Desperate Situations

The setting sun had begun its trajectory over the horizon as the drifter finally caught a breeze to carry it southwest. The wind had been travelling to the northeast, making it difficult to sail faster than four knots, but with each stroke, they slowly made their way. They were rounding the peninsula of an unmarked territory guarded by ferocious but unseen whirlpools and could see storm clouds from both the southwest and northeast areas.

Charlotte was resting her sore and tired arms from all the work it took to steer the drifter throughout the day. While Aden, Damien, and Xavier weren’t breaking a sweat in their duties, she on the other hand had started feeling blisters forming on the pads of her fingers and thumbs as well as numbness running up and down her forearms. She could not lift her arms above her head, and what was worse was that she felt slightly nauseous.

“You all right there, Char? You look a little green around the gills.” 

The group had decided to take a fifteen-minute break to prepare a light snack and replenish their thirst before preparing another three- to four-hour rowing fest again.

“I’m okay,” she replied with a smile, keeping her hands in her lap. The girl would have normally waved them up and down, but she didn’t want to alarm them with her slightly red, inflamed blisters.

“When was the last time you had water?” Damien asked, coming up from behind the girl with a canteen of fresh water. “Even though we’re surrounded by the sea, you should be sure you’re drinking some. You will be surprised by the amount of people who faint from dehydration.”

She looked at the offered canteen but shook her head. “I had some water five minutes ago. I just felt worse after drinking it.”

“That’s because you guzzled the thing,” a fourth voice popped up at the rear. He still had an oar in his hand, steering them in the direction of Spiro. They realized the ship would steer itself off course if no one had been at the rear acting like a rutter.

“I did not guzzle!” she retorted with flushed cheeks. “Look, I am fine. Can we continue on please? Spiro is just around these rocks!” 

It was nearing the end of their time limit anyways, but no one moved to their spots. Charlotte had waved her arms and hands up like she normally would have and immediately saw what they were staring at. Snatching her hands back into her lap, she looked down at the floorboards.

“Those looked painful. Are you sure you’re all right?” Damien finally replied before taking a seat next to the girl and carefully taking her wrist into his hand. “You should have told us. These abrasions and blisters are from the undercurrent and controlling the oar.” He lifted his own hand to show her his gloves. “Did Olivia not give you gloves to use?”

The blond looked at the brunette before she laughed nervously. Aden in the rear sighed out, “I can’t wait to hear this.”

“Olivia gave me gloves, but I somehow lost them when I was running around the ship. Jakob, Leo, and I were cleaning the cannons. But we decided to play a prank on Sarah who had come out with snacks. I think Leo took my gloves, filled them with sand, then tied a rope to one before hanging it off the netting,” the girl explained while Xavier heartily laughed.

“Ghost hands, that’s brilliant!” the older man of the group said between his chuckles while Aden glared at him.

“The best course would be to pop those blisters, clean them with some antiseptic, and wrap them in gauze,” Aden relayed out the orders while Damien pulled out the medical kit from underneath the bench they were sitting at. “It’s only our first day out, and you’re already causing trouble.”

Charlotte pouted. “Sorry for being a nuisance.” 

Damien grabbed her hands and turned them over, palms up, and while his head was slightly down, he looked at her through his lashes. “This will hurt a bit.” Damien began popping the first blister near her index finger and her thumb. While he was doing this, the girl winced in pain, whimpering every now and again. After five agonizing minutes of pinching, prodding, and shedding skin off her hand, Damien then pulled out a bottle of antiseptic that was in the first-aid kit. Charlotte hissed out a quick curse as he poured the antiseptic on her open wounds and then let them air out.

Once he was done with the task of cleaning her hand, he gingerly wrapped her shivering, pale, and petite hand in the gauze they had. Damien could tell she was holding back tears since there was water forming at the corners of her eyes, and the shaking in her hand also accentuated it. “Almost done now,” he reassured her when he moved to her other hand. Her right hand was finished with, and he meticulously did the same process as the last one.

Xavier whistled with an oar in his hand, “Well, we’ll begin rowing again. Just join in when you two are done. You ready, Addie?”

The male with raven hair just glared without making a comment.

“Why are you so sour, Aden?” The male with the beanie cap on his head went over to the port side of the drifter and started to row. He noticed as the ship was nearing the end of Refrazzya and the unknown territories continent’s that the whirlpools underneath them were getting viciously stronger.

Aden also noticed the slight change and abandoned the back of the ship to go on the starboard side to help Xavier maintain control.

Damien had finished with Charlotte’s left hand when they felt the undercurrents shake the ship. Damien grabbed his oar and prepared to take Aden’s spot on the rutter. While the two power steered up front, he kept them steady on the water. 

Charlotte went to stand, but Aden snapped to the girl to stop. “Sit down before you fall off the ship.” Charlotte froze midway, unsure of what she should do. “I don’t have time to jump into the water. We already have problems with this storm coming in.” 

Her hands would be okay now that they were wrapped, but they were still stinging. “Oh . . . okay,” she mumbled at the command and sat down again. The rocking of the ship and the movements of the whirlpools underneath kept the four on edge until a couple of hours later when the waters finally calmed down. 

