Truffle Gren: After the Crimson Harvest

The cold from the packed earth below me pushed up to mix with the bitter corruption pushing through my flesh. Many hands rushed over me and questions flew through the air around me like crossbow bolts, but they never seemed to land. One question managed to slip through the fog. 

“That’s a lot of blood, are you hurt anywhere else?”

“It’s not… mine…” I mutter as pain wells in my chest and hot tears push past the corners of my eyes. 

It all happened so fast. Mousse had stepped away from me, but I kept her hand in mine. I didn’t trust anything happening in that house. The food, the drink… the people… Everything about the situation was wrong. So when Mousse was yanked hard away from me, I pulled her back, but it wasn’t enough. 

Those things moved with unnatural speed and precision. We were all taken out within minutes. Instead of laying dead with my family, I continued to walk to find more. In all of the panic and the screaming, I moved calmly with a purpose I didn’t have control over. I came across Crème Brûlée. Words crossed my teeth that I didn’t want. That I tried to force to silence as my bloody hands reached for him. He collided his hilt with my temple with quick precision and I dropped to the ground. 

Now I lay in the same place. Worried hands drawing the marquise’s poison from my wound. The warmth on my hands had long grown cold. Heartbreaking grief over my beloved cousin drew more tears than I could stop. 

“They’ll pay for this… I swear to Angradd and Magrim they will pay for all of this…”

While they were able to pull the curse from me, some of its signs still linger. My right eye is no longer the same color it was. Grief sets deep into Gren camp, but we will carry on. For Mousse’s memory… and for young Acorn.