falling apart now

*Laeta*

What once was a peaceful place — a beautiful waterfall brimming with fresh water, crisp foliage, and a calm atmosphere — became plagued with the recent hell that had overgrown upon the land. Auster was infected. Infected with strange, glowing mushrooms that cropped up wherever there was moisture, and sometimes where there was none. Massive, looming crystals threatened to slice one’s paws when they cropped up low to the ground, or bump their heads, reaching taller than they were wide. Everything was getting bigger, stronger, polluting the landscape that once seemed so familiar. Worst of all, whatever those fireflies were that Laeta encountered had given her something. What it was, she didn’t know. In this state, she could barely recall a fragment of a rational, sentient thought. Either way, it was eternally nighttime, and the woman feverishly wandered away from the pack territory to embark on an irrational, ill-advised mission - but to her in her current state, it was completely sensical. Sensible. Made sense? Yes.

It all started with the tickling in the woman’s ear after a soured encounter with those pests of fireflies, the ones that clustered in blue flickers and mocked her with the whispers of words unknown. Then, the oozing began. At first, the woman observed drops of bright, glowing ooze of various colors — a sickly, bright yellow, then pink, but mostly a blue that matched the fireflies themselves — trickled thickly from her nose. She panicked, and headed towards the castle the Hallows had called home, and she barely remembered collapsing in her room. The rest was a blur — wasn’t she on a mission to find her mom? That’s right, she thought, woozily padding forward. Or was she backward? She frowned. Her mom was going to be so upset that she hadn’t found her yet. Ooze from her eyes blocked her vision, and her sense of smell was dampened as it clogged her nostrils. Her mouth was constantly leaking with the slimey stuff that speaking and eating were difficult, and she often had to stop and regurgitate the fluid when it amassed in her esophagus. Her hearing wasn’t faring much better, the sickly fluid having engorged her ear canals to the point where it not only drippled thickly down her face like her other senses, but it also made them ache quite a bit. She was walking blind, deaf, and scentless. Maybe it was a blessing her senses were so horribly muffled, otherwise her sudden and irrational fear of the dark would have crushed her much earlier in this strange journey.

Having been stumbling about, she realized she didn’t even recognize where she was. She blinked, or attempted to, as the ooze had congealed to the point where her eyelids couldn’t completely close. With one paw, the erratic and uncoordinated woman attempted to wipe away the florescent snot for what seemed to be the tenth time - or was it a hundred? - before her limbs buckled beneath her. She crumpled into a ball, her thoughts jumbled about as much as her head from the sudden impact. Where was she again? Did she just wipe her eyes? The bright fluid pooled beneath her as she laid there in stark confusion, squinting at the malevolent obsidian heavens above her through the gnarled trees. Her fur was slicked with the stuff, too, creating uneven cowlicks of tufts that cropped up at random on her neck and chest, but not that she cared. Her normally beight alabaster markings were marred with the colorful liquid, making them glow in disturbing, unnatural hues. With a cough and a gurgle as more ooze dribbled from her mouth, she gasped and pushed herself back onto her feet, albeit unsteadily, and continued forward. Well, not entirely - she now stumbled limply in the completely opposite direction.

The waterfall’s roar penetrated even the woman’s gunked up ears, and upon hearing it (and attempting to scent out the waterfall, which only resulted in a mucus-filled snort), she shifted her wobbly legs in an attempt to walk towards it. Her ruby gaze, normally clear and salmon in color, was infected with ooze to the point where her irises resembled something of an oil slick, and it was hard to see. Everything was blurred. Her brain - erratic, jumpy, and addled, observed the rushing water for a few moments, her breath hithced in her throat as the ooze to flow down her face and drip on her paws. She came to this place because nobody was watching. Nobody could find her. The pack seemed like they wanted to hurt her, too - their eyes were watching in the castle, and she had convinced herself that they could even read her thoughts word for word. They had bad plans. Bad plans. Very bad. So, of course, her mind suggested she find her mom by following her sixth sense, a thought that infected her like an ooze-filled parasite since she stumbled from the Hallows grounds.

"Momma?" The sick woman cried out into the darkness. A sudden awareness of how terribly shadowed and frightening this place was overcame her as she spoke, the ooze forcing her to cough as it congealed in her throat as well. She tried to call again, her poisoned mind convincing her, over and over, that they would find her, catch her, watch her. Their eyes followed her here, oh gods..they knew where she was. Her mom needed to come out now and protect her. That’s what moms did, right?

Right?

Tears - well, more like glowing, thick fluid - dribbled down from her oil-slicked orbs as sobs of pure terror erupted from her fluid-filled throat and maw. She needed her mom here..she needed her now. Her limbs shaking, she cried as loudly as a pup who was lost in the woods. In a sense, in her sick state, she technically was not much more than that.

"Momma! Please!" She croaked out hoarsely. Horrific thoughts danced in her head, scattered like ants. They’re here. They’re coming. They know. You’re done. Done. DONE. The fireflies ate your brain already. Home is not here.

With a thick sniff, Lae choked, "I forgive you for what you said..when I left the pack..our family..I don’t hate you..you did what was best for me.." She trembled like a lamb, forcing her body to crumple back onto the earth. The spray of the waterfall cooled her warm pelt, but did little to actually soothe her. Where did her mom go? Wasn’t she supposed to be here? She sobbed, feeling nothing but the ooze flowing down her face in thick, goopy streams, and the grass tickling her other side. The dark was going to swallow her alive, wasn’t it? And the pack..well, she had searched for her mom..they wouldn’t like that..she felt what remennants of rationality slip away, much like the fireflies that drifted off in blue-pulsing silence. She laid there, motionless, letting this plague consume her as she let out nothing more than a gurgle from the ooze that leaked from her charcoal lips.

WORD COUNT; 1,174

"Speech"

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