Nekurei

“Huh? Where... am I?”

Tamashi inexplicably found himself inside a dense forest with no idea how he had gotten there or where he had been before. The forest had both coniferous and deciduous trees, closely packed next to each other, blocking most of the sunlight and making the environment rather dark.

Quickly standing up, Tamashi studied his surroundings with a wary expression, his azure eyes betraying a hint of fear. He was about to take a step forward, only to find himself unable to move his right leg, causing him to stumble and fall face-first onto the ground.

Turning around, blood slowly dripping from his nose, he saw his leg tangled by a small tree root that was slowly tightening itself around his foot.

“What the—”

Without thinking, Tamashi swung his axe—not even knowing where he had gotten the axe from—striking the root with its sharp edge. Since one hit wasn’t enough, Tamashi smacked the root two more times, successfully freeing his leg and escaping the malicious monster.

Unfortunately for Tamashi, that wasn’t the only root with ill intentions toward him in this forest.

Soon, the roots from various trees around him emerged from the dirt, slowly slithering toward Tamashi like snakes carved out of wood. At first, Tamashi tried to fight, chopping away at his adversaries relentlessly, but he soon realized that there were too many of them, so he opted for a tactical retreat instead.

As he ran through the woods, being careful not to trip, he spotted a human shaped silhouette in the distance, holding something resembling a staff.

“Help! Over here!” Tamashi called out, wishing for help but getting a spear thrown at him instead.

He barely managed to dodge it at the last second, but it still grazed his cheek, leaving a shallow wound. Now that he was closer, he realized that the silhouette wasn’t a human at all, but rather a green and repulsive goblin, grinning at him with crooked teeth and holding a rusty knife in his hand, clearly not intending to spread some butter on a piece of bread.

Even though Tamashi should have been terrified by such a sight—and he was—he continued running forward, drawing his axe. The goblin tried to stab him in the gut, but before it even had the chance, Tamashi brought down his axe on the goblin’s head from above, splitting its skull without mercy.

“What the hell?!” screamed Tamashi in confusion, horrified. He had just killed someone—even if it was a goblin—without a second thought. It was as if his body had acted on its own.

The axe was still stuck in the goblin’s head, but no matter how hard he tried to pull it out, it wouldn’t budge. Blood slowly seeped onto his hands, staining them red and making Tamashi shiver in horror.

“SKREEEEEE!”

Tamashi’s hearing was suddenly assaulted by a high-pitched noise, ringing in his ears like metal scraping against metal. Turning his head toward the sound, he spotted three more goblins—two with stone axes and one with a spear—sprinting toward him, grimacing with their unsightly faces. It seemed they were quite unhappy about Tamashi killing their friend.

After pulling at the axe a few more times in vain, he decided to just leave it there and fled from the three angry goblins as fast as he could. It didn’t take him long to lose their trail, as he was surprisingly quick, with his stamina holding up much better than he would have expected.

No matter how far he ran, the dark forest seemed infinite, with moving roots lurking around every corner, and giving Tamashi no time to catch his breath. Eventually, he got the idea to just climb one of the trees. Pulling himself up onto a thick branch, he sat on it and leaned against the tree’s trunk, breathing heavily.

Just what the hell is happening?!

Now that he finally had a moment to rest, his mind was flooded with questions, yet not a single answer.

How did he get here? Why did he have an axe? Why did he have no problem killing that goblin? And why were there beings like goblins and evil trees to begin with?

His head felt heavier with each question he couldn’t answer, and he started to feel dizzy. Tamashi therefore decided to just let it be, making finding a way out of this place his first priority.

Thankfully, Tamashi could no longer see the goblins, but the living roots were still down there, either in or on the ground, waiting to entangle and strangle him.

Climbing the deciduous tree he was currently on all the way to its peak and looking in all directions, Tamashi still couldn’t see the end of the forest; it was as if it were truly endless.

Before Tamashi could even form a thought, he felt a familiar sensation—a moving root wrapping itself around his ankle, trying to throw him down and drop him from the tall tree—although it was the tree's branch instead of a root.

Reacting quickly, Tamashi reached for his axe that was fixed to his back, swinging it down with all the strength he could muster.

Wait, something’s not right...

He cut the twig in half with a single swing, but another one had already gotten hold of his other leg and more were on their way to drag Tamashi to his doom. One or two, that Tamashi could handle. But with six or seven—and even more appearing by the second—now holding his legs in place, he was helpless.

Eventually, Tamashi was overpowered by the malicious wooden serpents, losing his balance and slipping off the branch and falling. As he was plummeting downward—somehow not hitting any of the tree’s branches—he noticed that a weird, matte-black substance was gushing out of the living branches he had split in half. It mostly resembled some kind of smoke, but it also flowed like a liquid, appearing eerie and uncanny—something that should not exist in the world of mortals in the first place.

It dripped and fell from the bough’s wounds, getting absorbed by the soil as soon as it made contact with the dirt.

“Nekurei...”

Not thinking about how he knew what a nekurei even was, Tamashi focused on trying to land as safely as possible and maybe break only a few bones in the process. However, before he knew it, he was already lying on his back in the grass, staring up at the branches.

I must have hit my head pretty hard, he thought, seeing the branches extending in length, twisting and spiraling in bizarre motions, as if performing some sort of ritual dance. They were gradually getting closer and closer, but also faster.

Shit—

Tamashi willed his body to roll out of the incoming bough’s way, but it refused to listen, becoming paralyzed out of nowhere. By then, the branches were only a couple seconds away from him, aiming to crush his frail human body and feed on his soul.

Horrified, Tamashi closed his eyes in terror and fear—only, he wasn’t able to do even that, as if he never had eyelids in the first place.

All of it transpired in less than two seconds.

The first bough pierced his stomach without resistance, digging deep into the soft soil beneath. Blood gushed out of the wound, but that was just the beginning. Soon, more and more branches—as well as roots—some thin as a nail, some thicker than a human arm, drilled through his flesh and bones, causing Tamashi to vomit blood, tears slowly trickling down his agonized face.

Both his legs and arms were also penetrated and immobilized by the numerous nekurei, making it impossible fom Tamashi to defend himself—not that he was in any condition to even try.

Worst of all, not only was Tamashi in a tremendous amount of physical pain, but he also felt something indescribable, as if his very being and existence were slowly being stolen from him and devoured, consumed by the ravenous nekurei that fed on the last flickers of his soul, leaving nothing but an empty shell.