The rune itself seemed to look like a dark, onyx ribcage. It was strange to see that the group used other marks besides the skull as its means of communication. It glowed with a strange dark energy as everyone surrounded it. Squabee gestured over to Slimo.

"Bring the bracelet to me. It won’t activate without it."

Slimo hesitantly set the bracelet down in her hands. As Squabee held the back of it to the ribs, something strange seemed to happen with the tree. It started bending over and pointing its tip in the north of where they were. Surprisingly, no matter how much the tree bent, it never broke. Squabee handed the bracelet back to Slimo and started walking in the direction the tree was pointing.

"Aren’t you going to need this again?"

"Not for a while. You can hold on to it for now until we get there. I still want you all to trust me."

The group continued walking until the forest eventually ended. The ground beneath them seemed to grow much muddier and wet. Large ponds of dirty water surrounded their every step. Jacob got his foot stuck in the mud a few times and cursed to himself.

"What the hell is this place? I can hardly walk through this stuff."

"This is what we call a marsh. It’s extremely muddy and gross. I try to avoid these kinds of places when I can. Just be careful not to fall into the small rivers that run through here. The grass hides them really well."

"Small riv-"

Jacob suddenly lost his footing and plunged into small pond of water hiding beneath the greenery. When he surfaced, he spit out a bunch of water and started coughing.

"This place is hell. I can’t do it anymore. Why does this water have to taste so disgusting?!"

Maria helped him out of the water and wiped off her wet hands on herself. The smell coming off of Jacob was not a pleasant one. Maria slightly distanced herself to avoid the stench for a little until she got used to it. Jacob noticed this and asked her what was wrong.

"Oh, nothing. I think we’re all overdo for a wash soon."

Jacob pouted and continued walking behind the group. Small croaks of animals were sounding all around them as they quietly studied the landscape. Squabee seemed to look a little confused when looking around. Slimo noticed this and walked up to her again.

"What’s wrong? Do you need the bracelet?"

Squabee looked around her a bit more, trying to look over the tall grass.

"That’s not it. It’s just that we should have seen another mark here by now. Every Mark is separated by three miles of land to help lead us back. If I didn’t miscount, it should be right on top of us."

The group helped her look around the area, but to no avail. There was nothing but the mushy ground, rancid smell, and humid weather surrounding them.

"Well, if it’s not here where could it be?"

Jacob got a gross premonition.

"Is it possible for the mark to have fallen under water?"

Squabee thought to herself for a moment.

"There’s been cases of that happening before, but where could it have gone?"

Without wasting any time, Jacob dove into the water, in search of the insidious symbol. He lifted up small rocks at the bottom of the river to see if it was hiding underneath something. It was extremely hard to see with how murky the area around him was. Not only that, but the water caused his eyes to burn with pain. Eventually, he came across what seemed to be a strangely round circle laying in the mud. Jacob took his right arm and rubbed it over the surface to clean it off to see what the strange disc was. However, as soon as he did that, a strange purple glow started emanating through the small cracks in the disc and exploded outward, blinding him for a few moments. Jacob was so disoriented by the random flash that he crawled himself back to the surface to take in some more air. He spit out more water and coughed a few times before announcing to his group.

"There’s some sort of strange glowing disc I found. It might be our way-"

When he rubbed the dirt out of his eyes, his entire group was gone. He was the only one left on the bank of the dirty river.

"Out..."

He stood up slowly and shook some water off of him before looking over the tall grass.

’Did the current carry me further downstream? Or did they leave me here after finding something?’

He called out to his friends to see if anyone would respond.

"Maria? Lidia? Doc? Slimo? Uhm... weird girl who we decided to follow?"

No response. In fact, the area around him was completely silent. He could only hear the sound of his heartbeat in his chest and the water running next to him. Suddenly, he heard footsteps squashing the grass behind him. He turned around with his hands up, ready to attack. However, he was met with the breathtaking sight of his girlfriend, Maria. Her face held no emotion in it as she walked towards him, but Jacob felt a wave of relief wash over him seeing someone familiar.

"There you are. I was worried you all left me or got hurt or something! I’m glad to see you’re okay."

No response. Maria stopped in her tracks, strangely studying Jacob’s figure. Her eyes looked at the sharp bone sword on his waist before she continued walking forward.

"Are you okay? Why aren’t you talking right now?"

Maria finally seemed to smile and let out a few words.

"Hi."

She pointed at the sword.

"Ouch. Leave."

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"Bad. Hate."

"You don’t like my sword? Why are you talking so strangely?"

Before he could react, Maria reached for his sword and grabbed it from his waste, pointing the tip right at Jacob’s neck. Jacob held his hands up and backed away from her slowly.

"Maria?! What the hell are you doing?!"

Suddenly, Jacob noticed two minor flaws in Maria that hardly anyone else would notice. For one, the Maria in front of him had brown eyes, not green. Secondly, the mark on her left arm was completely missing. Jacob realized that whatever this thing was, it was not his girlfriend. However, if this wasn’t her, where was everyone else? These thoughts all sped through his mind as the fake walked slower towards Jacob.

"Kill. Food. Eat. Trial. Win or Die."

Jacob didn’t need to respond to the nonsense of this creature, the only thing he cared about was fighting this creature and winning.

’Win or die. Trial. Is this a test before we can continue our journey?’

Jacob knew what he had to do, but he didn’t know if he had the strength in himself to do it. It wasn’t that this creature looked dangerous, it was because it looked just like the love of his life. Without wasting time, Jacob put up his hands, ready to fight the strange beast.