ONE POINT FIVE (1.5 in the Amnesia Archives)

Chapter 3

Aknon's POV

I felt at peace the entire time I was unconscious. It was as though I'd been wrapped in the softest blanket and cradled whilst sweet music played, calming my nerves and anxiety and making it impossible to focus on what was going on. I was detached from my brain, from myself. My memories weren't my own as I lingered in the lovely darkness.

That was until I woke up and was forced to face reality. I felt the ice-cold water of my memories swishing around in my head, causing my body to jolt upwards and awake. I looked around frantically, noting that I was in a familiar place, but I didn't know how I got here.

"Sarphi?" I asked, my voice surprisingly normal considering how long it had been since I'd drank anything. I moved away from the bed I had found myself in and moved to the other, pulling the sheets off, revealing my sister, curled up and looking very peaceful. That was until the sheet had been taken from her.

She wiggled and frowned, looking for the blanket which I'd taken from her. "No," she whined, slowly opening her eyes and glaring at me. "Why'd you do that?" She crossed her arms.

I waited for a few moments for the thoughts to come back to her head, dropping the blanket at the edge of the bed and going to the third one in the room. I recognized this room easily as the room we stayed in the wandering village. It felt like years since we'd been here, but not much seemed to have changed. It felt like the past few days hadn't happened, and we were still on our way to do what Genesis asked.

Inside the third bed was Prin, not Acer. That was one of the two differences that was obvious. The other being the huge dog which stayed by the door. Onyx was curled up just like Sarphi was, his tail swaying back and forth and small snores leaving him.

I didn't want to disturb either of them at the moment. I felt very uncomfortable knowing that we were all in the forest before blacking out, and now we were in an inn. I wondered if Cade and Niko knew we were here. Had Dwi brought us here? I doubted they would've paid for a room.

"How did we get here?" Sarphi whispered, bringing her knees to her chest and looking around. Luckily, we were still wearing our travelling clothes. It wasn't the most comfortable, but that wasn't a priority right now. I had noticed this as Sarphi's hair was an utter mess.

I sat down next to her and began running my fingers through her hair, trying to tame it. I'd done this ever since we were young, but Acer liked doing it the most, they usually had something to say about style. "I don't know, probably magic." That was my best bet. I felt myself going deeper and deeper into my thoughts, wondering what we were going to do. I didn't even know where we were, which was a pretty big issue with a wandering village.

"Your bag's here," Sarphi said after a few moments in a voice which was a little too loud for my liking. Onyx's snores had stopped, and Prin shifted in the bed.

Sarphi stood, leaving my hands in the air, and rushed over to the corner of the room, picking up the bag which I recognised as the one I travelled with. All three of our bags had been the same to begin with, but after several arguments we began tying ribbons on them and throwing whatever ink we could find over the fabric. We didn't argue often, and we generally agreed on sharing what we had, but Sarphi kept trying to hide things from us. Those things being secret love letters from the elf-healer she was interested in.

"It is," I said with a small frown and a sigh. I knew that I should be happy about it. Chances are that my book was in there and it would help us get the answers we needed in order to find Acer. But it felt like all we did was search for answers. I wished that we would have straight forward directions to get our sibling back.

Sarphi brought the bag over to the bed, just as Prin sat up.

Prin's eyes were tired and were barely open as she looked at us without speaking. I was sure that she was experiencing the same grogginess that I had earlier. She blinked a few times and rushed over to me, wrapping her arms around me and yelling my name far too close to my ear.

I stiffened and patted her back awkwardly, glancing at Sarphi for help. But Sarphi was too interested in looking through my bag.

"Why is your bag so big?" she grumbled under her breath, taking out nearly everything which I owned. She knew that it was so that we could carry everything we needed, her bag was the exact same. Well, I put the same spell on it as I had mine.

I took it off her and immediately found the book, pulling it out and dusting off the pitch-black cover, which had collected some threads and feathers from the other objects in my bag. "I don't think this will tell us much." It felt heavy in my hand, and I didn't want to open it. The last time I read it, it had given me news which I didn't appreciate, which made me so paranoid throughout the last leg of our journey and caused me to make a really stupid mistake. It had come true, what it predicted, and that was terrifying. It felt almost as though the book was weaving our destiny and we had no way of changing it. It was a solid manifestation of the idea that our lives were already written out.

"Open it," Prin encouraged, snapping me out of my very philosophical thoughts.

I sighed and bit my lip as my hand hovered over the edge of the book, opening it so that I was staring right at the middle page. Even the fact that this was the middle page had been playing on my mind, was this meaning that it was halfway through my life? #

But there was something different about the pages I flicked through this time. They were all black, properly black. I couldn't read anything on them. The ones which I had skipped through looked similar to how they were before, but the words had been taken away, replaced by thick black lines. I reached for the bedside table and retrieved the lantern, which was there, igniting it once more and placing it behind the page I had turned to, hoping words would appear through it.

"Nothing." I gripped the book tightly in my hands, feeling the pressure of the object fighting back any damage I could do to it. "Why can't I see anything?"

"It's your book, isn't it?" Sarphi asked. "I mean, it's all about your life, maybe you're not ready to see what it is yet?"

"That could be it," Prin added with a nod. "It's magic, and if your father made it then maybe it's just taking some time."

"Or they're not telling us something." I snapped the book closed and looked at the wall, not thinking about anything in particular, but feeling anger well inside me. If this was something to do with Dwi manipulating the book, then what was the point in giving it back in the first place? They could've taken it and I would've been still just as stuck as I was now. Maybe they should've just let us perish against that tree or left us for the animals to find.

"We need to figure something else out," Sarphi said with determination. It was as though the book being blank was another bump in the road, like the world would continue going on. "Should we talk to Cade and Niko?"

"What would they know?" I asked, shoulders slumped and still glaring at the closed book. I recognised the words as mean when paired with my tone, but I generally wondered what they could possibly know. If we didn't get any answers from the magical book made from literal darkness, what would we get from two inn owners?

"How much we owe them?" Prin suggested and rose to her feet once more. "It's early in the morning, judging by the light. We should see if anyone's awake." I wondered who told her that Cade and Niko owned the inn, but I then realised it was probably Sarphi or Acer, the two chatterboxes who would talk about anything and everything to fill up every single moment of silence.

"We need to clean up first," I said with a shake of my head, moving over to the basin and water in the corner, trying to wash the dirt off of my face as best I could. "We don't know who'll be out there. We should try and fit in as much as possible."

"You don't fit in," Sarphi pointed out. "Neither do I. We're children of Dwi, remember?"

As if I could ever forget a fact like that.