Refrazzya and the unmarked territory were becoming smaller and smaller as they travelled southwest, and likewise, Spiro began to appear bigger and bigger. The clouds were threatening to release a shower of rains over them, but luckily, they managed to reach the shoreline of Spiro.

Cesium was the first of them to jump off the ship and roll around in the sand with a blissful expression. 

“Cesium,” Charlotte called out to it with a giggle. “I cannot believe you were so sad through the voyage. Are you feeling better?” 

The robot lifted itself up and gave a small woof before running around again. It was running close to the border of the forest but was still within the distance of them setting up camp.

Aden, who had finished setting the anchor, was wiping his brow with his forearm. “Who cares if it is feeling better? The damned thing didn’t even do anything,” he sneered while Damien chuckled nervously in the background. The blond had been wrapping their excess ropes into bundles and then laying them underneath the seats so they would not shred or come apart in the future. 

“Well, we should find a place to camp before it gets too dark. Xavier, can you help me with the tarp for the top of the drifter?” 

Xavier had already grabbed the large and heavy material in his arms and flapped it out into the wind. To Charlotte, it was really long and would easily cover the top of the drifter. There were also spots within the tarp that had holes, probably to wrap around the masts in the middle of the vessel, and she watched as the two were positioning it in the correct spot.

Aden had jumped on land and began making a makeshift tent for four people near some trees that provided some coverage from the gray clouds above them. He had dropped all his tools before situating the bottom of the tent out flat.

“Do you want some help?” Charlotte asked when she was standing right behind his crouching form. She knew she had no expertise with ships, but a lot of inland stuff she could do. 

The male looked over his shoulder to the girl and then at the start of their temporary living grounds. With his free hand, he pulled up a utility belt and merely handed it to the girl. “Front pocket, right side.” 

The girl straightened out the belt and grabbed what he needed before tying it to her waist. It was a box of long nails, and there was a hammer hanging near the right side but not by the front pocket. She figured the male would need the hammer regardless of whether he asked for it or not.

“Here you go,” she replied, handing him his supplies. 

The boy merely stared at her before sighing, “Thanks.” Then reached to her right side and pulled out ten three-inch poles Olivia had invented that could extend into taller poles. “But just so you know, that was the left side you pulled that stuff from.” 

The girl flushed a deep red before looking away. “Oops,” she said with an abashed expression. 

Looking at her with his own bemused expression, the male merely continued with his task. “Normally, one would put the belt on and then grab what was needed,” he remarked before climbing under the top portion of the tent to place the first pole in. When it was in place, he extended it and then moved on to the next four corner spots.

Charlotte watched as the tent, which had been flat moments ago, had turned into a tent with a pentagonal shape. It could easily fit all of them inside, and when all ten poles were in place, some interlacing mechanics activated and connected the poles together through the creases of the top of the tent. Aden then meandered his way out of the front flap of the tent’s entrance to the side where he pulled out some of the nails to begin hammering the excess fabric down.

The girl watched in awe as he worked, and shortly afterward, Xavier and Damien joined them. They had pulled the ship on shore and made sure it would not float away by adding some extra safety precautions to their work. Besides an anchor, they also hammered some of the excess ropes from the ship down into the ground. Now they would be there for quite some time.

“Olivia is pretty brilliant with these types of things, isn’t she?” Xavier remarked as he stared at the tent’s contraption inside. 

Aden had handed the hammer back to Charlotte, who easily put it back into the slot allotted for it on the belt. “It’ll do.”

“This wasn’t meant to be a five-star hotel. Give some credit where it is due,” the male with the beanie remarked.

“Hmm,” the male with emerald eyes replied in a bored tone and climbed inside. Just as he did, the storm clouds echoed with thunder and started to let the rain fall. 

Xavier and Damien ushered Charlotte to go in first before them, and when she did, they followed shortly after. 

Xavier, the last one to enter, somehow had his shirt soaked from the rainwater. “It sure started raining cats and dogs, didn’t it?” Xavier took off his beanie to squeeze the excess water out of it on the floor before receiving a glare from Damien.

“Dude, we’re sleeping in here. Mind not getting water all over the place?”

Xavier merely waved his concern with a smirk. “A little water won’t kill you.”

“Yeah, but pneumonia will.”

Charlotte had taken a kneeling position near the corner of the north and western sides of the tent. She had her bag in front of her, but she was not going to go through it until she knew what exactly she needed out. The less she needed to get out, the better in her opinion. Although she could not rub the feeling that she was forgetting something and it was something important.

Aden had taken the top center area of the tent where he was laying out his sleeping bag and then straightening out his own utility belt with his weapons on the ground beside it. He dropped his bag in an unorganized heap at the head of his sleeping bag. It was then that he turned his smoldering emerald eyes to the girl.

“If you forgot your stuff in the boat, I am not getting it for you,” he sarcastically replied, and the girl tensed up.

“I’ll have you know it is right here!” she curtly said and slipped off her backpack. Inside her bag was a sleeping bag neatly curled and her pillow for a restful sleep. There were also a change of clothes and small food packets for snacking. Feeling a flush in her cheeks, she continued, “But it’s true that I feel like something is missing.”

Damien and Xavier had finished laying out their own sleeping arrangements and joined the two’s conversation. The blond chuckled while Xavier plopped himself on top of his sleeping bag.

