"...Where the hell even are we?"
Inase scratched the back of his neck, puzzled.
"I'd love to know that myself."
Hosen, however, was already deep in thought, piecing together a solution.
They couldn't move. Not without being spotted by the otherworldly things nearby—one crunch of a twig and they'd wake in an instant. And once they did, they'd scatter and fly away. Literally.
Those creatures mastered the wind.
If they escaped, the two could only dream of finding them again.
That was Hosen's reasoning. Inase had a different idea.
"Welp, no humans around. Let's just get it over with."
Didn't matter how. No one was here to stop or supervise them like at the Facility.
They were deep in the nowhere. Just forest, fog, and horror. No civilization in sight. So, if they ran wild? Who'd care?
The quicker they got rid of these monsters, the better.
Inase had already gripped his knife. He prepared a stance, eyes fixed on the beasts. Ready to pounce on them at any moment.
"Stop."
But his buddy grabbed his wrist.
"Why?"
The blonde growled. He'd already had enough of being treated like backup. And now Hosen doubted him again?
"This is the easiest way."
Hosen shook his head at Inane's words.
"You'll wake up the entire flock."
He preferred another method. Something quieter. Smarter. Something that would let them slaughter these horrors without waking them up.
Otherwise, they'd gladly swarm them alive and rip their flesh apart.
"There's a better way to get rid of them."
Inase clicked his tongue and shook him off.
"Fine. Do your magic, Mr. Wizard."
Arms crossed, he plopped to the ground, unmoving like a stone.
"..."
Hosen sighed. Reached out a hand.
"Hm?" Inase tilted his head. "So I am needed now?"
"Give me your knife."
Ah. No, he wasn't—just his gear. Of course.
Frowning, he tossed it over.
"Careful with it."
The flying polyps*(1) swayed with the wind as Hosen approached them as quietly as possible. Every step counted. One slip and they'd vanish.
He didn't want them to take off into the unknown when treading close by.
The tension pressed on him like gravity.
Eventually, he found a normal tree amid the fleshy horrors.
On its bark, he found a perfect spot to carve a twisted, curvy symbol—something from no human language.
However, soon after he finished the first one, he felt wetness under his fingers. Not the usual kind, either.
It was… warm. Not sap.
He shifted his eye to look at whatever he had just touched.
His eyelid shot open when he saw a dark liquid oozing from the carved line. His hand, smeared in it.
"...Blood?"
His whisper caught Inase's attention.
His head snapped in his companion's direction while he was scribbling in the dirt with a stick—a way of entertaining his boredom.
Was something finally going to happen?
But his spark of curiosity was quickly scattered with disappointment.
"I don't see anything."
Puzzled, the white-hair looked at it again.
"Huh?"
Nothing. No blood. No trace.
There wasn't a drop of it on his fingers, nor on the tree's bark.
Was it his imagination? Hallucination? Or illusion? Maybe. Probably.
The wind whistled in his ear, blending with the snores of the floating things—the fleshy balloons on one leg.
He shook it off and carved another rune. And another. Tree by tree.
All while praying these creatures wouldn't wake up.
He didn't notice how sore his hand became. He was so focused on his task.
Minutes passed? Hours? Who could've known?
The time-measuring trinkets malfunction once they pass the portal anyway, so they didn't bother bringing any.
"What are you even writing?"
Inase couldn't take the silence anymore.
The symbols looked vaguely like hieroglyphs—if hieroglyphs were drawn by a sleep-deprived octopus. Their lines were curvier than the Egyptian ones.
He, meanwhile, was doodling nonsense in the dirt. Nothing similar to what Hosen worked on. Rather, something that resembled a funky-looking poop instead.
Hosen sighed, signaling Inase to lower his voice if he wanted to talk. Then he whispered,
"Binding runes. From the language of the Great Race of Yith.*(2)"
His explanation didn't really ring any bells. Inase stared blankly.
All of it seemed like some weird magic tricks, the same ones he used when he said he was nullifying the ancient languages in the Rockport cave.
Hosen elaborated, as if reading his buddy's mind,
"It's different from the nullifying ones. That one disabled effects. This one creates effects. "
"Huh…"
Inase was already distracted by something else while drawing.
His gaze spotted a cute, tiny creature peering at him with big, beady eyes from a branch—it had a fluffy, long tail. Squirrel-like, but not quite.
It was way too cute to be an eldritch horror.
Meanwhile, Hosen kept whispering:
"I studied ancient languages for years, but I found out about this one only recently. I saw references in the head researcher's notes. He must have left them on his desk by accident, so I took them home and studied them. It might have been his personal research."
Hosen continued,
"From what I know, the Great Race of Yith once imprisoned the flying polyps with glyphs and trapdoors—if I'm right…"
Half-listening to the nerd talk, Inase crept up to the animal. No rush movement. Arms wide open.
"...then, there is a high probability these runes will also-"
CLAP.
Silence broke, and the sound bounced between the trees.
"..."
Was this guy serious?—The scientist deadpanned.
"...seal them away."
The polyps' countless eyes snapped open. They stared at the two as if they were standing in the spotlight of a grand theatre.
