The Dark Materials

by Amanda Churi

  “Well, from what we’ve seen, there is nowhere else,” Griffin argued. “I’m not going any farther until I rest, and you can take it or leave it.”

  Mabel exhaled with defeat, slouching as her eyes threatened to explode. She shook her head in incredulity, pressing a hand to her forehead as she closed her eyes. I stood there, silent; I didn’t want to go against her, but we couldn’t keep traveling…

  “Fine…” Mabel muttered.

  The others could sense Mabel’s discomfort, but they chose to ignore it. Saying nothing, Griffin looked away from Mabel and rolled his eyes, Laelia tightening the blanket around them as the two began their slow trek down the ghoulish trail, letting night enclose them.

  As much as I knew that Mabel did not want to venture into the forest, we couldn’t lose the others, and I couldn’t lose her. I took a cautious step towards her, roping my fingers in between the hand that covered her face and gently pulling it away. She warily looked up at me, remaining silent when she shifted her eyes in the direction of our vanishing friends.

  “Come on,” I pressed, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze as I led her towards the encasement of trees. She did not speak, keeping her eyes fixed on the ground as I pulled her along the forest path, catching up with the others before I could lose sight of them completely.

  Griffin looked over his shoulder, a smug smile gracing his lips when he saw that we followed. Coruscus was our only guidance, so I took the lead yet again, dragging Mabel along. All that I could see were trees, trees, and more trees, all of which looked like a perfect copy and paste of the first—dead and belittled by the invasive ice and heinous presence that had infected everything in this realm.

  “This is ridiculous,” Laelia grumbled as we walked on, trying to find a suitable place to make camp for the remainder of the night. “I still blame you for this, Eero.”

  Coruscus flared up in my hand, begging me to throw it backward and see if I was lucky enough to strike her in the head. “Do I even want to ask?”

  “D-do you not see all of this ice?” she demanded through the violent chatter of her teeth. “Not only that, but the temperature? The gloom? The death? Reeve probably took over sometime in the f-future; though, of course, that’s only because you tried to help the little runt.”

  “Shut up,” I scoffed. I had gotten the message the minute that we got here that it was my fault for luring them into coming, but trying to pin my vainful efforts to help Tah on me? I didn’t see anyone else having the heart to try and help her out… Yes, it led to Reeve’s revival, but I didn’t know that at the time!

  As I became lost in thoughts, thinking about what could have possibly gone down in the past to result in this, surprisingly, it wasn’t Laelia who continued to feed the flames, but Mabel.

  “Whether it is or isn’t Eero’s fault doesn’t matter,” she murmured. “We’re on the run because of Griffin.”

  His eyes lit up with shock. “How?! What did I do?!”

  Mabel huffed in disgust. “Well, it was your last name that set the man off, obviously; why do you figure that?”

  “I don’t know!” Griffin exclaimed shrilly. “Maybe someone they’re after has my last name!”

  “Very likely when you’re the only person that I’ve heard have that last name my entire life.”

  “What crap!” he snapped. “What about the sorcerer you were with for months, huh? He’s my brother, you know!”

  “Ok,” she agreed bluntly, “but he lived who knows how long ago by now. You’re telling me they’re trying to persecute your brother’s remains or something?” She spit on the ground with distaste. “Please, what a joke.”

  Griffin scoffed with surprise. “You don’t trust me? Is that what you’re saying, Mabel?”

  “No,” she answered promptly, bringing her head up. “But that’s only because I don’t know what to think. I’m just trying to figure out what I can based off of what we know.”

  “Well, you’re doing a pretty crappy job,” Laelia said defensively.

  “How about all of you be quiet?” I suggested bitterly. “We’re all at fault in one way or another, but it’s not going to help the situation, is it? We’re all we have; we can’t go turning against each other like this or none of us are going to make it, alright?”

  For some unknown reason, they listened to me, and that was the end of it. I didn’t want to argue; it would do nothing but be our downfall if we did.

