Requiem Run

“Wake up…”

The darkness was suffocating.

“You have to wake up… you’re not dead yet…”

That couldn’t be, I had fallen so far. There was no doubt, I was dead and gone.

“Open your damned eyes already!”

Everything ached. My arms, my legs, my chest, even my eyelids when I opened them to the sun beating down hard on me with harsh, unrelenting heat, only blocked out by the trees above me. It took me a moment to realize that I was looking at something other than those tree tops. Rather, I was looking at someone.

There was a woman leaning over me with a worried expression on her face. Her skin was super pale, almost as white as milk, and her hair was white as well, but not stringy as if she were old. Her eyes were exactly like mine, mint green, and she was wearing a white, flowing dress.

“Are you an angel?” I asked.

“No.” said the woman, “I’m a snow elf. Get up already, you’re going to die of exposure if you don’t start moving.”

I took a moment to register her words, and it all came back to me what I had just gone through. Somehow, against all odds, I had survived the fall from the cliff above.

With that revelation, all the aches and pains started coming into focus with a vengeance. My throat burned with dryness and I felt as though I had been punched a dozen or so times all over my body. My left arm was throbbing with a different type of pain; dull and numb.

When I turned to look at my arm, grimacing at the stiffness in my neck, I realized why I was so numb in that area. To my horror, my arm had been impaled on a branch attached to a fallen log.

“Oh god, oh god, oh god…” I mumbled as I tried to move my impaled arm, which resulted in a shot of pain through my body so bad that I choked out a half-scream and froze entirely.

“Don’t move too much!” the woman in white said, “You’re going to have to… save your strength for what you’re going to have to do.”

“And what is that supposed to be?” I asked, choking the words out of my dry as hell throat.

“Look, you can’t get your arm out of that situation without some serious damage,” said the woman, “Rip if free as quickly as possible, and you’ll save yourself some pain in the process.”

“Like a bandage… like a bandage… like a bandage…” I started whispering to myself. It was the only way to psyche myself up for what I was about to do to myself. Just as I whispered to myself again, I pulled my arm with all of my might so I could just get it over with quickly.

The pain was white-hot in an instant, like I had just set myself on fire. I think I screamed, I wasn’t sure for a while until the pain finally subsided and I was able to function once more.

“That hurt.” I croaked as I rolled over and struggled onto my knees, “Can you help me up?”

“Sure.” the woman in white said as she stepped over to me and went to take my hand.

Her hand phased straight through mine. My mind couldn’t comprehend what had happened, and I guess she was in the same position, so the two of us just stared for a moment before she tried again. The same thing happened.

“What the hell?!” I said as I looked up at the woman, and that was when I noticed something I hadn’t registered before; the woman was a bit translucent, and the sun was shining right on through her to prove it.

“Are you a… ghost or something?” I asked, shocked that I could even say it with a straight face. the woman seemed to realize something, and looked down at herself.

“I suppose I am,” said the woman as she looked back up at me, then pointed at me, “You’re wearing my necklace! Where did you get that?”

I looked down at the locket that was, somehow, indeed still around my neck even after the beating I had just gone through.

“This is yours?” I asked as I cradled the thing in my hand, “It was slipped into my room on my first night here, though I don’t know who did it.”

“I think… I must have placed my soul into that locket,” said the woman, “So when you put it on, it fused our souls over time, so now you can see me, we’ve gotten to that point.”

“Huh…” When I thought about what she had said, it made sense in a completely crazy way. The idea that someone from this crazy world was fusing with my soul and mind would explain how for the past few days, I was aware of information about Xeastea that I had no business knowing, like the tree types or seasons. Of course, that just made the whole thing ten times scarier.

“Looks like we’re stuck together, for now,” said the woman, bringing me out of my thoughts, “If our souls are combined, that means you can see me, but no one else can unless we will it to be. If we talk, it’ll just look like you’re staring off into space and not saying anything.”

“That’s not weird at all.” I said. It still hurt to talk and I was stuck on my knee, trying to will myself to get back up. The woman looked like she really wanted to help me, so I figured I might as well distract her for the moment.

“What’s your name?” I asked, “If you’re gonna be sticking around for a while, I’d like to know what your name is.”

“Oh!” said the woman, as if she just realized, “A thousand pardons. My name is Springbraid Felice.”

“That’s a cool name.” I said. She smiled, and if she were fully corporeal, then I would swear she was blushing.

“Thank you,” the woman said, “Usually, we snow elves would go by our legacy names, but since we’re, quite literally, closer than that, you can call me by my gifted name, Felice.”

“Sounds good Felice.” I said, “My name’s Riley Newman, and you can just call me Riley.”

“I like your name too,” said Felice, “It sounds so foreign!”

I cracked a grin at the idea of my name being unique. With that, I finally found the strength to push myself up onto my feet.

