Chapter 8-2...Hide A Kraken Made of Wood

  "Ughhh, this is so frustrating!"

  Zoey groaned loudly, which would have been a much more irritating sound if it didn't contain a somewhat pleasant roll to it. She was trudging alongside Marrow through the White Forest, having packed away their camp into the tome's storage compartment. While the Lucifee girl was quite fumed with this abrupt change of pn, Marrow was exhibiting more confusion than anger.

  "Why is dirt getting in my hair? Was dirt getting in our hair before? Is this new??"

  Marrow presented to Zoey a small pile of dirt in his palm, wearing a rather bewildered expression.

  "Eh? How should I know?"

  Zoey, now sharing Marrow's confusion in tandem with her frustration, reluctantly inspected the small pile with a fraction of her attention.

  "I mean, you're like...part corpse, right? Maybe that's just corpse dandruff."

  "Corpse dandruff? Corpse-"

  Marrow couldn't even.

  "I've been alive for two days, getting used to having to breathe, having to blink, having to carry around the sack of flesh and bones that is a body."

  Marrow paused, as if waiting for Zoey to ask what that had to do with anything. Which she did in fact open her mouth to do, only to be interrupted before she could even speak.

  "Which means that if I had dandruff, let alone dirt for dandruff, I would've picked up on that by now!"

  "How... exactly do those correte?" Zoey's confusion was growing, which was probably a good thing since it meant that her frustration was shrinking. "Like... Wouldn't you be too distracted by relearning all that to notice it? I probably would be, that sounds hard."

  "Any good necromancer is aware of their body at all times," chided Marrow, "lest they accidentally hex themselves into defleshifying their hand or something. If I had dandruff when I was resurrected, I would have known right off the bat!"

  He gripped the hair dirt in his semi-translucent hand as if it owed him money, brandishing it at the canopy that gave it to him.

  "No... It's these trees... It has to be..."

  Following Marrow's gaze, Zoey looked skyward.

  "So the trees have dandruff..."

  Unaware of Marrow’s cross expression, she sniffed the air and frowned.

  "The air does smell like dirt... It didn't smell like this st night, so these must be new trees."

  "New trees? That's ridiculous. I can't even begin to entertain that thought."

  Marrow opened his palm to smell the “tree dandruff”. It was surprisingly soft in his hands, at least from what living nerves he had in his hand could tell.

  Zoey could only regard him with an expression somewhere between bemuse and cynicism.

  "For a magic man recently yanked from the grave, you're pretty narrow minded, huh?"

  She exhaled and rolled her amber eyes at Marrow’s contradictions before veering down a seemingly random path through the trees.

  "C'mon, keep up! Walk and talk, Willow. I can sorta smell them in this direction."

  Marrow had little time to process the insult before he found himself jogging after Zoey, slumped over and exhausted as ever.

  "Smell? How much of a cat are you?!"

  The path Zoey and Marrow walked was much less cleared than Deney and Damon's. While the tter had no choice but to go forward or backward, the trees acting as barriers to keep them from prodding elsewhere, The Cat Girl and The Dead Man were dealing with scenery more akin to a dense, snaring forest.

  "Ugh... Would it kill this pce to send a deer or squirrel our way?”

  Marrow awkwardly maneuvered his nky body along the sembnce of a path Zoey had chosen. His gaze anxiously flitted from tree, to ground, to tree again in a futile attempt to take his mind off a growing urge in his brain.

  “I'm starving..."

  The two did in fact have very simir frames, though Zoey’s was naturally athletic and adept, while Marrow's was the result of being mostly skin and/or bones. This meant that contrary to her walking half-corpse of a companion, the denseness of the forest bore no hindrances for Zoey. Her lithe body was able to navigate nimbly through any gaps the trees left.

  "Dude, we just had breakfast. Besides, you— Oh,"

  Zoey stopped abruptly, having been met nearly nose-to-nose with the skull of a small animal. It was simply hanging in the tree, with branches snaking through it like bindings.

  "... Well... There’s your answer. I'm guessing it wants them all for itself..."

  "Great, so not only does this pce want to kill us, it also wants to eat us too!"

  Unfazed, the cat girl rolled her eyes.

  "You do realize you're just giving the trees what they want, right?"

  "What? Fear? You think they eat fear, too??"

