Instead of the crystal shining, instead… her mind flashed with barely recognizable visions.
. . .
A crooked individual adorned in armor tinted with glittering essence flashed before her mind. It flew through the air, enveloping a white luminance in an expanse of colossal stone pillars and a dark, rocky ceiling.
The vision took Aletha's mind by surprise.
Then, it flashed again to another sight with a blue-haired girl holding someone's hand. A cluster of water droplets and luminance appeared in thin air, transforming into a rushing torrent of water and blasting onto the strange knight in an enormous dynamic.
Once the light faded, the visions dissipated back into reality, leaving Aletha shocked and speechless about this phenomenon.
"What… was that?" Aletha mumbled as her view returned to her hands and the falling crystal. "I saw… a weird person… and white light? What WAS that place?"
While the sudden vision drowned Aletha in speculation, Alai and Ubel raced to her, concerned about her screaming.
"Aletha?! What happened!?" Alai said as she prepared her fists and legs.
"Is something the matter?!" Ubel added as he clutched a branch from a tree.
Scratching her head and releasing a breath of anxiousness and wonder, Aletha replied by scratching and rubbing her skin nervously. "N…No, it's nothing."
After that uneasy reply, Ubel released a sigh of relief and replied. "Goodness, you scared us for a moment."
"We thought you were fighting a monster," Alai added, burning her cheeks and scrunching her nose scornfully. "Don't scare us like that again, you hear?"
"I… I won't." Aletha said, gulping down a breath of fear. "It was just a rock I found, that's all."
"A rock… You say?" Ubel questioned, his eyebrows furrowing, and he released a curious look.
As the sounds of wilderness returned, the silver-haired young man approached the stone resting against the soft soil. He quickly grabbed it and kept his eyes glued to the crystal, watching its dull, hazy, and fogged-up surface glitter momentarily. "If a rock caused you to scream like that, then there's no doubt that has increased my curiosity."
Noticing the sun's position on the horizon, he shook the thought away and snapped himself off the idea.
At a glance, he pulled out his map and pointed to the distant trees, noticing the midnight blue of dusk gradually consuming the warm orange.
"Never mind about that." He said hurriedly as Alai anchored her eyes on the strange crystal Aletha held. "To reach Alai's place alive, we must hurry. The evening is approaching."
After the sudden visions entered Aletha's mind, she decided to place the rock into her new brown bag and travel to Alpine Glitterfly Range with Alai, hoping to reach her place in time.
"I hope you don't run off from us like that again," Alai said with a relieved shrug. "The last thing we want is to lose you." As she saw the amber cotton clouds drift across the mellow sky, Aletha replied to Alai with a silent smile before she decided to stare into the sunset, thinking...
(Gee, I never knew they cared THAT much about me.)
* * * * * * *
Before they knew it, the moon peeked out from the other horizon, its vivid and distant gaze shining along the approaching starlight and the sea of midnight blue. The sun's dying rays and the emergence of the lunar glow shone beautifully in unison along the lush, shadow-veiled horizon.
Aletha and Alai gazed at their surroundings while Ubel was fixated and focused only on navigating their way through the place.
"Okay… so… we should be just a few kilometers away before we reach Alai's place," Ubel informed as he kept his map in front. "However, it's getting really dark. So I say we should approach with caution. Got it?" Aletha and Alai nodded silently and continued ambling through the landscape.
Once they had approached the top of the grassy hill, Aletha, Alai, and Ubel discovered a problem.
Before them lay a giant wall of lush mountains, extending and coiling into a ringed shape, that stretched over to the hazy horizon.
Darkness slowly enveloped the corners where they had set foot, leaving them in darkness without any light. Aletha widened her eyes too, and white showed around her whole iris, panicking about the unknown.
"U-Um, Ubel, Alai. I can't see anything." She said as she hunched her shoulders and felt the creeping night tickle her goosebumps. "It's… getting chilly."
Nonetheless, once she had noticed her position, her eyes turned shallow to the sight of darkness. No one had accompanied her.
Only the eerie sounds of chirps of crickets and the hoots of owls. This caused Aletha's panic to escalate dramatically.
She hurriedly ran from one hill to another, searching for Ubel and Alai. But all that she was met with was silence and darkened flora. "Alai? Ubel? Where are you!?" She said, screaming into the darkness.
