2023-11-07 17:08:32“How long until we get there?” Draven asked, gasping for breath.
“Don’t be a whiny child,” Elena snapped back. “And by the way, which one of you wanted to see a pretty lady, huh? Shouldn’t you be patient enough to see something that brings you pleasure?”
Draven rolled his eyes. It was so critical of Elena to bring up past discussions that didn’t favour her whenever she wanted to make a point. He didn’t have a problem with it, except that they had been walking for such a long time and he was sincerely tired. How hard was it to get to some persons who would help them get the map? Of course, he won’t voice it out just yet, since Leo was kind enough to take the words right out of his mouth.
“Don’t you think we should have met this person by now? He asked.
Elena shot him a glare. “We’ve only been walking for two hours.”
“Only?” Leo asked, his tone higher than usual. “Only? My god, I’m wasting my breath talking to you like this. I get that you’re very strong and all that, but if you hadn’t noticed, we’ve been walking for two hours with no rest!”
Draven’s throat suddenly felt parched, his legs weak. He hadn’t even realized that they hadn’t stopped for water or food or rest until Leo mentioned it.
“I’m so thirsty that I could drink your blood right now,” Leo added.
Elena shook her head, not even slowing down to give them an answer or acknowledge them. This pissed Draven off, but he was too tired to act on it. Once again, Leo came to his rescue. He stopped and reached out a hand to Draven to stop him, too. Elena walked for a short distance before she realized that she could no longer hear their steps behind her. She hissed and turned to face them.
“What?”
“Oh, now you can give us attention?” Leo snapped back.
She rolled her eyes and walked towards them. “Can you just stop being so whiny so we can get there in time?”
Leo scoffed. “Whiny?”
“He’s not being whiny,” Draven added. “We need to stop and rest. This could be a day’s journey; we can’t reach there in one day.”
“Of course we can,” Elena said, glancing at him. “My friend just lives with someone around. We should be able to get there in an hour.”
“An hour?” Draven screeched. “One more hour of not resting or eating?” He shook his head. “Nope. We need water, at least.”
Leo exhaled a sigh of relief now that Draven was finally supporting his move. Elena glared at both of them, but somehow he felt like the glare was directed at him specifically. Draven brushed it aside and focused on the matter at hand—their rest. When Elena saw that her glare hadn’t hit the mark as usual, she groaned and reached for her backpack.
“What’s in there?” Leo asked, intrigued. “A surprise we’re not ready for?”
She laughed. It was unexpected and startling. Draven noticed she was being careful with the pack when she brought a long covered bottle. She thrust it into Leo’s hand and said, “There, you can have a little water.”
Leo stared at her in shock while she arranged her bag pack on her back. He held up the water bottle in the air like it was some offensive little stack.
“You had this all along?” he asked.
“Yup, and you did not see me take one sip,” she answered.
“You’re obviously showing off your skills.” Draven snatched the water from Leo and took a deep gulp. “Nevertheless, we’re going to take a short break.” He passed the water back to Leo, who took a series of small sips.
Elena groaned. “You’ve had water now, so we don’t have to wait any longer.”
“A thirty-minute break would be fine, no?” Draven asked.
“No,” Elena said. “Ten minutes.”
“Twenty,” Draven said.
“Fifteen, and that’s the last of it. No more negotiations.”
Leo and Draven smiled at each other. They had gotten what they wanted. Leo brought out a long blanket from his bag and spread it on the floor. Draven made a note to not ask any of them how they managed to carry such weight with them. He made a mental note to get some supplies for himself too, if he had the opportunity to. The both of them lay down on the blanket while Elena stalked off into the woods.
“Where are you going?” Leo called after her.
“I’m going to survey the grounds!” she said and stalked off.
Leo huffed and relaxed in his blanket. The grounds were hard and rocky, but at least they could relax for a bit. They were quiet for a while before Leo popped on his elbow.
“Do you know where she’s gone?”
“Nope,” Draven answered.
“She’s so antsy and upset all the time. I can’t stand her antagonism sometimes.”
Draven laughed. “She’s a girl. What did you expect?” His eyes were shiny as he looked at the way Elena had disappeared into. “I suggest you not take it personally.”
“Yeah right.”
“We better wait and appreciate this little time before she pops in here and starts commanding us to start moving.”
They laughed it off and then passed the water between each other before finally staying put. They didn’t want to drink too much and then get tired on the way. After some time, they looked up at the incoming footsteps.
“She’s here finally,” Leo said. “What do you think of her?”
Draven arched his eyebrows at Leo. “What I have always thought, Leo. We need her help.”
Elena finally came out with a broad smile on her face. Draven and Leo stood up while Leo packed his blanket into his bag.
“Boys,” Elena said. “I have good news.”
“Yeah?” Draven asked.
“Yeah. My friend is closer than we thought.” She arched her hands towards the sky. “There she is.”
Just as they looked upward, darkness spanned the sky.
