Rebel Red Hope

6

Hiding in the cave was more tiring, unfamiliar, and imprisoning than what my mind told me it would be, yet was also rewarding. The man, Clancy, his name continued echoing in my head the entire time. Escaping the walls of Dema seemed well enough a reward, but now "the familiar stranger" has a name that I still sometimes forget to call him. It's strange though, his name made him seem even more familiar, but why?

Clancy and I stayed there until the snow melted and the green came back and sprouted pretty things. My favorite? The yellow flowers that started sprouting from down in the rocky ravine somewhat below up with the small stream running through it. If my days weren't filled by carefully wandering around down in the bottom of the ravine, they were filled with comfortable small talk with Clancy as he writes in his journal and I sketch in mine. Over the span of time being in the cave, my sketchbook had become a bit of a scrapbook of my time out in Trench and the man- Clancy, had revealed that so was his. He also revealed that he brought along a camera, old and silver and black,

"I take this with me every time," he tells me, "Something I use to take a small bit of Trench with me when I get dragged back to Deam" he smiles as he admires the camera before pointing it at me,

*click*
*flash*

He snaps the image of me before I'm able to register it, but laugh at the stars in my eyes while rubbing them in hopes of fixing my vision, but as my vision returns, something feels off and my head snaps to the entry of the cave where the shadowy figure stands taunting me, so, without a second thought, I grab the mans camera and walk up to it. Confronting it. My brain spins as my arms raise the camera and click the button

*click*
*flash*

The figure is gone, but something outside the cave catches my attention: A man lying in the water below with a green jacket and yellow tape like what was on Clancy when we first met.

"Uh, Clancy?" I call him over. There was no need to see his face as his confusion carried in his footsteps as he walks up behind me and looks over my shoulder to see the man as well and his breath seems to hitch,

"Tyler?" he breaths with a concerned and questioning tone before pulling me back into a back corner of the cave with him,

"We have to he-" Clancy puts his hand over my mouth,

"The only reason he would be out here is if something happened," he starts explaining in a whisper, "meaning there's a Bishop after him." he takes his hand off my mouth,

"Well, then he can come in here with us!" I whisper back shocked that Clancy would leave someone he knew for the Bishops,

"He can't."

"Why the hell not?"

"It's not safe."

My mind is racing at this point. Names flashing by too fast to register, Tyler, Clancy, why was it all so familiar? Something else that snapped me out of it was the horrifyingly familiar feeling of a Bishop closing in. From the way the both of us looked at each other, we both knew it was Nico.

"I'm going to see what's happening," I say while standing up and moving carefully over to the opening. Clancy gives a defeated yet scared sigh,

"Stay out of sight please," he says, the strength in his tone wavering slightly.

The man on the ground, Tyler, sits up and gets off the ground and out of the water almost the second he's in my line of sight and starts looking around, confused almost. My brain still trying to wrap around the fact that he was also familiar, but something catches my eye: Nico on his white horse getting closer and closer in the distance. Tyler's eyes are panicked as he looks around, walking down the middle of the stream before something catches his eye, making him pause. It takes me a moment to realize it was something above us, and then I saw them on the other side of the ridge: