Thief

Disgust and horror clutched at my stomach and I vomited on the trail.  The carnage that erupted from me caused me to become sicker and I continued to heave long after my stomach was empty.  It looked like I had hardly bothered to chew, mangled flesh was mingled with congealed blood, all that was left of the beast that had terrorized us. 
Ren looked at me in fear.  “Why Elyssa?”  I had no answer for him, only my tears and my shame.  At that moment, tenderness overtook the fear in his face and, for the first time since we had met again, he held me while both our eyes were open.  “We will get through this.  We will figure it out.
My sobs slowed down and gradually became the occasional hiccup.  I leaned into the rough wool of Ren’s shirt and enjoyed the smell.  Gradually, as I calmed down, I began to feel my stomach growling and I realized just how good Ren smelled.  Their was the tangy scent of his sweat and the metallic overtones of the dried blood on his arm from the wound.  It was the blood that attracted me.  I turned my head on his chest and tasted the blood on his shirt.  He pushed me violently away from him and I realized that I hadn’t just licked him, I had bit him.
My world started closing in and I thought I would pass out.  I could not believe what I had done, yet part of me wanted to rush back into his arms and taste the sweetness once again.
“Tie me to the tree!” I cried.
“What? No!”  Ren spoke violently.  Then the fear rushed back into his eyes and he agreed.  I think he saw the madness in my eyes.
Across the clearing from Ren, with the solid feel of wood behind my back, I felt rational thought return.  I was confused and his confusion matched my own.  We sat there for hours in near silence.  My stomach rumbled more violently and ever so often, I begged Ren to let me go, to let me eat.  It was the hunger that drove me mad.  Ren was immoveable, his face set in stone but his eyes betraying the furious thoughts that flew through his head.
In one of my lucid moments, he spoke to me again.  “Elyssa, how did you heal me?”
“I don’t know,” I replied.  I looked inside you and found your pain and your wounds, your fever as well and I pulled them from you into myself.  Then your wounds became mine to bear.”
“Just before I killed the beast, you touched it and it went still as a mouse and waited for my knife to end its life.  What did you do when you touched it?”
“I suppose I did the same thing.  I found its evil, the hunger that caused it to kill and the will to survive through domination and I took it away.”  I couldn’t see where he was going with the line of questioning.”
“When you healed me, the wounds were transferred to you.  Do you suppose the evil that you took from the monster is still lurking somewhere inside of you?”
I closed my eyes and concentrated, looking into my blood as I had looked into Ren’s and I found it there, pulsing green and shot through with the black decay of death.  I opened my eyes and they were full of tears.  “It is there, inside of me.  Oh Ren, leave me here and go  on.  Find my brother.  If you find a way to release me from this evil then you can return, but if not, leave me here to die.”
Ren came close and put his hands on both sides of my face, tenderly kissing my forehead, my tearstained eyes and my dripping nose.  “Don’t be ridiculous.  We are in this together.  You can pull things in.  Can you push things out?  Gather all the evil together and push it out through your hands. Push it into the tree behind you.”
I closed my eyes again and began to push the evil all together, one oozing tendril at a time.  It seemed to take hours.  Sweat poured down my body like a flood and my whole body shook, at last I pulled it together so it could fit in my hand once again and I shoved it away from me.  I opened my eyes, drained and exhausted, but not hungry.  At that moment, the tree awoke. 
It creaked and groaned like a living thing and its branches began to move.  At first it was only slow movement like seaweed underwater, but it grew in frequency and I could feel the bark shuddering beneath me.  Ren slashed quickly through the ropes that bound me to the tree and we ran from the clearing.  The tree’s branches reached after us, grasping at our clothing, struggling to pull us back in, but we were soon far enough away that it could not reach us.  We watched in silence as it pulled down an eagle that was flying overhead.  There was a crunch, a spray of blood and then it was over.  Ren placed a comforting arm around my shoulder and we walked on.
Gradually, I became aware of a throbbing in my wrist.  I had fallen and hurt it in the battle with the beast but had been able to ignore it up to this point.  Ren saw the pain in my face and asked me what was wrong.  I showed him my wrist and he immediately led me to a rock and began wrapping it in some cloth from his tattered shirt.
He had slowly been growing more distant  as we walked and now, once again, he was barely looking at me.  If it wasn’t for the tender touch as he ministered to my wrist, I would have thought he was angry at me.  Finally, curious, I closed my eyes and looked inside Ren once again.  This time, I found something I did not expect, the deep dark red of betrayal.  I could see the bright white light of his love and the purple of his loyalty, but the red overshadowed it all and mixed in with it was a little of the yellow of fear.
Every fibre of my being screamed its denial, but I could not deny my senses.  Ren planned to betray me.  A defiant anger welled up in me and I refused to let it be so.  I pulled it together once again. 
Ren saw my face grow pale as I began to shake once again.  “I am sorry.   I am being as gentle as I can.”  He spoke, touching my cheek.
Finally, I had gathered his impending betrayal and I pushed it from me into the rock on which I sat. 
I opened my eyes to see Ren looking at me.  He had finished wrapping my wrist yet he still sat there, holding it and caressing my fingers.  His eyes slowly filled with tears and finally I found the boy who had left me on that long ago foggy morning.
“I have something to tell you.”  He said.
 

Reviews

[Aldora Sparrow]

Woah. Lots of vivid detail. I remember I shivered while reading that despite the hard workout I just had. I am impressed (then again you impress me often so that isn't saying a whole lot). I just couldn't stop reading until the end and it is just a great write. I've never been a horror-type person due to my extreme sensitivity to blood. But still very interesting chapter.
Some suggestions. I think making the paragraphs a little more defined with a TAB would help. Also, some of the sentences didn't make sense whether it be the length or the incompleteness. You should fix some of those run-on sentences and it would flow a little better .
Except for some grammar things, this is really great. I look forward to the next chapter!

[Katherine Hall]

An interesting concept you have developed here. I like the use of colors to define emotions.
The dialogue flows with more regularity here, but I would still be careful from letting it become stilted or 'too stagey'. I like your concept of the tree wanting blood, though if Elyssa's thirst for it was so ravenous, I doubt a small eagle would have satisfied the tree. Unless the tree was able to disperse the bloodlust through it's roots or leaves? I recommend some research on the spiritual/emotional aspects people associate with trees. According to some nature-based faiths, trees are the willing acceptors of bad energy because, like carbon dioxide being turned into life-sustaining oxygen, they turn the bad into good and disperse it in the air. Just something to consider.
Ren's abrupt mood changes at the end of this chapter were a bit disconcerting. I am sure we'll get some more information in the next chapter, but I would review your last few paragraphs and see if you can build up this realization of his impending betrayal, as well as a clearer picture of Elyssa removing that 'intent' from him.
On the whole, a strong chapter. Keep up the good work!
~Katherine

[Ruby Moon]

>.<
a flesh eating tree.....

[Victoria Harlequin]

Hmm. I'm glad Elyssa didn't turn out to be some kind of cannibal beast, hah. This is really an interesting and exciting story, I can't wait to read more!

[Martina]

Aw! Love the end plz write more and can you please do that asap cause this was fabulous! I really enjoyed it and I'm glad that Elyssa didn't become a monster of some sort!