“Well, it wouldn’t be the same if Charlotte had everything with her,” the boy with blond hair teased, much to the girl’s chagrin. 

Xavier added to that by remembering her antics on the Division and the Phoenix. “Well, one time, she forgot to wear that vest, which became the newest scandal.” 

Charlotte flushed a crimson red before throwing her pillow at him.

“What!”

Aden just shook his own head before adding salt to the wound. “Then there was that time recently where she forgot the shopping list and tried to buy everything off memory.” 

Charlotte turned to him with an aghast expression before he continued. “Instead of buying ten pounds of oranges, she bought ten pounds of strawberries, and we had to eat them as soon as possible.” Aden shook his head while Damien laughed.

Xavier nodded his head. “Never in my life had I wished to never see another strawberry.” 

The boys all chuckled while Charlotte pouted where she was.

“Strawberries are good too,” she muttered before looking over her shoulder. “Cesium, you agree with me, don’t you?” She was expecting a bark to resonate in that small space with the four of them in it, but no sound came. “Cesium?”

The tent went silent before all the boys gave a groan. Charlotte, on the other hand, began to freak out and searched through the tent in vain. The massive Great Dane was nowhere to be seen. 

Finally, when she couldn’t find the robot, she jumped up and went to unzip the front flap of the tent. Large droplets of rain splashed her face, but a strong hand gripped her forearm. 

His strength alone was enough to drag her back into the dry space. “It’s not a smart idea to go out in this storm. Just look at the strength of the wind blowing. It would blow your stick figure off into the distance before we could grab you.”

Charlotte yanked her arm back from Xavier and looked at the others for help. Damien was looking at the ground, unsure of how to look at the girl while Aden unsympathetically quirked his eyebrow.

“It’ll come scratching on the tent if it wants to come in.”

Charlotte would not let them give up on the idea of searching for it. “But Cesium could have been scared by the thunder and rain! What if it saw the storm coming and freaked out? It is probably terrified somewhere out here in the middle of nowhere.”

“We’re actually on Spiro,” Aden interjected, but Charlotte ignored him.

“You guys can sit on your asses for all I care, but I am going to search for that Great Dane!” She ran out of the tent into the rain, leaving the three there to groan at their misfortune.

“Who wants to grill Cheric for her stupid invention when we get back?”

Xavier and Damien shook their heads before Aden clucked his tongue. “It was worth a shot.” The three of them made their way out of the tent into the pouring tropical storm.

۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞

Charlotte made her way to the ship on shore and had the strangest feeling that Cesium wasn’t there. She had peeked under the cover just in case, but she only saw darkness. Nothing barked to get her attention nor did anything run at her. She was cold, shivering from the wind, and her hair was soaking itself into her clothes. Her blouse was soaked through, but luckily, her vest managed to cover the areas it needed to.

The wind howled loudly. There was no indication of that Great Dane anywhere on that beach. It didn’t take long before someone had called her toward the tropic forest line. Damien waved his arms as he pointed into the forest. “Lionsheart! We need to go that way! Aden said he found some tracks.” 

She dropped the cover of the ship and ran over to the blond. “Did Aden and Xavier go ahead of us?” she shouted over the wind, and Damien nodded. 

“Yeah, come on! We’ll have more coverage searching for Cesium over there as well!” He grabbed her bandaged wrists and tugged her toward the forest due northwest of their location. 

They ran to the entrance of the trees before looking back at the sea. The clouds were thick, murky, and laying the rain upon them as if it was a waterfall. The wind was whipping viciously around them, making them wonder if the tent would be all right throughout the storm.

When the two made it under the protection of the trees, it did alleviate some of the rain, but it did not stop the wind from howling and keeping the humidity up high. The water dripped down from the branches above them and poured in the open areas. Xavier was examining the ground near a tree stump while Aden was standing on a branch of the tree to the left of them. He was looking in the distance, wondering if there might be some places the robot would run off to. The trees shook violently, making the male grab the trunk with his hand to steady himself, only to hear the loud crackle of thunder above them. They looked up to see the flash of lightning in the sky, and past the woods, they could see another bolt of lightning hit a distance away.

“Aden, come down from there!” Damien cupped his hand over his mouth to shout at his younger brother. He was afraid that the lightning would strike the tree.

The male did just that a second later, merely jumping and landing on the haunches of his feet. “There are a couple of places it could have gone to. A small entrance to a cave is due east of here, and over to the west is a canopy of strong trees.”

The group strategized how they would get to each place before they finally started following the path heading north.

“Are we heading in the right direction? I thought you said it was either west or east of where we were?” Charlotte yelled as they jogged through the forest. 

It had been fifteen minutes of them running aimlessly down the path, and it made everyone anxious that they had yet to see Cesium. Damien looked over his shoulder to the girl, not breaking his stride.

“It’s not a good idea to deviate from the paths in forests, especially if it’s storming like this. The visibility is low, and we do not know what surprises wait for us in the shadows.” 

Charlotte swallowed the lump in her throat but nodded all the same.

“Hopefully, Cesium stuck to the path and did not run off.” 

“Doubt it,” Aden piped up from the front.

Xavier led the group with his longer strides. “Damien, Lottie, less talking, more running.” 

