[center][img]http://i.imgur.com/VaKdwK5.png[/img][/center] [b]"Permission..."[/b] Shivers crawled down Leila's spine as she heard the ringing voice from behind her, a whisper in volume, but somehow even more intimidating than anything else she heard - the witch's breath tickled behind her neck. [b]"...but we aren't like you, and we can't be anything else..."[/b] Leila swung around, only to have the witch place a hand on her left shoulder, and the charred wooden plank she was holding clattered to the ground as her hand hung limp at the side. She felt like all strength leave her body, an effect spreading from the point where the ice-old palm touched her - even though it didn't, the chilliness crept straight through her clothing - and where the nails and fingers dug into her flesh as the grip tightened by the moment. She crumbled onto her knees. The witch's grip persisted as her empty eyes looked now downwards, emotionless, but the expression of the pale, sunken face was one that was a mix of pity, sorrow, and - most prominently - outright anger. It was a look that would strike fear into even the most courageous of beholders, and the witch was staring straight into her eyes. She tried to utter something, yet only a painful choking sound came out of the mouth opened wide. Tears streamed down her face as the pain spread through her body - the accumulated injuries, the cut on her shoulder, her ribs, or just another kind of sinister, inexplicable magic of Nowhere's night that was causing the screeching in her head. Her mind went blank. [b]"...No one wants to be hated-- to be like US!"[/b] What words followed Leila couldn't hear clearly. And then she felt it: the ground. The ground beneath her knees was giving way as the witch pressed downwards. In little time her ankles were already entirely submerged in the damp, chilly soil. Leila gaped and tried to break free, but the witch pressed harder - all her struggling didn't budge the clasping claws one bit, but only accelerating her sinking. She felt the earth clutching tightly around her legs pulled beneath. It felt like she wasn't just sinking into the ground by the force of gravity - the earth itself was pulling her into it. She felt grains of soil clawing onto her skin, pulling her downwards at every point of contact. [b]"You think you children will be able to best me? Even with your petty amulets..."[/b] The witch drew her fingertips out of her shoulder, pushing Leila away as she left her there, and turned her wrath on the others in the group. Leila bent forward, arms too weak to break the fall as her forehead touched the ground. She desperately tried to push herself back upright to alleviate the compression in the chest. She succeeded in doing so only to see the witch standing in front, facing away from her and waving her hands in the air as invisible forces pulsed through the air, knocking back anyone that came this way. [b]"Time is up!"[/b] The witch's voice echoed in the distanced, coupled by an unsettling series of yells and screams, which gradually faded out. The voice was Leon's. "Wha-" Leila clawed on the ground in a panic. It persisted in pulling, the surface now reaching the bottom of her ribcage. Her fingers sunk through the cold sand like it was fluid, with nothing for her to hold onto, and then she would have to draw her arms out from the soil that was again starting to engulf her hands - an act that pushed herself even deeper. [i]Did Leon just -[/i] Her struggling became weaker - almost pathetic - as her strength was exhausted and there was nothing left she could do but to allow the rolling cascade of particles to keep dragging her downwards, deeper. She found herself sobbing incoherently as she felt the breath being squeezed out of her lungs. All but her head and shoulders were above the surface now, and she was still sinking. Through her sight blurred by blood and tears she could make out the figures that were her fellow Lost Souls. Is...is everyone else okay? She couldn't bring herself to actually look for Leon. Then she saw someone running this way - until the witch materialized behind him. Leila saw the silhouette of the witch grabbing the man by the collar, and raising her spare hand… [i]Haku.[/i] It wasn’t clear if she was actually trying to utter the name, or just a painful hiccup - or an attempt at the first that ended up the latter. [b]”...NO! I REFUSE...”