The Unknown

Chapter Thirteen

(Ash's POV)

He'd been gone for a while, though I wasn't sure exactly how long it had been. I assumed it was a few hours.

The others that I was with had noticed too, but no one said much about it. All there were would be a few comments of something like "Where'd he go..?" Until Kittai changed the subject. She'd tried to bring up the dare that she got us in here with.

I didn't see why she was so worried about it, no one blamed her. Not even I blamed her.

However, as she started to talk, she was interrupted by Max, who'd tried to tell a joke. It was horrible, perhaps so bad that it would be a bad idea to share it.

"What do you call a cooked egg?"

"Um, I don't know.."

"Breakfast!"

HAHAHAHAHAHAno.

It was awful.

I forced a laugh anyways, though, because it seemed to make Kittai happy. Then it was my turn to tell a joke, "Why'd the spider cross the Internet?"

Kittai gave me a small smile, "I dunno.. Why?"

"To get to the other web!" I said. It was the best I had.

Kittai just looked at me, comprehending it for a moment, before she gave a little laugh. No one else laughed, so all I got for it was Kittai's little pity laugh. I gave a sigh and decided not to tell any more jokes.

Some time passed, and every few minutes a joke would be told. It was horrible, and Max was the one telling it most of the time. Kat told a few, all of which were surprisingly funny.

I guess the joke quality wasn't as important, though, as making Kittai happy was. And I guess that we all did a good job with it, considering that she was now giggling and laughing and smiling. At one point, even she told a few jokes. I was surprised to find that some of her jokes were even worse than Max's.

Suddenly, though, to stop the fun the group was having, Kat spoke up, "He found his way back."

I gave a sigh, both in annoyance and in relief. He'd interrupted the only good time I'd had in this nightmarish place, but at the same time he was safe and back with us. Now if only we could find Kai and Venus.

When I turned to look, Hunter was standing by Kat. He was oddly smiling. I couldn't help but wonder why, so I asked a question to try to subtly figure it out, "Where were you...?"

"I found a safe place!" He said, not really giving my question a good answer.

Usually I'd have pressed on with my question, but given the circumstances, I decided to let it go and to move on from it.

His excited voice broke me away from my thoughts.

"And I know where Kai and Venus are! Follow me!"

I didn't trust it, not at all, but no one else seemed reluctant. Kat agreed right away, that had to mean something. She was one of the more careful people of the group.

It ended up with Hunter leading us through the forest, he kept going in one direction and he was slightly humming to himself. He seemed so happy, but I couldn't figure out why.

Another suspicious thing, how did he know where any of it was? I knew he saw things that weren't there sometimes, but they'd never helped him before that I knew of. It didn't make sense. Nothing was adding up.

I guess I'd just have to keep my eye on him, though I'd try not to let him know that I was analyzing his movements.

So I watched him from where I walked behind him, just glaring at the back of his head like it was the most hated thing to me, his face. I despised this man. 

He didn't seem to notice, and if he did notice, he clearly didn't care. He didn't even glance back at me. Since he didn't trust me and I knew it, it was odd that he didn't seem to care about my presence.

It took a long time, but we finally made it to the other two. Kai was pacing and muttering to himself, while Venus looked asleep. Kittai stepped behind Kat as Kai looked over at us.

For a moment, Kai just looked away and carried on before suddenly noticing that we'd found our way to him and ran to his brother, Max, hugging him tightly and mumbling a few words about how worried he'd been.

I almost rolled my eyes at them, "Guys.. It's great that we found each other and all.. But can we get to this so-called safe place before family reunions?"

I felt like the biggest asshole after saying it. I hadn't been thinking about it when I said it, so when I realized what I'd said, I looked down. Kai mumbled something, but Kat interrupted.

"Ass is right." She said, "We do need to get to the place Hunter was talking about, and fast, before it realizes we're here. Now, Hunter lead the way."

He smiled and gave a nod before turning and hurrying off into the forest. It went on, without anything happening, until we came across a huge oak tree.