Behind the Flames .:H2OVanoss:.

.:Chapter 13:.

"You're one-hundred percent sure we haven't passed this exact tree before?" Lui mumbled skeptically.
"Yes, I'm one-hundred percent positive!" Tyler's patience was growing thin. Hours had slowly passed by, and the journey through the swamps had became more and more stressful. Every tree looked like a duplicate of the other; Every plant, puddle, and stone looked exactly the same as the last.
"This swamp is seriously tripping me out..." Marcel shivered nervously.
"Just keep moving. If we find an open area, we can take a break." Tyler led them on further into the darkening bog.
All of a sudden, everyone flipped their head in the direction of the nearest tree; Only, here had been no noise to make them weary of the spot. Despite the terror that shivered down each of their spines, nobody had the guts to say anything about it.
"Y-you said this was the place where the screaming was coming from, right Lui..?" David swallowed.
"Ya, it is.."
"Remind me again why we had to come here specifically?" He stepped closer to the airbender. Although he stood a good foot and a half above Lui, David shook twice as violently as the other.
"Because the shrine is supposed to be around here somewhere. N-now stop bitching out and come on." The sound of Brian's voice was tense with nerves, but nobody argued with him.
          The further they went, the closer they stuck together. The more breaths they took, the clearer the voices became in Tarak's ears. They were so haunting.. It gave off the feeling as if he were constantly being watched. Sounds of unseen animals were boisterous with rhythmic chirps, gurgles, and screeches. Was Tarak the only one that heard them? If so, why only him?

"There hasn't been any screaming since we landed.. I hope that's a good sign." Tyler prayed as he pushed away the plants from their path. Jonathan walked near the back of the group alongside Evan, and he could tell the fire bender was very weary of his surroundings.
Carefully brushing up alongside Evan, Jonathan took a deep breath and mumbled, "Hey, Tarak.. Are you alright?"
The man continued his slow gait while staring ahead as if in a trance. It was only after Jonathan had to nudge him with his elbow to get his attention that he noticed he was being spoken too.
"..what? Y-ya, ya. I'm fine. Don't worry about me." Though this was what came out of his mouth, Jonathan knew he didn't mean it. Then again, it was also possible that this boy was also in a traumatizing fear for his approaching death.
'It's good that his abandonment in the swamps isn't the main thing on Tyler's mind as of now..'

          Tarak's eyes swept across his surroundings like a hawk. The voices... They taunted him. They mocked him for being a coward, for being weak, and that he was an outcast. They whispered in his ears, sometimes sounding so real that he could almost feel the cold, dead breath of whoever it was talking to him.
          He had no idea what they were saying for the most part, but the coherent words or sentences he would hear every so often were, "why...?", "murderer...", "traitor...", "remember...", and the strangest one of all, "not supposed to be here...". Thankfully for Evan, he was used to the voices in his head, so he was able to withstand them for a longer period of time than the others.
          The trees above them were so thick that it was impossible to determine whether it were night or day. It was only when they began to complain about how tired they were that they decided to stop and set up camp.
          "You know, I could just airbend myself up and check the time-"
          "Hell no! It's way too risky- you could go delusional from the gases and we wouldn't have any way of knowing it happened!" David argued with Lui against his proposal.
          "Then are we just going to guess what the time is? How will we know when the days are up if we don't keep track?" He argued back.
          Tyler slid to a halt and gazed back with a scowl, obviously very annoyed by the two. "We don't have the time to worry about that right now! Let's just stay on track and keep moving. There's no telling what we may encounter, or if some issue ends up delaying us! Let's worry about time when we are further along in the journey."
          The majority of them nodded in agreement. Lui however, was not too keen on the new plan, but he knew that he was loyal to this group, and needed to do as Tyler says.