ONE POINT FIVE (1.5 in the Amnesia Archives)

Chapter 23

Sarphi's POV

My nose was crinkled as I stared at Ka, who was happily playing with chickens and feeding them bits of anything she could get her hands on. Apparently, she loved chickens along with any other farm animal. She was a little obsessed, so much so that I thought that it was too much. She talked to the animals, as though she could hear them talking back. I wasn't one to discourage people, but it was rather creepy how it felt like the chickens were actually communicating with her.

"Oh, you don't want to eat that, that's fine." She lowered whatever she had in her hand and moved over to some watermelon. "Hey, you like watermelon?" she asked as she set it down in the middle of the group of very loud chickens.

I held myself back from cursing loudly. The chickens would give us away, and their movement would make it harder for me to find the icing. Onyx had come to us once or twice, walking between us and Prin like he was on patrol. I hoped that nobody, but Prin would actually follow him to us. There were too many threads which were coming loose, and I was struggling to keep up.

"Hey, sweetie, mind coming here?" I asked quietly, gesturing for her to come over with a kind smile. I tried not to be too controlling, knowing that she would probably not want to do anything if she felt like I was controlling her. "Do you see anything?"

She hummed as she came over, crouching down in front of me and crawling across the floor. I cringed at the thought of her dress getting dirty, hoping that there would be some kind of magic to get us out of the line of fire when we returned to the party. I was certain that her father would be furious when he saw the mess.

"I don't see any icing," she said with a frown. "If the chickens ate it, then I don't' think they'd be interested in the watermelon."

I nodded in agreement, even though I wasn't sure if it was even safe for chickens to eat very sugary cake. "There would be far too much for this group of chickens." I didn't know if that was right either, but I hoped that it would be.

"It's not here then." She straightened up and stomped her foot. "We should go back to where the last bit of icing was, and then go in another direction."

I hesitated, for the simple fact that the icing had led us right outside the chicken coop. I didn't know where else it would lead to if not here. "Yeah, let's do that." I stood with her and led her out of the chicken coop.

I nearly had an accident when I left the coop to face a person. I jumped backwards and nearly fell on top of Ka, who gave a slight squeak in surprise.

"Prin!" I hissed, my face heating up. "You scared the life out of me."

"I could say the same," she responded with a gasp, her hand over her heart. "You scared me more than Onyx does." She then crouched a little, causing me to instinctively do the same. "What have we found?"

Onyx gave a small whine.

"Chickens didn't eat the cake," Ka stated firmly, very proud of herself. "But the icing leads here, or led here, or leaded here." She pointed to the ground under our feet.

Prin nodded slowly. "Right, I guess it's not to their liking." She rocked back and forth on her heels for a few moments. "I learned that we should talk to the farmer's wife?"

"The farmer's wife?" I repeated, furrowing my eyebrows and looking round. "Well, I suppose we were heading in the right direction." That was additional evidence that the trail of icing was a good lead. "Should we go talk to her? Or at least see if she's inside?"

Ka wrinkled her nose. "I like her, but I don't like her house." It was a very innocent statement, and she looked adorable making it, but it made me slightly worried about what the house could potentially be like.