As soon as my right foot touched the ground, an explosion of pain shot through me and I found myself right back on the ground, grunting and shrieking in pain.

“Riley!” Felice said, down by my side in an instant, though she still couldn’t touch me, “What happened?!”

“It’s… my ankle, I think…” I said as I gingerly touched it and sent more pain up from the area, “I must have sprain it, or broken it or something, I don’t know!”

“Getting hysterical is not going to get you out of here,” said Felice, “Take as long as you need to prepare yourself to try again.”

Felice seemed distant to my pain, but I wasn’t focusing on her anymore. Something else had occurred to me, something that caused my blood to run cold.

“How long was I out?” I asked, “The sun wasn’t in the position it is now.”

“I came back into this world quite some time ago,” said Felice, “You have been out for roughly twelve hours from then.”

“T-twelve hours?!” I spat out as my heart came to a complete stop. Twelve hours - possibly longer - meant that the seven-hour gap between us girls being thrown into this hell, and the killers coming after us, was long over, and the longer I stayed in one location, the more danger I was putting myself in.

“I need to move, I need to move…” I repeated myself more and more, trying to will myself back up. It seemed to work as I managed to get back into the same kneeling position I had been in before.

“You’re doing great! Just a little more!” said Felice. I burned her words of encouragement into my mind, took a deep breath, put all of my weight on my left foot, finally making it up to my feet with only a little wobbliness. I hobbled a couple of steps forward, moving roughly an inch from where I had started.

“Progress!” said Felice, clapping her hands together. I smiled through the pain and kept hobbling. Felice was by my side, floating slightly in the air, probably the closest she could get to helping me along. For some reason, Felice’s presence motivated me to keep going, and I made my way away from the side of the waterfall and river into the trees.

I took great care to keep as much of my own weight off my ankle but despite that, everything was aches and pain, not to mention having to make sure I didn’t trip over any roots or brush on the ground, since the last thing I needed was a comical faceplant when I was already hurting like hell.

“Where can I even go from here…?” I asked to both Felice and myself, “Where could the others even be?”

“What is even going on?” Felice asked, “I manifested into this world while you were all banged up and unconscious, so how did you get into that position to begin with?”

“I tried to save one of the other maidens, and that was nearly the death of me,” I said, “She probably thinks I’m dead now.”

“Maiden? Huh?” Felice seemed completely dumbfounded by what I was saying.

“You know, us girls the Runners are designated to kill!” I said, “The Requiem Run? Anything coming to mind?”

Felice shrugged and asked, “Who are these ‘Runners’ that are trying to kill you?”

“Uh… Kydro Crollet, Xelsa Polimtal, Killian Renwick, and Saulon Zappiel.” It took me a moment to remember all of their names, but I managed to get them all out. When I said each name, it was like Felice’s eyes widened even bigger and bigger, until they looked like they were about to pop out of her head.

“I suppose these names ring a bell or two?” I asked as I grabbed a low tree branch and took a moment to rest before my long walk would continue. Felice seemed shell-shocked and unresponsive.

“Hello? Felice?” I said, waving my good hand in front of her, “You okay?”

“Yes, yes I am,” said Felice, “I just… needed a moment.”

“Take your time.” I said as I pushed away from the tree with a grunt and continued my painful journey through the woods, “It’s not like those assholes could be anywhere, ready to kill me.”

Felice disappeared from my side, for what reason I wasn’t sure of, and I continued my debilitating walk through the woods. The pain throughout my body increased from my constant movements, and then a root I didn’t see in time caused me to collapse and let out a scream of agony.

“Someone… help me…” I could only whisper it since I was well-aware that no one was coming. Tears were stinging in my eyes and dripping down my cheeks, I was thirsty and hungry, half my body was broken, the other half was aching and stiff, and all I wanted to do was wake up from this horrible nightmare.

A clearing up ahead was tempting me to rest. Lying down and resting, just for a minute, was something my body screamed for. On the other hand, I had a pretty good feeling if I tried to rest, I wouldn’t get up and just let exposure take me out. I still made my way towards it, regardless.

The clearing put some warm air on my face, which was good, but also blew air into my open wounds, which was not as good.

I stood in the clearing, practically hopping on one foot and cradling my own limp arm in my other arm, wondering what the hell I could do from here. No matter where I went, I didn’t know where the other girls were, nor where the Runners were, and that last one was what I was truly worried about.

“What will they do to you?” Felice asked, suddenly appearing next to me.

“Kill me in various horrible ways,” I said, “Probably do awful things to my corpse afterwards too.”

Felice shuddered and looked visibly alarmed. I shared that expression when I heard any noises, like a bush rustling, or a tree branch breaking. Every single noise drove my paranoia into overdrive and send a round of adrenaline.

“What exactly are you looking for?” Felice asked.

