The Life I Gained From Dying

Chapter 35 - Fracture

"Everything's hazy." Avery thought to herself. "Where am I now?"

Her vision quickly cleared up as she found herself lying on a grass bed in a very humid environment.

"Avery?" Sayu questioned.

"...Hey Sayu."

Avery slowly got up into a sitting position with Sayu standing right beside her.

"Where's everybody else?" Avery questioned as she inspected the area.

"There's no one else here." Sayu answered.

"...What? What do you mean?"

"When I woke up you were the only one I saw. I haven't seen anybody else."

"That can't be... Nakayla! Camie! Jayson!"

Their names echoed through the forest, but there was sadly no response.

"These trees..." Avery said softly as she took a better look of the area around her. "If I'm not mistaken, this is the Redwood Forest."

.....

"This is bad, so bad, so very very bad!" Nakayla said as she paced around in a circle. "Where the hell are we?! And why hasn't anyone else appeared yet?"

"Calm down please big sis." Shaedon requested.

"How am I supposed to be calm in this situation?! Better yet, how are YOU so calm?!"

"I'm not, I'm just not very expressive."

"I wouldn't know but I'm pretty sure this isn't Aestus either. That rift didn't even take us to the right place."

"...If I had to take a guess, I'd say Aestus is over there." Shaedon said while pointing to some nearby mountains.

"What makes you say that?" Nakayla questioned.

"In Avery's father's journal, he wrote that Aestus Lake was surrounded by an extensive mountain range. If we don't have anywhere else to go, over there might be our best bet to find people."

"...You think so?"

SPLOOSH!!

Steaming hot water erupted from the ground just behind Nakayla and Shaedon, prompting them to run forward just a bit to avoid getting burned.

"A geyser?" Nakayla asked.

"Looks like there's quite a few of them." Shaedon replied. "This area must have a lot of volcanic activity."

The field of geysers was painted in beautiful shades of reds, blues and yellows. The limestone terrain was carved into a unique stone maze like appearance, with ridges, sinkholes, caves and cliffs decorating the area.

"We should try get there before nightfall." Shaedon stated.

"O-Okay, I'm following you."

.....

"Now that you've finally awaken your water essence, I'm only going to be teaching you the basics on how to use it." Mai explained as she and Kaden were walking back towards the main village. "Kenzo will be teaching you combat skills with and without water essence."

"But what if I want you to train me straight through instead?" Kaden asked.

"These are the Elder Council's decisions, not my own."

"I'm sure if you just, I don't know, made a request, they might let you."

"And who says that I even want to train you?"