Amidst the darkness that the night had bestowed, a cloud of smoke rose. The grey-hued ashes, now drifting away in the sky, were a spectacle especially with blinking stars as the backdrop. Before it could graze the heavens, however, the ashes dispersed alongside the wind, leaving behind a trail that would soon follow its demise.   

All came from one spot only–the area inside the Whispering Forest. 

Through the woods and bushes, Malin was in haste. He wasn’t running, just walking faster than usual. The leaves and branches obstructed his view, so he couldn’t see what was burning and how big the sea of fire was. The closer he got, the heat became more intense, scratching his skin with its hands. 

It can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be….

And once he passed through the obstacles in his path, Malin finally arrived at the center–just a step away from entering that beautiful garden he had seen this afternoon. 

The view appearing before his eyes took him by surprise. 

No, he couldn’t even walk. 

….It can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be, it can’t be!

Near its center, where a single cottage had stood, there was a huge flame. An orange glow emitted by it flickered with such brilliance, engulfing the wood as its victim with every lick. The light dispelled and chased away the lingering shadows, and its movement painted a dance acted by both the light and darkness–a waltz by nature itself. From where he stood, the warmth caressed his skin while the smell of burned wood alongside an unfamiliar and unsettling stench filled his lungs. 

Enfir soon joined him, followed by the other soldiers–the other one holding his position outside. He was also in awe, though not as expressive as his leader.

“It’s burning,” he said.

“Yes, I can see that.”

What caused it?–a question that bugged Malin’s idea. With his hand on his chin, he looked into many possibilities before trimming them down to the most likely to happen. 

Then an idea–or an assumption, one would say–entered his head. 

“Did he kill himself? Only to protect a Witch?”

The circumstances of a Witch and that scent he smelled began to make sense. 

After saying that, Malin pushed his entire body forward. Not long after that, he was running.

“Everyone, follow me!”

His suspicion wasn’t without merit too.

Torture and Witches were two sides of the same coin. One usually correlated with the other, and there was only one sure way to avoid that fate–suicide.

But….

“Is that your move, Sir Pierrot?!”

He screamed as the swaying flowers around greeted him once more. 

An ominous chill ran down his spine–not out of horror, but an immense disappointment which weighed his feet to move at a quicker pace. Some of his steps either kicked back the pebbles on the ground or crushed them. 

As he got closer, the heat intensified. The raging flame grazed his skin, pressing heat against him until sweats washed down his body. Amidst his annoyance, he let out another shout, this time at Enfir.

“Enfir! Put out the flame!”

“Ok.”

With a simple answer, Enfir let his actions speak louder. His irises changed color, though it wasn’t the same orange hue he had showed before. This time, it was the color blue similar to that of an ocean–the hue which splashed amok as each wave clashed into another. 

Enfir straightened his arms forward. From every tip of his fingers, a sphere of water appeared out of thin air. In no time, Enfir created ten water spheres air trapped inside becoming frantic bubbles that condensed and shifted. They spun and strained within their entrapment. Denser and bigger, every second brought subtle changes to those spheres until they seemed to have a mind of their own. To the soldiers observing from the side, it was an opportunity to witness what Luminant close in their proximity could do.

Some Luminants were able to control more than one Lumen–Enfir was one of them. 

At last, he unleashed them towards the burning cabin. Adding more pressure to each sphere, Enfir launched those streams of water from his fingertips in quick succession. They travelled at high speed, piercing the wind straight like spears that had no way of slowing down. 

Once the fire and water met, the evaporation process created a cloud of steam big enough to swallow all of them. Some flowers were caught in it too, as inside this thick steam ashes, their colors meant nothing. As soon as the steam obstructing their view was no more, everybody saw the same scene–a burned down cottage with ashes scattered around. 

The cabin Malin had seen before turned into an unrecognizable shape. It no longer had a roof, and the planks that survived were just one step away from crumbling under the slightest pressure. 

Malin’s eye twitched. This sight was more horrible than he had thought. Witch or not, their physiology was still that of a human–with a beating heart and working organ structures. Swallowed by this flame, there was no way both Pierrot and whoever lived with him could have survived this. 

“Tch!” Malin clicked his tongue. 

That Witch Hunter was the first one to enter, followed by the other soldiers. Enfir–having done his job–stayed outside, away from the pungent and bitter smell.

“Look for at least two bodies,” Malin said to the men following him while also putting two fingers up. 

Their footsteps amidst the dark ash were visible, increasing as they scouted every room–or what should have been a room–available in the cabin.

But there were no bodies. 

There were no signs of bodies getting burned into empty husks either. 

No corpses, no limbs, not even a single strand of hair. 

Instead, what they saw was a stack of flowers. They no longer had petals blossoming, and oozing from them was a very particular scent. The faint stench carried a hint of sweetness, twisted into something unpleasant. 

It was the source of that unsettling aroma he had noticed from the beginning. 

“Sir, there are no bodies here,” one soldier said. 

Malin finally realized what had happened. Curled into a fist, his fingers dug into his own skin, thinking about what had just gone wrong in his plan. 

***

As the cottage burned its life away, Pierrot and Helena were already deep in the Whispering Forest. Each step brought them farther from what once had been the place they shared. 

With no available light source, Pierrot stumbled here and there. His experience in venturing into the forest before helped little. In this situation, Helena walked in front, sometimes slowing down or even stopping so that Pierrot could catch up to her. The knowledge of the forest inside her head helped them navigate their way toward the exit. Right now, darkness was their ally. 

And at this moment, none of them looked back. 

None of them tried to have their resolution wavered, and so far, it had been working. 

