Meryn landed roughly on the tree branch. Disoriented and off-balance, she tried to steady herself on the quaking limb. The seizing felidrake in her hand didn't help matters. Nor did the screeching tree demon in front of her. Her eyes widened and her lips parted in shock as crystals, black as tar, grew and crept over its body, consuming it. Then wooden talons burst through the poor creature's body in a spray of blood. Meryn immediately released the felidrake, arms coming up to protect her face. The felidrake remained suspended in the air by the demon's claws.

The felidrake stopped moving. The crystals encased its body. Someone shouted at her from below.

She looked down to see a man, with Spook's voice, wearing his clothes, but instead of the mask she'd come to accept as his face, there was an actual… [i]face[/i]. Or some mangled distortion of one. It wouldn't have been so alarming if tar black crystals weren't encasing half of it. 

The demon roared at her again, forcing Meryn's attention back up. She ducked against the tree trunk as a clawed hand swiped at her. her feet reflexively coiled up towards her chest and then struck out with a strength that could only be born of desperation. Her boots met the creature square in the chest. It screeched and toppled off the branch, along with the felidrake's crystalized corpse. Meryn didn't wait to see how it scrambled to grab onto the next available branch. 

Pushing herself forward, Meryn leaped with all the grace of a fish on land. She landed on the next branch, her feet precariously balancing on it, and pushed herself up against the tree. She made her way to the next branch and the next, never allowing herself to stop until she'd reached the end of the tree line. She was still too high, too far from the ground, but in her desperation to put space between herself and the forest, she launched herself off the last branch anyway, out onto the field. 

The ground was quick to meet her and she fell into a sloppy roll. Pain arced from her shoulder to her hip across her back. Out of habit her feet arranged themselves so she stood coming out of her roll, and she stumbled forward with the momentum. Meryn barely managed to keep from falling over as one hand came up to her temple and her eyes squeezed shut. Her body was not pleased with her, but that wasn't a surprise. Her eyes cracked open to see a splattering of crimson on the sleeves of her jacket. Meryn froze as she remembered the blood wasn't hers. It was the felidrake's. The infected, [i]dead[/i] felidrake. Spook's warning of the disease echoed in her mind.

Meryn shoved her bag off her shoulder and onto the ground. With both hands, she grabbed the back of her collar and yanked the dirty jacket off, throwing it to the floor a few feet away. Shaking hands felt at her face, her arms, her hair, for any traces of crystals on her skin. Her breath was coming out in frantic, shallow puffs.