Chapter 25: Nightmare To Vanquish
"What the hell..."
The air was thick. Too thick. A dreamlike haze clung to Kivas' skin as she stirred, her senses swimming against a tide of dampness and illusion.
The soil beneath her was soft, wet, pulsing faintly with a humid pressure that coiled into her soles. She blinked several times, the fog settling across her vision in slow folds.
Massive gnarled trees stretched like the limbs of titans, their twisted silhouettes crowding the sky above.
Mist crawled through every surface, tracing the forest in silent, white breath.
Kivas exhaled harshly, sitting up with narrowed eyes and clenched fists.
"She really knocked me out again..." she muttered bitterly. "Seriously, who just decides that for someone else?"
Her voice vanished into the mist like it had never existed. Still grumbling, Kivas glanced at her hands and her breath caught—gleaming softly in her grasp were the unmistakable forms of the Remington 870 and the cinquedea.
She lifted both slowly, turning them in her hands, eyes scanning the flawless integration of metal and the pulse of mana lining each weapon's edge. The weight was perfect. Familiar. Part of her now.
"I'm... actually armed this time."
She stood carefully, soles sinking slightly into the wet soil as fog coiled around her ankles.