Step after step after step. 

Their hearts were rushing in fear and adrenaline. All they could do was take another step forward, farther from Malin and his group that had entered the forest. 

Pierrot’s plan was simple. First, he had to make a distraction, one that was big enough to catch Malin and his men’s attention all at once. Second, an escape route must be secured. Luckily, Helena knew most of the forest like the back of her hand. Third, based on the information Helena provided, they had to take a horse for themselves. 

Albeit simple, however, they expected it would be difficult, nonetheless. 

Moving past thick bushes, both of them were finally just a few steps away from being outside. It was Pierrot’s first time seeing the outside world in a while. The land that stretched into the horizon, seeming to endlessly carve this so-called Land of Cydonia.

But a few meters away from the edge of the forest, Helena signaled Pierrot to stop with her hand. The latter also noticed it too–a flickering light which made the darkness dance on the ground. 

Peeking beside her, Pierrot saw a man holding a torch. He was alone, guarding what seemed to be seven horses that Helena had mentioned. This, of course, was within their expectations.     

That soldier hadn’t noticed the other two presences near him. Knowing that such an opportunity wouldn’t last long, both of them looked at each other and nodded. They did it at the same time, as if there were a cue. 

Pierrot held his breath and sneaked on him. His movements left a few things to be desired, but it was decent enough to close the distance. He was more worried about his own heartbeat, thumping so loudly that his ears couldn’t register any other noise. 

When he was close enough, Pierrot raised his weapon (an old yet reliable frying pan) and, while biting his bottom lip, struck that defenseless soldier in the head. It all happened instantly.

Thung!

Such a crisp sound that hit was. Pierrot didn’t know whether his strike was hard enough, but the moment the man before his eyes fell down, he took a deep breath–not that of relief but that of bewilderment. 

“I-I really did strike him.”

Even such a simple act reminded him of the men whose lives he had stolen. He didn’t let it occupy too much of his mind though, for now, as he understood the importance of time now. 

Yes, time was the most essential part of his plan. 

There was a reason they were already outside while Malin had just now figured out what had happened. What both of them had burned wasn’t the cottage itself but the piles of flowers they had collected before. The flame that was lit devoured those flowers first, slowly spreading to the sides until the wood around became its another victim. That time gap allowed Pierrot and Helena to hide in the forest and clear their escape route. 

Adrenaline filled his head. If they could steal a horse, his plan would succeed. 

Just one more–

“W-wait, you bastard!”

The sound of footsteps rushing towards him–Pierrot realized that and dodged to the side. He thanked his instinct as a sword was swung at his body vertically. It had almost hit him and would have reflected what could have been his cold and lifeless body. 

That soldier, whom he thought had passed out, suddenly got back on his feet while rubbing the back of his head–the part Pierrot had struck. He held a sword, and from the look on his face, Pierrot’s actions did not please him. Cold sweat on his skin made his temples look shiny while the veins popping out looked like thunder. 

“Stop right there, you criminal scum! You must be the Witch’s companion!” he shouted in anger while standing limping on both feet. 

At this point, Pierrot believed he could put him down. He must. Before that soldier steadied his body, he could knock his arm until the sword fell and took it as his own weapon. What followed next was the matter of slashing, ending his life here forever. 

But could he commit? Even he questioned that, as the thought of taking another life just to save his own made his hand tremble. 

Then could he do it, thinking about Helena’s life? 

There was no time for that, as that soldier–although his steps were shaky–was about to strike him. Pierrot had no choice but to fight. 

“Haiyaaa!”

Suddenly, the soldier stopped moving. His expression became pale, and one second after that–as if gravity had focused its wrath on him alone–he fell down. 

“Are you okay?!”

And emerging from that soldier’s back was Helena, panting with a slight smirk, or at least what looked like a smirk to Pierrot’s eyes. She had kicked that poor soldier who was just doing his duty right in the crotch. Like a javelin going straight for its enemy’s heart, she had put every bit of her strength into that maneuver. The result was a beyond accurate hit that went between his legs and reached up to his family jewels.

“I-I am,” Pierrot answered. 

“That’s good to hear.” Helena said, looking proud of what she had just done. “You don’t need to bloody your hands for me, so don’t worry.”

Then the final step of Pierrot’s plan was made to happen. Helena lit up the only match she had and used it on the horses. 

“Sorry,” she said as the tip of the fire touched their tails, causing them to run amok in all directions–all except for one which they would take for themselves. 

Without horses, those men wouldn’t be able to chase them fast enough. Still, a thought crossed his mind–that lingering fear encroached again. It wasn’t a foolproof plan, after all. Amidst desperation, he concocted a plan that had many holes in it. 

They could get caught soon. If that were to happen, they would suffer from a more severe consequence, he was sure of that. His hand approached the rein, but he never reached it, still trembling in the air. It was at that moment that Helena took his hand and guided it towards the rein. 

“Let’s go,” she said with a smile. 

Pierrot found it funny how mere two words managed to calm him down. 

As he mounted it, he never felt so glad for knowing how to ride a horse. Helena grabbed his waist from behind, a bit awkward especially since she didn’t have a lot of experience riding a horse. 

At the last second, Pierrot looked back at Helena. 

“This is it. There’s no going back after this.”

At that moment, she spared a second to turn around. Beyond this forest, which light itself found difficult to pierce through, there was her cottage–what had been her home. She didn’t know it was that close to the outside world. Shutting her eyes, darkness enveloped her sight before she opened them again. Her eyes were clearer than ever.

“I know,” Helena answered. “That’s why we must do this.”

“You’re right.”

And just like that, they went off. 

They never once looked back.