Chapter 29: Warzone and blood pool 2 (Jason)

(Pov Jason)

The full moon hung high in the sky; its light made the trees cast barely visible shadows. Their clawed branches played weakly over the ground at the edge of the woods. The mountains stretched impossibly towards the sky, their massive peaks framing the starry night. Deep crimson clouds veiled their peaks, clinging to them like a scared four-year-old to their father's pant legs. The color came from nowhere, or at least not from the pale moonlight that shone through the vast open tracts of sky between the clouded mountain peaks.

“Where am I?” Jason mumbled to himself as his head snapped in every direction.

Almost worse than the where of it all was the how. Mere seconds ago, he had been in the hospital in bed, barely able to stand up on his own. Now…

Jason's hands flew to his stomach, pressing gently on his lower abdomen. And yet, despite the aching pain he was expecting, he felt nothing. Not the constant dull ache, or the sharp stabbing he felt when he moved his wounded stomach.

His fingers grabbed the hem of his T-shirt, pulling it up to reveal his abdomen. Jason blinked as he stared down at his stomach as it had been before he got shot. 

“Holy shit,” He mumbled to himself.

He needed to walk; he didn't know why or where. But he felt like he was being watched, and not only by one person. One set of eyes, though he couldn't see them, were safe. Inviting, even, like they were offering him shelter and an apology. Urging him to walk. The other wanted him to stand still. Like a good little curiosity or prey waiting to be taken. 

A shiver ran down his spine as he took the first step forward. The grass resisted slightly, as if the blades had hooked themselves into the soles of his boots. His foot landed softly in front of the other, the blades of grass cool and damp against the soles of his feet. 

Wasn't I wearing shoes? He blinked, looking down at his feet as he walked farther into the clearing. He was fully dressed otherwise. He had been wearing them just seconds ago, hadn't he? It would need to wait; he had somewhere to be, at least he had to be somewhere else. 

Looking up, he saw the trees move, as if shifting in the earth to open up a well-worn path up the impossibly steep mountain. The one that had not been so steep mere moments ago, nor had the path been there.

Still, he couldn't keep his guest waiting… He had a guest, or at least he believed so. Or was he the guest? He wasn't entirely sure either way; he should probably reach whatever was glinting higher up the mountainside.

It didn't take him long to cross the clearing and begin walking the path. The wind almost disappeared the second he crossed into the forest. The trees shielded him from the weak gusts of wind that had previously chilled him. Pale moonlight shining on the leafless branches cast shadows like clawed hands that brushed against each other as the branches swayed slightly in the wind. 

Had it been summer, the path would have been pleasant. The trees would have provided shade to shield a traveler from the sun. Jason quickly came to appreciate that as he started climbing the slope of the path as it wound toward whatever structure he had spied from below. 

The higher he climbed, the more well-worn the path seemed. Railings started at some point, first woven from branches, then built with proper carpentry. The path became lined with stone rather than the worn-down dirt it had been only minutes ago. 

It didn't take long before he reached a section that was nearly flat. A small ridge that he had walked a thousand times before. Looking at the small piece of grassland just below, he recognized it instantly.

It was the small field they kept just on the other side of the road from the house. The one where, for the fondest memories of his childhood, cattle had walked, grazing lazily in the sun the entire summer. Sure, the area just below him was steeper, and there was no farmhouse or road where it ended. The valley below certainly wasn't where he grew up, or anywhere he had seen before. Yet he knew the rock outcrop he was standing on. And he knew the forest above him. He knew them both better than the back of his hand. 

He also knew there was no path like the one he was currently walking on. If there was, he would have walked it a thousand times over. 

If he was the host, he needed to offer something. Except as his house had, for some reason, decided to up and leave, he would simply need to make do. Guests brought gifts, at least on the first visit. He still wasn't sure which he was or if he was both. Either way, he needed to offer something. 

Tea would do; coffee wasn't an option. He had no idea how to find it in the wild in Montana. But his grandmother had always said tea was a good option for everything. He had been mildly shocked when she said she wasn't British. 

If I remember correctly. Jason looked just inside the treeline and quickly found a few pineapple weed plants growing over a spot where animals tended to disturb the earth. It wasn't the best, but it would more than suffice. 

A shiver ran down his spine as he felt the predatory gaze find him again. He needed to move. Not run, though. Running was rarely a good idea with most predators. Most were simply curious. Running would make him prey.

As he kept walking, he passed landmark after landmark from his childhood. Trees whose roots he had played hide-and-seek in, rocks he had spent years climbing. The clearing where they had found that one cow that kept running away. In no time at all, he passed the part of the forest where the old lodge stood. The lodge itself was missing. Just like every other building, or trace of human activity. Except for the path itself.

Every step after that felt easier, like he weighed half as much as he actually did. In no time at all, he had climbed halfway to the structure at the end of the path. He could tell that it reached into the crimson clouds above at its highest spires. But other than that, it was hard to even see it properly. The stairs winding up the last steep portion of the journey blocked his view of the building. 

