~Gemini~

I'm not sure how I got there, nor where here was.

It was a dead landscape, stretching for miles with nothing but dry, rocky ground scattered with pebbles and choked out plants that looked as if they hadn't had a taste of water for their whole lives.

The sky was darkened, the overcast of the grey mass swirling above me unnatural and otherworldly...

I knew I wasn't supposed to be there. 

A chill rode up my back like crawlers, their feet digging into my skin to raise goosebumps along my spine. I hugged myself tightly, my arms bare and breaking out in the small uneven lumps induced by the fear and cold that seemed to lay over this land like a blanket.

I bit back a small shriek at the first sound I heard. It was coming from behind me, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up straight. It sounded...like digging, the gravelly noise of dirt being shifted reaching my ears, and the metallic slash of some tool being dug into the earth.

I didn't want to turn around. I didn't want to know what was behind me. A horrible fear rose inside me, twisting and curling from the pits of my stomach up towards my throat like bile. Now I had to decide, would seeing whatever was making that horrid noise lessen my fear, or double it?

Slowly, very slowly, I turned, my eyes falling upon the only other thing that seemed to exist in this strange world.

A rather short figure stood, digging. A shovel nearly the same height as they were dug into the ground, working on a hole that could certainly fit them comfortably inside...or me. 

Their movements were...choppy and broken up.

But slowly, they came to a stop. They froze, dropping the shovel, their face still angled down, until suddenly it snapped up. My breath caught in my throat as their glowing red eyes met mine, bloodshot and wide. Her skin was pale...paper white and clinging to her bones like a corpse, dark shapes carving the angles of her face. 

They began to move forward, stumbling and leaning to the side, unable to walk straight, their arms swinging limp along with the leathery wings, mangled and torn like claws had raked them raw, behind them.

Her head tilted, like their neck was on a broken hinge, strands of greasy white hair tangled and matted with blood and sweat falling to mask their face.

That was until she raised an arm, her elbow clicking, rattling with broken bones that fractured against one another. She grabbed her jaw, snapping it back into place with a sickening crack.

At that moment I came to the horrible realization that I couldn't move as this seemingly walking corpse slowly approached, her bare and bloody feet dragging against the dry terrain. I was frozen to the spot, my limbs locked. 

The closer they got, the more I saw how...dead they were. Skin stretched tightly across her bones, tearing at some point to reveal bone and tissue. Her pointed ears were blackening at the tips, along with her bony fingers that looked as easy to snap in half as a twig. 

A burn covered nearly half their body, spanning over her chest and creeping up her neck towards her jaw, black and sickening to look at. Dried blood splattered over open patches of her skin, shriveled from what was most likely fire...

A wide grin began to spread across the girl's face as she came closer...a grin I knew, a grin I recognized. 

"How?" I gasped, hardly able to manage words as a cold dread wrapped around my throat, making it nearly impossible to breathe let alone speak.

The girl paused in her path, eyebrows raising the slightest to tug on her taut skin. That was until a dry laugh trickled from her mouth, hoarse and scratchy like sandpaper. But she didn't reply, simply stared, her eyes still crimson boring into mine unblinkingly. 

She had started walking again, unstable and wobbly in her steps, looking as if one gust of wind could have easily knocked her to the ground. But she didn't stop. Closer and closer and closer until she was directly in front of me, the scent of death and decay filling my nose so strongly my eyes stung with tears.

She came to a halt, face tilted up, her expression still twisted in a grin of malice. I felt vomit sear the back of my throat at the mixture of the smell and the sight of her corpse-like face, so thin it could have been a skull and so white she could have been a ghost. But...she was a ghost right? She had died...years ago...

To my surprise she then walked past me, although no matter how hard I tried I still couldn't move an inch.

But out of nowhere I felt her hand grab at my scalp, her fingers cold and brittle digging into my hairline to yank my head back. A strangled noise close to a gasp left my lips as she pulled me down, lowering me so that I could feel her lips just next to my ear...

My heart pounded in my throat, my breathing shallow and ragged as I dared not exhale with her so close. Every second seemed like an hour as silence settled, not a word from her, although her grip tightened, her nails digging into my skin.

"...do you know why I'm here?" She asked in a hiss, her voice hardly a whisper but clear as if every word was being hammered into my head.

I shook my head violently, closing my eyes tight to avoid catching sight of her face again. It was already enough to feel her cold, dead hands clutching at my hair. 

Yet another laugh sounded from her lips, cracked and bleeding from what I remembered. "You and your stupidity." She answered for me, her voice filled with venom. "The answer's right in front of your face yet you still don't have a clue..."

"I don't know what–" I started desperately, my thoughts racing nearly as fast as my heartbeat. 

