Reincarnated into a Snow Griffin-Chapter 119

"You know, it actually does look good on you." Ethan says after we start walking towards the city, and is easy to know what he is referring to.

’Well but of course, it is me who you are referring to’. Says the black fox warped around my neck like a fur coat, his high foxy voice sounding like bells right up on my ears.

"I mean, black has always been my color but I don’t mind sharing when you look so good on it, even if I have to skin a little talkative fox to make a coat for you I think is a decent price to pay..." Even if Ethan seemed pleased with my new outfit addition he was put back by the quirky and very much alive fox warped all around my neck and shoulders, especially when it only knew how to provoke someone every time its mouth opened up.

I mean, wasn’t the two of them getting along just fine until now? Wouldn’t Ethan be jealous of the fox’s proximity to me now would he? Even more when the solution to the two of us one of him situation was that me and Ethan had to walk hand to hand the entire time.

I can audibly hear the fox swallowing dry under Ethan’s stare, but as the grown up adult of the group I ignore the two kids blathering.

But all playfulness is gone once they see the presence of the Ghost city’s first signs in this surrounding area, and even with the fox now working to keep us hidden and with a veil of concealment made from the same essence the faint yet already present mist seems to have some effect on us, and I’m unsure if what I feel at first is the memory of its strength or if it is the strange pull already working its way around us even at such a distance, but any doubt is lifted when we see how changed the environment is the more we walk forward, on how the bare trees twisted back and are almost uprooted by such pull, looking as if someone had picked them up like weed but stopped midway, leaving part of the roots exposed with a very uneven the ground.

We keep walking and seeing the same effect all the way, same with the rocks, same with the earth, and I could almost see the little grains of soil moving ever so slowly toward the Ghost city’s center.

The only thing to move and coil around freely is the ghostly white mist that thickens with each step we take.

At some point the road starts tipping downwards, and as the white rock that once beautifully paved the road curved around and cracked like old yellow broken eggs, all affected in a way that corrosion only wouldn’t, a more meticulous work as if red ants consumed everything into the small little parts.

I shudder at the thought of finding a colony of ants walking around, even worst when the floor is moving as I go, resembling as if turned alive by such beasts, and finding problem where there is not I figure is a good idea to distract myself from my own imagination even more because we would see the hell soon enough, no need to suffer beforehand by imagining it too.

"So, tell me fox, why do you want to leave so badly as to risk your life coming back here?" For a moment I think he has not heard me, or rather even had fallen asleep, would expect less from such clueless individual, and as I pay attention to where I step on this messy groundfloor to avoid falling at the increasing sloop of dusty cobblestones he proves me wrong by answering in a small voice, as if afraid of even making a sound in a place like this.

Could not blame him though, even I am a little over the edge by now.

"It is a little... complicated." The fox starts answering and I can tell that he is not only hesitating now but choosing the correct words to say as well, the better way to put it all... or to hide it all.

"My fox kindred have a very ... Clear behavior pattern that we should follow let’s put it that way.... And I quite don’t fit it at all." I start thinking that this will be all he has to say about the subject when he feels the need to keep going. "We are commonly seen in brothels for a reason you know, and me, not only am a black fox abysses element but am an eternal kid while having to do business like this."

"And don’t think that I want your pity at all mind you, but you can imagine how being an outcast feels like, being thrown around my entire life only to be used and abused after this tragedy happened and I survived, the only thing capable accessing the ghost city, quite profitable for being the only source of that. "

"I’m just ... done being used like that, unable to get away from this childish form, but worse when I am as old as wars, and you, you will be my ticket out because you can fly away whenever you want to and you don’t have any interest in keeping me locked here on this island to possibly use in the future."

"I see... " I say but I cannot begin to understand what it’s like to be in his shoes, living your entire life by being used for one reason or another, from being mistreated to being castoff, I don’t know which one is worse, but I can tell that is enough reason to want out.

And more than enough reason to risk your life for it.

We are only speaking briefly to avoid perturbing the silence, saying things in low voices, and even that stops once we reach the first landscape mark and look over the huge crater filled with strange structures inside.

"Wait, this used to be underwater, how did it-..." The fox starts, but soon enough joined us at staring the strange place down until we finally start walking again to see things closer.

Only I had seemed it all plainly already, but even I could not make out what was I looking at completely at first.