The Heart of Shadow and Gold

Chapter 21

Leyla's POV:

I sat in silence as chaos ensured around me, men and woman took action and set off the fire control, a system that puts out fires. I stood up and walked towards where they left from, the gate was collapsed upon, there was no way through.

I knelt down when I knelt on something sharp, or rather just very hard making a clink sound.

I got off of it as I picked up the small item, a ring. It was silver with gold wrapped around it, and it had a second loop that was easily moveable. It was Ashleys, I remembered the day she got it.

Me and her went shopping for weaponry due to the Assistant trainers request as Chen was sick that day.

I looked at the labels of bullets, comparing each one to price. The trainer did give us money thankfully because its not like we could do school, train, and work a part-time job every single day.

I see Ashley moving to another section of the building. "Hey Ash, you know you're supposed to help me right?" I call out to her.

"Yeah, I know, just going to look at something over here." She replies.

I take a look at where shes heading towards, its as shelf of all the on sale stuff, I inwardly sight. I picked out the weaponry we were sent to pick up and I walked over to Ashley. She was scanning the shelf filled with stuff varying from complete junk to useful junk.

"we got some cash left over, what do you want?" I ask her, she turns to me and smiles. "no, I dont need anything."

"Ashley, what have you been eyeing?" I ask again.

She sighs and gives in as she picks up a box and shows it to me, it was a ring inside with silver and gold thread-like metal pieces wrapped around one another, and the top o the ring was wrapped separately, not aligning the rest.

"its called a fidget ring, part of the ring moves so you can fidget with it." She explains.

I turned the box over to reveal the price, it was slightly more then the cash we had left over. "okay, lets pay for it all." I say as smiles. "you really dont have to."

"no, I want too, now meet me at the register." I say as she walks to talk with the person at the counter.

I look at the items in my hand, I have seven boxes of bullets, ammo, and I also have some separate pieces that attach onto guns that are for broken weapons that need to be fixed, or for when they do break.

I pick up the most expensive bullet box and set it back down while walking to the register to pay for the stuff.

Ashley never knew how much I got in trouble for that, Ashley never knew how much I hurt. And Ashley will never know, she wont know how much trouble Ill be in this time,, and she wont ever know the hurt Im feeling right now.

Ashleys POV:

I stared frozen to the spot as I took in my surroundings, the huge river that didnt even have an exact measurement of distance as it splashed and narrowed and widened whenever it pleased, it was wild, it wasit wasfrightening.

I saw a blur on the side of my vision, it was beside me, I could hear the blur mumble gibberish but it was drowned out by the roaring river, the river that was moving as fast as a train.

The only reason I was taken out of my stupor was when the blur, who turned out to be Ajax, shook me from my shoulders.

"Ashley! Ashley!" his voice coming more and more clear.

"Ashley!" a sudden pain in my face made me alert and the blurriness went away. I brought a hand to my face.

"Did you just slap me?" I yelled at him.

"you were having a panic attack, I didnt know what to do!" he screamed with concern in his eyes.

"I'm fine! Now how do we get over this river." I lied. I wanted to run back to the kingdom, ditch this whole thing and go back to my perfect life. Or better yet, wake up to find out I was in a nightmare.

He sighed at me and turned to the river. over there, he pointed to our right, "that's how we cross, theres large stepping stones we use, so I know that theyre sturdy."

I nodded and walked over there, eyes darting anywhere but the river, except that anywhere but the river still gave me anxiety. I focused on the ground, the grass, we had grass in the kingdom, theres some parks with a little bit of nature, the majority of the trees are plastic but there are a few real trees to give us oxygen, but certainly never got this big or wild.

But even the ground was different, it had holes, and roots covered the ground near trees, the grass was overgrown in some places and not grown at all in other places.

I focus on taking deep breaths as ajax stops me. I look at the river, taking even deeper breaths when I saw it again. Ajax was instructing me on how to cross safely," and watch your step, the rocks are slippery but dont mind the movement, they sometimes rock side to side if you pardon the pun, but they are completely sturdy and safe."

I watch as Ajax steps across the rocks with balance and sturdiness, he reaches the end of the river with ease and turns back to me, your turn.

I look at the rocks and slowly I bring my foot out and step on the first rock. The waves crash into the rock and splash my foot, I take it off. "I cant do it." I speak.

"Ashley look at me." Ajax calls. And I pry my eyes away from the rocks and look at him.

"Ashley Parker, you are the strongest person that I have met, and this, think of it as a challenge, or a test. Like training." He says.

"strong? Look at me! Im a young adult thats scared of water!" I yell.

"a young adult who chose to leave her only home, her comfort zone. You dont know how many people would cower away from what you did. This is something little, but its an obstacle that you need to overcome, okay?"

I look at the steps and take a deep breath.

"slow your breathing and think strategically about this, each step you take, take with purpose. Each step feel yourself in it, bring everything you have with each step you take. Deep breaths, and now, do it." Chens voice sounded in my head.

I took one step onto a stone. "Take each step carefully, but with strength."

I took another step. "Focus not on the path, but on your goal."

I took another step, one after the other, like a fluid motion.

"you're almost there Tesoro, dont look down, look ahead." Marie praised in my head. I look at Ajax and the land, I smiled, one more step.

I reach my foot out and as I do so, a wave slams into the rock, and I lose my balance.

I yell out to Ajax as my vision went black.

"Ashley!" Ajax, Chen, Marie, and Leyla yelled seemingly in unison was the last thing I heard before it was drowned out by the sounds of silence.

A/N 1265 words