The moment we burst from the trees, Lance was already standing.
"You found her?" he asked, rising to his feet.
"Yes," I snapped. "And a ton of slime eating through the forest."
Lance stiffened, eyes immediately scanning the treeline. "Is she hurt?"
I let Meili drop onto the grass.
She pushed herself up without a word, dusting off her clothes.
Lance was already checking her arms. His hand stilled when he saw the burns. "The vial exploded," he muttered. "And you ran away."
"I-I thought that was what I was supposed to do…" Meili whispered, her voice barely audible. She hugged herself, her shoulders trembling. "I messed up. I—I stole that thing from Hogan's house because I was curious. And now… look what I did."
Lance was silent for too long.
I gritted my teeth. Slime was still creeping through the forest, and we didn't have time for hesitation. Hogan and Kevin weren't even back yet. Why was he just standing there?
Finally, he sighed. "It's not your fault," he said quietly. "You didn't know what it did. We all make mistakes."
I crossed my arms. "Sounds like you speak from personal experience."
His fingers tightened around his sword hilt. "Yeah."
Before I could dig into that, the sound of pounding footsteps interrupted us.
"There's slime down there—a lot of it!" Hogan yelled, bursting out of the trees. Bacon barreled after him, squealing.
"From pot to fire to volcano," Lance muttered as he pushed himself up. "Why can't we get through one day without something trying to kill us?"
"You're a knight. Your job is to protect people. So why are you complaining?" I shot back.
Lance exhaled sharply but didn't argue. "As aggravating as you are, little rabbit, you're right." He hoisted his sword, shield raised.
I narrowed my eyes. "I'm going to get you back for that 'little rabbit' line."
"Do what you want, Ms. Connie," he said without even looking at me. Instead, he reached for Meili, gripping her shoulder gently. She winced at the pressure on her burns.
That needed to be treated. Fast.
"Where's Fee?" Meili asked, voice sluggish.
"She left," Lance said bluntly. Then he turned to Hogan. "We've found Meili. Any sign of Kevin?"
Hogan shook his head. "No. He's still in the forest."
"The slime-infested forest," Lance added grimly.
For a moment, the firelight flickered against his armor, making his silhouette seem heavier. He turned to us, and when he spoke, his voice carried an iron certainty.
"I—we—came to the outskirts of this kingdom for one reason: to find something that can kill the slime invasion." His gaze swept over us. "We don't know how it started. But we know how it's going to end."
The flames crackled as he continued.
"This thing—this disease—will eat through everything. It is a gluttonous beast that doesn't stop until there's nothing left. The kingdom is sick with it. And it's up to us to find the cure."
His grip on his sword tightened.
"We are going to win. And no one gets left behind. Do you all understand?"
The words hung in the air. It wasn't a bad speech.
But I looked around at our pathetic little group—a pacifist lumberjack, a pig, an injured wolf, a sleep-deprived girl, a knight, and me.
Fee was gone. We had no real firepower. And Kevin, one of our only fighters, was lost in the same forest full of slime that killed Meili's parents.
Was this really a battle we could win?
"No one gets left behind," Lance repeated, almost like he was convincing himself.
"Hogan," he said, shaking himself back to reality. "Can you get us some fire? We're going to find Kevin."
Hogan's easy grin was gone. He gave a stiff nod, already turning to grab a bundle of dry wood. Everyone was still shaken, but we had no time to recover.
A few minutes later, he returned, his arms full.
"Here you go," he muttered, handing Lance, Meili, and me each a burning stick. The flickering light barely pushed back the oppressive dark pressing in from the trees.
I held mine up, frowning. "Sure this'll be good enough?" I muttered. The flames looked weak compared to the crawling abyss ahead.
"I haven't encountered the slime myself, but Lance said fire or extreme heat drives them away," Hogan explained.
"And you trust him?" I scoffed.
"Why not?" Hogan replied, unbothered, as we stepped into the trees.
We'd planned to go through the forest at first light, but now? Staying put meant waiting to get devoured in our sleep.
"Kevin!" Hogan called.
"Shhh! You'll let the slime know where we are!" I hissed.
"They don't have ears," Hogan said with a shrug.
I turned to Lance, expecting some level-headed input.
"Hogan's right," he admitted. "Calling out is the fastest way to find him. We don't have time to waste."
The forest was still. No rustling leaves. No chirping insects. Not even the wind stirred.
Yet the smell grew stronger.
It was the kind of decay that shouldn't exist. Not natural rot. No, this was something else. Something wrong.
"You smell that too?" Hogan asked, noticing my nostrils flare.
"Of course. I have a sharper nose than you," I muttered, but even I didn't want to follow this scent.
