The carriage, now a grotesque parody of safety, crept along the path, then veered sharply left. Before them, the road dissolved into a sheer, unforgiving edge.
"Wow… Easy now…" The left stagecoach cantered his horse, its slow, measured clopping echoing the mounting dread.
"Damn, we should just turn back now," the right stagecoach muttered, casting a desperate glance at the receding path.
"The air here feels too thick." His nose flared, as if battling an unseen, viscous force clawing at his nostrils, seeking ingress to his very lungs.
"It's already too late, not enough room to even turn or do anything," the left driver replied, his hand trembling as it gripped the reins, a solitary bead of sweat, defying gravity, ascending from his cheek, unnoticed.
"Only to keep moving forward." He drummed his fingers on the reins.
"Hmm…" The right stagecoach simply looked at the left, his head bowed, a hum of doubt resonating. For a fleeting second, he felt an unsettling presence, as if his own eyes were watching him from behind.
Why do I feel like my own eyes are watching me?
He scratched the back of his neck, blinking rapidly, desperately trying to steady himself.
Within the rattling confines of the carriage, Jorel sat, his gaze fixed on the window, his mind a whirlwind of bitter thought.
Those bandits…
I don't even know why they were allowed to prance around as part of the government.
They just showed their ungrateful true selves.
He scoffed.
Now look at what happened, my uncle is probably dead, and it's definitely going to involve my clan.
Won't even relax and have enough time to spend with Zara when I get back home.
He turned his head up, staring at the corroded ceiling.
I even wonder how she's doing…
A faint smile touched his lips, conjuring the image of a young girl: long red hair, a smooth face, and eyes like a cat's, holding a singular, haunting beauty.
That's true beauty…
He sighed, returning his gaze to the window.
In the distance, a tiny dot, barely perceptible, grew with impossible speed.
Huh? What is that?
Jorel wondered, his face contorted in confusion. The dot surged, resolving into a figure---no, figures.
"What?!" Jorel gasped, a sudden tremor shaking him as he recoiled from the glass.
From the oppressive sky, yet unnervingly close, Kacis descended, Acis still tethered to him, carrying Marichi and Blutsatchel.
"Seen them! They're just up ahead!" Kacis cried out, his flight a relentless vector.
"Blutsatchel! Prepare yourself, we do this quick without warning," Marichi commanded, his voice sharp.
"You got that right." Blutsatchel nodded, her hand extending, a prelude to violence.
Crimson shards, accompanied by a fine mist of arterial spray, penetrated from her glove, their edges keen with unseen purpose. She aimed her hand at the stagecoach drivers, singling out the right one.
"Blutsatchel, please reduce your movements, it's not easy," Acis groaned, her body straining against the taut, sinewy threads that bound them as Blutsatchel shifted.
"Hmph." She grunted, more of the sanguine shards pushing through her extended hand, a visceral extrusion. She took a short, momentary breath, her eyes locked with fatal intent on the right stagecoach.
"Red!" Blutsatchel roared, shards erupting from her hand, a fine mist of blood atomizing in their wake. They shrieked through the air with impossible, unnatural speed. The right stagecoach barely managed to turn his head.
"Wha---!" The scream died in his throat, a guttural choke, as the crimson projectiles tore into his face and neck, each impact a perverse blossom of flesh, erupting in a geyser of blood. Other shards punched into the lead horse, its shrill neigh abruptly cut short, a final, ragged gasp.
*Neigh!!* *Nneigh!!*
The other horse, eyes wide with the primal terror of impending doom, bucked violently, its mane whipping like black flags of surrender in the wind.
The left stagecoach, still clinging to his rearing horse, watched in stark horror as his partner's lifeless form slumped to the ground, the right injured horse thrashing wildly, a tangle of bone and muscle.
The carriage lurched forward a few frantic yards before the wounded horse collapsed, tangling the left horse in its agonizing fall.
"..." The left stagecoach's eyes blew wide, a silent scream of impending doom. He, along with his horse, pitched violently over the edge.
"What the hell is happening outside!" Jorel screamed, bracing himself against the precarious chair. The carriage, dragged by its own momentum, plunged over the cliff edge, hurtling towards the ground below, leaving only a fading dust trail and splattered blood, a macabre painting against the grim landscape.
