The 17th Realm (The Maniac Trilogy - Book 1)

5 - The Archer

NYA'S POV

I kinda trusted her. I feel like she's someone like Mystake or Sorla. One of those wise old ladies but younger. We took the compass and headed North.

"Did Nisaké mention a jungle?" Cole asked.

"No..." I replied. "Why?"

"Because we're about to go through one." We looked up and saw huge trees. Guess what was in front of us. Even more huge trees. We groaned.

"Great!" Lloyd complained, "Now we have to go through a place of dangerous animals and insects and we are... well, defenceless. We have powers, I guess..."

"Well look who's talking..." I mumbled.

"Okay, Nya, now is not the time to hold a grudge," Cole reminded.

I looked at the boys and then at the compass in my hand.

"I guess we don't have a choice, do we?" We headed into the jungle. The boys were talking while I was thinking to myself. It was oddly quiet despite the chatter.

"Have you realised that there isn't a single animal in this realm?" Cole asked.

"What do you mean?" Lloyd replied.

"No birds, no insects, no spiders, no lizards. No animals! Usually, there'd be a cobweb that Jay probably would've ran into. Or at least some sort of noise. Look," He shook a tree. "No birds."

We suddenly heard a rustle from the trees.

"You were saying?" I said. You know what happens when you hear one of those. Something jumps out of there. Unexpectedly. We watched the trees. There was silence. Very long, awkward silence. We heard another rustle and whipped our heads towards the noise.

That's when an arrow shot out right towards the boys. They dodged it and the arrow stabbed into the tree behind them.

"RUN!" Lloyd shouted. The arrows barely missed us as we ran. I looked back. Dumb mistake. I ran right into a booby trap and before I knew it, I was upside down.

"Guys! I fell into a booby trap!" I yelled.

"We'll get you down, hang in there!" Cole shouted.

"Well no, DUH!"

Lloyd climbed up the tree and as he did, someone kept shooting arrows at me. I managed to dodge all of them. Lloyd got to the branch where the rope was and kicked someone off. He untied the rope and I landed on my feet and saw Cole holding someone. He caught them when Lloyd kicked them off the tree.

They elbowed Cole's stomach and Lloyd used the rope to swing on it to kick the person towards the tree. We used that rope to tie them to the tree they hit, before they were able to shoot more arrows. Cole took off the mask that they were wearing. It was a young girl. 13-15 years old, I think. She had her ginger hair in a plait. She had a green stripe on her hair and had blue eyes. She was wearing an orangy-brown jacket and cargo trousers.

"Who are you? What do you want from me?" she asked, with her British accent, her voice trembling slightly. She shuffled back towards the tree as much as possible thinking we'd hurt her.

"You're a good archer, kid, but you gotta work on your aim," Cole said.

She scoffed. "Actually, you're just good at dodging. You have good reflexes, I never miss. The first shot was a warning. You're lucky I didn't kill you," she replied, sternly.

Lloyd asked, "What's your name, kid?"

"Emily. Why do you need to know? You're the ones looking for me, aren't you? What are you going to do now? Kill me?!" She tried to escape the ropes.