Chapter 132 Something Stronger

Chapter 132 Something Stronger
ERINA -

Rage filled Erina. Fury beyond anything she'd ever felt slid into her fingertips and up her neck until it flushed her cheeks. It coursed through her veins like ice on the bay.

She dug her fingers into Kai's arm as she tried to control the rage.

It felt like all the years of torment from Regina came to the surface, along with all the emotional moments of her time in Wonderland, and she couldn't contain it.

She wanted to hurt something or someone. To maim and kill and force all of her pain that had built up over time into something else.

She looked to the sky and screamed her fury once more. Birds and wildlife scattered out and away from her.

"Erina." Her name fell from Kai's lips and broke through the thick layer of rage that was still building in her mind.

She fell in close to him and watched as his chest rose and fell with even breaths.

He's not dead. The thought gave her goosebumps, and she pulled in a deep, steadying breath.

She closed her eyes as relief cooled the rage, and when she opened her eyes, she looked down to see that all the foliage surrounding her and Kai had turned black and withered.

The words from the Goddess came to the forefront of her mind. “The Tree feeds on desire. Frank feeds it greed. We need to feed it something stronger.”

She leaned down and placed a soft kiss against Kai's temple before she reached over to his back and searched for one of the invisible Karambits he kept latched to his back.

When she found the hilt of one, she pulled it from its sheath before she turned and stood, facing Frank and the Tree.

He was still gulping loudly as she made her way over to it.

He must have had little to no fear of her because all he did was open his creepy eyelids and watch her move around to the other side of the Tree.

Erina knelt down next to one of the now cracked and nearly withered roots and placed her palm against it.

She could feel a sadness radiate out as Frank slurped up the remaining syrup.

"We need something stronger." She said out loud to herself.

She pulled her hand away and drug the Karambit down the soft skin of her palm; the cut going as deep as she could take. Had she gone deeper, she would have hit bone.

Still, she winced and sucked in a breath through her teeth at the quick pain that came from it.

Then she turned her hand and laid it flat against the tree.

Something must have happened because she heard Frank pause in his gulping and ask, "What are you doing? Stop that!"

She watched her blood drip onto the root of the Tree before it disappeared into the thick cracks where she could see it mingle with what was left of the syrup. Turning it into a pinkish silver instead of a liquid metal.

"Girl! Stop!"

Ignoring him, Erina spoke directly to the Mother Tree. "Take what you need. Not for me, but for them. For Nibblenook. For every Walker who ever wanted to be more. For Wonderland and for every Soul that lives here."

Erina felt her hand get pulled to the Tree until it became stuck and a pulling sensation pulled at her palm. Immediately, she felt her energy begin to wane, and although she should feel sad, knowing this was the end, all she could do was smile.

Not only was she going to save the Mother Tree, she was going to save Wonderland and Kai and every Soul who lived here.

Suddenly, the Tree began to glow as she felt it accept her blood and energy. It traveled up the root and into the trunk until the very leaves exploded in a bright light that was so blinding she had to close her eyes.

It pulsed out like a breath, in and out, until her lids began to grow heavy. "I'm sorry, Kai."

Almost as if the Tree had heard her, it released her palm, and she fell back on her ass with a hard thump. She pulled her palm up and noticed that the wound was no longer an open and oozing cut, but was a pinkish-red scar that slid from one side to the other.

Her eyes moved up to the now softly glowing tree. It was still cracked and withered, but the light shimmered off like a brightly lit lantern in a window.

It was then that she heard Frank from the other side of the Tree.

He was panicking so strongly that his screams and cursing were almost unintelligible.

She slowly made her way around the tree until she could see him. He was thrashing inside his cocoon. The delicate threads of the outer shell were splitting with the movement, and his eyes were wide with sheer hysteria.

That's when his head jerked back and his mouth opened in a silent scream as the sac's thread slowly turned black, starting from the bottom.

The threads fell away and showed his now deformed body as it convulsed on the ground between two of the Tree's roots.

He drug in a raspy breath and cried, "Waiiiitt! No!" Another breath pulled into his mouth before he shrieked, "Nooooooooo"

Erina watched his body transform from a grotesque, luminescent caterpillar of immense size that nearly eclipsed his former shape. To sucking in on itself like a balloon having the water slowly sapped from it. The Tree was taking back all of the syrup and energy that Frank had taken.

His swollen body shriveled and seemed to mummify before her eyes before he fell fully into the roots of the Tree and no longer moved, other than shallow breaths that pushed his chest up and down.

Erina moved up to him then, in slow, exhausted movements.

She knew what he'd tried to do and how he'd almost succeeded, but for some reason, all she could remember was how he'd helped her. How much Kai didn't want to hurt him and how he'd tried to talk him out of it.

Kai truly cared for the caterpillar, and she hated seeing him shriveled and broken.

There was no fear in Erina when she'd finally made it to him. All she felt was sadness and pity.

His eyes slid to her when she made it to him, but that was all that moved. No facial features. No moving antennae rubbing up against each other. He was too emaciated to do any of that.

His mouth moved and she could tell he was trying to say something, so she leaned in to hear.

"I just.... wanted... to be... more...."

As if hearing him, the Tree exploded in blinding light, and pollen fell from the limbs to land softly on Frank's near-skeletal body.