Lily POV

I woke up on the bank of a river, caught in a puddle darkened by my blood. The world blurred as I sat up, a fresh wave of annoying agony pounding against my skull. My hand went to my head, felt the sting of exposed skin, and came back red. “Fucking bog rats,” I cursed as I stood, pitching forward as my legs gave out and landed face-first in the muck. My body betrayed me by refusing to come to attention, the allure of the squelching mud more powerful than the softest feather bed. The pain turned dull as the riverbank welcomed me, the lapping of water becoming the calming hum of nightfall.

Gnashing teeth exploded in my vision. Yellowed-white incisors ripping, tearing, devouring as the beast grew into a hunting frenzy. The mass of ruddy fur enveloped all as they overtook me, denying air from their sheer weight. Gray becomes red, slashing and slashing away at the forest of teeth. Being pushed back, limbs slit from their razor-end tails. Their eyes became the hundred of a single beast, moving through endless limbs, sneering to consume with its thousand maws. 

Stepping back to find empty air, rapids roaring far below. It was suffocating me, stealing air with its putrid breath, stealing the land in its hunger, all to crush, tear, eat me. The dream split. One had the beast lash out and smash the rocks underneath, another had me slip, and yet another had me destroy my foothold. They all ended with me falling.

Through the mass of bloodied fur, I see him. The moment of realization that struck before fear, before his mouth could process that it had screamed. Had I heard him before the plunge?

The thought flooded my body, startling me awake. The sun had dipped lower, the sky still full of clouds, casting the land gray. How long have I been out? If minutes, then he could still be standing. If hours, if days, then…

Since screaming felt like too much effort, I settled for forcing my ass to get up. Pushing myself free from the mud had my arms shaking from the effort and catching my breath before another push, slipping in the muck but still getting my knees beneath me. The trees were jerks as they chose to start doubling and spinning to make me nauseous. It took me a minute of trying to realize that my legs had simply refused to obey me, growing numb in the chill. 

The river flowed, babbling as it watched my failing feat. I reached out, each extension of my fingers sending a fresh misery of needles and trembling up my arm. Feeble as it may be, the river listened. A trickle broke away from the flow, trailing through the grit and mud until, after maybe hours or maybe seconds, it waited just beneath me. When it found my knee, I was alive again. The power that churned through the river crashed into my limbs, granting me rebirth not through relief but with sheer strength. It beat the drowsy away with the might of a stampeding herd of cattle, relieved the pounding headache by bashing it with iron fists, and filled my limbs with the energy of a scream, going up my body until it exploded out of my throat like it would tear the lungs from my chest.

Enough fucking around.

There was no pain that I couldn’t bear. My body couldn’t rebel enough to keep me here. Not when I needed to find Bass, not when the teeth could still find him.

I swept my arms in a self-embrace, and the river broke the bank. Water filled my world as it crested over me, washing away mud and blood before grabbing my limbs. I stood, weaving the water into a brace that supported my legs. It clung to me like a bear skin far too large to wear as it fell over my arms and shoulders. I took a step, the water forcing my leg to rise and fall. I took another, and the water made it so. Step by step, each one a tenuous strain against my hold on my river brace to keep my ass from going down to the dirt again.

The trees were still spinning, but eventually, I closed the distance. I couldn’t look at the blurry trunks to my left or right without feeling bile rise, so I reached for the space in the middle to find it solid enough to hold me. I gasped as my lungs tried to fill so that I could move to the next trunk to slam against. On and on, one tree then another, one step to the next, keeping a hold so I wouldn’t fall. At some point, the mud had been replaced with grass and twigs, but that may have been a bit ago.

The trees parted, having had enough of me crashing into them. “Screw you,” I said as I had the wave carry me into the open. Grass melted to hard-trodded earth. My steps were more like slides at this point, each one little more than the water pushing me forward in small starts and bursts.

Mumbles started to prick at my ears. With a brief stumble, I had the water rise to my chin and lift my head. Four, no, two blurry figures drifted beside me, chattering in some noise that I couldn’t understand. One loomed closer, reaching.

It would drag me down, and fresh horror erupted.

I swatted at the blur, the water around my arm breaking apart as it blasted the thing away. My arm fell limp without its brace.

The other thing rushed towards me as its companion dipped out of sight. Within it were patches of greens and curly scales. My remaining arm moved, less a swing than dragged along, as it bashed the other creature. The blur collapsed upon itself before rising to its height again. Both of my arms were useless now.

I commanded the water to rise. In response, it started to slosh off me. The blur reached outward. I yelled, little more than a croak coming out.

A force knocked me off my feet, my brace coming undone in a shower of droplets. I don’t remember hitting the ground. Just standing, then suddenly looking up at the sky. 

I grasped for that familiar feeling of the water, the innate element that was as natural to me as my blood and skin. It has to be around, but I came away with nothing. Empty.

The blurs loomed over me, red and green meshed together. Behind were teeth, fur, the chomping mouths descending upon Bass. Then, I fell into the dark.