[/b] Leila drowned out the voice of the rest of Hakuren’s final pleads with her own screams. Was this it, then? How this ends? Her voice broke as she ran out of breath. With each exhale the jaws of the earth closed tighter and made the next inhale more impossible. Even a cough couldn't be ushered at the moment, and the sounds she made were reduced to a series of inaudible whimpers. She heard Harper’s growls, and then those, as well, faded. She felt dizzy, probably both from the lack of air and the unbearable pain. The last thing she saw was the sky - a burning blood-red with clouds like claws spreading throughout. Then she closed her eyes and the ground swallowed her, shivering fingertips being the last part of her body that touched the open air. Then there was darkness. There was no panting from panic, as the dense soil pushed tightly around her body, threatening to crush her ribcage. Her mouth gaped in vain to draw in air, only to have grains of sand flood into her throat. There was no shivering, the earth didn't allow even that. With every whimper of remaining breath in her lungs exhaled, the dirt caved in further. The pounding in her ears, the voice of the fight going on above, the hope for light that'd seep through from the surface, all her thoughts - they faded out. The embrace of the deeper earth was warm, less biting to the touch, but no less aggressive. In her closed eyes, Leila almost believed she saw fireworks - the ones set off on that midnight of the 31st of December... And then, silence. [centre]* * * *[/centre] [b]”I-I can still fight. I will help them.”[/b] -huh? Leila eyes would've shot open if it weren't for the sand pressing down on her eyelids. In the dampened silence of the underground, submerged in the spell-induced quicksand, Leila’s mind started spinning again as she heard the muffled voice. A distance away, Leila felt something soft brush against the tip of her fingers. In confusion, she tried twitching her fingers. The next thing was what felt like a whole palm crashing into hers, fingers wrapping tightly around it, and then it jerked upwards. She would've been screaming if she wasn't buried. The weight of the sand on her arms and shoulders refused to give way as her hand was pulled upwards with great force, and it was as if her arm was used as a rope in some sort of cruel tug-of-war competition, being torn apart. She almost wanted to beg for whoever was pulling to stop - not like she could, and not like they could hear her anyway. Leila accepted that she would have to go through with this, and ushered the little strength she had left into securing the grip. She felt the sand start to give way, grains of it rolling off the edge of her skin as her arm continued to be pulled. A few moments later, another palm slapped into the side of her arm - now exposed in the air, and joined the effort. [b]”You’re - not - dying with them!”[/b] She heard these words clearly, through unobscured ears; although her mind wasn’t clear enough yet to process it. [i]Dying with...who? Who died? Who’s still alive? What’s happening? Where am I…[/i]Her eyelids flickered in instinctive attempts to expel any grains of sand still stuck between her lashes. The world was spinning. And soon even the fingers she held together so dearly around Ace’s hand loosened. Her fingers clutched together again when the red-haired human wrapped her arms around Leila’s shoulders, and yanked hard - a distressed gasp escaped her mouth. Leila found herself being capable of breathing again, and she gaped in as much air as possible even though each breath felt like being rammed into the wall by the mushroom monster back at the caves all over again. Despite that - Leila started coughing. Her whole ribcage felt like it was falling apart as she did, but she continued, sputtering every last grain of sand out of her throat in a mixture of saliva and blood and tears. Ace - as Leila was now able to identify her through the edge of her sight - secured her grip onto her arms. The yank that finally pulled Leila’s feet clear of the fluid soil also knocked her out. [centre]* * * *[/centre] Leila didn’t know how long it took for her to fully regain consciousness. She reacted fast enough not to have put to action any instinctive attempts to stand up from her collapse, sparing herself from more pain - something she surely didn’t need now. The dull throbbing senses of discomfort were persistent throughout her body. Instead, she just blinked and watched. Ace was not in sight. Neither was Riley. [b]"Please don't die, please, please, please..."[/b] Lazily, Leila turned her head to a side to see the scene, rotated ninety degrees from a normal perspective, the scene of Lesley, kneeled on the ground, shoulders throbbing, and with Harper in his embrace, the boy without any signs of life. Who was still there? What’s left? [i]Who[/i] was left? Why was she there? Too many questions. Leila thought of closing her eyes and resting, but dared not do so. She hadn’t gotten a chance to thank Ace yet... “Gah...” ...The sky was the same burning blood-red.