Brela - Rot (4)

Brela’s fingers brushed over the berries, tracing the soft surfaces of the nearly translucent fruit. Carefully, she plucked one from its deep green stem. It melted on her tongue like Wes’s finest meal, like Dio’s best cake, and warmth flooded through her body. The taste was sweet and golden at, almost divine. For a heartbeat, she thought she could feel life blooming inside her, a power that would nourish her forever. The warmth spread through her veins, pulsing in rhythm with her heartbeat.

At last, she had found them.

“I have them, Dio. Just like you said…” she whispered, smiling.

What about the berries?

His words were still in he rmind. Now she knew: The berries were alive. They were the very essence of life itself; of eternal life, of healing and joy. 

Everything was fine now. She would bring them back to her friends, and Daw could remain as it was forever. Everyone would love them. No one would ever leave again. The berries would become a symbol of life within the Dream itself. Her mind raced with visions of Daw bathed in golden light, fields blooming endlessly, laughter echoing between the houses, Dio smiling as the sun set. 

Greedily, she reached for another.

Dio, now you’ll always come back, even when you leave to wander with Ray. You’ll both return, just as you promised. You said you would, and now I know it’s true. Once I plant these berries, everything will be all right. Avee and Lot, you’ll return too. Everyone will. I’ll never be alone again…

Yet as her fingers brushed the second berry, her eyes fell on the spot where she had plucked the first: there, where it had once hung, a tiny yellowish mark had appeared, like a wound, faint but visible. A place where something had been torn away.

The sight made her stomach twist. The warmth inside her faltered, turning to something heavy and sour. A faint dizziness rose in her chest.

Where is Dio now? she suddenly wondered, lifting her head.

Around her lay only the night, the ground tangled with black brush, the branches of the willow drooping like countless strands of thread that shielded her from the world outside. The air was thick and still. 

Brela became aware that barely any moonlight reached her, and that the glow of the berries had faded.

How far have I gone? 

The thought shot through her mind, painful.

“Dio?” she whispered, glancing around. “Des?”

It felt as though she were realizing, for the first time in days, that she was utterly alone. The silence beneath the willow pressed against her ears; even the rustling of leaves had stilled. She was alone in a part of the Dream she had never explored, alone beneath a foreign tree. She had torn herself from her friends to get here, exactly like the berry she had plucked and torn from its stem, seperating it from the others.

She whispered into the emptiness, trying to understand what was happening to her, why she now felt as she had in her darkest moments in the Dream.

“I’m the reason I’m alone,” she whimpered, pressing her hands to her face. 

Her breath trembled against her palms. For a brief instant she remembered Dio’s voice, soft and thoughtful: 

When you stop learning, you stop growing.

No one was there to comfort her. She had left them behind to search for these cursed berries.

“You didn’t bring anyone with you, you idiot,” she hissed into the air, as if to hold herself accountable.

An uncontrollable shiver gripped her, and her muscles tightened with fear.

“Brela, you idiot, you wanted to be alone for the most important thing you’ve ever done in the Dream. Why? Why did you do this?” Her voice broke, trembling between guilt and self-reproach.

 She paused, listening for an answer that didn’t come, her breath echoing in the stillness.

“I’ll bring them back and show them to everyone… or is that only an excuse? Have I only now realized that I needed to be alone? Were the berries trying to tell me that? That, in the end, I’ll abandon everyone, seeking happiness only for myself? Was it all a lie I told myself: that I wasn’t alone in Daw?” 

Her voice faltered. The questions poured out faster, like thoughts she could no longer stop.

“Now that they’re so far away… has anything really changed? Can I even ask them to stay, simply because I don’t want to lose them? No, I let Lot and Avee go, didn’t I? Does that mean I want to be alone? Alone…?”

Her words dissolved into the night. Somewhere deep in her mind, she felt her inner garden trembling. The flowers that once turned to the Sun now bent inward, closing their petals like frightened hearts.

“Oh, Sun and moon… nothing has changed. You’re alone, Brela. That’s your fate.”