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The End
Draven couldn’t believe it was over. Three months later he was still thinking if he was making the right decision. Assistant David sat in his living room with a bunch of documents in front of him. He paced up and down, not sure what he would do.“You can just sign here,” the man said for the umpteeth time. “It’s not really that hard. You sign that you’ve taken ownership of the game and you decide what you want to do with it.”“But I don’t want ownership of the game,” Draven said again. He had repeated this exact words countless times but the guy didn’t seem to be hearing him.“You should have known what you were getting yourself into when you challenged late game owner Timothy—” David paused and looked to the heavens. “May his soul not rest in peace. You should have known that killing him would automatically make you the owner of the game. Those were his rules.”Draven rolled his eyes. He was sure that Timothy had made that rule because he didn’t believe anyone would be able to defeat
Darkness
Timothy laughed. His laughter was vivacious and full of life. This was what he wanted, after all. The very end of judgement day where he would punish all those who failed him; those who went against him and those who was party to his torture.Here was Draven, the strongest man to ever grace his game. Timothy knew he was going to be a lot of trouble in the future and so he had specifically looked into him. Now that Draven has waged war with his full chest over a woman, he was ecstatic. This was historic, and he was living a historic time in the present. How many men brought knives to fight for their loves, anyways?Smiling, he snapped his fingers. A single door opened and his assistant ran to him carrying a box.“You’re about to experience an historic moment with me,” He said to Draven. “Diane will be our goddess Diana, and we will be the lowly men who are fighting for her love.”Diane scoffed. “You don’t have to do it, Draven. The guy is nuts. Let’s just get out of here.”“But darling
Sword
Draven panicked for a minute. He thought for sure that the darkness and pressure meant he was losing his consciousness, but that wasn’t the case. One minutes there was stark darkness and the next minute they fell into an extremely white room with hard cardboard. They fell through the sky, hitting directly on the wood and groaning in pain. The stark white color of the room blinded them. It was brighter than a sky or white paint. It was so bright that Draven closed his eyes and tried to regain his or he r senses. He knew there was a betrayal in the group—which wasn’t surprising as their group was made of weird, diverse people, but he needed to see who exactly did it.He won’t even be surprised if to was Lara. She was the one who had led them to the cage, after all. She was the one who offered to test the waters and make sure the portal was okay. Who in their right senses tests water and portal to make a point of the portal not working? Unless he or she was working with Timothy and knew
Statement
No one said anything after Diane’s statement. They were so tired and hungry and unsure of what to do next. Draven’s goods felt heavy to him. His sword even felt heavier than normal. He didn’t believe he came back to this game to be ridiculed and placed in a very unstable condition because of a silly fight that was going on between two lovers. When he looked at Diane, he wondered if she was toying with them again. Was she afraid to meet Timothy or what? He knew that the portal might likely take them to Timothy as the owner can easily manipulate events, but at least he was ready for that stage. He could exactly tell what Diane was thinking when she was looking her nose down on the portal.“We cannot just stay here,” Lara said. “Do you want us to keep waiting for him to keep finding opportunities to kill us? We’re certainly going to die of hunger if we keep waiting!”“She’s right,” Draven concurred. “We can’t keep lying about in wait like lambs to a slaughter. We must make the first move
Awkward
Everyone was super awkward after the kiss. Leo avoided for the rest of the morning. He didn’t want to talk about it but it was too late; Draven had seen them and announced to the whole pack in the morning that the kiss was probably the most hottest he’d seen.“Whoa,” Diane said excitedly. “You two kissed? That’s great. Are you like a couple now or something?”“It’s nothing like that, okay? It was just a kiss, and a mistake at that,” Leo piped up.Even though he didn’t want to talk about the kiss or look at Lara’s face, he was glad that Draven brought it up. At least he’d air his opioid publicly about it so he won’t have to be in an awkward space with Lara.“Ouch, Leo, you’re a player!” Diane said, laughing. “You can’t say those kind of things to someone when you’ve kissed them!”“I didn’t kiss her, okay? She’s the one who kissed me,” Leo defended hotly.“It’s still hurtful that you say it that way. Have some feelings, pal,” Diane said, her laugh increasing.It sounded mocking and cont
Thoughts
Leo could not sleep. Draven had been out for close to an hour, yet he wasn’t back yet. Lots of thoughts assaulted his brain, but the one that stayed the most was Diane.Diane. Diane. Diane.He bet she was here to true their life again, and that bet was true. If Leo was the one to handle this, he’d definitely not want to help her out the way Draven was. It was as if the guy didn’t want to learn any lessons about why it’s dangerous to just not help anyone for too long. Draven was lenient when it came to Diane and he didn’t like it one but.He turned his head to the side and saw her sleeping peacefully.“Yeah, like you didn’t just send someone to their death,” he murmured to himself.He wondered if Draven was still talking to the game creator or if he’s been killed. If he was truly killed, Leo won’t honestly know how to handle that. He tried not to think about it because it was depressing enough. He sat up now, still watching Diane. If she had been careful, they won’t be in this shit hol
