With no food and no water, life was really hard, and Jane understood that all too well.

“Can I have some water?” She asked.

“Sure,” the man said, giving her his pouch.

It was almost full. Was he even drinking anything?

She drank her fill, gave the pouch back. “Thanks.”

It was already evening but they were still walking through the field of maggots. And there were even more now, mostly bigger than the ones before. Some even bigger than the fluff ball Jane was carrying.

She didn’t throw up or gag though. mostly because she hadn’t eaten anything since morning but also because she didn’t want to waste a second here. So, she distracted her mind, and walked fast.

She was tired, she was parched, and she was starving. But she still walked. Actually, she was almost running at this point. Almost.

“How far do we have to go?” She asked, somehow walking through the large things without stepping on them.

“Roughly till midnight,” the man said.

There was a moon in the sky, a very tiny crescent spec. Definitely brighter last night, but not enough to walk around in this field of maggots.

“Then should we collect wood and-” And Jane paused. She didn’t really see any bushes or trees for a while now, ever since the maggots started showing up. It was also why she was holding her bladder tight, because there was no way in hell she was going to go out here with those things around.

The man sighed. “Should have stocked up on wood too,” he said. “How much can you carry anyway?”

“Nothing more than I’m already carrying. We could maybe burn one of the tent planks?”

“What? No.” The man shrugged. “I’m adept at working in the night. Just don’t stray from me and we’ll be fine.”

“Alright.”

They of course kept going but the size increase kept bothering Jane more and more. “Is this why they call this place field of Mags?”

“Not sure. But maybe. This field usually moves around, as in the maggots migrate to different sections once they run out of grass.”

“How’re they even surviving on grass…” She mumbled.

“These ones are omnivores and can survive on basically anything. Even if there’s no food. One my old companions used to keep a small colony of these. Endless food, he’d used to say.”

“Uh-huh…” Jane didn’t even bother to comprehend or rebuke what she just heard. Not worth it.

A maggot. Watermelon sized… flying.

Slosh!

“EEK!” She shrieked, almost whacking the thing flying her way by instinct.

But instead of just flying away, it exploded and leaked its innards everywhere. And on top of her no less. Green slimy innards…

“Well. Fuck…” she sighed, groaned and kept on walking. This time, with a close eye around her. And yes, there were more of those fat critters and yes, they were indeed jumping towards the two.

The deeper they went, the bigger the critters, and more the jumped.

“Can’t I like burn them all?” Jane ground her teeth hard.

“If you want to burn alive yourself too, sure.”

“ARGHH!!!” She screamed loud, but stomped ahead while punching or smacking every damn maggot that flew to her anyway.

She was covered in slime but she did not stop for a second no.

“Wow,” the man grinned, following her lead. “She ruthless!” he chuckled, smiling at the peachfluff which was now on his shoulder since only his top portion wasn’t covered in slime.

He followed her silently for a good five minutes before realized something was wrong. Jane wasn’t really moving anymore. She just stood there kind of staggered?

She looked back. “What in the actual fuck are these things?” she said, utter horror evident in her eyes.

“Well,” he stood by her. “I did say we should cross quickly or we might run into these fat fucks.”

There were twenty or so bigger maggots in front of Jane. They ranged from goats to cows and some even larger than cows. They were really big and could hardly move.

“How do they even keep up with the group?” She wondered, thinking of spells that could incinerate the things but not get her dragged in.

“They don’t. They get separated from the flock and then just die.”

“And the corpses?”

“Where do you think the maggots are coming from?”

“Uh-huh… let’s just go. Can we burn at least these things?”

He smiled. “You’re covered in their innards sweety, so you’ll burn with them.”

She ground her teeth again. “I’ll just burn them after crossing.”

He laughed out loud. “That’s more like it.”

But how were they going to cross the things? Large pale-yellow maggots with even spikes? The last ones didn’t have any, so how come these ones were so damn big and spikey and….

Jane sighed and got behind the man, who took charge anyway.

The twenty or so large maggots stood very close to each other and didn’t leave any space to go about them. Jane wanted to go around them but then she realized, these things were everywhere no matter which side she looked.

So with a sigh, she stopped. “Can I freeze them instead?”

The things weren’t explicitly trying to attack her anymore. No more flying maggots here.

“You can but that’d also block our way and it’s a hazard climbing ice, cause that’ll surely just burn you.”

Ice burns. Yeah, Jane understood what the man meant. But at this stage, she was going to take virtually anything that didn’t have something to do with these darn things. But reality was hardly that appealing.

“Besides,” The man continued, walking straight into the damn things. “They’ll just move on their own with enough force,” he smiled, slicing the air.