"Kevin!" Lance called again.
And then, I heard it.
I'm stuck.
Not me, but one of my rabbits, surveying deeper in the woods. The whisper slipped into my awareness like a second voice in my head.
It was faint. But unmistakable.
Kevin.
"He's that way," I said, pointing left.
Lance frowned. "How can you tell? I didn't hear anything."
Hogan grinned. "Don't worry, Lance. It's just one of Connie's many quirks."
Lance still looked skeptical, but he followed anyway. Then, we all heard him.
"Help. I'm over here. It's… almost through my armor."
His voice cracked with panic, growing louder as we ran. The trees thinned—and then we saw him.
Kevin hung spread-eagled in a massive blob of violet sludge.
It draped over his limbs, its surface quivering like gelatin as it ate through his armor. The wood was already gone. Beneath it, his clothes smoldered, and his skin turned red and raw.
"HOLY CRAP!" Hogan lunged forward. "I've got you, bro!"
He grabbed Kevin's arm and pulled—but the slime held on.
"Damn it—help me!" Hogan grunted.
Lance dropped his sword, gripping Kevin's other arm. They yanked.
The slime resisted.
Kevin screamed, his legs half-sunken in the blob, like it was trying to digest him from the inside out. Then, finally, with a wet, sucking sound—he tore free.
Kevin hit the dirt, gasping, retching. He clawed at his half-melted boots, kicking off the bits still covered in shimmering violet ooze.
Lance smacked him on the back. "You're okay."
The slime didn't agree. It surged forward, a tendril stretching toward Kevin's ankle, hungry to finish what it started.
But Meili moved first.
"No you don't," she whispered.
She shoved her burning log against the slime.
The fire hissed on contact, and the tendril sizzled and recoiled, twitching like a wounded animal.
"Don't burn me too!" Kevin hissed, yanking his foot away.
"Sorry," Meili muttered, her grip tightening on the burning stick.
Lance barely acknowledged them. "We need to move. Now."
Hogan lit another torch and shoved it at Kevin. "Here. Just hold it tight and don't drop it, yeah?"
"C'mon, at least let me catch my breath," Kevin wheezed. His legs wobbled beneath him, barely keeping him upright. "I was almost—literally—digested."
"The odds of that happening again only increase the longer we stand here," Lance shot back.
Kevin gritted his teeth, but took the torch anyway.
The purple blob quivered, expanding in uneven pulses. Worse—more slimes lurked deeper in the trees. Not just purple. Green. Red. Yellow.
A sickening squelch echoed through the clearing.
The fire we held kept them at bay—but it wasn't absolute. One wrong move, one patch of darkness, and these things would consume us whole.
Lance's voice cut through the night. "We're heading to Orion. Now. We move as a unit. Everyone around me."
I didn't like taking orders, but I stepped in anyway. Fire on all sides. No gaps. It was a smart formation, I'd give him that.
"You've figured out their behavior, right, Kevin?" Lance asked as we pushed forward. "You got up close and personal."
Kevin winced, rubbing his burned forearm. "Yeah. I… I think so."
His voice was tight, shaky. The ooze had eaten away the top layer of his skin. It left nothing but raw, blistered flesh. Would he even heal from this?
"The little green ones are the weakest. They crawl around real slow, just spreading, but… if they touch you, you won't even feel it at first." He shuddered. "Then your skin starts peeling."
Meili visibly tensed. Kevin continued, "The red ones? Faster. Aggressive. I think they hunt."
I turned as one slithered toward us, its gelatinous mass shifting and jerking, like it was trying to lunge—but fire stopped it.
"And the yellow ones?" I asked, eyes locked on the nearest blob. It wasn't stopping. Even with the fire.
Kevin swallowed. "They're bad. They're fast and eat through stuff quicker. The purple ones?" His voice dropped. "The worst. But they're slow."
Lance nodded. "Then we don't stop moving. Straight line. We keep going, we get out of here. No one looks back."
It should have been a short walk. It felt like forever.
The flames burned lower. The torch tips blackened, curling into charcoal. The only light came from dying embers and the eerie, pulsing glow of the slime.
The smell worsened. The rotting, sickly-sweet stench coiled in the air, making our heads swim. Hogan pulled his shirt over his nose, coughing into the fabric. Meili stumbled, her knees buckling as she fought to stay conscious.
I felt it gathering around my paws, closing in. I shoved my torch downward. The ooze shrank back—but it didn't retreat.
Lance's steady voice wavered. "We're getting close. Just—just keep moving."
His confidence felt thinner than before.
"Are you sure?" Hogan croaked. "Because I swear we passed that same yellow blob ten minutes ago."
