Halfalias - Chapter Three: Kedsawn

Chapter Three: Kedsawn

     Alyss froze in the shadows of a concrete wall as Lily walked past, the latter oblivious of the piercing bright orange eyes watching her. The Vraemon girl’s half form wore a billowing black cape that was lined with orange fabric in its inside and had a vampire’s collar that matched the rest of her attire: shadow black. Even the gloves and calf-high boots she wore were jet black, and large, similarly coloured crow’s wings were folded neatly underneath her cape. The white of her eyes had turned black and hollow, her pupils and irises having shrunk into glowing orange dots. Black veins stretched outwards against her skin from her eyeballs, fading into her flesh, and long, sharp vampire teeth peeked out from between her lips.  Curled up in a small dark corner of a vending machine propped against a stone wall was Terry the tiny raptor, barely noticeable even if you were staring straight at his hiding spot. Up ahead on the empty street sat a lonely mailbox, reflecting the setting sun off of its shining red surface. Inside of it, among the few stray letters waiting to be picked up, sat a scrunched up Kiki, who was cursing Emilee over and over again for coming up with this stalking plan. The mastermind of this outrageous operation was presently hidden behind a trashcan in her half wolf form in an alleyway to the left of their target, purposely keeping her breathing silent and shallow and her body stiff. Said target was now ahead of the mailbox and was turning right towards a tall skyscraper that looked a bit out of place next to a handful of smaller buildings and a vast, dense forest. Instead of heading in to the building, however, Lily took a sharp turn right, entering the dark forest. In an almost invisible blur, the four Halfalias swiftly and soundlessly sped in to a sturdy oak’s branches at the entrance of the woods. They silently traveled from tree branch to tree branch, keeping a safe distance from Lily as they kept watch on her as she headed deeper through the trees, the area becoming darker due to the thick canopy letting only the smallest amounts of diminishing sunlight through.

     After what seemed like an hour, Lily stopped abruptly at a particularly large cluster of elm trees, grown so close together that even a small worm would have trouble slipping through the gaps. Around the group of trees the lighting had dwindled down to murky, almost pitch-blackness. After quickly looking from side to side, Lily placed her palm on the trunk of a specific elm and whispered so softly that normal human ears could never pick it up:

    “†‡±µ¶¸¹ºø” and all of a sudden the elm tree disappeared, creating a narrow passage to the other side of the barrier of wide trees. Lily wasted no time in stepping through; the tree instantly reappearing as soon as she had went inside. When Alyss had made sure that nobody else was around, the four half humans hopped down from their branches and crept up to the array of elms.

     “It was this tree,” Terry said, pointing to an elm, his memory amazing. They all rested their palms on the tree, reciting what Kiki had told them to (which was a type of demonic dialect):

     “†‡±µ¶¸¹ºø” they said, and at that moment the elm disappeared and they quickly got inside just as the tree reappeared. The Halfalias where surrounded by trees, except directly ahead of them as there was a stone wall that looked like it was part of a mountainside. Standing in front of the wall was Lily, who was facing the wall and had her back to the four newcomers. Emilee knew that she shouldn’t be afraid of Lily, but there was something about the way she twitched that set her on edge. Lily suddenly thrust her finger on to the bottom left of the wall and drew a high arc with her finger over to the bottom right of the wall, creating an invisible rainbow. At first, nothing happened and it was just a normal-looking stone wall, but then the arc that Lily had traced with her finger pulsed with a bright red glow. The stone inside the rainbow shape crumbled, leaving an archway in the stone, leading in to a dark, long, twisting, narrow hall. Without a moment’s hesitation, Lily walked in to the passage, her form fading in to the darkness. Kiki tensed. Anything could come out of there, and by the time they would know that it was even there they would already be dead. She shivered at the thought. They had hidden themselves in the branches of the elms in case something should come out from who-knows-where and attack them, and also so they could talk in private without the risk of Lily coming back and hearing them. Even though they should have been pretty safe in the trees, Kiki couldn’t help but have her heart beat in her ears, drowning out all the other sound. She hated the dark, and as of now she could barely see a foot in front of her, but the corridor Lily had gone into had been much darker. Everyone except her could naturally see well in the dark, so she felt entirely exposed to the overwhelming darkness of the corridor ahead.

