Guardians 1: Ashes

Chapter 25: Silouette

Cory's POV

Me and Uni began to walk in the woods. The cover of the trees would help with the arrows. We weren't to far from where I had shadow jumped us. We were walking when we heard yelling. But the yelling were names, our names. Uni and I turned around and looked in the direction the yelling was coming from. We began to walk to the yelling.

"I'm sorry Cory." Uni said.

"For what?" I asked.

"For saying you should have died. I didn't actually mean it." Uni said looking at me straight in the eyes. Looking for forgiveness in my gaze.

"Yeah it's fine." I said looking away from him.

"Cory I know you think I'm lying but I mean it. I really am sorry." He said.

I looked into his one eye. Did he really mean it? I hardly ever believed anything he would say. He would just lie so much it was hard to tell anymore, what truth was.

We continued to walk in silence until we heard the yelling right near us. Now we could make out the voices. It was Alex and Adam calling for us. We began to run to them, but then a huge pain was sent through my leg causing me to fall. The memory shot through my head again. The memory of Uni's and Rex's kidnapper. Him kicking me while I was on the ground then bringing the knife to my face and slowly cutting my skin open. Hearing my own skin tearing was disturbing. But after he did it I had bended over and grabbed my face and while my back was turned, that was when he stabbed me over and over again in the back.

I could still feel the pain sometimes, it was permanently their, engraved into my head. Adam and Alex then appeared from behind a tree.

"How are you guys doing?" Alex said smiling.

"Just fine. Cory is hurt though." Uni replied.

"When isn't he." Adam grumbled then helped me up.

We walked back to the valley cliff. Ross was in the mountain at ground level and behind him stood the others. Everyone's eyes lit up as they saw us heading their way. Shelby ran out of Ross' cave and body slammed me with a hug. She then kissed my cheek smiling and I froze and looked at her awalkwardly. She blushed as she realised what she did. Uni was looking at us eyebrow raised. And Adam was all bug eyed. Alex was the only one acting normal still.

"Uhh..." Adam mummbled.

Shelby quickly stopped hugging me and I stood their awkwardly.

"Let's go." Alex said. "The others are waiting." We followed her to the hole Ross had made. We noticed it was a trail leading up straight to the top of the mountain.

"Cool!" Adam yelled. And it was answered by an echo. Nick walked up to me and Uni he stood their for a bit looking at us.
"You guys really need to stop dieing." He said then hugged me and Uni. Rex smiled in the background nodding.

"Let's keep moving. We need to head through the battle and get to the Nero kingdom's ranks unseen." Adam said.

I wasn't really up for it. I was exhausted. I hadn't slept good for at least 2 weeks now. I kept waking up screaming or I would have the same dream of people dieing over and over again. But, the worse dreams was of this dark outline of a person which kept encouraging me to kill everything, everyone. I tried to ignore it the first couple of nights but then it began to talk to me when I was awake too. I couldn't see it. I could only hear it. And I really wanted to unhear what it would say. I heard it again earlier. It was telling me not to trust him. To kill him before the others found us. To kill Uni.
Of course I didn't. I wouldn't kill Uni. But I had actually put it under debate. That's when I realised the voice was getting more convincing.

We all began to walk the way Adam, Alex, me, and Uni had came from. We could still hear the canons going off and the distant yelling.
"Fight them." The voice came back.
"You can win this battle, you can raise the army." It echoed in my head.
I ignored it and continued walking. I was slowly getting farther and farther behind. Adam was leading, next to him was Jin. Then Red and Barney close behind, was Ross and Shelby, then Uni and Rex, then Alex and Nick. I soon was the last person and I noticed Shelby had left Ross' side who was now joined by Nick and Alex. Shelby was starting to fall behind as well. Then she moved out of the way and completely stopped and waited for the others to pass her. She then joined me.

"Why so slow?" She asked.

"Other then the lack of sleep, I fell on Uni's sword on the way down." I said and pointed out the cut on my leg.

"If you want I can try to heal it." She said giving me a welcoming smile.

"Knock yourself out." I said then sat down.

Shelby sat down next to me and gently put her hands on my leg. Her necklace began to glow then her hands started to glow with it.
After a little light show, it died down and the cut on my leg was gone.

"Nice job." I said giving Shelby a high five.

She smiled at me then we got up and continued walking side by side.

"So is Nick okay?" Shelby asked.

"Yea I'm pretty sure he is use to us almost dieing by now." I said jokingly.

"Not that, his panic attack. Why did it happen?" Shelby said concerned. "What if it happens again?"

I rubbed the back of my head. "That... has to do with our personal buisness." I said.

"Does he have a fear of being alone, like Ross?" She asked.

"No. It's not that." I stated.

"All we were doing was playing hide and seek. How would that make him panic?" She asked really concerned.

"It's just a bad memory." I said. "So... just drop it."

"I'll drop you." Shelby mummbled. "What happened to you four?" Shelby said looking at me straight in the eyes. I could see concern in her eyes. Some piece of me wanted to tell her.

But I refused.