Hellbound Heart

This chapter is dedicated to @Yaritza_16!!! Thank you so very much for the supergift!!! <3 <3

_____

Elle had been expecting an eerie or even mossy and damp forest. But this was... she blinked multiple times to make sure her eyes were not deceiving her.

The trees were still dark and their bark was almost a blackish hue. However, that was the end of the darkness. All over the forest floor, it was covered with snow-white flowers. The flowers were like nothing she had ever seen before. They were like a cross between a dandelion and a daisy. She could not quite describe it properly even to herself. But what she knew was, they were gorgeous! Elle felt as though she had stepped into a meadow that had snow falling and covering every inch of it, but the snowflakes were in the shape of flowers!

"Oh lord... Abi!! This is absolutely beautiful!!!" she exclaimed at Abi with eyes so wide and Abi just giggled at her reaction. Abi had been waiting to see how Elle would react when she saw this. She knew she would not be disappointed as Elle's reaction was cuter than she had imagined it to be.

"You've been expecting something dark and creepy, weren't you?" Abi grinned and Elle nodded her head almost like a rattle.

"Yes, I was... I felt that this forest wouldn't be normal. But little did I expect that it would be this amazing! This is straight from a fantasy tale! I think I might have died and gone to heaven..."

"I'm glad the view surprised you in a good way." Abi replied and then they continued walking forward.

Elle glanced excitedly at Sebastian and she was pleasantly surprised to notice a faint surprise in his eyes. As if he too, was a little shocked at the view that had welcomed them.

Curious, Elle asked. "Is this your first time here?"

Sebastian halted in his steps and met her gaze. Somehow, Elle was starting to feel that the deeper they reached into the forest, the heavier Sebastian's aura seemed to become. He was obviously trying to hide it not only from her, but also from Alexander and Abigail. But with her this close to him, she could feel it!

"Y-you looked a little surprised so I'm curious." Elle added, trying to lighten up the atmosphere.

"The place wasn't like this the last time I was here." Sebastian's calm reply made Elle breathe out in relief. She was worried something serious was going on with him.

"Really? It wasn't this beautiful and enchanting before?"

"It was a..." he suddenly trailed off as he looked around the now seemingly completely different place. "Yes. It was the complete opposite from before."

"Actually, this place just recently changed." Alexander butted in after listening in to their conversation, glancing at Elle over his shoulder.

"Recently?"

"Hmm... about four years now, I think. These tiny flowers did not exist anywhere else except in the heart of this forest only."

"Uhm... did someone... uhm... planted these flowers and they spread... out?" Elle somehow felt like she was asking a stupid question. Just one glance at the tiny flowers covering the ground was... it was nothing like she had ever seen before. The tiny flowers were so unusual yet mesmerizing that she did not think they existed anywhere else on earth but here!

"Hmm... we'll leave it at that for now. Sebastian will tell you more about it maybe once we leave." Alex chuckled and the group went on deeper into the enchanting forest.

Conversation soon ceased because the moment the scenery changed as they reached near the heart of the forest, all she could do now was gasp and gape in wonder at the scenery around and above her.

The trees still had the same almost black colored bark. But that was where the similarities ended. These trees were massive, tall and straight, reaching far up into the sky that Elle could not quite see where the canopy was. And what was interesting and breathtaking about these trees was that their leaves were all white! Snow white as though each and every leaf were totally covered in snow. The only other color in them were tiny little flowers blooming between those snow-white leaves, in a blush pink hue. Elle felt that her breath was literally stolen from out of her lungs as she turned around, open-mouthed to take in such a bewitching scene.

"Oh my lord..." she uttered in a whisper before rubbing her eyes as though to clear them. "What is this place? Are we still on Earth?"

She heard Alexander chuckling ahead of them at her comment and then looked back. "Yes, Izabelle. We're still on earth. Don't worry, no one teleported us to a different world or something."

"This place shouldn't be called the Black Forest! This should be called White Forest!" Elle exclaimed in indignation.

"That name's pretty fair." Alexander agreed and Abigail seconded it with a nod.

"I can't believe this... that such a place exists here on Earth! Don't tell me fairies live here too?! This certainly looks like where faeries would live!" she gasped at Sebastian at what she had blurted.

"It's not fairies." He told her. "But witches."

Elle blinked. The hype in her eyes dropped a little. Not because she was disappointed that it was witches who lived here and not fairies. And also, not because she was scared that he just said witches do exist. At this point she was not even shocked to hear that anymore because somehow, it was easier to believe that witches exist than vampires and fairies.

What made her expression change was because of the look that flashed in his eyes the moment he mentioned the word 'witches'. Did Sebastian hate witches?

A sound of flapping wings – wings that must be bigger than the largest eagle's wings – echoed above them, pulling Elle's attention away from Sebastian.

She looked up and then around, wondering what bird could be so large to have made that sound. "Azy!!! That's cheating!!! Get back here!!!" another boy's voice echoed in the forest which Elle recognized to be the voice belonging to Alexis - Alexander and Abi's son.

But Elle kept looking up, finding the source of the flapping wing's sound and what she saw had her world completely shattering into pieces in that split second. It was not even a bird. It was a... oh lord... a boy was up there!

___

A/N: See the pictures of the trees in the comment box. Or follow me on instagram @kazzenlx.x to see the HD pics of Black Forest