     “We don’t know what’s in there, so Terry will turn in to his Sinornithosaurus form and Alyss will turn in to a bat. Kiki, can you cast a shrinking spell?” Emilee said, turning to Kiki.

     “Huh? Oh, uh, yeah,” she said, breaking out of her thoughts.

     “Okay. So Kiki is going to shrink herself and me and I’m going to ride on Terry and Kiki will ride on Alyss. The reason is that we want to be as small as possible so if anything passes by they won’t notice us. Travel as close to the ceiling as you can, use the least space as possible. Spread out but keep within eyeshot. Most importantly, stay alert,”

     Soon, Terry and Alyss flew in to the dark, stone corridor with Emilee and Kiki on their backs. The vampire crow and tiny dinosaur walked as fast as they could upside-down on the ceiling, clinging to the crevices with their claws to keep from falling down. The shrunken Kiki and Emilee latched on to their mount’s necks for dear life.

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     After a little while of walking, the three best friends and little brother heard a clicking sound up ahead, causing them all to freeze. The clicking grew louder over time, and eventually was accompanied by a small and raspy croaking noise, similar to that of a frog with asthma that was choked mid-croak. It almost sounded humanoid, but it didn’t at the same time. It was a strange sort of sound that sent shivers up the Halfalias’ spines. Emilee faintly remembered reading something about this when she briefly had researched more about Kedsawns with her two best friends. The thought slammed into her like a metal rod smashing in to a brick wall just as the beginning of a dark figure rounded the corner a few metres ahead of them and the repulsive smell of rotting flesh slaughtered her sensitive nose. She pulled her brother’s head to the ceiling, turning his vision away from the creature as fast as possible as well as averting her own. Emilee quickly glanced at Alyss and Kiki, relief briefly piercing her thoughts as they had also steered away their eyes from the Kedsawn. They probably also remembered that the special website (that was only available to Halfalias) that they looked up Kedsawns on had had an audio recording of what they sounded like. It was faint and the recording crew had barely gotten back alive, but it sounded exactly like what the four were hearing. The website also said that the Kedsawns smell like rotting flesh in their true forms, and according to the Demon Encyclopedia you would die if you ever looked at one in its true form.

     The Kedsawn walked down the corridor towards them, and as it approached the rotting smell became stronger and stronger. Alyss forced a gag back down her throat and stopped her breathing, so that she could not be detected by the sound of her breaths. Emilee did the same, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end and her forehead glistened with sweat. Terry was half passed out, was barely gripping on to the ceiling, couldn’t breathe even if he wanted to, and was sweating a waterfall. Kiki was similar to Terry, but instead of half fainted she was stock-still, had half the mind to bolt out of there, and was gripping so hard on to Alyss’ feathers that the poor crow demon was sure it was going to rip out. The Kedsawn was now walking past them, its rancid stench slowly fading away, but before Emilee could let relief sink in, she heard the Kedsawn stop suddenly. They flattened themselves against the roof and Kiki managed to cast a cloaking spell on them, her rushed actions running on pure adrenaline. The Halfalias heard the sickening sound of popping bones and an exhale of breath that sounded oddly human and Emilee guessed that it was the Kedsawn turning its neck or something to look behind it. After a few seconds the clicking sound continued down the hall and the stench of decomposing flesh deteriorated.

     The rest of the journey through the corridor had three or four more close calls similar to the first, and more often than not there was the peculiar scent of rotting flesh, yet nothing ever came and the smell went away after a few minutes. After about half an hour, they saw a faint lime green glow come from the corner they were about to turn. They soon found out that the green glow was coming from in between the cracks of a door that seemed to be made of some kind of hard, black, vine. As soon as they realized this Kiki’s shrinking spell reached its limits and with a puff of smoke Emilee and Kiki were back to their normal size, hitting the ground with a thud. Kiki was in her human form, but Emilee’s wolf ears twitched nestled in her long dark hair, listening for anything on the other side of the door as Alyss and Terry hopped down from the ceiling. Alyss changed in to her half form, her cape billowing out and settling behind her as she landed perfectly on the stone floor while Terry chose to stay as a Sinornithosaurus. Alyss looked for a handle on the door, and when she didn’t find anything she cautiously poked the center of the door with a gloved finger.

