Young Writers Society

Jerica watched her for a moment. Eve seemed even more upset by it than Jerica was. Which, sure, Jerica had been far more shaken up in the moment than she was now -- but Eve was just watching her memory of it. Apparently. She was still skeptical, but Eve suddenly seemed to believe her, so maybe memory-watching was real after all. But Jerica still wasn't sure why she seemed so upset by it. It's not like Eve had been the one kidnapped by Aenyra. And, they both knew how things had turned out.

Well, Eve didn't know all of the shouting and fighting that had followed. Or the several-week-long trek of being Aeron's prisoner, before the asshole finally revealed that he was also a member of The Guild and was legitimately trying to help her. But, they both knew that Jerica had eventually made it through -- since she was here now -- which is all that mattered.

"Kinda," Jerica answered. "They're like the doors that let you go between them. Like, Aenyra took me from Beirania -- where I live -- to the Fire Realm, which was that weirdly-red one after the first portal. And the Fire Realm is a whole realm all by itself... granted it's a shitty realm and people mostly go through it to get to the other portals in it. But then the second one was the Ancient Realm which..."

This one was harder to explain.

"Which is complicated," Jerica sighed. "But it's a whole other realm with people and politics and economies and languages and everything else, but it's not like Beirania. I've heard Earth has those things too, but, again, Derik won't let me go so I don't know what that place is like..." Eve clearly seemed to think Jerica was from Earth, so that had to be where she was from herself, since she didn't believe other realms existed until now. "Is it like here? Do you think we're on Earth now?"

Evaline had drowned out Jerica's rambling voice, but she was glad she was talking instead since it allowed her to recover from the effects of the memory. By the time she finished talking, all the emotions had faded, and Evaline felt more like herself.

So, portals and realms were real. This was a lot to take in, but she was too tired to rationalize the memory away. She couldn't think of any realistic explanations to what else she saw. Memories could be fabricated, but this seemed too farfetched.

"I don't know," Evaline answered solemnly. She was sitting with one knee up, one arm draped against her knee and the other resting in her thigh. She stated at the fire, eyes unreadable. "I don't know where we could be. This could be Earth, but I can't explain the floating presents or rain."

"Hmmmm." That wasn't particularly helpful, but Jerica couldn't say much. It'd taken her a little while to realize they weren't in Beirania. And, it seemed like Eve was having a much, much harder time accepting that. "Well... hopefully we find a portal soon."

The little alcove had seemed like the perfect place to put one -- uninviting and hard to get to. But she would have seen it if it was there. And she absolutely would have jumped through it without going back for Eve. But, it wasn't there. So they had to figure out where it was.

"Yeah. Hopefully," she said quietly, lost in thought.

Evaline stared at the flickering fire, trying to think through the mess of her mind. There was so much to think about. Their clothes drying, their survival in the night, resources they'd have to find, presents that indicated they were being watched, the dangers following the dragon's path, and now, other realms existing. It took some time for that fact to fully sink in.

Jerica had been wondering which realm they were in, but Evaline had no idea. She suddenly felt so small and lost. Evaline took a deep breath.

"You're really not from on Earth," she finally said. "You're from..." She paused, trying to remember what she said. "Beirania?"

Finally.

It felt like they were finally to ground zero, so now they could -- hopefully -- start making some actual useful progress.

"Yeah," Jerica agreed, biting back the I /told/ you I'm not from Earth that tempted her. And, well, technically she was from the Ancient Realm, but that was a whole other matter, and she's grown up in Beirania so she'd claim it.

Evaline furrowed her brows in thought.

"I don't get it," she said after a long pause. "Is it common knowledge for people in your world to know about this? Why do I not know about this? You act like it's strange for me to not know. Is this supposed to be common knowledge?"

Jerica thought for a moment. She supposed those were fair questions.

"No," she answered thoughtfully, shaking her head a bit. "I guess most people don't know, I'm just--" Eve didn't need to know what she was. "... we're not in Beirania. We just have to figure out where we are."

"That's the thing," Evaline went on, no longer filtering her thoughts. "I didn't even know other worlds existed until now. For all I know, we are on Earth, because that's the only one I know exists." She loudly sighed, slumping back. "So I can't even begin to answer your question, because my knowledge is very limited."

