ONE (Book 1 in the Amnesia Archives)

Chapter 17

"Your name means shadow, you can't talk," I pointed out to Senka as I held her close. I wasn't a huge fan of dogs, and so meeting one which was about my height was a fact which I absolutely detested. Even thinking that Onyx existed made me feel uneasy. I had been attacked by a fair few in my life, for no apparent reason. But I've just always seemed to have an innate fear. Maybe Onyx was the cause of that, as we apparently knew each other when I was a child.

I tried to stay as close to Prin as I could, figuring that it would make it less likely that Sarphi would set her new pet on me. In fear of accidentally hurting Prin.

"I'm made of shadows, not crystals," Senak argued feebly, crossing her arms over her chest, wiggling them between her body and my coat. Which felt really odd.

"I hate to break this up, but I need us to regroup," Aknon said with a sigh, gesturing around us. "We have a new dog called Onyx, which is the size of a market stall, and we're still in a very dangerous forest."

Onyx growled, as though feeling that Aknon was underestimating him. He backed away from Sarphi, nudging her leg to tell her to get up.

"Oh, yes, sorry." Sarphi coughed awkwardly and glanced around. "We need to get out of here. We don't want any more carnivorous fluffballs."

Onyx growled once again, as though he thought that Sarphi was talking about him. He then began sniffing the ground and walking forward, his nose pressed against the dirt as he charged forward quickly.

"I suppose we should follow," I said reluctantly. I didn't want to follow the dog, I really didn't. But I wasn't stupid enough to ignore the fact that dogs had an excellent sense of smell. I hoped that he wouldn't take us back to the village, despite what I had said earlier.

"Suppose so." Sarphi shrugged with a grin as she followed Onyx, repeating 'good boy' over and over again.

I rubbed my shoulder, wincing from where I had been bitten by the creatures earlier. The bite marks were rather deep, but they weren't bleeding too badly. I hoped that the creatures weren't venomous. We would all be dead if that was the case.

We were silent for quite a while as we simply followed Onyx's footsteps and sniffles. I was on edge, but I tried to make it seem as though I wasn't as affected as I was. I looked over at Aknon and Sarphi occasionally, finding this all strange. I wasn't used to having three other beings on our adventures, we were usually just alone. I wasn't used to having a dog, or a sentient ragdoll, or even another person, tagging along with us.

I backed away slightly and walked beside Prin, giving her a small smile as we walked in silence. I figured that she would enjoy being closer to Senka, her walking translator. "You did good for your first battle," I complimented quietly.

Prin blushed a bit and shook her head, her eyes moving to Sarphi's bag. She knew what I meant. But she also didn't think that she did well at all.

"Do you know what those creatures were?" I asked instead, figuring that the creatures had a pretty terrible reputation considering how the patrollers reacted to them. "Are they some kind of local menace?"

"You'd know all about menaces," Senka grumbled under her breath, but it wasn't necessarily mean sounding.

Prin pointed to Senka and shook her head, showing that she wasn't the one who thought that, and rather it was Senka's own personal opinions of me.

"She says the furballs are like bugs. But they prefer to live in the forest rather than with people, because they're rather shy." Senka translated the words, but she didn't really seem to believe them from the look she was giving Prin. "But then why were the patrollers so scared of coming in here? They looked terrified."