  "Ughhh, Marrow!"

  Zoey turned, firmly grabbing Marrow by the shoulders. Her eyes met his, and they burned with an intense amber fire. It was something vaguely recognizable.

  "Snap out of it! If you want to survive in this world you need to calm down and adapt. Stop trying to find logic where it doesn't want to be found."

  Marrow remained stiff as he felt the feline cws that were her fingernails, prodding against his undead skin. Yet, he felt little pain from it. Rather, he felt... Warm?

  Hungry.

  Salivating...

  "I... Right... Okay..."

  As if hypnotized, Marrow's hollow eyes were almost gzed over, dited with a sort of intense yet detached focus reminiscent of hunting predator. But, after a few blinks and the clear of a throat, he stepped away from Zoey and dusted his shoulders.

  "Right. Fine! I'll try to look at things a bit... dumber."

  Something swiftly collided with Marrow's ass like a whip.

  "Not dumber, jackass. It's actually smarter!"

  Zoey reprimanded, her tail shing.

  "Ugh, just try not to judge things so quickly."

  "A c k! Jeeeeeze!"

  Marrow rubbed his behind, those nerves apparently being more awake than any others in his body. Instinct told him to leer at Zoey, but he decided it was best to remove her from his gaze and whipped around to face a tree instead.

  "Shut up and sniff already. The longer we stay here, the more I want to use some F-I-R-E."

  Trees can't spell, right?

  Wrong.

  Maybe.

  At the very least, Zoey could feel a trembling in the soil beneath their feet. It was a very foreboding feeling, one which made her ears swivel about for a moment. Finally, they stood up straight again as she tugged Marrow along.

  "Hurry up, let's move before something bad happens."

  "Uh– Right..."

  Marrow would follow Zoey once more, though to keep his gaze from lingering on her, he'd endure the terrifying act of looking at trees every so often. Over time, he found that looking at Zoey became even scarier than looking at the White Forest, but in a different way. It was the kind of fear a gambler has when he looks at a slot machine after winning.

  A fear that soon twisted into a nagging anxiety in the pit of his gut. From there, the hunger pangs pulsed and throbbed, until it felt as if they were reverberating throughout his entire body.

  As soon as the two found a part of the forest not so polluted with trees, Marrow fell to his knees and flopped onto the grass.

  "I can't keep going like this... We need to stop for a second..."

  "Huh?"

  Zoey stopped a few feet ahead of him and looked back.

  "Whoa. You're really that fatigued?"

  Her words might have seemed factitious, but her gaze was soft and concerned. Without griping, Zoey trotted over and offered to help Marrow up.

  "Damn, Willow, you should’ve let me know sooner. Are you alright? What's wrong?"

  "I told you," nagged Marrow, face half-smushed against the forest floor. "I'm starving..."

  There was no sound of an empty stomach coming from Marrow, but he carried himself like that of a man dying of starvation.

  Which is to say, not at all. He was on the ground.

  "I need something... fresh..."

  "Fresh...?"

  Zoey didn't understand what he meant, but considering the weariness and strain Marrow’s voice held, she decided that she didn't need to. Taking a seat beside him, Zoey tried to help Marrow sit up with a little effort.

  "Come on, sit so that you can actually form words. I doubt you meant fresh soil..."

  She chuckled at her own joke.

  "Why don't you get some water from that fancy book of yours? We'll take a break."

  "Not what I meant... But okay,"

  Marrow peeled himself off the ground and sat up with his legs spread wide, setting the tome in the grass before him. After staring at the book mindlessly for a moment, instead of retrieving their water he opened his mouth.

  "Hey... Would you kill a zombie on sight...?"

  "Hm? What kind of a question is that?"

  Despite her obvious confusion, Zoey answered earnestly.

  "I mean.... If it's a life or death situation, then I'd fight for my... I'd make sure it couldn't hurt anyone else. Survive as much as possible."

  "Life or death..."

  Marrow's voice droned somberly, but it was soon repced by pondering underbreaths as he drew his finger along the tome.

  "Hmm... Which one was it again…? Right!"

  Marrow licked his thumb and pressed it on one of the runes, twisting his thumb like a key before opening the now hollowed out book.

  "I don't recall the st time I came across a rune like this... or runes in general. Not much use for them in necromancy."

  "But you still know how to use one?"