“Holy…” Jason mumbled as he stopped at the top of the stairs.

A breath he didn't know he had been holding slowly escaped from his lungs. He wasn't tired, not even slightly winded. A marked improvement from his regular state of barely being able to walk. No, what stole his focus was not his recovered physical state, but the structure before him. 

A vast, sprawling gothic palace-cathedral soared into the sky before him. Statues depicting naked men and women stood in front of him, framing the path towards the building's entrance. All of it was constructed from pure shadow, lined with red that traced a path through it all. Yet despite all that, he could make out the stonework's ornamentation. The way the statues had been shaped as if by the hands of the great masters of the Renaissance. Pale moonlight lit the darkness as if it were ordinary stone. 

And yet the grandeur of the palace he was in, for not to mention the outright creepy choice of material, didn't make it any less inviting. Gardens lined the path forward, the statues holding up great rafters upon which plants grew in all their myriad greens and purples? The grand cathedral itself acted as a tree, shading the plants beneath it from the sun, allowing them to flourish. 

Jason clenched his jaw before walking toward the great cathedral gates. His hand touched the pocket where he'd put the pineapple weed. He wasn't sure if he needed to knock. It was only polite, after all. At least if you were a guest?

He didn't need to; the gates themselves opened in time, so he didn't have to slow or break his stride. The inside was no less breathtaking than the exterior. Vast vaulted ceilings framed massive stained-glass windows, showing stories of people doing something? He wasn't quite sure what; the scenes couldn't be distinguished from each other. Either way, the pale moonlight cast images onto the ground and walls, causing the figures to dance somehow along the decorative tiles and murals that covered every wall. 

The oddest thing about this place was that while the room was cavernous, it didn't make him feel small. Rather, his shoulders lowered slightly as he watched the figures of colored light play. And they seemed to be frolicking where the moonlight shone on them. He spun slowly as he walked forward and took it all in. 

Though as he walked into the depths of the place, his nose started twitching. The smell of copper tugged at his nose hairs.

As he finished his slow spin around, he stopped dead. Right in front of him was a massive circular pool, directly under the largest section of stained-glass skylight. The figures here playing on the ground seemed like bathers preparing to go for a dip, or handmaidens waiting for someone to emerge. The pool itself was filled with blood. An enormous amount of perfectly still blood. 

Something about it told him the pool was deep. Not simply wide, though at four times his height in width it was certainly that too.

Jason took a step back, his jaw tightening. Ripples started emanating from the middle of the pool, caused by seemingly nothing. The liquid started bulging in the middle. A human head slowly emerged from the blood. Though it seemed more like the blood was being shaped into a human head rather than one emerging from it.

The face was feminine, with deep blue almond-shaped eyes set in a diamond-shaped face. His heart was throbbing in his ears as he started slowly backing up. It was hard to look away from the woman, her face simply too perfect, far more symmetrical than any face he had ever seen. And that included anything he had ever seen online.

Jason had to wrestle his gaze onto anything else in the room as the woman's chest came into view. Heat rushed to his cheeks as he worked not to stare at the woman's bust, which was easily larger than his head. 

Jason winced as he backed into a column, knocking his head against it. The woman was now hovering slightly over the pool. Revealing the rest of her figure, with curves that could hypontize anyone.

The woman was clearly aware he was here and smiled at how his gaze kept flickering around. The smile sent a small pang of recognition through his chest. It looked just like the self-satisfied smile Jasmine had, though it felt far less predatory than his fiancée's often did.

“It's nice to finally meet you, Jason. I do apologize for the rather rude interruption to your normal dreams. However, I am here on an important errand.” The woman's voice filled the chamber, though she never raised it. Her velvety tone settled over him like a warm blanket on a cold winter night. 

It was odd. He couldn't deny that he was nervous; the entier setting was anything but reassuring. But shouldn't he be scared? 

“And what's that? If I may ask, that is.” He asked carefully.

The woman's smile blossomed into a full-on grin. She had moved out from over the pool and closer to him now. Her eyes scanned him slowly from head to toe, pausing briefly on his lower legs.

“Well, my dear, I am here to offer you a pact. A solution to the problems you didn't know you had, so to speak.”

Jason shot up, breathing rapid, shallow breaths. The duvet and sheets clung to his skin from his cold sweat. 

“Are you ok, Jason?” 

He glanced over to the corner of the room to find Jasmine looking at him with a concerned expression, a recently closed book resting in her lap.

Jason blinked, the scenes of his dream playing on repeat in his head. Not all in order; only the offer at the end was he sure was in its right place. Yet the memories regardless of how disorganzied werent fading, like dreams so often did. At least not most of it. The climb, the clearing, the tea drinking, picking the, herbs, and finally the offer. All of it attached to his mind like etchings on a stone tablet.

“Yeah, just an intense dream is all.”

Sorry for the rather strange chapter this week. It was a nightmare to write and edit, but its finally done.  I might revisit it next week after my exam. What might Jason have run into, Why might it care about our boy? Will you guys get the answer?