Every eye locked onto them. Dozens. Hundreds. Their black, or even multi-colored, peepers creepily followed their every movement.
Then came the sound—an unholy scream reverberated when multiple toothy mouths opened wide, waking the ones that slept further.
The two covered their ears, but the volume alone pushed them to their knees.
Gentle lullaby, my foot.
They were about to go deaf. Their shrieks were loud enough that the heavens could hear.
"What did I say about staying quiet?!"
Hosen hissed, judging Inase's dumb decisions.
"I didn't think they'd wake up from that!"
"Then you didn't think smart enough!"
In a frenzy, the monsters thrashed, tentacles writhed wildly, hooking and tangling against one another.
"Weren't they supposed to be sealed?!"
"I haven't finished it yet!"
Hosen turned back to the tree. The final rune. He had to carve it.
But the noises—he couldn't steady his hand.
He struggled to keep the knife straight, yet to carve in the bark with its tip.
"Ugh...!"
The vocal vibrations were too much.
His grip failed.
The knife fell.
He collapsed to all fours.
"Hey! What're you doing?!"
The creatures couldn't fly away, at least, thanks to the partial seal. However, one thrashed—its gaping maw aimed at Hosen so it could gnaw on his flesh and devour him.
"!"
Slash.
He would be done for if not for Inase, who tackled it, knife in hand.
His wrist flicked, precise and fast. It maneuvered the sharp blade against its skin until it found the weak spot and drove in deep.
The creature dropped with him on top. Dead.
The rest screamed louder.
Inase sucked air into his lungs. He screamed back:
"SHUT UP—!!!"
And they did.
Not because of him, though.
Everything stilled. Even the trees seemed frozen.
The creatures couldn't move—their rapid spasming halted. Like the trees that followed their every move, they could only turn their eyes to stare with their hollow pupils.
But... how?
Inase turned.
Hosen knelt by the last tree, clinging to its trunk, glove off, fingers bleeding.
He had finished the rune with his fingernails.
"They shouldn't be able to escape now," he exhaled loudly, trying to ease the pain of his bleeding fingertips.
With no weapons. No tools. Just science and stubbornness.
It seemed that Hosen didn't bring any sharp objects with him on the missions, except for his chemical vials, and that was the consequence.
He should, from now on.
"Huh?"
Inase blinked, then looked down.
The creature beneath him was gone as if it had never been there.
"It disappeared."
Flying polyps couldn't do that.
"It's probably an illusion as well," Hosen muttered. "Just like the blood was."
So… all of it was fake?
Going from his previous observations of bleeding trees, yes.
Hosen wrapped his bleeding hand in a material and pulled his glove back on before he clicked his tongue dissatisfied.
How frustrating, it meant that all that he suffered was for nothing. There wasn't a point in fighting against them.
"Let's leave them. Real or not, they won't move from here anyway."
And sure enough, the rest faded too, once they accepted the truth behind it.
Just a dense forest now surrounded them. The real kind.
"I guess it's over," Inase sighed with disappointment. He thought he'd be able to jump into action for longer…
"Not quite."
But Hosen had a different opinion. They still had to find whatever was creating those horrific illusions.
He eyed the knife in Inase's hand.
"I've always meant to ask. That knife… is it made of something special that it cuts through the eldritch beings' flesh like it's nothing? Like a special alloy, maybe?"
Usually, those things withstood even a bullet. They were hard to hurt, yet to kill with a single sharp blade.
"Not really. It's just a regular army knife." Inase shrugged. "Family keepsake. You could say that everything it cuts is thanks to my sheer strength, though."
He chuckled—until something wriggled under his jacket. His chuckle turned into laughter.
"Hahahaha—!"
Hosen frowned.
"What now?"
Something moved under Inase's jacket and jumped around his body underneath his shirt,
"I forgot I stuffed the little guy in my pocket."
Inase pulled out the tiny creature. Its heart pounded while its beady eyes looked at him with terror.
"Cute squirrel, ain't it?"
Though Inase thought it was very friendly, it seemed.
Hosen leaned in.
Its features didn't fit those of a squirrel from his knowledge. It had gray fur and a long black stripe along its spine.
"!"
And then it dawned on him.
"Inase, you are unintentionally brilliant."
"Hey—"
Hosen's words sounded like he called him that with sarcasm, but he was brilliant. Even though no one seemed to notice it yet... Inase pouted.
"That's not a squirrel."
The scientist continued. He studied its stripe. The tail. The fur.
"It's a Leadbeater's possum."
"The what-now?"
"The species that was once deemed extinct, only to be rediscovered again and written into the list of endangered species, long ago, before our timeline."
He continued,
"Because of that, it could only be found in the forests of one continent."
The other tilted his head.
"Uh-huh...? And that means...?" Inase raised his brow, waiting for the conclusion.
Hosen took a deep breath and wiped sweat from his brow. Humidity. Temperature. It all confirmed his guesses.
"...We're in Australia."
(1)* and (2)*From: "The Shadow Out of Time" by H.P. Lovecraft, 1936