She stopped speaking. A cold wind brushed over her skin, carrying with it the faint scent of decay.

When you stop growing, you’re bound to wither eventually.

She hadn’t grown. She was still the same, still alone. All the people who once warmed her inner garden were never meant to stay forever. They would leave, and when new ones came, they too would drift away in time. Already, they felt so far from her.

Before her eyes, the berries began to lose their color. The gold dulled to amber, then to gray. A faint crackling sound rose from the stems, brittle and unnatural, as if the life inside them were breaking apart. From the small yellow mark where she had plucked one, a black vein of rot spread across the plant. With a cry, she watched as the little shrub withered and died.

I tore it away. I separated it. It was alone, cut off from the others. Just like I tore myself away from them to come here. Now I, too, will wither… alone…

The cold would not release her. She knew that if she were to sink into her inner world again, she would see this same decay. Her flowers rotting, the vines collapsing, perhaps the ones Avee and Lot had once nurtured with their warmth...

Something soft brushed against her face. Her fingers, still pressed over her eyes, felt it too. Slowly, fighting down the nausea rising in her throat, she lowered her hands. The night around her had shifted color, turning pale and gray-green, as if even the light had grown sick.

She looked at her fingers, barely able to see. They had turned grayish, the rich tone of her skin now marred by cracks running down her arms. Across them spread faint white patches that stung and drew the warmth from her flesh. She could feel her face changing too, the same transformation creeping across it. She tried to scream, but her voice was hoarse, so raw that only a broken rasp escaped her. 

I’ll wither here, rot away, all alone…

“So you shall,” whispered a voice.

At first, Brela thought she had spoken the words herself, words born from the pit of her despair, steeped in fury and self-loathing.

“Smile, why don’t you? Skip around, act like a Lazape; it’ll make everything better…”

The voice was low and mocking, its tone warped by something damp and predatory. The mocking words were swallowed by the drooping branches of the willow, yet Brela was certain this time that they came from the ground before her. Where the last remnants of the berries had decayed, it was as if a mouth had begun to move there—a rotting tongue twitching, whispering words that pierced deeper than any knife and numbed her worse than any blow. The air was thick with the reek of sweet corruption, and each word came with a faint wet clicking, like the sound of roots breaking underground.

“What are you…” she rasped, trying to crawl away, but the veils of the willow caught her, tangling around her limbs. 

Panic took hold, and she thrashed wildly, consumed by terror. 

Nothing changed. The cold lingered. The stench thickened. The voice remained.

“You came to me,” it said. “You traveled so far, though a path can always be walked in two directions. I’ve come to you now. It was difficult, so difficult. Yet now that you’re alone, by your own choice, you belong to me. And I’ll make your waking slow and painful. You’ll be alone again. Well… not completely. You’ll still have me.”

A laugh oozed into her ears like pus, and she could almost feel something wet and heavy slide against her cheek. The sensation froze her; she didn’t dare move. For a moment she thought the touch might be a hand, familiar, almost tender, before realizing it was something else entirely.

Somewhere deep within her mind, Brela sensed Daw, faint and distant, muffled by the willow’s shroud.

Des… Dio… I’m coming back. I was wrong… please, help me…

She now forced herself forward through the willow’s hanging branches, fighting to return, step by trembling step. The cold drained every ounce of strength from her. The branches clung to her like fingers; they caught in her hair, tore at her sleeves. The scent of rot clung to her skin. Her legs buckled, and she stumbled, catching herself against the roots. Soon she would fall.

Yet even if she had to crawl, she would move onwards.

Somehow… somehow, I’ll make it back. Somehow…

For a moment, she thought the warmth from Daw was growing, steady, faint, but real. Yet she must have been mistaken.

“Please… help me,” she whispered hoarsely. “Please, someone… come find me. I shouldn’t have gone alone… I… Please, Des, Dio… I don’t want to wake up alone…” 

Her vision blurred. The edges of the world dimmed, as though her mind were sinking into shadow.

Then her legs gave out, and the cold sank into her body, slowly, relentlessly, until it started devouring her.