"Yeah!" Blutsatchel cheered, pumping her fist, more blood splattering from her hand, a testament to her grim victory.
"No, Blutsatchel!" Marichi's voice, sharp with a sudden, chilling crack, cut through the air.
"That was too much! You'll kill the noble inside!" he shouted, struggling against the constricting threads of Acis.
"I wanted to kill him myself!" Marichi snarled, grinding his teeth, a feral sound, as he lunged a hand out towards the plummeting carriage.
Everything within the carriage rattled, a cacophony of impending destruction, as Jorel was suspended mid-air, plummeting down to the unforgiving ground below.
What happened?!
Did we fall over?!
Those stupid stagecoach drivers!
"Ahhhh!" Jorel screamed, flailing his hands, his thoughts stagnant, time itself seemingly congealed around him.
The particles in the air, once frozen, slowly regained their frenetic speed as the carriage neared the ground.
THUD!
Jorel's neck and back slammed against the carriage wall behind him, a violent impact that extinguished his consciousness. But the carriage did not shatter upon the ground----instead, it passed through it! It was as if the very earth had yielded, the carriage, with the corpses of the horses and the right stagecoach, sinking through, like a stone in a loose, viscous liquid.
The ground itself seemed to manifest grasping claws of liquid earth, surrounding the submerged carriage.
"Kacis, fly us to them now!" Marichi ordered, throwing his hand in the direction of the crash as Acis groaned, a sound of profound exertion.
"Right." Kacis nodded, leaning his body closer, the wind a spectral caress against his face, never quite touching.
As he flew, an inexplicable sensation of control faltered; he felt as if he had slipped on something in the air, an invisible tether, some ethereal restriction.
"What is this?" Acis exclaimed, her grip on Kacis, Marichi, and Blutsatchel firming, a desperate anchor.
"Kacis! What's happening?!" Marichi groaned, slowly, inexorably, slipping from Acis's threads.
"I-I don't know!" Kacis, his throat strained, words forced out in ragged gasps.
"It's like the very air itself isn't air anymore." He huffed, as they all struggled to breathe, the air around their noses dragging and clinging, feeling like dense, solidified rubber.
"I can feel one of you slipping!" Acis cried, her gaze darting down to Marichi and Blutsatchel as Kacis himself wrestled with the unseen force.
The whole group gyrated erratically in the air, a headless chicken, with Blutsatchel and Marichi clinging desperately to Acis's threads.
It can't be…
That I've forgotten how to fly, right? No…
That's not possible!
Kacis thought, still trying to center himself against the impossible.
Marichi looked at the ground below him, then back up at a confused Kacis and a groaning Acis. He sighed, his hands reaching for the threads that bound him.
"W-What are you doing, Marichi?" Acis asked, her face drenched in sweat that defied the laws of gravity, flowing sideways.
"I-I don't understand what's happening… But what I do understand is that it looks grim for us." He replied, his head bent down, voice somber.
"Especially for you." He looked at Acis once again, steadily slipping from her threads.
"What are you saying?! Don't be like what's happening right here!" Blutsatchel shrilled, her voice cracking with desperation.
"No…" Kacis, struggling to even stay airborne as they slowly descended, the air around them suddenly shifting from a viscous slip to a solid, impenetrable mass.
"I'm not going to let you guys die, especially for a reason like this!." Marichi quickly said, then with a grim resolve, he moved himself out of Acis's threads.
"No!!" Acis let out a soft scream, a sound of profound loss.
"Bastard…" Blutsatchel's voice shook at the sight.
"Why do you guys feel light---" Kacis was about to speak before he looked below, witnessing Marichi's falling body pierce through the solidified air, his form seemingly colliding with invisible obstacles, a grim pantomime.
"Leader!" He then shouted, readying himself to plummet down to retrieve Marichi.
"No! It's already too late for me!" Marichi waved his hand back, a gesture of finality as his legs struck the ethereal air. His body then fell at a sloth's pace, maddeningly slow, nearing the ground.
He then slowly began to pass through the liquid ground, which formed grotesque, grasping claws around him as he sank, swallowed whole.
Just try to survive without me…
Marichi thought, already deep within the embrace of the earth, the last echo he heard being Acis's fading, broken scream.
---The end of chapter 22---