Chương 7: Saving Someone’s Life as a Rock?!

Chapter Seven Saving Someone's Life as a Rock?! It was not a dog. It looked like a painting of a dog, however, if it had been drawn by a schizophrenic mental patient. The beast's limbs were all the wrong size. Its legs were either too long or too short. Its flesh was starved in some places and swollen in others. Its fur was haggard and thin, with bald patches spread across its misshapen body. And the eyes! The creature's beady black eyes seemed almost human in their delirium.

Three of the doglike creatures appeared from the gloom of the woods. Alice could scarcely hear their growls and heckles over the red fear of the horses who neighed and reared in uncontrollable terror.

"Back, you beasts!" Petre leapt off the carriage much like a beast himself, his enormous battleaxe raised threateningly over his head. He pulled back his bushy mane and loosed a roar with an animal intensity Alice did not think possible. But the doglike creatures did not flee. They continued to stare and slobber at the carriage with their horrible twitches.

"What the...?!" Alice shouted soundlessly as fire illuminated the haunted woods. A great flame-thrower of red burst from the carriage and towards the shambling beasts. If not for [Geological Memory], Alice might not have believed her nonexistent eyes. But the doughy-faced Sorin was breathing fire like some sort of magical salamander. The dogs were not nearly as impressed, however. Alice watched in stunned disbelief as the misshapen creatures leapt through the flames towards the mad panic of the horses.

There seemed to be no fear in their delirious eyes as one of the doglike creatures closed its misshapen fangs around a horse's leg. The horses bolted into the haunted woods then, still tethered to the carriage. Sorin had been on his feet breathing fire at the horrors, and he was sent tumbling onto the ground.

"A-And there I am!" Alice said with a nervous excitement as she watched her bundle bounce off the carriage and land beside Sorin. The doughy man leapt to his feet with an agility he had never before shown.

"What are those things?!" Mittica fell off the carriage next, and Alice winced inwardly as he cracked his head against the hard ground. She could not help but remember her own tumble from Mom's car. As the sounds of violence filled the air, another memory tickled her thoughts. It was hard not to wonder if this was the certain death promised in the curse's description. Something wet and hairy flew through the air. Alice watched it with a detached curiosity as the lump came to land almost right on top of her bundle.

It was another moment before she realized it was the severed head of one of the dogs. She could not see much of Petre, but he was certainly doing all right for himself. The decapitated beast bled an almost black blood that soaked all the way through her bundle. Skill Progress: Bloodthirsty [2/10] Alice had little time to think about the notification. Sorin was bent over an unmoving Mittica. The boy was bleeding badly from his head.

"Are you all right?" Sorin shouted.

"Mittica! Mittica, stay awake!" The fire-breathing dough boy was so worried about his nephew that he did not seem to notice the beast slowly crawling towards him, the creature's mouth drooling in anticipation of the kill. The beast leapt forward with surprising speed, and Alice instinctively reached out to Sorin with a hasty whisper.

"Behind you!" she shouted into his ear, and the man spun around and blinked. Sorin opened his mouth wide, far wider than seemed possible, and a furnace heat blasted out from his lips. The doglike creature was reduced to an ashen lump that collided weakly with Sorin's bulky body.

"What is that fire?!" Alice could not help but feel amazed as smoke tickled the edges of a very confused Sorin's mouth.

"Is he some kind of... wizard?" Mittica stirred pitifully beside him, and Sorin snapped back to reality.

"Mittica! Stay here! Stay down! Where's your knife? That's a good lad. Hold it tight!" And with a paternal pat on the head, Sorin whipped around, his striped robes billowing like some sort of Magical Master. More fire spewed from his lips as he charged towards the sounds of Petre's melee. Mittica sat trembling on the ground, his face covered in blood. He clutched his small knife with white knuckles as his eyes darted beyond Alice's cone of vision. The sounds of dying beasts and Petre's fury filled the air...

but she could also hear a soft murmur coming from Mittica.