"Don't worry about it." Jerica shrugged it off. "I do know about other realms, and I still don't know which one we're in." She sighed and rubbed her face hopelessly. "There are dozens it could be."

Evaline let out a mirthless laugh. "Great," she said curtly. "That makes me feel so much better."

Jerica laughed through her nose, keeping her face buried in her hands. It didn't make her feel better, either. She decided to voice what she was sure they must both be thinking. "We're fucked."

Evaline didn't even react, Jerica's words hanging over the fire. As far as she was concerned, the knowledge of other realms existing didn't need to be known to get out of this place. They just had to follow the dragon's path and await whatever was on the other end.

She looked up and noticed that it was finally dark.

"We should get some rest," she said solemnly. "Let's sleep in shifts. I can stay awake first."

“Alright.” Jerica didn’t feel like arguing, and she was fatigued. She stood up and grabbed her spear and held the swim suit in one hand. “Wake me up if you even think you hear or see anything. I’m probably more suited to fight them than you.”

She hoped Eve wouldn’t take offense, but she also didn’t particularly care if she did. It was a fact. It was highly doubtful Eve had had nearly as much hand to hand combat as she had — judging from her pitiful upper body strength on the cliff — and she also assumed the beasts would be more like what she was used to than whatever was on Earth.

With that, Jerica walked to a tree that was safely outside the ring of light from the fire, and hefted herself into it. She chose one with branches that stayed fat a decent way off the ground, then found a crook where she could cram her spear and straddled one of the branches. She laid down the swim suit so that the bark wouldn’t scratch her bare abdomen, then laid down on it with her hands under her face.

Evaline was glad that she could get a couple hours of silence for herself. She had a lot to think about, and even more to do. It took some time to sit and stew over Jerica's memory and what it meant for the grand scheme of things, but after she felt exhausted thinking through it, she took out the map to study it some more.

It was dark now, and the moon and stars were high up on the sky. Evaline kept looking at the map, and then at the stars, and then at the map again. According to the placement of the moon and stars draw on the map, it almost looked like it was supposed to act as a compass. The moon signifying north -- the top of the map -- and the stars near it signifying the other directions based on the size and its relative replacement from the moon. If this were the case, then they truly were supposed to follow the stampede's direction since that also corresponded to the star compass.

What awaited them at the other end? Evaline wished she knew.

She spent her remaining time thinking, studying, and checking in on her clothes. Her original bra and underwear was dry, so she changed into that from her lacy set she was wearing. She had no idea what to do with it. Was it even worth putting in her pocket?

The jumpsuit was a little damp, but it was fairly dry. Evaline was going to wake up Jerica shortly anyways, so she changed out of it and sat in front of the fire, waiting a few more minutes before she called for her to wake up.

But then the air suddenly felt cold, and she felt the hairs at the back of her neck stand up.
Something felt wrong.

She barely had time to think about it when she heard a howling in the near distance.

Immediately, Evaline got up on her feet, eyes wide with shock. Shadowy figures were coming in from the distance, but she couldn't see what they looked like or how far they were.

"Jericaaaa?" she called loudly, voice nervous.

Jerica didn't trust Eve even a little.

But, she didn't have much choice but to go along with the plan. If she'd been alone then she would have done exactly what she was doing now -- make a decent-sized fire that she could use to illuminate some of the area, then climb a tree out of the circle of light to sleep. She'd hear Eve or anyone else before they managed to get up to the tree to her.

So, she fell asleep relatively quickly.

It wasn't a particularly restful sleep, and it certainly wasn't deep. There was only so much you could relax while lying face-down on a piece of wood and focusing on not falling off, knowing fully well you were kidnapped. But, it was something.

Her eyes snapped open when she heard... something. By the time she woke, the noise had stopped. But there had been something. Her eyes snapped towards the fire and she saw Eve on her feet. Jerica shot upright, grabbing her spear as Eve called to her.

Jerica still couldn't see what it was. But she swung her leg over the branch and threw herself down to the one below her, then the next one, then skipped the bottom two and jumped straight to the ground instead. She caught her balance and bounded over to Eve.

"Fuuuuuuuuuuck." Jerica didn't know what were approaching, but there were a lot of them. And they were getting close. "Get a weapon! A stick, rock -- something."