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Chapter 29

When I wake up (Again), the sun is high above me, harsh and burning, in stark contrast to last evening's cold storm. Me and Stone are awake before any of the other families behind us, the closest group about fifty yards down the trail, so we get a head start, increasing the distance.
We barely speak at all, except to warn each other of steep inclines, gnarled and sparse tree roots, but besides that, we walk in silence, determined to get further up the mountain, and further from harm.
We've been walking/scrabbling for about three hours, when I stop and peer down the sheer, rocky side of the mountain, and see below us the sheltered path side where we where last night. We're much too far up to make out any kinds of details, over a hundred and fifty feet above that section of the path, but I can still see the funeral pyre smoking slightly, a stinking black mass of blackened wood and bones in the center of the path. Littered around it, are little colored blots that are the families and groups that failed to trust, even remotely, and none of them move.
I look away quickly. What's done is done. I'm not happy about the deaths, but I feel no guilt, not in the slightest. I warned them. It's nobody's fault but their own they chose to ignore me. Lack of trust can get you killed, but a surplus of it can earn you worse.
"OhmyGodAshlook!" Stone says in a single breath, his voice awed and scared, and he grabs my shoulder, hard, stopping me.
"What?" I say, looking to where he's pointing, and seeing nothing.
"Just watch- Right there." He shushes me, waving his pointer-finger at the same spot. I move my head closer to his, trying to see from the same angle, and squint, but see nothing.
"I still don't see anything." I complain, just as the sky moves.
Yes, the sky moves. It's just like a piece of the faded autumn sky tears itself from the background, and begins to move, passing and blocking clouds. The moving section of sky takes the appearance of whatever is behind it, but with a second's lag, so pieces of clouds appear to duplicate and move.
"What is it?" I squint, trying to see more clearly, but all I can see is the moving sky. Suddenly, it dips, and rapidly loses altitude, almost becoming even with us in the air. I can now see large, beating wings, that retain the blueness of the sky as it dives far below me, standing out against the forest.
"My God, it's a Beast..." Stone mutters in awe, and I nod slowly. I've never seen anything like it- A camouflage Beast. I know the City possesses aircraft with a similar ability, to take on the color of the sky around it, but a real, living organism?
"Whoa..." Stone grins suddenly, turning to face me.
"What?"
"Imagine what happens when that thing has to crap..." He says slowly, eyes lit by an evil grin. I sigh in exasperation.
"Trust you to think of that." I mutter.
"But seriously, imagine if you were standing right underneath it when it went?" He grins, starting to chuckle slightly.
"I know, I know." I shake my head, turning from the view and starting to walk again.
"You'd just be walking along, minding your own business, when suddenly, a whole glob of crap just hits you out of nowhere-"
"Yes, thank you for that very pleasant image."
"You're welcome."
"You're irritating."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome," I snap, leaping ahead of him, and balancing across a ten foot log that spans an endless abyss.
"Are you mad at me?" He leaps up on the vertical side of the mountain next to the drop, and sprints across the rock wall, parallel to the ground far below, and drops in beside me. I don't say anything to it, but all I can think is that I'm jealous.
"Me-mad at you? I'm not the one with serious mood swings!" I say incredulously.
"Are you saying I have mood swings?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying!"
"What do you mean?" He frowns, genuinely confused.
"What do I mean?" I say in disbelief. "I mean that one second you're telling me to stay away from you, and then you're a freaking ray of sunshine the next! What's wrong with you!" I practically scream. He's driving me crazy. To trust someone, I need to have them completely figured out, so I can plan their next move always, and forever be a step ahead, but he's the opposite of readable!
I realize he's stopped, and turn to see him standing there, a blank look on his face, as he stares ahead of me, at nothing which I can see.
I turn to face him, waving my hand in front of his face. "Hello?" I stare into his eyes, growing colder by the second, freezing up again, until he's glaring at me.
A ghost of the wolf-like snarl he had worn when facing the first Beast we ever encountered together appears on his faces, and a small pang of fear strikes me.
"Stone?" I say slowly, and his eyes show no recognition. I take a step back away, and he lifts one arm, reaching for the hilt of one of his swords.
"Stone?" I say again, a little more urgently, as the grating sound of metal is audible, and one of the twin blades appears in his hand.
"Stone!"
He takes a step toward me, his face locked in an, um, stoney mask, eyes hard, and suddenly I'm scared. My dream was right. And he's going to kill me.
"What're you doing!" I shout in a panic, taking frenzied steps backwards. He raises his arm, and he's going to throw the sword. He's really going to kill me. I'm going to die.
I scream, and time slows down. The blade leaves his fingers, slowly hurtling end over end. I begin to turn and run away, but my foot catches on a low outcropping on the path, and I slam face-first into the rocky ground, grating my flesh into the sharp pebbles. I haven't stopped screaming, and blood is already wetting the ground beneath me, dripping from the bounty of small scrapes on my face, and the stones around my face are turning scarlet.
I try to turn my head to watch the blade, my mouth still wide open in a silent scream of horror, but I can only move as fast as everything else, and it's painfully. My eyes slowly move to see the sword hurtle towards my chest, and I close them. My last thought, is that I was wrong about trusting after all. You can't trust anybody, especially the ones you think you can. I close my eyes.