Aden was two steps behind Xavier now as he looked around the surroundings. He picked up the pace, easily moving past Xavier into the dense forest ahead. “Xav, two meters ahead is a mountainside with two splitting paths.” 

They continued for another five minutes before stopping at the split. While Charlotte dropped her hands to her knees to relieve her shaky breaths, Xavier checked the dirt for tracks. Aden and Damien looked unsurely at the sky.

“This storm is getting worse and worse as it goes on!” Damien yelled over the wind before moving to the path heading west.

Xavier had found nothing that would indicate that Cesium was around and made his way to the path where Damien was standing, but before he could say what was on the tip of his tongue, the sky flashed with lightning. The rumble shook the ground where they stood, and all four looked to stare as the sky ripped another lightning bolt downward. It struck just in front of the mountainside just where the trees viciously blew with the winds, and the ground cracked.

The four watched in horror as the mountain seemed to move with boulders and mud sliding down toward their side. Xavier grabbed Damien’s arm and yanked him to the west path, avoiding the rush of rocks, boulders, and smoldering trees that slid down the top of the cliff. 

“Aden! Lionsheart!” Damien shouted over the avalanche of mud and trees, and then his voice was overtaken by the noises of the forest’s rage.

Aden had attempted to follow Damien and Xavier, but Charlotte had pulled him in the opposite direction. A boulder slammed down where he had been. The ground quivered and splashed up mud and water on them. There was no time to rest as more debris came down in a surging tide. They scurried backward onto whatever path had been left over. Their breath had been knocked out by the frigid cold and adverse weather. 

Aden grasped the girl’s wrist within his, and he went into survival mode. He scanned anything and everything until he noticed a safe location. “Come on!” A tree had begun its descent toward them, and he barely had enough time to pull her to safety. 

She had regained her footing long enough not to stumble, but they were running out of options. Down the path, another smoldering tree slammed down to block their way.

Aden half dragged and half yanked the girl to run his pace. Time was of the essence as he pushed them to avoid the dangers. He surmised that they had about twenty to forty seconds before their path would be demolished by rushing water. He spied the prize, a sturdy tropic tree that had strong roots and then shouted over his shoulder, “I hope you know how to climb!” 

The girl gave him a bewildered expression. Then her face transformed into shock as she registered what he had meant. Before she could retort, he stopped in front of her, planted both of his feet, and used his strength to throw the girl up. With his knees bent slightly, he waited for the inevitable squeak she made and used her momentum to toss her.

“I can’t ju—” she complained before she found herself already in the air. She yelped. The branch that was not in reach had swiftly came, and with some strange luck, she clenched onto it for dear life. But that was all she could muster. Her arms complained as she held herself up. With all the running and the boat ride there, it was no surprise she was starting to slip from the branch. 

Seconds later, Aden jumped blithely onto her branch and plucked her up by her forearms. The time it took between her journey upward and the hang had felt like a few minutes had gone by, but time fast-forwarded so much she forgot the impending impact that crashed into the tree’s trunk right beneath them. Charlotte could feel the powerful rush of the mud and rocks slushing around them, and in fright, she grasped Aden’s torso. She buried her head into his chest and inwardly screamed. Or she might have just screamed aloud. She had no recollection after that as Aden sandwiched himself into the groove of the tree. 

All they could hear at this point was the roar of the mud, rocks, and trees, seeming to cry out as the mudslide destroyed their path back to shore and even possibly back to Damien and Xavier.

They remained in the tree for another ten to fifteen minutes as the mudslide subsided in its fatal rush of mud, dirt, and water. The path beneath them was destroyed, and to the east, they could see that the trees that were too weak to withstand the beating of the mud had crippled with the onslaught. The rain pelted down harder than ever, playing a fierce tempo upon the canopy of the trees around them. 

“I know I’m irresistible, but could you let go for two clicks?”

Charlotte hastily let go and almost slipped. Aden pulled her back into him as he sighed, “Apparently not.” 

The girl eerily looked down to the messy ground below as she recounted in the last half hour how many times she could have died. 

“Irresistible enough to . . . not want to die from falling,” she stuttered out an incoherent sentence. Her hands began to shake from the cold and shock. 

“You won’t die from this height,” he stoically replied and realized that didn’t help ease her anxiety. 

Aden scanned the tree for any branches that would hold his weight, and finding a couple of branches higher, he looked down to the shivering girl. “I need to go higher up to see if I can find or call out to Damien and Xavier. Can you not fall and break a bone?” 

Aden then turned on the back of his foot and easily shifted the girl so that she was pushed right into the curve of the tall tree. Her hands still clenched his shirt, and her face was pale. “Breathe, damsel. I’ll be gone for two clicks.” He released the girl from his arms and jumped.

Charlotte stared up as she saw him disappear in the foliage before hearing a whistle echo through the forest. There were some moments of silence before an echo answering his call sounded back.

“Yooooo!” Charlotte felt the sigh of relief escape her lips, hearing Xavier call back. 

“We’re okay!” Damien whistled out, and Aden grunted to himself. 

The forest was still blowing with the wind, and the rain was slightly letting up from its onslaught. Suddenly, there was a crack above Charlotte’s head, and she snapped her attention up to see a branch snap and fall. She screamed as she felt the branch reverberate with Aden’s forceful landing. Her fingers dug into the bark as she tried not to slip off. 

