ONE (Book 1 in the Amnesia Archives)

Chapter 18

My hopes of attracting less attention than a fleet of strollers didn't work out that badly. In all honesty, it was Senka's talking which got us caught most of the time. The only creatures we faced for the first half an hour of our journey were the furballs, which Onyx disposed of pretty quickly. Turns out they were terrified of a human-sized dog.

The danger came when a growling louder than Onyx's reached our ears. Senka hid herself in my shirt, which felt somewhat violating, and kept banging her head against my chest. She kept mumbling something which I couldn't hear, which told me that this was pretty bad news.

"Can we just make a run for it?" Sarphi asked in a whisper as we huddled into a small group, Onyx standing at the front and slowly inching forward. "It seems like a good idea."

"We need to stay quiet," Aknon replied in a bossy tone. "We'll be fine if we just stay quiet and slow."

But Onyx didn't seem to like that idea.

As soon as another growl came from our left, Onyx darted through the trees, causing Sarphi to chase after him, and thus the rest of us to follow after them.

"This isn't quiet," I hissed out as I held Aknon's and Prin's hands. Splitting up wasn't an option right now, unless we wanted to be killed one by one.

I stumbled over branches and rocks, as I really wasn't the best when it came to running in this kind of environment. I felt like I was slowing the entire group down because of this, but Sarphi remained in our view at all times. She was pretty easy to spot with her blue skin through the dark forest, Onyx was less so. He blended into the shadows like he was made of one.

Nobody responded to me, which I thought was rather rude. But given the circumstances they would probably get their head smitten off if they did.

I was vaguely aware of the ground beginning to vibrate, the feeling of something big charging towards us. It made it a lot easier to figure out what direction the growling was coming from, as it had previously sounded as though it was coming from all sides. But now it was clear that the threat was coming to our right.

It was both good and bad news. It meant that we were not charging directly towards it, but it also meant that we could be surprised at any moment with the threat coming through the trees.

Which was exactly what happened.

Before I knew it, the vibrations got to a point where the ground was shaking beneath our feet. It made it incredibly difficult for us to keep standing, Nevermind running. Prin was the first to drop as she fell backwards, causing me to lose my footing and follow her. Aknon managed to stay upright for a few more moments before the shaking got too much and it became a more sensible decision for him to join us on the ground. It sounded as though the creature was right in front of us.

Sarphi and Onyx were quite a bit in front of us, which meant that Aknon hadn't been able to keep hold of Sarphi's hand when a giant rhino burst through the trees.

"How on earth is this forest still intact?" I asked in a loud and shocked voice as I stared up at the ginormous creature, which huffed and grunted. I hadn't seen a rhino before really, I'd only ever read about them as they weren't very common in this part of the world, so I wasn't sure if this was proper rhino behaviour. But I didn't want to stay on the ground long enough to see if it could crush my head like a watermelon.

Unfortunately, I have a really big mouth, which caught the attention of the rhino immediately. Aknon's nails pierced my hand painfully as he pulled me to my feet, and thus along with Prin, and bolted to our left.

We were going off the path, which meant that the difficult paving under our feet had been swapped for even trickier mounds of dirt and and roots which tripped us up and caused us to stumble. It was extremely difficult to navigate, but the rhino didn't seem to have that issue at all as it bounded through the trees.

I glanced behind me for a second, seeing the rhino's humongous teeth about to snap at Prin, and noticed that the trees behind the rhino were growing back.

I gasped. "It's a magic forest!" I exclaimed loudly, hoping that Sarphi would be able to hear from far back. "The trees are regenerating, run!" That was probably why the trees looked so thick and big on the map, it was probably a warning. Or nobody knew that it was magical because of the gigantic rhino pillaging through the regenerating trees. Either way it narrowed our chances of survival.

I wasn't sure if the forest was only able to regenerate itself or if there were some other forces at play which wanted to trap us, but I understood now what the patrollers were afraid of. Maybe the king enchanted this forest, it would make sense as to why there's a spell over his entire city.

The only thing that I could do was run as I held onto Prin's and Aknon's hand, turning back around and quickening my pace. I felt the adrenaline running through my veins and my mind went black with only one focus in mind, getting away from the Rhino.

So that was why I ran into Aknon as he skidded to a stop.

"Are you insane?!" I shouted at him as he changed direction. "We're going back to Sarphi and Onyx, we'll lead this thing right to them."

"Oh, shut it," Aknon replied with a grunt as he put his free hand on a tree, causing it to immediately burst into flames. "Just seeing how vulnerable to fire it is."

"You're killing nature!" Senka screeched in a very disturbed tone. "Stop it!"

"Do you want to survive or not?" I hissed through gritted teeth. I hated the fact that the forest was on fire just as much as Senka, because the forest was utterly beautiful. But I was sure that the forest would be able to handle it.

"Why don't you just send that towards the thing chasing us?" Senka asked, presuming translating Prin's thoughts. "Wouldn't that see how fire-resistant it is?"

"Yes." Aknon grunted. He had a handful of fire still in his free hand, as we continued to run. "We don't know where Sarphi is."

"Or if the thing will explode as soon as it gets fire directed at it, or magic directed at it. Why are we trying to set it on fire?" The more I thought, the more worried I was getting. I was also getting tired. My lungs and legs were burning, and it was very difficult to run when I was holding two people's hands. "Surely the forest has to end."

"Yes, when we reach our end." Senka's mutterings were ignored.

"Where are you?" Sarphi's voice called from a long way in front of us. We hadn't managed to keep up with her, as I assumed that Onyx was rather quick. The vibrations from the rhino behind us were consistent and troublesome as we continued to run towards Sarphi's voice. "I can't see you!"

"Sarphi!" I yelled, being the loudest out of all of us. "We're here and we're being chased!" I figured that was obvious, we couldn't have gotten rid of something as troublesome as this giant rhino easily at all. But I figured it would be better to warn her.

I heard a string of quiet curses coming from her, which was good. This meant that we could track her a little more easily. I could also hear Onyx growling, but it was harder to hear over the thundering footsteps behind us.

If it were me, I would've run straight into her. But fortunately, it was Aknon who ran into her. He immediately took her hand and began running again. Something unusual about us is that we weren't too bothered about fire. Prin, however, was gripping onto my hand so tightly I felt like she could be crushing it.

Normal people weren't resistant to fire.

We didn't have time to stop or change direction so that we were far away from the flames, but the fire just continued to burn, passing from tree to tree and quickly enveloping us on three sides. The -only direction we could go in was straight forward.

But then Onyx skidded to a halt, causing all of us to crash into each other as we neared some kind of river, or maybe a waterfall. I lifted my head and saw that the water was running rapidly downwards.

"We have to jump," Sarphi said through quick breaths. "We have to."

The rhino was around twenty feet away from us, tearing through the blazing forest.

"No time," I said and pushed Aknon and Sarphi into the water. "Watch your head!" I called as I picked Prin up in my arms and followed, letting the water carry us away.