Cursed

1. The Best Adventures Are The Least Expected-5

Another moan told him this wasn't the only criptos sniffing for the heat flowing from his shaking body. Another criptos flew forward, a skeletal hand clutching a blade looking more like a sharpened stick than anything else. Double-edged, crooked, and dripping with blood-like tar, the swords unhinged from the creature's scabbards.

The movement of his own sword snapping from its sheath delivered a quake down Aldor's neck and bubbled down the rest of his spine. He scooted backward, unable to believe that Jon wasn't after them—it was these demons all along.

Any vapors of hope or courage evaporated from his body when the phantoms lunged in unison. Aldor swerved to avoid them, his arms tearing his stingy sword through the air with automatic speed like he had done so many times while practicing with Jon. The cripti emitted several screeches, demented wails snaking up to chew at Aldor's eardrums. He cringed, vision clouding as the windows to his soul almost slammed shut, frosted over. He blinked away the horror, rearing back to avoid a swipe from a laced dagger.

There was nothing to do but keep moving. Chest heaving relentlessly, he hugged the trees to use the landscape to his advantage, rich adrenaline sucking the panic away and allowing him to move with the speed of a viper. He lashed out his sword, nothing compared to the vile knives of the ghosts trying to take his head off— no, cripti didn't eat people, they killed for the pleasure of it.

The light hit the ground only when a criptos's sword drove into Aldor's body. The torch extinguished on the spot when it collided with soiled earth, the world drenched with water and now blood. Flecks of red spittle smacked the nearby brush, accompanied by a fitting scream of agony. Aldor's eyes rolled, gasping, at first unsure of where the noise was coming from until he realized his mouth was open—the wail was his own.

Unfathomable warmth charred his flesh, reverberating from the slice in his shoulder and echoing throughout the rest of his body. His breathing came in short gasps and moans here and there, staring helplessly at the damage. The wound was stained dark from the criptos venom, and already he felt its power drilling down the passages in his hunched figure.

The cripti didn't linger—they knew their job was complete at the scream, best not waste any more energy on this weakling when they had other lives to extinguish. Aldor watched them go, hands wet with blood, as he clutched his shoulder. He pressed up against a tree to his back and slid down to the ground. He squatted, thoughts foggy. Glen, Jon, and Tempest would never know how he died. He just disappeared one night never to return. His mouth opened on its own, panting like a sick dog. The sudden urge to throw up everything inside his rotting physic burned at the back of his brain. Might as well call his body a corpse now—he probably had an hour or two left to live.

A shiver ran down his neck, the veins around the gash bulging cobalt. Noises became warbled and just a buzzing of random sound on the brink of distant reality. Something warm and sticky burst under his teeth—his tongue was a slop of copper now, the hot, scathing liquid oozing down the back of his throat. Skin moist with sweat, he closed his eyes, unaware that he started rocking back and forth. The forest churned, the entire woodland floor spinning in a mesh of color, fading into black.