The Creatures Series

Sixth Mist

Sixth MistCreatures of the Mist

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##### Sixth Mist #####

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How are we here?

From a heart’s resentment to an armistice

You who have been fighting this war since the beginning

Don’t you grow weary of this?

The memory lane ends just like that. In an instant, my consciousness snaps awake. It's as if my soul just wandered off and returned to my body suddenly. Like a dream.

The book lies on my tights, closed and not bleeding. Underneath is a blanket, pulled up to my stomach area. I'm in a sitting position on a bed, which I'm starting to remember if this is the one that's in the room I previously woke up after my near-death experience.

Lulu rises from the single sofa to my right, leaving the book he's reading behind. He approaches my side and lays his hand on the book, then starts to poke it immediately as if waiting for it to respond something to him. "It has finished. So, how was it?" I stare at him. "What?"

"It's painful. What kind of a gift is this?" I exclaim in annoyance, almost smashing the book to the floor and shattering it to pieces but held in the intention.

"One of a kind. I already thought that you won't appreciate it at first, but I can assure you that you're going to like it. The book keeps the secret of its previous owners."

"If I keep going, wouldn't my memory be imprinted in it?"

"Only if you want it to," is his reply, before leaning in to plant a kiss on my lips. It's soft and quick, like how he was used to giving me. That's a goodbye kiss, meaning 'See you soon.'

"Magistress, do you know about my species?" Trace asks me carefully that evening, after we have finished his training for today. We are under a wooden pavilion painted with white, in the middle of nowhere with tall dark grasses. His eyes no longer hold carefreeness, but concern and pain. He doesn't talk much about his family, after all.

Simply too unbearable.

I take a sit under the white pavilion. "For a clan that's almost dead, I know quite a lot of it, in fact," I start.

He blinks. "Wait, a clan?"

"Yes. Your species doesn't have a lot of members in it. It's so small, there's only one clan in it, much because no other creatures would like to join them."

"Why? I thought creatures are now more tolerant with other species."

"Well, yes. But when rumors and stories are stronger than beliefs of equality, they are usually corrupted by the negative feeling. It's a really long story to go actually, so you better have a seat."

He sits next to me, silent like an obedient child and listens as I start telling the story that begin all of this.

"The Greymist does not exist until last century, unlike other species that already lived since the beginning of time—that was thousand of light years ago. The Greymist was formed with a marriage from opposite clan members, a Blancort and a Noirmelns. That was the moment when they combined light and darkness in one, creating a new element. That was when a Greymist was born, in possession of powers greater than both clans. He was able to control the mist, woods, sunlight and shadows. The mist followed him everywhere so that when enemies tried to attack, not only they mind that would be clouded. The trees bowed down and respected him. The sunlight would shine upon him even from the darkest point of abyss. And the shadows would tail behind him, in form of twin foxes, whenever he needed help. They were all gives to him, a form of miracle. It was the start of a very beautiful peace between to clans. That was, until the balance was broken.

"There was no record of who started it, but both Blancorts and Noirmelns were accusing each other of wanting to possess the son of mist to themselves and started another cold war. They ended up breaking any contact with each other and started their plan. But the son of mist refuses to bow down and follow rules from anyone, so he fled into the woods alone, with mist covering the entire area. No one had found him every since.

"Ten years later, a female Blancort and a male Noirmelns were kidnapped. They returned safely a year later, with both have no memory of what had happened to them and only found each other for company outside a forest. The mist forest where the son of the mist last seen.

"Suspicions started to rise again after that, and many expecting that he's still alive with a very big purpose of kidnapping them. Some creatures, from both sides, still tried to find him even though it was impossible. The finders that were sent to find them never returned after that. So they stopped the search, even though some finders were filed lost from time to time. But the assumption was proven when he finally showed himself in front of the public twenty years later. He was not alone, though. There are little versions of him then, following behind his footsteps. That was probably what had happened to the kidnapped clans' members."

I pause to take a look at Trace, but he's not even budging. So I continue.

"They introduced themselves as a new clan, The Greymist. They'd cut themselves from both clans, announcing war greater than what the Blancort and Noirmelns ever had. It was something that was ultimately unavoidable, but somehow the three parties decided to just coexist. The Blancort and Noirmelns are still in the cold war even up to this very minute, but it's better than bloodshed. The Greymist had been under the radar since then, never leaving their territory inside the mist forest.

"Though there was one time when their name popped on the center of attention again. It was when the whole clan was eliminated by a swarm of lava monsters. The entire forest was dead, burned to the ground by the lava monsters. And there was no trace left."

He's still no budging.

Silence.

I put my palm on his shoulder. He finally flinches from by touch.

"So I guess that's why you named me Trace, right? Because I'm what's left?" He tries to joke, but his dam of tears is threatening to break.

I pull him to an embrace. "It's okay, Trace, you can cry if you want. No one is here for miles away. And by naming you Trace, I was hoping that you will pass all of these histories. You are their last hope, I believe. So make them proud. You have a chance to make it right, so you have to live on."

He seems to be in deep thoughts suddenly. I wait for him to say something.

