So, we didn't escape apparently.
I still barely know what's going on, but I know more now:
W.I.C.K.E.D. is a real pain in the ass, walking through sand dunes should be considered a sport, and searching for a mysterious rebel group is like searchin...
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I WAS FROZEN—COMPLETELY encompassed by adread so glacial, I could see my breath become vapor. As if my fiery soul had frozen over within the icy confinement of my horrified mind, watching helplessly as my reality ruptured into the shatters I desperately tried to cling onto.
Yet, no matter how still I remained, all eyes fell on me.
"Ame?" Janson repeated again, staring through my soul as if attempting to read my own instincts.
It felt like I was punched.
Gutted with a silver knife, wielded of fire and ice, I had no backbone to rise. My incredulity stirred me so deep that it felt as if I were being sliced apart—completely dismembered—and to protect my trembling mind from the ongoing trauma, everything became one blur of icy shock and pale thought. My production of thought had halted, like my brain cells went on strike and refused to work, and all I could do was feel.
And all I felt was shock.
"Ame?" Chuck's voice anchored me.
Yanking my disoriented mind out of the frosty void I was snared in, my billowing gaze fell to the boy across from me.
He continued, stammering with nerves, "Y-You get to go to...to the safe place."
The boy had his eyebrows knitted with fear, his pink stitches crinkling with his quivering expression as he stammered like the child he really was.
I hesitated again, my heart panging in both terror and sadness.
"I-I—"
"Ame," Janson addressed me directly, his hands, with the list, lowering as a small smile crept across his thin lips, "Won't you join us at the front, please?"
"Uh..."
I turned to Newt—my voice of reason. He appeared just as bewildered as I felt. His mouth agape, his large coffee-coloured eyes landed on me in disbelief, his irises swirling with an emotional cocktail of wist and reluctance.
Newt gripped my hand, holding me so firm to keep me from slipping through his solicitous fingers.
I thought he was going to tell me to stay.
Instead, he cracked a small smile which didn't reach his attentive eyes, joking for my sake and my sake only. "I...guess the snuggles can wait?" Newt forced an ironic chuckle.
My heart sank at that. I don't want to leave.
I turned to Janson. "Um...can I...opt out of this one, please? I'd rather wait." Words fumbled out of my mouth with a panicked laugh.
