Crimson...blood.
Oh dear I hope whoever-
...
Eleri glanced around once more before she shook herself towards her thoughts. Why was she concerned--it could just be an animal or the physical embodiment of one of those thoughts again. It wouldn't be a person or something...she cared about.
She raised her hand and held it close to her chest, somewhat of a subconscious language of the body of uncertainty, before deciding to check it out anyway.
She could always run if it was dangerous.
Get a branch or long stick nearby and check out that blood stain trail! Erm, hopefully from a higher ground and very cautiously.
EleriThe red trail could be from a multitude of things. Be it animal, human, or.. something else. Something more dangerous. You shake your head and put that thought out of your mind.
It can't be too bad, you think to yourself. The red trail appears to be somewhat dry and faded, so maybe whatever was here before is gone now. Still, you have a bad feeling in the back of your head. There's no use worrying about something that you can't change now, however. Might as well investigate and see what this leads up to.
Cautiously, you begin heading diagonally up the hill, near a grouping of trees that provide good cover from whatever's out there. You make sure to take light, quiet footsteps. As far as you can hear, you don't notice anything out of the ordinary: the occasional rustling of leaves by the wind and nothing more. Just in case, you look around for a suitable branch to use as a tool or, heavens forbid, a weapon. There are plenty of branches nearby, but one branch that has a smooth end and a fork on the opposite end catches your eye. It seems to fit in your grasp pretty well, too. With the branch providing a little more confidence for you, you make your way through the trees and closer to the running spring.
You look around you for anything that seems odd in your environment. Nothing really noticeable so far, except for the red trail itself. As you follow it and examine it further, you're pretty sure that it is indeed dried blood. This worries you a bit, but you're nearing the spring now. As you approach the treeline that merges with the rocky boundaries of the spring, you look to your left and to your right. Once again, nothing is really heard except for the running of the water. The trail of blood leads its way up near the other side of the spring. Carefully, you move around the edge of the rocks and come up to the spring.
The first thing you see is a hand. You flinch back a bit, realizing that it looks like a human hand. You peek around once again and let out a slight gasp. Near the edge of the spring itself, an emaciated man - or adolescent, you can't really tell from here - lies motionless, his blood tainting the spring and the surrounding area. He has a light coat on, but it's been ripped and cut away in large parts. You can see deep, gleaming wounds in his back where the coat was torn. His right hand and both of his legs are also scratched and bloody. His sky-blue hair is matted down and messy, and you can see several scratches on the right side of his face. His eyes are closed and you can't see him moving from where you stand, a few meters away. By the looks of it, he's been here for somewhere from a few hours to a day or two. At any rate, he's definitely not in any shape to move anywhere. In the back of your mind, you try and think of anything that could've assaulted him. You haven't seen any animals that would be much of a threat and you doubt that any humans would really interact with him.
The wind picks up a slow breeze, moving the trees around you in a soft, dancing motion. It's as if nature is recognizing what a tragedy must have happened here.