"Quiet!" She snarled, her grip tightening further. "You'll understand in time...you better...or my revenge will be swift...and colder than my corpse." She threatened. 

Fear clawed at my chest, my body shaking with the adrenaline that came with it. I could feel her anger, radiating off of her as strong as the scent of rot.

"Up in the mountains. You know the place...you've been... the answer you and the sorcerer seek is there. Don't fail. I'll be waiting... Be quick, because I've already waited three years and I'm not willing to wait much longer... unless you'd like to join me." She whispered, her voice growing quieter with each word. I could feel her cheek up against mine, void of any warmth that should have been there for her to be walking and talking.

"Bu- you're supposed to be...you're supposed to be dead—" I stammered, feeling my throat rip from strain as her hand tightened.

"Aw...tragic." She chuckled, a ragged exhale tainting her tone. "But am I clear?

With another shaky inhale I nodded, my eyes still tightly closed. "Crystal."

I felt relief mingle with terror as her grip slowly loosened, and she let go of my scalp, causing me to stumble backwards.

I blinked my eyes open, the otherworldly lighting of this strange land harsh against my vision. I couldn't speak, my throat closed up from fear as I watched her smirk again, beginning to walk backwards towards the shovel laying in the gravel. Her eyes never left mine, never blinking once as she slowly got farther and farther away, her movements still choppy, unstable and gruesome. 

Silence, again, thick enough to be cut with a sword as she came to a sudden stop, right on the edge of the hole that had been dug. Her smirk widened to a grin, pulling at the skin around her face to twist it into a maddening sight. She raised her arms slightly, crossing them over her chest with a sickening clicking sound as the broken bones once again rubbed against one another.

"Good luck." She hissed, her chest racking with the laugh that followed. "You'll need it." 

And with that she tilted backwards, disappearing as she fell rigidly down into the pit, a hollow thud sounding just seconds after.

My limbs suddenly jerked back to life, my hands clamping over my mouth as I lost all sight of the girl. My chest heaving, I ran forward, my shoes crunching against the gravelly ground, the noise mingling with my pants. Time seemed to stretch, seconds taking minutes to pass, my mind heavy, my thoughts dazed.

I skidded to a stop at the edge, half of me wishing not to look but the other half overpowering it and forcing me to peer over and inside. There she was, at the bottom, lying motionless. Her eyes were glassy, reflecting the grey of the ethereal sky, and back to blue. Only the occasional flicker of red flowing through her irises. As dead as she was the last time I saw her, when I buried her with the god...

And her lips curled into a smirk.

A scream pierced the air, my body writhing as I snapped awake. 

Like a snake had coiled around my throat I couldn't breathe, my chest heaving and air hitching every time it tried to escape my lips. It felt as if I had been drowned, my lips and fingers cold, body drenched in sweat mingling with the dew of the night.

"Gem?"

Whosever's voice it was, I heard through a muffle. My ears were filled with static, a sharp ringing keeping my eyes from focusing. Or was it the other way around...?

"GEM!" A more panicked voice broke through the barrier wrapped around my head like a blanket stifling the blood flow and signals to my brain.

It was dark, navy flooding the land everywhere I turned. Was it night? Were my eyes still closed? I couldn't remember anything, all former memories flying away just as I snatched at them, slipping through my fingers.

In an instant however a sharp pain overwhelmed the side of my face, something coming in contact with my cheekbone. My head was forced to the side, my eyes snapping back open with a violent cough, my chest heaving.

Another sensation, someone grabbing my jaw and forcing me to lock eyes with theirs. Instantly I recognized the blue eyes of my brother. Slowly my other senses began to come into play...

I was on the ground, the chill of the night whipping my bare hands. I had been asleep....I was asleep moments before...was all of that a dream...? It felt far too real...I could practically still feel her breath on my neck—

"GEM! CAN YOU HEAR ME?" I watched Fwhip's lips move in the shout, his expression frantic. I spotted Sausage from the corner of my eye, concerned and worried. 

"I—" I stammered, breathless, my chest burning. "I...I think..." 

"You think what?? Are you okay? What on earth happened—?" Fwhip asked, his voice shrill as his hands gripped tightly to my shoulders. 

"The Ancient Elven Library." I said without answering any of his questions. "The spell we need is in the Ancient Elven Library."

"How do you know?" Sausage asked sharply, turning my attention to him.

I met his eyes, my lip still trembling, my fingers clenching around bits of soil at my palms. I heard Violet's worried whine from beside me. 

And I spoke three words that scared me just as much as it would scare him.

"Erin told me."

***

Heheh. I really like this chapter. I wrote it ages ago when I had the idea...is it creepy enough? I want your honest opinions—

Please vote and comment. I really, really want to know if you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it, and if you'd like more chapters with a similar vibe :>