     All of a sudden, the vines retracted from the center to the sides of the doorframe to reveal an immense dome-shaped space carved in to the cave. The landing beyond the vine entrance was a stone outcropping high off the ground of the area, but the abrupt change of scenery wasn’t what made the half humans’ blood freeze. Hanging on the ceiling and the round walls of the massive dome space were thousands, maybe even millions of faintly glowing, bright lime green, translucent, enormous cocoons. Inside each cocoon was an unconscious person, curled up and floating in an unidentified liquid. There were tubes connected to each of them that lead in to a tank, and flowing inside the tubes was a sparkling, glowing, bright, and colourful substance that Kiki, Alyss and Emilee immediately recognized as life essence.

     They stood paralyzed, taking in the chilling room. Without a sound, from one of the many sides of the dome that the dim light failed to reach, emerged Lily, who strolled over to one of the giant cocoons and plucked the heavy structure right from its cremaster as if it were simply an apple from a tree. At the sight of their friend, the Halfalias quickly snapped out of their daze and melted in to the shadows with the skill of ninjas, as they were trained to do. They watched intently from the shadows as Lily carefully cracked open the bottom of the cocoon and lifting the opposite end, letting something encased in translucent, dimly glowing green slime slide out. Emilee was about to gasp, but thanks to Alyss covering her mouth she managed to keep quiet, because inside that particular mass of ooze was another Lily! Now there was no doubt in their minds that the Lily who led them here was not their dear friend, but a Kedsawn. As if to prove that fact, with a rip of skin, crack of bone, and shift of organs, in the imposter’s place was a dazzlingly handsome teenage boy about their age with rich, golden locks of hair and enchanting green eyes. Alyss was pale, Emilee nearly choked on her spit, Kiki just stared and Terry was still traumatized from the sickening sounds that were made during the transformation. They all were snapped out of their shock when they saw the real Lily start wake up lying in the pile of goo. What greatly disturbed them more was that the ‘teenage boy’ was now leaning over their friend with a seemingly concerned expression, but the Halfalias knew better.

     “Wh... where am I?” Lily said to nobody in particular as she opened her eyes. Obviously she was startled when she realized that the most beautiful boy she had ever seen was leaning over her, ever so close to her face. The boy leaned back and helped her sit up, asked if she was okay in his unbelievably silky voice, and began to weave an intricate tale about how he had seen some demons drag her underground and how he’d followed them and rescued her from their clutches. He explained that they put her in a cocoon so that they could eat her later, but as soon as they left he wasted no time in sneaking up and getting her down. Emilee wanted nothing more than to barrel down there and punch his lights out, and as soon as Lily thanked him gratefully and he started to lean into her face as if he were going to kiss her, Emilee got her chance. The wolf girl flashed a malicious grin to her comrades, and that was all Terry needed to launch from his perch on the wall and skilfully land with his talons puncturing the smooth skin of the disguised demon’s shoulder and not a split second later Terry’s razor sharp teeth were in his neck, drawing blood. Lily shrieked, and before anyone could yell Kedsawn! Emilee and Alyss were between her and the handsome ‘teenager’, standing in offensive positions. Kiki swooped in at that same time, both of her feet slamming into the demon’s solar plexus and knocking him back, Terry quickly springing off his shoulder just in time. The demon recovered in seconds, and before anyone could react, he was rushing forward with incredible speed towards Alyss, grabbing her by the shoulders. He pulled her forwards, intent on sucking out her organs through her mouth to at least gain a meal through this encounter. Before his lips so much as brushed the vampire demon’s, Alyss had thrust her hand straight through his stomach; blood, shreds of meat and other innards coating her gloved hand as it emerged from his back, snapping his spine in the process of going through his body. When she pulled her crimson-dyed hand out, the Kedsawn coughed up some thick red juice as his eyes rolled back in his head and he collapsed sideways on to the floor. Lily screamed and tossed her cookies at the gory scene, Emilee patting her back as Alyss casually began licking her stained gloved fingers nonchalantly, staring at the human-looking body on the ground.

     “The encyclopedia said that Kedsawns swallow their victims whole, so why was he trying to kiss you?” Terry asked suddenly. Everyone turned in alarm as the supposed ‘corpse’ chuckled slightly.

     “Most... of that stuff about Kedsawns... in your archives... demons planted it there... about everything you think you know about... Kedsawns... the transformation capital... put it there... and it’s all... fake,” the demon wheezed, smirking at them from the floor as he lay in a puddle of blood.