  The Lucifee responded with genuine curiosity, closely watching his movements.

  "I mean, they do seem pretty cool... If necromancy can't do things like that, why would you want to be a necromancer?"

  Marrow grunted softly at Zoey's words, pulling a water bottle from the tome’s bottomless storage.

  "Because I wanted to. I found it a lot more enjoyable to string bones like puppets and speak with the dead than to muddle over books in a dusty library wearing nothing but a robe and hat."

  For someone with so little stamina, it was surprising that Marrow could speak such run-on sentences.

  "Gross, I'd rather that too,"

  Zoey took the bottle of water from Marrow and sipped it.

  "Do you need help? You should drink. Hydration is important."

  "Huh? Oh right. Water..."

  Marrow took another bottle from the book, then took a swig from it. It was fresh, but not the kind of fresh he was after.

  "Dammit…”

  Zoey watched Marrow closely. She could tell that something wasn't quite right with him, but unfortunately for Marrow, there was nothing in her little kitty brain preventing her from interrogating him about it.

  "Alright, c’mon, spill it. You're definitely acting weird."

  Marrow closed his eyes as Zoey spoke, feeling his hunger rising like a simmering pot on the Zombie Stove.

  "It's... ugh, fuck it."

  Marrow took a deep breath, mostly for dramatic effect because the man did not need to breathe.

  "I'm undead. Sane, obviously..."

  (Not that obviously)

  "...but undead nonetheless. And because of that, I have the same kind of hunger as any ghoul we've met has..."

  "Hunger..."

  Zoey hadn't seen much of the ghouls yet, or what they were capable of, but it didn't take too much thought to piece together what Marrow meant.

  "Wait... This isn't some sorta heads-up to start booking it before you try turning me into a meal, is it? Because I will muzzle you."

  Marrow flinched a bit at that. Zoey got to him, in some weird but special way.

  "Well, no... But I am saying that that's where my hunger is coming from, why I need to find something living to eat before I die or... go Zombie Mode, I guess..."

  Marrow suddenly groaned, his body convulsing in pain as if the undead half was trying to eat the living half. Sure, the zombie he puppeteered to eat that Hound back in Noctithnain gave him some sort of respite, but it was more like living vicariously than having a need be met.

  "At this rate, I doubt I'll be able to make it to Damon and Deney..."

  Zoey observed Marrow gingerly. She didn't like the way his pupils were diting, or the way his teeth bared as he breathed shaky, uneven breaths. He looked like he was in agony...

  Something in Zoey stirred.

  "How much do you need..?"

  Marrow looked up from the grass at Zoey, his needle point pupils widening some upon hearing such a question.

  "I... I dunno... Blood is like water, so I'd need a lot to keep myself healthy for longer than a day... But just a bite of living flesh could satisfy me for two or three..."

  "Just a bite, huh?"

  She exhaled the way a person making the very difficult decision to spend a lot of money would exhale.

  "Dammit.... Alright, c'mon then. Since you need it so badly..."

  Zoey tried to steady her breathing as she moved closer to Marrow. She then propped her leg up so that her thigh was nearly eye level with him. The shorts she wore left her caramel skin entirely vulnerable.

  And that made Marrow start to salivate.

  "What are you doing!?" he hissed, pushing himself away from Zoey and averting his gaze. "Is this some kind of bad joke??"

  Curious; why was he so afraid?

  The indistinguishable look on Zoey's face as she watched the Phantom scramble in the dirt was as enrapturing and oppressive as fate.

  It was the sort of fear one would have if they thought they were about to be murdered. Yet, he was the one wearing it...

  "You can be afraid of what you might become, but that won't change anything,"

  Zoey spoke with unnerving calm.

  "You're still going to become who you are, so just stop running from it."

  Marrow cursed under his breath, though he took those words deep into his hourly-beating heart.

  "You do understand what you're signing up for, right?"

  "Yep."

  "Have you ever had a bite taken out of you before?"

  "Nope. I bet it hurts like hell."

  "So then why are you so willing??"

  Zoey's gaze softened, as if the fact that Marrow even needed to ask made her sorrowful.

  "Because... I know what it's like to be starving and afraid of yourself, and everything else too. No one deserves that..."

  Some unspoken meaning got lost in her gaze, which no longer seemed to be fixed on anything of this world.