  The path we walked on seemed endless, and I couldn’t tell if it was just a trick of the mind or if it really did stretch on for miles like this. I could see that exhaustion had finally begun taking over Mabel as well; she had to shake her head every so often and rub her eyes to keep from falling asleep on the spot.

  “Screw this future,” Griffin said crossly through a hefty yawn. “I’d rather be in the dungeons.”

  “Relax, we’ll find a good place to stop soon…” I answered doubtfully. “Might be a clearing up ahead or—”

  Sharp, mischievous laughter suddenly interrupted me, causing my feet to freeze with alarm. Worried, I snapped my attention in Mabel’s direction, and I knew it wasn’t my imagination when her drooping head suddenly shot up as she tried to pinpoint the sound. My heart quickened its pace as I turned my sight to the canopy of branches woven tightly together above us. The laughter was so high-pitched it made a sound similar to nails on a chalkboard, causing my ears to ring with discomfort. There was the sharp crunch of ice and a snapping branch, my feet regaining movement momentarily as I backed up so that I stood with Laelia and Griffin, who had also been trying to find the source of the wicked shriek.

  “Hehe! Don’t be scared!” a voice piped, my sensitive ears recognizing the direction that the sound waves hit me from, causing my body to turn towards it instinctively. The light emanating from Coruscus in my hand found the target; its rays of luminance were reflected in the eyes which bore down on me through a small gap in the branches overhead.

  The eyes were unlike anything I had ever seen. They were so large that they protruded from the creature’s head, ready to pop. They had no distinct pupils; the eyes themselves were a swirl of mythical purple, consisting of more shades than I could count. The creature was only the size of a garden gnome, though it did nothing to ease my worries. Two sharp, white fangs dropped from its pale lips, slightly below a flattened nose in the middle of its face. There was no hair upon their head, and the skin encasing their bones was a sickly shade of gray covered in black slime. They were terribly thin—almost emaciated. Its ears were sharp, and they pointed straight out from their skull, ripped at the edges. A flap of skin hung from the back of their arms—small, collapsed wings rampant with black blood vessels that could be used to take flight. A long, thin tail lay next to it in the branches, the tip formed from a congregation of sharp black spikes. Long, thin fingers gripped the branches eagerly, the black claws sinking into the frozen bark as though it was skin.

  It was the creepiest thing I had ever seen in my life.

  “Whoa! What is that?!” Mabel shrieked.

  The creature cackled, cocking its head to the side in interest. It gripped the edges of a frozen branch tightly with its claws, squeezing its thin body through a gap in the trees. Once out of the entrapment, the creature released its hold on the weakened timbers, dropping to the ground and landing on its shaky, thin legs.

  “Hehe, you mean to tell me you don’t know who we are?” the creature jeered as it looked up at Mabel, who slowly shrank back so that the majority of her body was shielded by me.

  “Uhm, no,” Mabel answered unsurely. “We’re kind of lost.”

  The creature looked baffled. “Lost? You mean to tell me you escaped in the first place? Well, hehe, isn’t that generous of the Lord!”

  That’s the second thing that has referenced the Lord... I noted.

  “I-I don’t understand,” Griffin stuttered. “What exactly are you?”

  The creature chortled mischievously, its small fangs snapping against one another. “Wh
oa, you would think they still talk about demons like us!” the creature proclaimed humorously.

  “Demons?” Mabel echoed gravely.

  “Lerials!” the lerial answered, leaning forward as the black film covering its body was secreted in greater quantities. “You kiddies were never enlightened about us under the cover of nightmares?”

  “Should we have been?” I answered roughly.

  The lerial turned to me, pausing in surprise when our eyes met. It observed me from head to toe, tilting its head to the side queerly as it tried to decipher something in its small skull. “You don’t know who we are, Eero?”

  I stepped back, inhaling sharply and raising Coruscus. “How do you know my name?!”

  The lerial pursed its lips, frowning. “Hm, that’s a shame.”

  “What is?!” I snapped, beginning to tremble in fear of what I did not understand. “What are you?!”