Yet no one replied, just the night.
Struck with the confusion of this discovery, Aletha paced back and forth on the hill, getting tricked by silhouettes of trees and the creeping wilderness.
Until she met an approaching figure with a golden luminance attached to its palm. Their body was slender, with an extra arm extending out of their head-- "Who are you?" Aletha asked the approaching silhouette with a trembling voice. "S-Stay back!"
"It's fine!" The approaching figure said as the shadows on their face unveiled confident-looking crimson eyes. "It's just me. Alai. I was just looking for a light source."
It turns out that what Aletha thought was a monster wasn't a monster at all. It was Alai who had approached Aletha. Taking a deep breath, Aletha watched as Alai came from the shadows, holding a lantern in her hand.
Aletha clenched her fists and slapped her face at her stupidity, constantly mumbling to herself.
"Stupid, stupid me. I should have known it was Alai."
After Alai heard this, she hollered and pinched Aletha's ear.
"Hey, don't call yourself stupid!" She said, shaking Aletha's head. "You're smarter than you think. I mean… how would you still be alive after fighting Strodhell?"
After moments of brief pondering, as she absorbed the memories into her consciousness, Aletha released a sigh of defeat. She apologized while scratching her arm nervously.
"Y… Yeah, you're right." She said, freeing a sigh of defeat. "I should have known better."
"Great!" Alai replied as she hoisted the yellow lantern up into the sky. "Now that we have that problem settled, how about we try to inform Ubel. He would really appreciate a lantern right now!"
And so, Aletha and Alai scavenged the hills searching for the silver-haired man.
. . .
Upon their search, Aletha and Alai found strange, black, goopy anomalies emerging from a patch of trees and dense flora near the base of the mountain wall. Its sticky and sappy essence tainted the soil with a murky, repugnant, goopy substance, scorching and weakening the grass and flora.
As muddy bubbles arose from the crackling dirt, tall, slender silhouettes emerged from the puddles, screeching as their eyes lit up with rage and frustration, concerning the two.
"TRAITOR! TRAITOR!" The monsters screamed, their multitude of eyes fixed on the two. "Our rulers have betrayed us. Our kingdom is gone! All at the fault of you!"
Aletha's heart hammered out of her chest, wondering who or what these monsters were.
(What? What do they mean? What are they?)
But instead of receiving answers, all poor Aletha had created were more questions. The monsters' legs expand, shooting out black tar-like bubbles from their porous and gooey surface. Black tentacle-like arms squirmed and slipped through their insides before coiling and wrapping their tendrils around their crumpling necks.
One of the creatures hissed, its voice reverberating through the night. "Destruction isn't needed. Decaying... Decaying, yes, we are," it screeched, causing Aletha to shudder. Aletha's mind raced as she tried to recall what she had heard about the Decaying in her previous encounters with Alai.
She remembered vague stories whispered by townsfolk of a forgotten kingdom that had once thrived but fell into ruin due to a cursed power.
Perhaps these creatures were remnants of that place, seeking revenge or restitution for their lost world. This thought lingered ominously, adding a chilling depth to the mysterious threat before her.
Fear fluttered in Aletha and Alai's stomachs as they saw a blinding ruby glare piercing and shining out through the creature's five eroding eyes. A sense of mystery and threat had circulated around the two varmints. Their appearances seemed alienated from their surroundings, slowly corrupting the flora with every creeping movement. Aletha and Alai's terror mounted with every brutal step it made.
"Who… what are they?" Aletha asked quietly with quick, shallow breathing. "What are they, Alai?!"
Before Alai could reply, the creatures underhandedly interrupted her with gooey, gurgling screeches. Alai pushed Aletha away from the beasts, looking back and forth, fearfully checking if more creatures had approached.
Once they thought they were safe, Alai turned to Aletha, gulping down a breath of fresh terror.
"No, they… they shouldn't be here," Alai said tremblingly, flinching at the gurgling and sharp roars of the creatures. "It's too soon. They shouldn't belong here."
Noticing Alai's sudden shift of tone, Aletha responded with an eyebrow raise.
"Wait, what do you mean?"
Soon, the monsters opened their goopy arms and charged at the two with roars. Retreating from the place, Alai screamed with panic, flying all around.
"THE DECAYING! THEY ARE THE DECAYING!"