Just one slice from his dagger resulted four maggots carved in half. How-? How was his reach so wide and spread out- Jane couldn’t understand. But she did understand this guy was a master when it came to daggers.

Carved in half, the things exploded….

Their situations only got worse… after all, there were maggots in the thousands inside of the things and now they were all crawling over the two of them….

Jane didn’t care anymore- which was a lie. She did however just stroll quietly behind the man and somehow made it through.

Once on the other side, she threw her robe on the ground, and firmly cleaned everything with the last bits of the man’s water; oddly there was still plenty and she made extra special use of every last drop. One done, she turned around and watched the march of the maggots. They were already quite the ways gone. Perhaps they sensed the danger.

The danger emanating in her eyes.

“Come Hellfire, Come fires of Null, destroy everything before me… scorch the very earth, and- Mmgh?”

The man had grabbed her mouth, forcing her to stop. “Shh…”

“What!?” She snapped back.

“Look-” the man pointed at the distance.

A silhouette. There was someone in the maggot festering field. Someone in the really long distance. But it was hard to tell if it was a person or just some big maggot due to the lack of light.

“I still want to burn these things though…” Jane whined.

“Even if it means killing a person?”

She wanted to say yes but then paused. Killing a person? What did that even mean? When she killed monsters, she didn’t really care or even think about it. But- a person?

She’d never thought about it. She’d never thought about killing like that. And she honestly didn’t want to. But she knew, for some to live, some had to die. “No. Let’s go.” But she wasn’t going to kill another person just for some petty revenge on these maggots.

“That maggot field really screwed up our route a little. But luckily, we’re actually closer to the settlement.”

“Then-” Jane smiled, almost hopeful!~

“Then, we should arrive by tomorrow evening.”

All the hope left her from the gaping hole of her mouth. Eyes ablaze, she honestly couldn’t even begin to sob. Instead, she just sighed. “Of course…”

The man snickered, no, broke into a fit of laughter. He calmed down a minute or two later. “I’m of course just messing with you. We would have arrived tomorrow evening if we hadn’t run into those things. But thankfully, we should arrive by morning if we keep walking.”

Jane stared, slightly perplexed. “And you’re not messing with me on that?”

“Nope. Totally serious.”

“I’ll fry the remaining bits of your hair if you lie,” she said.

His mouth widened, eyes remained the same, cheeks twitching just a bit; fake smile. “Right…”

The man kept his head protected by a hat at all times. He didn’t have much hair. It wasn’t bald, but he wasn’t far from it either.

***

Walking was tiring, especially when they didn’t have anything to eat the whole day and not to mention it was midnight.

But no, that wasn’t all. The slimy icky feeling never left Jane. Plus she had to carry the damn robe with her… covered in the stinky slime.

Groaning, whining, complaining, nothing helped. She had to will through this and reach the damn settlement. She could shower, she could finally sleep in a bed and eat a hearty breakfast…hopefully at least one of them.

And for that pleasure, she had to survive, and she had to reach the settlement. But her eyes were droopy as hell and she was falling asleep while walking every now and then. She never thought this kind of sleeping was even possible and she still didn’t want to believe it.

“How much longer…” she walked in a straight line, eyes closed, waving left to right.

“Still some more to go,” the man said, grabbing her hand and pulling her along.

But she just leaned on the man and… passed out.

***

The grass slowly grew larger and there were more trees around these parts. Obviously no more maggots but- but there was stuff here. Stuff, the man had anticipated. However, originally, he planned on taking them during the day.

He laid the girl on the ground, covered her with her slimy robes and put the fluffball on the robe. “Protect her,” he whispered.

Dagger unsheathed he jumped ahead, disappearing into the thick tall grass.

The fluffball kept a solid eye around, eyeing for movement.

Fluffballs were monsters. Monsters that ate grass and minded their own business, but they were monsters regardless.

“Rawr!” a purple thing, coming straight their way. A stone in hand, it licked its lips the moment it spotted the girl.

“Spee!” The Fluffball jumped up, glowed in electric blue and electrocuted the purple thing, immediately landing safely on the robe.

Sizzle!

Smoke came out of the thing-

“Nice one~!” the man shouted, cleaving through the grass, slicing in a whole arc, destroying half a yard in the process and beheading about a dozen of purple things with it.

The rest ran, screeching all the way.

The man came back. A slight red glint in his eyes, cheeks twisting into an odd smile. He reached for the girl-

“SPEE~!” the thing warned, glaring.

He snorted, almost laughing but not quite. “I suppose… not yet.” Another snort. “Don’t worry, I have my reasons to keep her alive.” He picked the girl up like a ragdoll, grabbing the fluff with the girl’s robe and trudged ahead.