“Try to meet up at the tent!” Xavier called out to the air, obviously not knowing Aden had been close to becoming a flat pancake from almost falling out of the tree. 

Charlotte gaped at Aden to be sure he was all right, but he merely whistled in response.

After he whistled, he looked to the frightened girl. “I’m jumping down. I’ll catch you.” And before she could reject his idea, he had already jumped down to the soft ground. He then expectantly looked up to the branch where Charlotte was still forcing her back into the trunk. He raised both his arms up, indicating that he would catch her.

Charlotte saw the gesture and blew out some of her oxygen she had been holding in. With her back to the trunk, she kneeled down to her haunches and then sat down. She positioned her feet so they were dangling over the branch but still held the tree, mostly out of concern. Memories of Cliffside danced in her vision as she steeled her resolve. She couldn’t dwell on these nightmares forever. 

“We haven’t got all day, damsel.”

“Would you knock it off with the nicknames already? We almost died, and you act like such a pompous bigot.” The girl stuck her tongue out before inching her way off the branch.

“Now there’s the damsel we all know.”

Charlotte rolled her eyes at his comment and took the leap down. Aden diligently caught the girl in his arms and, with added measure, started to swing her around. With immense fright, she clenched onto him tightly and hid her face in between his shoulder and neck. His hands had evenly caught her waist, and he was staring at the back of her hair. He assessed she wasn’t too injured, but he had purposely scared her to see what she’d do. 

“You’re all right,” Aden remarked. “I got you.” 

Luckily for them both, they had avoided excessive amounts of physical injuries.

“Jerk!” she cried. 

Aden shrugged, merely walking along the path with the girl still in his arms. “You’re fine. The fall wouldn’t have killed you anyway.”

“I hate you.” She hiccupped. 

“But you trust me—that’s a step in the right direction.”

“I still hate you.”

۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞

The damage from the mudslide was evident as they continued walking down the makeshift path. For the most part, the weather seemed to regulate into fits of soft or harsh showers with thunder rolling in the background. For the most part, the rain was not the issue but rather the terrain they were walking upon. The mud was sloshing under Aden’s and Charlotte’s boots, making it hard to proceed every once in a while. 

Charlotte had the most difficulty when her slim boot slipped into a pocket of mud. She was encompassed up to her midcalf and continuing to sink. If Aden had not had a sturdy branch nearby, he probably would not have been able to dig her leg out without breaking it. After that, the male had designated that he would walk ahead of her and guide her through the terrain by holding her hand the entire way.

“Is that the cave’s entrance?” The girl with straight and drenched auburn hair pointed to an opening in a bedrock straight ahead of them while Aden trudged forward to it. He was also soaked with dripping black hair, and he scowled at how humid the forest was.

“Seems like it.” Aden pressed his walking stick into the ground ahead of them and watched the path break into a huge pocket of nothing. 

The girl behind him paused before looking over his shoulder at the waist-high hole in front of them. “Well, luckily, I did not fall into a hole that big beforehand.”

The boy in front of her merely scoffed and turned to the right side of the path and tested the land for sturdiness. He was rewarded with firm walking ground and preceded forward. “I don’t think luck had a hand in that.”

The girl shrugged and followed right after Aden as he trudged forward. If they continued with their “luck,” they may as well try and head back to the Phoenix. They’d have a better chance of surviving there with the information lurkers.

In front of them now was a broken and smoldering tree, probably from the earlier lightning storm, lying on the ground. Ahead of that was a clear path to the entrance, and a robotic figure of a dog was lying underneath what looked like a small leaf umbrella. Charlotte was the first to see this and ran ahead of Aden, who merely yanked the girl back into his body before giving her a glare.

“Bloody hell, do you want to get caught in a pocket of mud again? The thing will stay there. Just be patient.” 

The girl was about to protest, but when she received a death glare from her partner, she merely stepped behind the boy. When she was safely behind him, Aden prodded the ground with his branch and slowly made their way over to the entrance. The Great Dane looked up from its downtrodden stance to see the two approaching and immediately began to bark in exuberance.

“Hang on, Cesium!” Charlotte cupped her hand over to her lips so it could hear her voice over the rain. “Are you all right?”

When Cesium jumped up and started to wag its tail, the two walking toward the cave’s entrance saw that no harm had come to it. Finally, Aden dropped the girl’s hand, which made Charlotte slightly uncomfortable because she had gotten used to his warmth pressed against her wrapped palm. Now only the slight chill of water accompanied her, but she paid no attention to it. Running forward to the robot, she embraced the Great Dane and rocked it side to side, holding it.

“Do you know how worried we were, Cesium? What were you thinking?” 

The Great Dane merely howled before whining for Charlotte to direct her attention into the cave. She gave the Great Dane one quizzical look before gazing into the depths of the cave before them. “What is in there, Cesium?”

Aden had crossed the threshold of the cave’s entrance before Charlotte could even get up off her haunches. He stood there with his stick in the first-position stance, ready to attack anyone or anything that could possibly come out, but nothing emerged. 

As seconds rolled by, Cesium struggled from Charlotte’s grasp to run past the two of them into the depths ahead. Surprised by the movement, Charlotte jumped up onto the balls of her feet and chased after Cesium.