  The lerial snickered, its purple eyes brightening as it raised its arms, allowing its wings to fold out like a fan. A swarm of faint, high-pitched cries began chattering in the trees, Mabel and the others looking around in terror, while my eyes remained glued on the direct threat ahead.

  “Well, since you can’t seem to remember, let me remind you…” the lerial hissed, a threatening, excited growl rumbling in its small neck. “We are the inhabitants of the Lord’s woodland. We feed off of the blood of the warm and living; any who venture here without permission are subject to annihilation.”

  “What?!” Mabel shrieked, gripping Miho so intensely her knuckles turned white.

  “What did you do now, Eero?!” Laelia ordered.

  “Nothing!” I replied, my mind flailing for answers. “I don’t know what they’re talking about!”

  The lerial smiled, shaking its shoulders eagerly as it glared at Mabel, taking a bold step forward. “You seem to be full of heat, my dear! The young ones will be eager to taste your flesh!”

  My protective instincts overtook me in a flash. I raised Coruscus aggressively. “I will kill you if you lay a hand on her,” I threatened with a growl, “so help me God.”

  The lerial’s eyes darkened, its body trembling aggressively as one by one, uncountable sets of blinding purple eyes began to appear in the trees, each honing in on us with the same, hungry gaze. “God is dead, boy,” the lerial growled, its voice doing a complete one-eighty and dropping into the lowest octave I had ever heard.

  “And so are you.”

  Upon receiving the kill order, the lerials in the trees sank their claws into the branches, the sound of breaking wood rupturing around us as the swarm began to tear through the only barrier separating us. There was a terribly sharp wail, Mabel screeching with fear as the head lerial leaped at me with outstretched claws aimed at my throat. Had it not been for Mabel’s warning, it would have been too late. I quickly swung Coruscus in front of my face, the motion so quick and abrupt that my weapon left a trail of light in its wake as it collided with the lerial’s neck, a horrible screech of agony parting its lips and a spurt of black blood shooting from its mouth as I severed its head from its body.

  The lerial hit the ground in two pieces, killed instantly. Small, bony fists broke through the gaps in the trees, a rain of splinters falling around us as the forest shook with vengeful wails of the enemy.

  “Run!” I screamed, pulling Mabel along as we raced off into the opposite direction from which we came. Griffin and Laelia didn’t protest, their minds frantic with fear as they followed Mabel and me as quickly as they could along the bare path. The branches continued to be ripped apart as we ran on, the swathe of greedy purple eyes seeming endless as they descended from the canopy. I could hardly hear those who were next to me; the snapping of branches was a savage roar in our ears, while the cries of the enemy intensified in both numbers and pitch to the point where I could feel blood pooling in the depths of my ears.

  A violent rip reverberated through the forest as the branches fell from above in an avalanche of timbers. Laelia and Mabel squealed with fear, the heavy branches collapsing through the air and rapidly approaching us like a wave as we tried to outrun the clan of lerials, who excitedly leaped down from the trees as their restraints were broken, flying towards us on their small, throbbing wings.

  “Just keep going!” Griffin screamed. No matter how urgent the situation, though, we just couldn’t run fast enough.

  A large, heavy, ice coated branch broke from its tree, slamming down onto my shoulder blades and causing my legs to buckle, making me hit the ground stomach first. The wave of branches was upon us; one landed on the back of Mabel’s neck, causing her to crumple as well, while breaking free of my hand. From the corner of my eye, I saw Laelia fall—a large branch striking her in the head and crippling her. Griffin fell almost immediately afterward as the timbers claimed him, just as they had the rest of us.

  The violent, impatient chatter of the lerials flocked us as I strenuously tried to push the branches away from me, but they were already overtaking us. Dozens of lerials landed heftily on the fallen branches that kept us down, laughing tauntingly with their purple eyes shining as they stared at our seemingly helpless bodies. I growled angrily, tightening my hold on Coruscus pinned beneath the weight of the wood, ready to defend myself.

