Despite the miles they traveled, past the trees and the river that often whispered their name, Amaris could not get the sloshing sound of dripping filth from his mind. It was a symphony behind his regular thoughts, tinkering of grime and dirt, slapping and dripping against his conscious mind. Evil, he thought, the words so carelessly thrown out into the chasm of his thoughts.

Evil, he mumbled, corrupt, vile, evil.

His gaze was cast toward his feet, his paws a mismatched collection of silver spotted fur that pleaded to be seen through the mounds of mud and muck that now peppered his legs and toes. The rain, although comforting to some smaller portion of his mind, went unnoticed as he blinked within his stupor.

Evil…evil…evil.

They were quite literally the only words the moon could mumble since their dance with death not long ago.

Not even the tension that rippled between him and his twin, singing softly down their blood-infused bond, could rip him from his twisting mind.

‘Amaris, drink.’

He startled, jerking spontaneously as his head whipped toward the red-rimmed gaze of her own. Huh? He choked out as his own gaze would widen and blink before turning to spot the puddle she spoke of.

Amaris could do nothing more than groan as the flipping of his belly all but gurgled in defiance. He didn’t wanna. Really, he didn’t want to. The mere thought of consuming anything made his head sing in nauseating silence.

But for Aelia, he would.

Reluctantly and accompanied by a disinterested groan, he forced himself to take the tiniest of laps, feeling the cooler water send shockwaves down his raw and burning throat. The water no longer tasted hydrating, its liquid shockingly not as crisp and tasty as the poisonous pool that lived within the respite. Odd how such things changed.

After the whopping two licks he had taken and the nausea that followed swiftly after, Amaris turned to Aelia with a quiet, bated breath that hung heavy between his lips. We are surrounded by evil, he murmured toward his twin, his gaze ricocheting across the dead and dying land around them. Evil, Aelia, He mumbled, It’s consuming…everything.

A subtle whine escaped his lips as his gaze continued to swallow the dying scenery around him. Where once that howling river of blue would cry with a song of life, now it all but seemed to wail with a sense of dread. A dread that Amaris could feel needling its way within his abdomen. His gaze skittered to the side, flashing along the wilted flowers of a bloom that could not grow—and from beyond their shadowed corpses, he could’ve sworn the image of his veiled friends returned.

The shadows of his Demonic little friends skittered like bugs across his vision, consuming his peripherals as they so often did. But unlike the past, these times their wilted and spindly forms did not come toward him—rather, they seemed to scatter into the dead vegetation around them. Fleeing. From a terror he could not place but knew far too well.

Aelia’s voice brought him back, as if she were the lighthouse that guided his sinking ship to shore. He turned to glance at her with the quiet drawing of his ears. Hope, he mumbled through a dry chuckle, leaning into her form beside his own. Are we sure it is not the Five that is punishing us now? He asked.

And much like the clockwork to his disheartened string of words, that feeling of intrusion began again. First, as a rapping against his mental door, and then as a booming voice, as the Other flooded through him.

Drink, it commanded of them, and Amaris all but whined against his sister’s silhouette.

He didn’t want to.

Not now. Not again.

Already, that itching in his throat was commanding, crawling along a bloody rawness he could not quite explain but one he knew was clearly pain. He dove his head into Aelia’s neck, as if the grounding of her body could save him too, while a whine echoed from between his clenching teeth. Aelia, he whispered past the voice, we need…to leave...

If he stayed any longer, Amaris could not trust himself to avoid the oozing water. Not until it devoured him from the inside out.