The two disappeared, leaving a tired and disgruntled Aden at the entrance.

“Weren’t you the one who was clinging to me in desperation earlier? You make no sense to me!” Aden yelled at her retreating form.

“Come on!” Charlotte’s voice echoed back to the entrance where he was still standing in first position. 

“Would it kill that girl to wait before recklessly running in?” he murmured and dropped his stance to walk into the cave. Inside, he could feel his eyes adjusting to the dark and sighed.

۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞

Xavier and Damien had found themselves at another entrance to a cave on their path heading west, except their path had diverged from heading westward into the bay of trees to a curving path heading back to the northeast. Presuming the map of the area, Damien and Xavier assumed that these paths may actually circle around with the cave’s entrance on the east way path.

“We may run into those two sooner than we thought,” Xavier happily replied while Damien looked at his compass watch. They had been walking for some time without finding Cesium, so he only hoped that Aden and Charlotte had found it on their side.

“Ready for exploring a cave, Damie?” 

Damien flushed a red before shaking the water out of his blond locks. “My name is Damien. Not Damie, Bunny Boy, Eagle Eye, Bunny Poo, or any other variation you all can come up with.” He stepped into the cave’s entrance right after Xavier before sighing.

“You know I do it out of love,” Xavier explained before sighing. “I’m sorry, bruva.”

Some of the birds had been able to lead them away from the parts on the path that had deteriorated in the storm, but now the only one that was leading them was the baby eagle on Damien’s shoulder. His compass was also a guide in regards to where they were at to where their ship was located. If he could find Aden and Charlotte, they could head back and enjoy some shut-eye.

“Have you ever done spelunking before, Damien?” 

The boy with the blond hair shook his head. “You of all people should know that I’ve been in the academy since I was fourteen and then sailed on sea for a good portion of my life. Do you really think I would have land legs long enough to do spelunking?” 

Xavier chuckled at the comment before shaking his head. “That’s true. I never understood the thrill of spelunking anyway.”

The darkness of the cave enveloped the both of them while they explored the new area. The topography of the Spiro was diverse in the way the cliffs and water crest lines rested alongside the shore.

The two older males walked briskly and carefully through the unknown terrain of the cave. It had looked like it was a flat and easy trek, but that proved to be not the case when the path turned past a corner and revealed a darker winding path leading down a steep hill. The shoal and rocks were shifting under each and every step the males made, but luckily, they did not slip and fall.

It had taken them a while to get a feel for the terrain, but as some time drew on, they seemed to get a better understanding of it. Xavier merely used his compass and line of sight to direct the both of them to a safe path.

“How many tides does it take to clean a shore?” Xavier rambled his fifteenth joke to Damien who was tirelessly following after.

“I do not know. How many tides?” Damien replied with an unenthusiastic reply.

“None because that is what brings in the pollution!”

Damien gave a pretty obvious sound of discontent in his fake staccato laugh.

“Oh, come on, you know that one was at least funny. The tide brings in all that yucky shit that people hate being around.” With that, he was listing them off his fingers one by one. “Jellyfish, seaweed, oil, kelp, land sharks, stingrays, mermaids, pirates . . .”

“Oh, come on, you know mermaids do not exist. How many times does the crew need to tell you that your tale of discovering a mermaid was in fact false and that they do not eat human brains and impersonate the ones that you love to get closer to you?” Damien was exasperated, already at his limit with Xavier’s jokes and silly remarks.

“No, they are real! The mermaid that appeared before me had blood pouring out from the corner of his lips, looked exactly like Dean, and was trying to eat my brains! You all were there!” The older gent was being indignant about the ordeal, but Damien actually knew the truth behind the whole thing.

As a prank on their captain a few years back, they all dressed Dean up as a mermaid with tendencies of eating human brains. Anna just needed to get some red dye frosting that looked like pieces of brain matter on his cheek, an invented mermaid tail that Olivia gladly loaned to them for a price, and Aden’s last touches of dragging Xavier out of his cot at three in the morning with the best acting skills anyone could ever see. Of course, Aden would never act like that again, but it definitely helped in aiding the prank’s cause.

“For the last time, it was a joke.” Damien shook his blond locks while his counterpart huffed out in ignorance.

“You’ve been brainwashed by those mermaids, and I, for one, will not fall under the same tactic.” The blond merely sighed and squinted ahead into the darkness. The steep hill that they scaled down was long past, but they now had another predicament coming.

“Whatever floats your boat, oh, brother o’ mine,” Damien replied before pulling on Xavier’s forearm to stop him. “Did the tunnel just get smaller?”

Xavier raised his compass up and pressed a button on the side. A small light encompassing around the rim of the directions shifted to a narrow line of light, pointing north where they were now heading.

“That is the predicament,” Xavier murmured before turning to his partner. “Want to send our little feathery friend ahead to see if it is even safe to continue this way?” 

Damien looked to his baby eagle before quirking an eyebrow. The white fluff ball easily jumped off the blond’s shoulder and bounced off into the darkness.

Meanwhile, it left the two guys alone with nothing better to do.

“So . . .” Xavier started slowly, getting Damien’s attention, “a nun, mercenary, and pirate walk into a bar—”

Damien dropped his head into his palm. “Oh, for the love of . . .”

۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞ ۞

Aden was trudging along in the dark cave followed by a happy Charlotte holding a makeshift lease for the robot Great Dane. Luckily, they, being Cesium and Charlotte, were able to persuade Aden of just exploring a little bit of the cave before heading back to camp. The male was not happy though as he cracked his stick unevenly on the ground to check for surprises along the way.

“How much longer should we go, Cesium?” the girl asked exuberantly despite Aden’s dark glare. “Cesium? Cesium?” She stopped to look him over while Aden continued on.

“Bloody hell, how the hell can it still walk when it’s sleeping?” he muttered a darker complaint that Charlotte could not hear after that but, regardless, dropped it to avoid any more confrontation.

“I think it might have gone into power-save mode. It has been a while since its last meal.”

“Bloody hell.”

The two walked in silence for another short break before the boy with the stick finally stopped in his tracks and abruptly turned. “Are we done with this child’s play?” 

The girl just stuck her tongue out, easily walking around his figure to step farther into the darkness. “This isn’t child’s play. What if Cesium knows this is our way back to the camp? Besides, last time I checked, it was like having an adventure.” 

Aden did not venture a response to her but just listened to her ramble now. He was exhausted from all the climbing, jumping, running, and work he had to do just in this “adventure” as she put it. “Last time I checked, it was a survival of the fittest rather than an adventure. Let’s meet up with Damien and Xav at camp.”

“Oh, all right already!” Charlotte stopped, swerved around, and walked back to where the boy was.

“This was already a bothersome situation, Rothschild, or should I say Lionsheart?”

“Just because Cesium got lost, that does not make it bothersome, and would you knock it off! I have a name.”

“No, I’m pretty sure it does. And yes, I do know what it is, ‘Char, well, you know.’”

“Is not!” she exasperatedly yelled back at him, already fed up with his attitude against her.

“Is too,” he replied just as heatedly.

There was a loud crackling sound as the girl took a step toward her partner and saw the outline of him wince at the sound. She, however, felt the rush of gravity all around her as the ground gave way underneath.

“Charlotte!”

The roar of wind and dripping of water rushed through her ears as she propelled farther down into the darkness. It was only a few seconds later when she finally crashed into what she assumed was an underground water reservoir. She struggled as she swam back up to the surface of the water, but two strong arms wrapped around her midsection to bring her up. She gasped for air when she finally broke through to the surface. Her arms went to grasp around his torso once again as she was reminded of her earlier fright with the tree. 

“If this is your way of getting me to hold you in my arms, it is obviously not a very good way of doing so.” She heard the familiar husky sound of her partner swimming behind her. He was floating, hoisting both of them up to the surface while Charlotte was holding the lease to get the Great Dane into her arms.

“I wasn’t trying to—” she started immediately before feeling water go into her lips. She struggled until Aden situated her to float on her feet and then moved around her to help support the robot.

While they were floating and swimming through the dark tunnel into who knew where, the small space that they were in suddenly expanded into such a huge space where the walls appeared domed and man-made. The two cautiously looked around their surroundings before floating past a huge rock corner.

Charlotte and Aden watched as the area they were in went from barely any light to an explosion of strange neon-colored lights. It was a soft afterglow, ambivalent to look at, and made the room shine slightly.

They swam slowly over to the closest spot of land they could find before getting the robot dog out of the water. Charlotte and Aden both pushed the mechanical beast up, and when the mechanical beast recognized the dry surface, the Great Dane padded its way up. As it collapsed upon the bank, it started to twitch violently. Aden merely went to help Charlotte up onto the shoreline when she noticed his shoulder tensed.

“You’re injured,” she replied with concern, and he shrugged her complaint off.

“You’re going to need help getting up on the bank,” he stoically replied before coming up behind the girl to lift her up.

Much to Charlotte’s chagrin of getting picked up, she was trying to assess where the male was injured. She could easily tell from his movements that he was injured near his right shoulder because he was heavily relying on his left arm for guiding her to the land. His right arm was tense, and his hand was squarely tense on her waistline.

It was there that the two paused to look up at the ceiling of the cavern. It was spacious, deep, and filled with different stones producing a glow that was not humanly possible.

 “What is that?” Charlotte gasped out while Aden swam toward her sitting on the rock cluster.

“Rocks with glow worms—possibly. They only appear in dark damp areas but are known to be a global phenomenon,” Aden explained, and he swam in front of her to check out her own injuries.

She reached over to Cesium before patting its head affectionately as Aden checked her ankles. 

“Did you hurt yourself in that fall?” he replied lightly, touching her ankle and rolling it before moving on to the next one. He checked all the possible areas that he knew could have possibly been injured or sprained.

“Ouch!” she yelped as soon as he applied pressure to her wrist and palm.

“From falling or oaring?” he smirked at her from under his lashes, and she stuck her tongue out.

“I will never oar again in my life. That was terrible!” she complained aloud. 

Aden merely grunted before floating up to her right side and pulling himself up with just his left and right arm. His right arm was tense as he brought himself up, but she could tell he had probably bruised it on the fall.

“Are you all right? Let me see your arm—” 

He waved her off before commenting on her first complaint. “That’s unfortunate,” he grunted before collapsing on his back in exhaustion. “We still have a six-hour trip heading back to the Phoenix that you still need to help with.”