"We're not going in circles," Lance insisted. But even he sounded unsure. The torches were dying. And the slime wasn't. Meili's torch flickered once. Twice.
Then—off.
She barely had time to react before Hogan scooped her up with one hand, just as a red mass the size of a boulder lunged for her. It hit nothing but air, quivering, pulsating in frustration.
Five of my rabbits weren't so lucky.
I barely registered their fading squeals before they were gone. Erased. Swallowed into the pulsing, writhing mass of slime.
How many more will we lose?
"We're almost there!" Kevin wheezed. His voice was raw, desperate. "I see the buildings—I see them!"
Relief should have come. It didn't.
Because even though we were close, the slime was closer. It pressed against our legs, sticky, damp, suffocating. It wasn't attacking us—it was absorbing us. A living tide, pulling us into its endless hunger.
I looked at my torch.
The flame was dying. A pathetic flicker at the tip of a charcoal-blackened branch.
No more dry sticks to relight it. No oil. No escape.
And that's when it hit me.
We're not going to make it. Meili must have realized it too. She didn't scream. Didn't fight. Didn't panic. She just… went limp.
"We're going to die here," she murmured against Hogan's shoulder.
But she wasn't afraid. She was accepting it. Silver whined. Bacon squealed. A solid wall of slime surged forward, blocking the village from view.
There's no way out. There's no way out. There's no way out.
A voice echoed in my head. Not my own.
And that's why you'll never win, Connie.
A man's voice. Arrogant. Familiar. A sneer hidden beneath each syllable.
Always trying to protect others. That's your weakness.
I froze. That voice. I had never heard it before.
But I had. I knew that voice. I just… didn't remember why.
"Connie!"
Lance's voice cut through the fog in my mind. I barely registered him grabbing me by the waist, throwing me onto his armored shoulders. I should have told him it was pointless. I should have told him we were all going to die anyway.
But he kept moving. Straight toward the abyss.
And that's why you'll never win, Connie. The voice came again. Mocking. Detached.
My vision blurred with rage. I still had so much to do.
I needed to find whoever owned that voice. I needed to wipe the smug grin off their face. And I was not dying before that happened.
I don't know why, but something broke in me. I didn't know why then, but I knew I must do everything I could to prove them wrong. At that moment, proving that voice felt like the most important thing I could do.
I lifted my head, scanning the others.
Meili—eyes shut, face slack, like she'd already left her body.
Kevin—trembling, soaked in sweat, feet dragging through the slime.
Hogan—clutching a trembling pig in one arm, Meili in the other, biting down on a torch so hard drool leaked past his lips.
We were falling apart. But Lance wasn't slowing down.
And neither was I.
Silver stayed low, weaving between the humans, her paws barely skimming over the sludge. Maybe she wished she'd left with Fee. Maybe she wished she was anywhere but here.
And then there was Lance.
He was still moving. Still shielding them, even as the slime crawled into the seams of his armor, seeping into the cracks.
He couldn't hold out much longer. None of them could. And that meant the voice in my head was right.
I was weak.
I clenched my fists, grinding my teeth. No.
Not like this.
"I have a plan," I whispered, barely audible over the wet, sucking noises of the slime. "But you're not going to like it."
Lance didn't even hesitate.
"Any plan is better than dying here pitifully."
Figures.
"There's no time to explain," I said. "Just give me the vial. And your torch."
His grip tightened. Just for a second.
"Ha." He let out a dry laugh, the kind that held no humor. More like a curse. "I really don't like handing my lifeline to someone like you."
I stared at him. "So you don't trust me?"
"Yes."
But he gave me the vial anyway.
The instant his fingers left it, the air around us shifted. With one less torch, the circle of fire shrunk.
The slime surged forward, taking its chance. It pressed in, coiling around us like hungry intestines.
Lance braced himself. He was the biggest target, the best shield. The slime crawled over his plated arms, creeping through the cracks in his armor, wrapping around his waist—
It was already inside.
"Lance!" Meili's voice was faint, barely more than a whisper.
But he didn't flinch.
He just spread his arms wider, keeping Hogan and Meili behind him. Buying seconds.
Seconds I was about to waste.
"Always trying to protect others. That's your weakness."
The voice in my head sneered.
I gritted my teeth. We'll see about that.
I leapt.
Lance barely had time to react before I kicked off his shoulder, launching myself into the air.
I barely heard Meili's strangled gasp over the disgusting squelching noise of the slime.
"Don't die," I told her.
And then I was gone.
My rabbits swarmed over them, covering their bodies, blocking the slime where the fire was failing. It wouldn't be enough. But it might be just enough.