FC (Original)

Chapter 18: Missing hope

"So... what do we do now?" Nia asked, looking around. Molly still hasn't returned yet and she was pretty worried, losing five people in the first few weeks weren't a good thing. The last thing she needed was wandering through here alone.

Sighing, she resting her head on her knees, thinking about what Molly said. Were they really that careless? She didn't know... This was all too confusing for her, sure she didn't know everyone here as well as some others but she'd still feel bad. After all, she was part of the reason.

"Hello? Are we even gonna do anything?" She looked around and everything was lifeless. Blinking once or twice, her vision saw emptiness. It was all white, but still dark. She felt watched, even with nothing there, pressure and stress built up in her head.

She could hear her heart beating in her ears, whispers filled her head telling her- screaming at her that 'it's all your fault!' which she knew it wasn't all but they weren't convinced. She could hear the screams of her friends (that went missing) yelling for help- in fact, she could picture it all. It was right in front of her. Breathing heavily, Nia closed her eyes, trying to calm down but it was all too much. Everything went downhill.

She could feel it.

"Guys? Where's Nia?" Todd suddenly asked, breaking everyone away from what they were doing (which was nothing). A few shrugs and 'I don't know's were seen and heard from the group.

"How the heck did we lose Nia?! She was right here! Ugh! You're all useless!" Todd turned on his heel and looked for the missing healer.

This was hopeless, everyone was disappearing and leaving. Everyone was gone. Either in that way or the other didn't matter- they still left. The trudged through the thicket into the dense woodlands and over streams, clinging on to the desperate hope that Katie or Kaiden was still out there somewhere..with still no sign of Nia.

Cher had suggested that they follow the directions of the dragons, the path was slowly fading away into her memory but she had not given up yet. Abbey had been drawing maps and planning routes spending sleepless nights in her illuminated tent that shone like the last beacon of hope of reunion.Everyone was playing their part trying to find something useful, Sandi and Angus had taken to hunting and Stanley had begun to heal and was regularly going out to search for herbs in the company of Todd. All of them desperate to keep their minds off whatever had taken Kaiden away..well..most of them.

Two months had passed since Katie was abducted and the team were seemingly on the move towards a suspected city, as told by Nia who had just returned after being found in a cave with a bunch of illegible scrolls and a map.

Cher had not been able to get the words out of her head..Katie's words, "Just leave before you get killed like the others" That was the last thing she said before Cher had ran. Others huh, She wondered what Katie had meant, wondered what had happened to her, wondered whether she would even ever see the sorcerer again. It had stuck. The fear in her eyes and the coldness of her expression, it haunted Cher, reminded her of things she didn't want to.

The sun was setting, the pale orange slowly fading into purple as the moon rose slowly out of the horizon it's reflection bouncing out the calm waters of the lake they had settled next to. It was beautiful...And for just a moment Cher was taken back, back to before all of this had happened..back to...her.

"It's beautiful..isn't it?"

Her melodic voice chimed in her ears like a melody of a music box forgotten in some dusty attic.

"The stars, the moon, they're all here...and..you're here too."

She smiles as tears fall down her face.

"Just...like you" Cher sobs against the grass around her, tears streaming down her cheek dripping onto the leaves reflect against the pale moonlight above. "Just....like you" She smiles remembering, commemorating her...and all the things they had. It felt so right...so true..so real. She missed her and it was too hard to forget, all of this was JUST TOO HARD TO FORGET.

"You're just an illusion in water..."

She stood up wiping her tears and turning around she thinks once more about the girl whom she had once fallen in love with, the girl who was her everything.

"I'm sorry.....Lesley"