  They attacked. They leaped at me viciously, baring their fangs and sharp claws. I grunted painfully; their weight pinned me down all the more, their claws ripping savagely through my clothes as their fangs sunk into my exposed skin. I screamed, feeling their fangs draw my blood and absorb it like a straw, and just as I was about to lash out, one lerial slammed into my face as it laughed madly, grabbing my hair and tearing it out by its roots.

  My blood drenched my shirt and ran down my arms, my muscles trembling as I struggled to yank Coruscus out from beneath a branch. Giving it all I had, I slammed Coruscus upwards so that it burst through the timbers, throwing multiple lerials off of me in the process.

  As soon as my weapon was freed, my survival instincts and battle training took over, making me swing at anything in sight. I quickly rolled onto my back as more lerials confronted me to make up for the defeated ones, kicking my legs out and throwing many back before they could reach me. Each of my rapid, desperate swings had to take out multiple at once, their presence so concentrated that Coruscus was coated with black blood within seconds.

  My friends were struggling. Laelia and Griffin were in the same situation that I had recently been in—dozens of lerials attacking their bodies and shredding their skin. I was about to help them but not before I realized through all of the commotion that I could not see Mabel, which immediately threw me into more of a panic. Angrily, I stood up, throwing the remaining lerials off of me and quickly scouting the area for my best friend.

  Just standing there I became their toy, the lerials grabbing my torn shirt and yanking on the fabric as they tried to pull me back down onto the ground. A lerial flew straight at me, screeching as it aimed for my throat. I pretended to not see it until it was close, quickly turning around and beheading it in one swift motion.

  That’s when I saw her.

  At least double what had been over the rest of us were attacking her; there were so many that I could hardly even see her body—just a swarm of black, purple, and gray sealing her fate.

  “Mabel!” I screamed urgently, trying desperately to ignore the pain as I forced my way over to her. I didn’t bother to worry about accidentally hitting her instead of the creatures; I just started swinging blindly, severing multiple lerials apart with each strike as blood and wails flew through the air. Many of the lerials that were on Mabel immediately shifted their focus to me, crying angrily as they threw themselves my way, challenging me to their own form of combat, which I quickly ended. Still, many got to me; their numbers were just too overwhelming.

  My hacks began to slow down as I tried to free her. Coruscus was over my shoulder, preparing for another hefty swing when I saw a hand lying limp out beside the pile of lerials—a hand drenched in blood and sliced from
the wrist up as the smaller lerials sucked the blood from her arm.

  I screamed furiously, slamming Coruscus into the demented creatures as hard as I could, freeing Mabel’s arm before I threw my body over her in an attempt to shield her from the remaining attacks. As soon as I was on the ground, the lerials were upon me once more.

  I flexed my muscles as much as possible to make it harder for the lerials to permeate my skin, wrapping Mabel’s shredded arm in my hands and squeezing it tightly in hopes to retain what blood I could. We had come too far to die like this, and if we had to, I was going to use my last breath to keep her around; I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing I had let her die.

  I closed my eyes, unable to do anything else, when hundreds of blood-curdling shrieks erupted around me like fireworks, piercing my ears as light faintly filtered through my closed eyelids. I opened my eyes abruptly, weakly looking ahead as a bright white light stood firm in the middle of the damaged forest path, the core so blinding that I had to squint my eyes to even look in its direction. The lerials squealed with fright, their sharp claws scrambling across my skin as they tried to escape the blazing rays of light emanating from the mysterious presence. In a matter of seconds, our attackers were gone, fleeing into the broken treetops.

  I looked away from the light illuminating the dark forest and towards Mabel whose arm I crushed in an attempt to stop the bleeding. Her white dress was drenched with blood, her eyes were closed, and her skin was soaked in gore. A large gash ran across the side of her pale face—three claw marks so deep that it looked like the claws hit muscle. She didn’t move; there was the almost invisible rise and fall of her chest, and the only thing I could feel besides my own agonizing pain was the throbbing of her veins as they desperately tried to rush blood to the areas that needed it most.

  It felt like there was poison in my stomach as I looked at her. She had almost been killed so many times; I was seriously getting to the point where I felt like she would be safer if I locked her in a crate and carried her around like a pet.