“Anything that’s looking to kill me,” I said, “Besides that, some of the other girls might still be alive!”

“Hello? Who is that?”

I froze when that voice pierced the otherwise silent woods. I couldn’t will my body to move, thought my mind was screaming for me to do so. My breathing got quicker, and I started shaking, sending small shots of pain through my arm and ankle.

The bushes to my left started rusting as though someone was walking through them. I remained still, like a deer in the headlights.

Then, the voice of an angel broke through the silence.

“Riley?! Is that you?!” Katie yelled as she pushed through the last of the bush and froze dead in her tracks when we made eye contact. To my utter shock, Katie’s right arm stopped at the elbow now; it took me a moment to comprehend that she no longer had a full arm. Of course, that melted away when she rushed forward and embraced me. I hugged her back with my good arm as another girl stepped out from the bush, the big girl with the long name, Emma something.

“Katie, what the hell happened to your arm?!” I said, motioning to the elbow stump.

Katie smiled down at it and said, “Oh, Kydro lopped it off when he cornered me and I tried to fight him off. If it weren’t for Zapp finding me, I would’ve bled out! He cauterized the whole thing, check it out!”

Katie stuck out the stump to me, sure enough the end of the stump was burned to a crisp. It was so disturbing, but I couldn’t look away from it.

“What happened?” I asked, my dry throat making it hard to talk, “Where are the other girls? How long was I out?”

“The Runners have been released, as I’m sure you’ve figured out thanks to my arm,” said Katie, still waving her stump around, “I think the other two girls are dead, so it’s just you, me, and Emma here.”

Katie motioned to the other girl when she said that, who just looked at me with a blank furrowed expression.

“Well, I’m glad the two of you are okay.” I said, “Wait, isn’t she from Russia or something? Can she understand us?”

“A little bit,” said Katie, turning to Emma, “She’s got some English down, but she mostly speaks Russian. She’s got her name, our names, kinda - “

“Kayte, Rile.” Emma said, motioning to Katie then I.

“Close enough.” I said.

“She’s also got a couple simple words down,” said Katie, “Probably enough that we could make something work.”

“Well then,” I said, “What do we do now?”

“Well, we should find somewhere where we can fix up that arm of yours,” said Katie, “Jesus, what happened to it?”

“Impaled by a branch,” I said, “I had to rip it free.”

“Damn,” said Katie, “That looks like hell.”

“It feels like hell,” I said, “I can barely move it. My ankle’s busted up too.”

“You need to be carried?” Katie asked, “Emma could probably lift you over her shoulder if she needed to.”

“Nah, I can still move on my own,” I said, “Some support and we can go a little faster.”

Emma stepped over to me and put my arm around her shoulder, helping me move as we started walking through the woods.

“Katie,” I croaked, “How did you get away from Kydro if he chopped your arm off?”

“So, I thought I was dead,” said Katie, “I mean, the bastard had me dead to rights, but then Emma came in with this huge tree branch - the thing was like, double the size of my thigh, I swear - and he wallops the guy in the head and knocked him right down. Emma here is the reason I’m still alive right now. Then we ran into Zappy, and I thought we were dead, but he just cauterized my stump and vanished. I guess he likes us or something.”

Emma had no response or facial expression change - I doubted she had any idea what we were talking about - though she practically carried me over a thick fallen tree.

“So where are we even going?” I asked, “Do you even have a plan right now?”

“Not in the slightest,” said Katie, “If I’m being honest, I lost the plot after you fell off that cliff, especially since that map of yours went right down with you.”

“Oh... yeah.” I moved my hand to get to the map, but Katie shook her head.

“Let’s see if we can patch you up before we try looking for those temples,” said Katie, “You look like you’re going to catch an infection, if you haven’t already.”

My lungs started burning and I dry-heaved, as if my own body was agreeing with Katie’s assessment. The pain had gone from being hot and burning to dull and throbbing, but either way, it was still there, and I would have preferred it to not be there.

A cracking sound brought me out of my pain-induced stupor. Emma and Katie froze as well, looking around to see who made the sound. My heart started going a mile a minute.

“We need to start moving,” I said quietly, “Like, now.”

“Agreed.” said Katie, “Move!”

Before I even realized what was happening, Emma scooped me up bridal style and started carrying me next to Katie, running through the woods as the sounds of someone chasing us got worse and worse.

“Wha… what’s going on…?!” My heart was beating fast and it was getting harder to breathe. I squirmed a little, but a squeeze from Emma stopped me from continuing, reminding me what was going on.

“Left!” Katie yelled. She and Emma scrambled to the left just as a dark shape rushed through the trees where we had been. I shrieked as the three of us kept running and the noises of being followed got worse and worse. My heart was racing as the trees started blurring together, like I was going to pass out. Suddenly, everything went black.