บท 254: Death, the defender

"I thought I told you," says a voice in the trees, silvery and full with an airy laughter- or perhaps that is just the wind? "Not to come looking for me."

Desperately scanning around for the source of the voice, I search the trees for signs of movement, life, but am only met with that sting of unrelenting cold against my skin. But against the shadows of the eternal night and the distant screams of the woodland animals far out in the forest, I know she is there, lingering somewhere against the darkness.

At first I can barely utter a word, and then they come stammering out of me all at once.

"You- I, what are you- how?"

Up in the trees, two white eyes circle into life, reflecting lightly against the soft glow that encases my body. The ghostly figure rolls her milky white eyes with what might me exasperation, slipping down the branch of a tree no easier as if she were a pine marten stalking its home.