65 Ending up on a Doorstep (1/2)

Xue'er awoke from a terrible bone piercing pain in her neck. She reached for her neck out of instinct, like a little wild animal trying to protect herself from predators.

Her amber gray eyes were wide open with alertness as she scanned her surroundings as though fearing that a person would somehow catch her here.

It took a while before she realized that she was far from any place where humans would inhabit, and was precisely in the middle of nowhere in a desolated forest.

She drowsily looked up into the muddy gray clouds that hung gloomily in the vast skies, stretching on for miles upon miles. All as though they were mushes of soaked and dirtied cotton balls that had clung too close to each other and had somehow gotten stuck together all jumbled up.

Xue'er drowsily made her way to a giant tree, that had cast shade overhead. It was like a naturally occurring shelter that shielded people from the terrible elements. The tree was old and seemed to have somehow grown to its current size, with its roots latching deeply into the very thin soil of the north. It seemed to be a miracle that a tree of this size could even grow.

Her limbs felt heavy, as though every step was made with strenuous effort. She felt her heart beating and a very slow rate, as though struggling to keep pumping in her body.

When Xue'er laid her back upon the tree's old trunk, she was shocked, there was a crunching noise as she leaned back, startling her so much that she sat right back up, and looked to the tree.

On the surface, there seemed to be nothing wrong, yet with a simple touch, the tree seemed hollowed out and dead on the inside. It was just like that snake that had been hollowed out into nothing but an outer layer of scaly skin.

She looked toward the place where her blood had been congealed into a puddle that had soaked its way into the ground. The dark red stain was still in the dirt, it looked as though a large bucket of ink had been randomly poured there.

The deep roots of this tree had been spread around this wide space of a few hundred meters, trying to take in as much water as possible from this barren ground.

Xue'er took a piece of the tree, and put it in with her little red worm, to see what could become of it later. Before sitting in a cross-legged position to meditate for a while to see if she could shake off nausea and dizziness that had been plaguing her ever since she woke up.

She reached for her neck, to feel the severity of the wound, yet when she reached it, to her surprise, there was no wound.

There was no blood after she touched her neck, and took a look at her pale fingers, not a single drop.

Even the skin was smooth, as though the pair of strong fangs had not torn into her neck and ripped a major artery causing the massive bleed. She had been certain of that, because the blood stains were still on the ground, a few meters away. The dark crimson liquid had yet to soak completely into the frozen ground, it was still in a congealed state of jelly.

She shook her head a little in an attempt to clear up her clouded mind, yet it did not help much, as she still felt a heavyweight weighing down her mind.

[Never mind, I'll wait until I feel a little better.] Xue'er told herself, as she decided the best thing to do was to first regain some energy and make her way back to the border town.

She laid on the ground, to prevent any further damage to the tree, staring lifelessly at the sullen sky, the clouds were building up bit by bit, till it was almost the size of giant mountains that seemed to be ready to let down torrents of rain that would be enough to drown all the fish in the world.