Aye, JWD here. This is Chapter 10 of my book, Prove It. (Warning, this is a pretty dark chapter. Prepare yourself.) By the way, the full book is on Wattpad. You can follow me on Wattpad @ jwd813. Anyways, here's chapter 10. Enjoy! c: NOTE: If you have not read any of the other chapters yet, links are on my profile page. Chapter X The forest of Malum was pure torture. That's the best way I could put it. The further we got into the forest, the more it seemed like the forest itself was attacking us. At one point, we started to hear voices. You will die here. There is no escape. "Did you hear that?" I asked Avianna. "Yea.." She replied, her voice shaking. "It's the voices of the tortured souls that died here." "Happy happy sunshine.." I muttered. There's no one to help you. I couldn't let the voices to get to me. I could go insane, or worse. "Don't listen to them Ethan." Avianna warned. She pulled off her backpack and reached inside. She rummaged around for a second before pulling out some cotton balls. She stuck one in each ear, and handed me two. "These might help." She said. I plugged the cotton into my ears. The voices disappeared for a second, but the cotton was useless. The voices weren't from the forest. The voices were in my head. Death is inevitable. You will perish. I closed my eyes, and focused on the good things. The thing was, there wasn't much good to focus on. It's pointless. Pointlessss. Give up now. "No!" I cried. I put my hands to my head. "Stop, please!" "Ethan! You can't let them do this to you!" The spirit lies. It's no good. You will perish, and join us. "No!" I squeaked. "I-I won't let you!" "Ethan!" You are afraid, Ethan Floyd. You are afraid of failure. You are afraid of death. You must accept the truth. You will not succeed. I fell to my knees. The voices were right. I was afraid of failure. I was afraid of death. Were they right? Was success really impossible? "Ethan!" Avianna's voice cried. Hearing her cleared my senses a bit. Her soothing voice was calming, but not for long. You will not succeed. "G-get o-o-out of MY HEAD!" I shouted. My voice echoed throughout the forest. The trees shook violently. The voices stopped. My ears were ringing. I looked at Avianna. I could tell I had an expression of pure panic on my face. I couldn't take this anymore. I wanted out. The forest had finally broken me. Those voices, I would never wake up again without hearing them. Even though they were gone, they still echoed in my head. You will perish, and join us. I took another look at Avianna. My breathing was a lot faster and heavier than it should've been. My heart was pounding in my rib cage. I ran into the depths of the forest. I knew there was no escape from the forest. The only way out was death. Was my destiny really to sit here and rot in this awful place, the tortured voices of the fallen ringing in my head? I came up to a river. Not a normal river. The water was gray and still, and it even sounded odd. Unlike a soothing flow of a normal river, this sounded like acid was bubbling. If it was acid, splashing my face probably wouldn't be very healthy, but I wasn't thinking. I knelt before the river and splashed water on my face, clearing my thoughts. I heard footsteps behind me. How had Avianna caught up so quickly? "That water isn't safe y'know." She warned me. I said nothing. "Ethan.." She paused, seemingly searching for the right words to say. "You can succeed. You've come this far. Those voices are only meant to break you, make you want to give up. "Well, they did their job." "Ethan, you can't just- AH!" She was cut off when a dark figure gave her a blow to the lower leg, grabbed her, and ran off. I didn't take the time to register what had just happened, I ran after the shady figure. The first thing I noticed as I ran behind it was its size. It had to be at least 12 feet tall. For a creature of its size, it was incredibly fast. I could barely keep up with it. If it hadn't been carrying Avianna, who was thrashing around, trying to escape the creatures grasp, it would've easily left me behind. I noticed something about its arms. They were thick and muscular, with dark green skin. Pretty normal until the midpoint, or elbow, whatever. At the midpoint of the arm it split into multiple tentacles, about seven or eight on each arm. The tentacles were doing a good job of keeping Avianna secure. I started to run out of gas. The quest had done a number on my stamina. I ran out of energy quicker than ever. But I couldn't just let Avianna be taken. She could be killed. I had promised that I would help her get out of here, and I intended on sticking to that promise. I trudged along, breathing heavily. For all I knew, Avianna could already be dead. Don't think like that. I told myself. You'll save her. The voices rang in my head again. Give up. Success is impossible. "I will never give up!" I shouted. "I will succeed! Nothing will stand in my way!" The trees rustled again. It almost seemed like the voices were laughing. I shook my head, and began to run again. I ran for about 10 minutes, till I finally saw a figure looming in the darkness. In the clutch of his tentacles, was Avianna, thrashing around. She had cuts on her face, and had been gagged. I could hear muffled shouts. I approached the creature, and was treated to the ugliest face I had ever seen. The creature had a green tint to its skin, with four red eyes, two bigger than the others. It had a misshapen and crooked nose. Instead of a mouth, it had a simple opening, with two fangs in the center, and two barbed pinchers emerging from the edges. With a raspy voice, it spoke. "Ethan Floyd. You've come far." The fact that it knew my name worried me. "Let Avianna go.." I said, trying to sound intimidating, but probably failing at doing so. The creature let out a mix of hissing and other strange sounds. I realized it was laughing. "Did I say something humorous?" "'Let her go.' Pah! This spirit has been a thorn in my side for years. I finally have her within my grasp. I can finally rid the world of her!" "I won't let you do that!" I shouted. "Oh really?" The creature shot back. "And what are you going to do about it?" I unsheathed my sword. "Face me." I said bitterly. "I win, you let her go, and I might consider sparing your life. You win, you can take me along with her." I snuck a look at Avianna. She was rapidly shaking her head, and her eyes were wide. I took that as a hint that I probably wasn't going to win this fight. The creatures mouth, or, whatever it was called, widened. Was it smiling? I couldn't tell. It dumped Avianna against a tree. I realized her hands were tied behind her back, and her ankles were bound together as well. "So," the creature hissed. It drew four swords from its back, each one as long as my legs. I winced. I had a serious mismatch. "Let us fight. I will take great pleasure in killing you along with the spirit." (Lol cliffhanger)