"Brave... Be brave..." Mittica mumbled to himself as his body shook violently. The words almost sounded like a prayer as he continued to clutch his knife.

"Can't be... Can't always be crying... Not now... Can't be... Need to... Need to be brave..." Alice felt particularly awful as the boy continued to tremble. The Mittica that had said he would introduce the Witch to his knife was nowhere to be seen. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"Eh?" Alice blinked in confusion as Mittica went very still. His mumbling quieted, and his trembling body seemed to stiffen as if with a sudden calm. But then she studied his eyes, and she knew there was no calm there. Slowly... Terribly, terribly, slowly... A horror emerged. Larger than any of the other doglike beasts. Fouler than any of those that lay dead and burnt. The creature stalked towards Mittica, seemingly unnoticed from where Petre and Sorin fought loudly.

Mittica's lips resumed their mumbling, but no words met the air. His face went very pale as he pointed the knife at the approaching horror. He was doomed. Even if he had not been on the verge of pissing himself, Alice knew such a small knife would be useless before this horrible creature.

"Where is Sorin?!" Alice wondered in an excited panic. She could not see the boy's uncle nor his shaggy bodyguard.

"Where are those two?!" The beast padded closer with a deliberate quiet. Black drool fell from the ruin of its twisted mouth. It had too many teeth to count in its misshapen maw.

"Annoying!" Alice wanted to pull out her nonexistent hair. Never before had she felt so useless as a rock. She had evolved. She had learned new skills. And yet she still could do nothing. Sorin lay outside her CCTV vision, but Alice stretched the very limits of her imagination as she tried to reach him. She had no idea if this would work, but she pulled on the imaginary string once more, and shouted.

"Mittica! Save Mittica!" Mittica bore his teeth at the creature in what was either a snarl or a noiseless scream. The boy's eyes clamped shut, however, as the beast luuunged forward, its malformed mouth open and ready to rip off his face. [Malevolent Whispers] has reached Rank II. A torrent of flames erupted across Alice's CCTV-like vision. She knew a moment's relief before horror washed over her.

"Oh no!" Alice shouted, her nonexistent face delirious with excitement, as the wild flames drew closer to the trembling Mittica. But the flames twisted and turned like a living thing. They wrapped around the boy, leaving him unharmed, and craaashed into the enormous beast like the thrust of a spear. The tendrils of fire raced into its mouth and down its throat like a dozen angry vipers. Momentum carried the blazing creature forward like a cannonball.

Mittica disappeared from sight as the creature collapsed on top of him. A moment later, Sorin came running back into view.

"Mittica!" he shouted, nervous sweat pouring down his face. Petre appeared a moment after that, ribbons of gore covering him like party streamers. The rest of the fighting seemed to be done. The sounds of the forest became human, with no more bestial howls. The bear-like Petre rolled the corpse off Mittica, and the boy underneath hooowled with pain. Alice winced as she saw that his left hand was bent at a decidedly unnatural angle.

"Those beasts were daemon-touched," Petre said, his wide-eyed stare jumping between Mittica and the rest of the woods.

"We need to- " But Sorin was not listening.

"What a brave lad you are," Sorin said, kneeling beside his screaming nephew. He stroked Mittica's blonde hair, which was now spattered with black blood.

"Everything will be fine. Everything will be fine."

"Wh-what is he doing?" Alice wondered aloud as she watched Sorin open his mouth. It looked as if he was going to blast Mittica with a mouthful of fire!

"It's just a broken hand! You don't need to put him down as if he was a horse!" Fire dribbled out from Sorin's lips like molten magma. Alice watched on in excited horror as blue flames consumed Mittica like a yuletide log on Christmas Day. But Mittica's howls did not strengthen. On the contrary, he seemed to relax. Alice was dimly aware that, though the boy was now very much on fire, his clothes remained unburnt.