"....Live on," he mumbles. "I've heard those words before...."

"It.... could be from your parents," I explain.

"Could be," he echoes lowly. Then suddenly he turns to me. "Magistress, please. I beg you. Try to see what's in my earliest memories. You might find something in me," he begs.

"You want to know about them so badly, don't you?" He nods. "Alright, but not now."

"Why? We are miles away from anyone!" He protests.

I wait a moment to put a finger on my lips before answering, "Not anymore."

Trace is in alert by no time. He's still looking when I confront the intruder.

"Well, look who's here. It's Freddrickson's biggest lap dog, Carvel Blancort." I fold my arms on my chest relaxly.

"If you think that you'll get away in hiding him, then you're wrong."

"And if you think that you can get away from here, then you're dead wrong."

"I've sent message to the elder about this—it doesn't matter if I'm dead."

"I've also put blockers in a thousand miles' radius. So do believe me when I say that your message will never reach him."

"I can still fight," Carvel insists.

I 'tsssk' him. "When will you ever learn?"

From Carvel’s palms, bright lights start to appear as rays. It's not really pure white, though, but a little bit tainted instead. He aims them at me, which I dodge easily. Trace is also well-trained enough to get away from the ray lights, so I don't have to worry about him.

Carvel turns his focus to attack Trace, which is a great mistake. It's one against two. While Carvel's distracted by Trace, I'm able to tangle one tentacle around Carvel’s leg and trip him. He falls down really hard, especially because he's trying to jump earlier to avoid my sneak attack.

"Got'cha!" Trace exclaims in victory, raising his hand up in the air with a rock sign.

"Stay away from him. Let me handle him," I warn Trace.

"Why? It's not he'll do anything again, now that he's flat in the face with dirt," he asks casually while getting closer to him.

"Wait, no—!" I yell at him, but it's too late. He's going to take that chance to lunge at Trace.

Everything happens so fast. I jump in front to cover Trace. Before I can spot Carvel, something—a thousand pieces of something is being thrown at my eyes.

I don't hold back when I screamed loudly in pain. My scream pierces through the wind like a sea monster's cry, so high pitched and eardrums stabbing.

I can't see....

I can't see!

I CAN'T SEE!!!

The palms that I hold to cover my eyes unconsciously are holding my pouring tears. Or is it blood? I just know that it tastes like poison. While at the same time I eventually realize that I've let loose the monsters of shadows within me, allowing them to act out according to the slightest mood of my pain. They're destroying everything—I can hear them. From the distance of my scream, Carvel is struggling to fight the monsters. I can't hear Trace at all, and that's what concerns me the most.

With that realization, I snuck in every single monster that are once trapped in me, making the abandoned field as silent as a cemetery. I stop screaming right at that moment, doesn't feeling any physical pain anymore. The only pain I have is to find Trace uninjured.

My eyes blink. The sand that Carvel threw earlier has burned to nothing. "Trace?" I ask carefully.

There's a silent for a minute before he reply. "Right here." I follow his voice to spot a figure on top of a very high tree. It's so high it even takes time for me to look up and find him up on the thirty-three-storey high branches. I guess the tree helped him climb up there.

"You're alright, right?" I inhale the air, smelling concentrated darkness, light and mist—those that are left of the fight. No rusty metal.

"No," he answers. Good.

"Wait, what?"

"I can't get down."

"Just do it like how you get up, but in the reverse."

"I don't even know how I get here."

"It's fine. It's something you possess—the power. You can do it. Just get down."

"No, I can't. You ever teach me how."

"The method is just like controlling paper. Feel the tree, tell it what you want and you'll be down in a second."

I can hear the sound of branches snapping and leaves falling from above, so think he's trying.

"It's no use. I never did this before. What if I'm not like the son of the mist? What if this is all just happened because I was panicking? I can die at any moment if this branch I'm standing on snaps, too."

"The power is in your genes, there's no way you'll fail."

"But- Gargh!" A way heavier and thicker branch falls from the top, smashing all the branches and leaves below it before smashing the ground.

"Magistress, help!"

"Just use your papers and form a ladder to get down," I tell him.

"I can't move my hands."

"You don't need to use your hands to do it."

"But I've been doing it like—"

He starts to protest but I cut him off by jumping up to the tree. My first jump goes up around ten meters. I summon a small solid black cloud for me to step for my right foot, using it as a base to jump another ten meters again. When I'm starting to slow down, I form another solid stepping smoke for my left foot. I jump high enough this time by using more energy to it, finally high enough to step on the same branch that he's holding his life to with right foot first.

Before I maintain my balance, though, I'm push backwards strongly. The good news is that I didn't fall, having enough time to stab the back of my boots' heels into the branch before it's too late.

"You're here!" Trace exclaims while hugging me tightly. "Took you long enough," he mutters from the line of my neck.

"What the—" In a flash of second, I understand what's going on immediately.

Trace can get down by himself. But he knew that I'll climb up to save him if he can't. So once I got up, he used that moment to lock my body. This pose might look harmless, but he's actually blocking my movement.