocked me out and dragged me off into the unknown," I state with caution, unwilling to share my name with a stranger, even if they were my savior.

"Well, I assume you are right, well if it makes you feel any better, my name is Omnisce Komoku, and I am cursed," she says, "I can't touch light." She reveals her right hand, and the sight is ghastly, it is black as midnight as if burnt by thousands of volts of light. Her arm is so burnt that it is more scorched bone than flesh. "I can't use my right arm, the muscles have all been cremated. I can't even feel pain throughout my right arm." The sight disturbs me and I nearly reject my insides by just looking at it.

"But aren't you the one who saved me from that Grey-Hound," I ask, "I could have sworn you used light magic to save me?" She looks at me as if I am an incompetent fool.

"You see my right arm? This is what happened after I used my magic to save you," She looks at me as if she was a dog that I just kicked, "I am not as much of a fool to walk into daylight if I know I can't. How else do you think I would scorch my arm?"

"Oh, I am so sorry, I was just curious," I reply, now realizing that it's my fault that her arm is crippled, "I didn't mean any offense." I turn my gaze to her face only to realize her left eye is now a teal-ish color. "By the way, is it just me, or does your left eye change an awful lot?" She looks at me like I am three days too late to a party.

"Well I mean isn't it obvious, my eye changes color depending on my mood if it makes you any happier I am blind in the right eye," she says with a slight pout in her voice. She stands up and starts to walk back into the depths of the forest, "Well it's night so I am going to go hunting, please make sure you are gone before daylight, I don't want to have to kill you." And with that, she is gone.

I decide to get up and head in the opposite direction into the forest. Within minutes I start to recognize the terrain, it is as if I was instantly transported from the unfamiliarity of the cursed girl's camp to the familiar terrain of my home in the forest. Suddenly a strong sense of nausea overwhelms me and I pass out, but not before I see a young child walk from the depths of the forest and approach me.