The Pink Lab: Call of the Faeries 3 - Pt. 8

The next update will be the whole story, so here's the last shot at suggestions!

The woods held Andi in its slender, brittle arms. No matter how close she thought she was to the pinprick of light in the distance - the light she was sure was the house of Juno and her mother - that pinprick never grew or appeared any nearer. What did grow was the sense of dread plaguing Andi. With each step, she felt more weighted by that fear. 

“Fuck this,” she announced to no one and turned on her heel. 

Behind her lay only more darkness. She felt certain she knew the way, having kept a straight line. So long as that yellow dot of light was at her back, she should find her way back to the RV in no time, even with the tugging brambles and ambitious roots looping out of the ground. Despite those annoyances, Andi was moving fast. It was not surprising, then, when the fading glow of the RV lit ahead of her. The battery was failing and the headlamps were losing their strength. It felt as wilted as her spirit. 

There was someone behind her. She did not move until Andi did, but there was a fluttering sound and the rustle of branches when Andi started back for the RV. If she stopped, so did her unseen companion. Finally, the icy fear overwhelmed her, and she fled, a breakneck run back to the camper, no concern for the hazards around her. She needed to be safe, to be bathed in the light. 

She exploded from the woods in a windmilling of arms and gasping breath. She spun to see what waited behind her and found only the dense, dark forest.

“Colin? Colin?!”

His chair was on the road, but empty. His clothes were piled on the ground between the wheels of the chair. 

“Colin!”

She circled the RV, banged through the interior. He was gone. Which meant someone took him. There was no way Colin could have made his way far into the woods in the time she was gone. 

If there is anything more horrible than raw, uncontrolled fear, it is to feel such fear and to know that one is alone. When that realization came over Andi, she screamed. Her head tilted up and she let loose a wail of desperation and anger and, mostly, pure terror.

That wailing was met with laughter, a sound like crystal decanters meeting in a toast. It came from all around her, dancing in the dark. 

Andi’s panic receded enough for her to take a steadying breath. While hope had not returned, she knew that the only way forward was through. If there was anything left to be done, it was to find her brother and escape this impossible forest. She stared into the inky blackness of the forest-shrouded night and marched once more into the embrace of it. 

While she walked, the laughter continued. Sometimes louder, sometime fainter, never close enough for the source of the sounds to be revealed. She effectively tuned it out, focusing on memories of Colin and Andi when they were young: Christmases opening gifts, family vacations, the first days at college. It buoyed her spirits enough to continue. She supposed she might simply collapse and sink into the loam under her feet.

The flickering pinprick of light that had been her North Star before was close. She didn’t know how she had found it, but it was there, a growing circle of yellow, wavering light. It was difficult to shake the feeling that now she was allowed to come near, whereas before she was on an invisible treadmill, walking far but going nowhere. Now, she could see the mouth of the cave and the flickering light dancing at the lip. 

The fear that threatened to destroy her at the RV had faded into a dull ache inside. It was manageable, at least, and so Andi nodded to no one, steeled herself, and climbed the short hill to the rocky mouth. She disappeared so quickly, one might have thought it swallowed her whole.

Inside, the tunnel narrowed. The walls were rough and craggy and damp. A cool wind blew from the depths of the cavern. The tunnel split and split again, the way back becoming increasingly foggy as she tried to keep her orientation by only taking the left-hand tunnels. A look back, though, showed tunnels branching twice again. It made her head spin and her stomach roll. She thought of Colin and his love of horror stories that talked about impossible angles. Impossible tunnels threatened to split her brain, so she kept her focus on the path ahead.

While the passages were dark, there was always a warm, amber glow coming from somewhere ahead, and the winking yellow lights that danced around her. Andi’s panic was kept chained, but barely. She was one scare away from a mad dash through these labyrinthine, uncanny tunnels. 

One of the lights passed inches from her face. She gasped as she understood what she might have known subconsciously all along. These lights weren’t floating, mindless orbs. She saw the quick wings and slender frame, the undeniably feminine features of that shape inside the light. 

A laugh barked from her throat. Faeries. That’s what they were. That’s where the woods had come from. She and her friends were lost in some demented fable, and now she was lost in the lair of faeries. It would have been funny if it weren’t so terrifying. 

The tunnel widened ahead, a prelude to a greater opening into a small chamber in the web of stone passages. There was a wet sound from inside that chamber, and another sound. It was like a dog grunting with pleasure as its belly was rubbed in just the proper manner. She leaned against the wall, peering around the opening to see deeper into the chamber. Her hand clamped over her mouth to seal the scream bubbling up.

It was Chastity, or some new version of her manufactured by the fae magic. She was flush against the far wall of the cavern, hygge tight to the rock. Her face and torso were recognizable, but the arms and legs spread wide against the wall had transformed. Her shoulders and upper arms remained flesh, but the flesh faded into the soft brown bark of a tree. Floral tendrils extended from what once were fingers, clinging to the stone and fixing Chastity in place. Flowers blossomed in her hair and sprouts of new growth pushed up from beneath her skin. She was human and plant, a beautiful woman becoming a placid tree, its branches holding it in place.

The grunting came from Chastity, whose eyes turned all white and appeared to see nothing at all. Her head moved languidly, rolling about as her whole body undulated with pleasure. Between her legs, above a thatch of pubic hair that sported small white flower blossoms in its tangle, a pair of faeries traded tongue-swirling worship of her pussy. These were larger, human-sized, if slender and delicate of features. Long wings tremored from their backs as they lapped at the wood nymph’s delta. They showed no sign they noticed Andi from her vantage.

Andi turned, deciding in an instant that there were worse fates than death. Becoming whatever erotic plant hybrid Chastity had become was not a fate Andi envisioned for herself. She would aim for the road again if she found her way out of the maze of tunnels. She would follow it out of this nightmare if she could, but she was no longer resigned to her fear. The truth was so much worse.

Andi followed an elbow in the tunnel. The curve revealed a trio of fae waiting for her, heads downturned, eyes bright, smiles empty and horrible.

“Heya, Andi,” one said, moving ahead of the others. “We’ve been looking for you.”

“I just want to leave.”

“We can’t have that,” said another.

“It’s almost time for supper,” the third added, clasping her hands together in joy.

“And Mother says you’re the guest of honor!”

They descended on her, small hands grasping her, pulling her. Andi fled into unconsciousness, preferring emptiness to the wild grins of the fae.