  But after a brief moment, her usual cheeky grin appeared.

  "Besides, you and Laney helped us out just because it was the right thing to do, and you haven't once tried to cut off my tail or called me bad luck. So think of this as.... repayment."

  Marrow stayed silent, seated away from Zoey.

  Then he got closer.

  Like a wary but hungry animal, Marrow crawled towards the Lucifee. Soon his arm was outstretched, spyed fingers reaching out for Zoey's... forehead?

  "I will try to make it as painless as possible... as painless as being eaten from can be..."

  Marrow then pressed a thumb to Zoey's third-eye, reciting a low and lulling incantation. Immediately, a wave of fatigue began to overtake her.

  "Huh?” Zoey spoke wearily, her eyelids growing heavier and heavier. “What are... you …?"

  Then the world went bck.

  Zoey felt like she was swimming through a sea of broken thoughts and fragments of emotions. Then, without warning, a sharp pain in her leg cut through the white noise. She heard screaming, but... Was it coming from her? Or someone else..?

  "You're too reckless, Zoey,"

  That's right. Damon has said that, with that annoying, half defeated sigh he always gave. Zoey remembered the warm sunlight on her skin, and the way it made her already burning wound worse.

  What happened...? Was it... Right, a bullet. She was still so young, so tiny, and it was the first time she'd ever been grazed by a bullet. Damon looked so worried, and Zoey couldn't stop crying.

  "But I... can't... lose you..."

  Zoey sobbed and sniffled, but Damon's hands on her wound were so gentle and caring... They were like her parents.

  "Hey, look. I'm still right here. Calm down, Zoey, it'll be okay,"

  Before she knew it, the pain started to fade.

  "No more tears, please..? While I was at the market, I managed to swipe something for you~ It's your favorite treat — let's eat it together, okay?"

  Before she knew it, there was no pain anymore.

  "Sweetness takes all the pain..."

  The words slipped past Zoey's lips, half formed in the dusk of her mind.

  When Zoey came to, she was ft-backed on the grass, staring up at the canopy as sunbeams struck through the trees like water leaking from an old ship. As her brain began to wake up, she rubbed her forehead.

  It felt numb. If only her leg felt the same way. But, when Zoey looked down she found a circle of gauze wrapped tightly around her thigh, housing a dull stinging pain beneath it.

  "It'll heal in time. I didn't take that much."

  Marrow’s voice rang behind her, drawing her attention.

  "How do you feel?"

  "Ngh... Was I... dreaming..?"

  Zoey hissed at the pain as she sat up, looking around slowly until her eyes nded on Marrow. He was sitting on a log and carving a twig with his fingernails.

  "What the hell did you do to me..?"

  "I bit a chunk out of your leg. Duh."

  Marrow scoffed, not looking up from his whittled twig. Then he paused and looked back at Zoey.

  "Unless you're talking about the sleeping spell I put on you?"

  "What else would I be talking about?! I knew what I signed up for!"

  Zoey retorted as she got to her feet, but the pain allowed her aggression to quickly simmer down.

  "Whatever, how are you feeling now? Any bett— Whoa!"

  As she started to walk, the Lucifee's wobbly leg gave out. The ground was approaching quick. Thankfully, it was not as quick as Marrow, who had gone from sitting on the log to catching Zoey in his arms in less than a second.

  "Jeeze! You're lucky I was smart enough to drop my stick before catching you; I already gave you one injury."

  Our knight in shining armour, dies and gents.

  "Urgh... Thanks, I guess..."

  Zoey steadied herself on Marrow's shoulder, slowly standing again.

  "You better appreciate me now, Willow."

  "Sure, whatever,"

  Marrow's voice was cold, but Zoey could catch (if only for a second before he turned his head), a tint of red on the Phantom's pale cheeks.

  "I'll help you walk. Unless you want to go on all-threes like an amputated cat."

  "Shut up! I can bite you back, ya know,"

  Zoey smirked despite her taunting. She allowed Marrow to be her crutch, for now, as the two continued to navigate the treacherous terrain of the White Forest. It might have hurt to put too much weight on her leg while the wound was fresh, however Zoey was still able to deftly slip through the narrow spaces between the trees.

  Odd... Was the forest getting easier to maneuver? Maybe their newfound teamwork was touching, even to the trees...