She watched, transfixed, as Mittica's broken hand seemed to bend slowly, slowly, slowly back in the right direction. And then the blue flames lifted from Mittica. The boy's chest rose and fell heavily, but he no longer screamed or howled. Quiet returned to the forest.

"That... That is one cool power," Alice said, staring at Sorin with newfound respect.

"Gaaaah!" Sorin jumped as Petre loosed a wholly bear-like roar. He lifted his ax high over his head, and Alice worried he had gone berserk. There were no more demon dogs around. What was he doing? But then she noticed her bundle. Alice the Rock rested directly below where Petre had raised his ax.

"Back to The Fates with this foul thing!" the bear-man roared, and his ax craaa shed down towards the hapless Alice.

"Nooooooo!" Alice shouted, and she braced for the ax to split her rocky head in two.

"Nooooo!" Sorin shouted. He slammed into Petre like a football player, and the bear-man's ax bit harmlessly into the earth beside where Alice the Rock lay. Alice could hardly believe what had just happened.

"What...?" Petre stared at Sorin in similar disbelief. Confusion seemed to have drowned his frustration.

"What are you doing, Goldtooth...?"

"Wh-what are you doing, Bearblood?" Sorin shot back, and he put himself protectively between Alice and Petre.

"I'm... I'm destroying that thing!" Petre said, remembering his fury.

"Never should have- ""No." Petre and Alice both blinked in confusion.

"What?" Alice said.

"What?!" Petre shouted, brandishing his ax.

"We need to destroy that thing!" Sorin looked away from Petre. There was something... odd about his stare. It was not an entirely healthy look. He looked down at Alice the Rock, his mouth opening and closing slowly.

"It..." Sorin licked his lips as he searched for the words.

"I heard... a voice. During the fighting, I heard a voice. And... And I had heard it... before. Earlier today." Petre stared at Sorin as if he had grown a second head, but Sorin seemed hardly to notice. He continued to stare down at Alice the Rock, his expression indecipherable.

"It... It saved me..." Sorin said quietly.

"The voice. It saved me. Warned me... It saved Mittica."

"You... You aren't thinkin' right," Petre said, and he hitched his ax higher.

"Those beasts were daemon-touched. Th-their blood, Mister Goldtooth. It addles the thoughts." He took a step closer.

"We need to destroy that thing," Petre said defiantly.

"Was that thing that called- ""We are not destroying it!" Sorin said.

"Petre Bearblood, you will find our horses."

"Horses? Goldtooth, we need- ""Go!" Sorin roared, and only then did Alice seem to recognize his transformation. The doughy-faced man was decidedly less doughy. His robes hung loose over his body as though they were now two sizes too big, as if the fire that had burst from his lips had left him deflated. Petre bit his lip. He looked as if he might take a swing at Sorin, but then he turned sharply around and stomped off. Sorin watched him march away, his own chest huffing and puffing.

"Uncle..." Sorin jumped and knelt beside his nephew.

"Just rest. How brave you were," Sorin said, patting the ashen-faced Mittica on the head.

"That redhead who comes by the manor... I can't... I can't remember her name, but you tell her about this...! You won't have your innocence for long once the ladies learn about today." Mittica smiled weakly and said no more. Sorin patted him several more times... and then turned back to Alice the Rock.

"We'll... We'll be off the mountain before nightfall," Sorin said as he half crawled towards Alice's bundle.

"I imagine... Yes, this'll be the last... the last of our adventure..." The deflated Sorin glanced nervously over at Mittica, whose eyes remained closed. Sorin turned back to Alice and, with the delicacy of a father and their newborn, lifted her bundle off the ground. He stared down at her, his basset hound eyes blinking rapidly. Slowly, ever so slowly, he opened the bundle that covered her, revealing the shiny black of her rock body to the world. Sorin opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

It was almost as if he wanted... wanted to speak to her.