“You honestly cannot expect to oar back in your condition, are you?” She gave him an aghast expression. Her face must have bemused the gent beside her because he chuckled to himself.

“You must be really naïve to think this will slow me down. It’s just a bruise.” He merely lifted his left arm up and over his face to cover his eyes from the glowing lights. “I just need a couple of hours to rest.”

Charlotte stared at his profile in the glow of the worms, remembering her dreams from before. She did recall one that had just the two of them in a bright cavern like this, though he was forlorn and trying to find a way to save someone from their fate. She was lost in her own thoughts that she didn’t notice that he glanced at her from underneath his arm.

“Like what you see?”

“What?” Flushing at his comment, she quickly turned to look up at the ceiling. It was one thing to be staring at someone to make sure they were all right, but her thoughts took a sudden drop as soon as she saw his countenance in the glow. He was an attractive man, possibly even the same age as her, who seemed experienced in just about everything. She never would admit to herself that she still had dreams of him whispering her name for her alone and steal soft kisses on her neck—but she knew that would never happen in real life.

She stared up for the longest time, trying to think of anything than the guy beside her. Somehow, she found herself imagining the life of a worm and how it felt to glow for an entire lifetime—only it would glow for an entire life and lose its glow as its life continued to its sad end.

“What are you thinking about?” Aden said quietly beside her. It almost scared her off her rock when he spoke up, but she managed to keep her bearings.

“Just that this place seems familiar but also . . . I was thinking of how life is short for many things.” 

There was a short pause between her sentence and the palpable silence of the cave before Aden bothered to speak up again. “I’m surprised you even thought that deep.”

Charlotte narrowed her eyebrows and flared her nostrils at the comment before turning to face him. “For your information, I am smart. It’s just in the past four years, I haven’t been keeping up with my studies because of what happened to my family. I used to be in the top five percent of my class.”

Aden slightly moved his arm from his eyes briefly, hiding the dark look that encompassed his face. “I can tell when you’re lying.”

“Okay, so I was trying to embellish, but I was in the top ten percent of my class! I have awards from back when I was twelve. My uncle had all my stuff on display for some time, but after the attack, I do not know what became of it.”

Aden turned his full attention to the girl staring at him earnestly before buying her statement. “Surprisingly, I believe you.” This statement got a “hey!” But Aden ignored her jib and continued with his train of thought. “How big was your graduating class?”

Charlotte paused by tapping her index finger to her chin. She was counting off a couple of numbers in her head before finally having an answer. “We started out with fifty students, but we had almost half drop due to pirate raids, family dependence, and work. We had a total of thirty-four that graduated in my class. I was ranked thirty-first by the end of it all.” She paused before chuckling quietly. “I never would have imagined passing as high as I did without the help of Olivia. She really kicked my butt into high gear.”

Aden smirked at this, “Cheric has a certain flare for getting people to do what she wants.”

The eighteen-year-old girl deadpanned. “It was either top ten percent or having her drop buckets of pencil shavings on my workstation for the rest of our lives. Luckily, she has not held me accountable for recent events.”

The boy hung his leg into the clear water and circled it a few times. “She assumed you were dead.”

“Everyone assumed that I was dead,” she replied sullenly, “I suppose it is lucky my life was spared. My brother though . . .Is he alive? Am I a terrible sister for not being able to ascertain that? What if he’s all alone in someplace far worse than I.” Charlotte’s dark expression looked to the earthy sands on the rocky platform before five seconds of silence lapsed between them. Her brother disappeared, and the only clue she had was a dream she had informing her of his reluctant betrayal.

 Charlotte shook her head to rid herself of the morbid thoughts, and as the water droplets from her hair shook from her strands of soaking wet auburn hair, she finally smiled. “I’m incredibly lucky since you’ve been protecting me in my family’s place.” Aden turned his face abruptly away at the mention of her family, having a set jaw as she spoke. “It is like every time I get close to a body of water, somehow in some way, shape, and form, I find myself falling into it, and you are there for the rescue. I do not know if it was providence that brought that upon me, but thank you, Aden.”

The male stared at her for the longest time. A feeling of uneasiness slipped into her consciousness as she felt his eyes stare into her own. 

“What’s wrong?” 

“Say that again.” He faced the girl beside him.

“Say what again? That I am a nuisance or that I can’t seem to get my bearings whenever I’m near an ocean of water?” Charlotte shook her head and turned her attention up at the ceiling. The bioluminescent glow of the worms warmed her up from the slight chill she was starting to get.

Aden noticed her slight shiver before trying to position himself back into a sitting posture. “Both are true, but no.”

The eighteen-year-old girl merely let her head drift lightly to the left side as if inquiring more about his response, but seeing Aden move up again caused her to react as a mother hen would to its youngest.

“Hey, you should lie down and rest!” The auburn girl began to fuss over his well-being. She brought one of her hands up onto his chest to lightly push him back down while her other hand went to fix a strand of black hair that messily dropped in front of his forehead. With each gesture she did, he merely just watched her. 

“What?” she inquired finally.

Although his right arm was objecting, he willed himself to caress the girl’s cheek lightly. His left hand was already moving to her hand that went straight to his chest, willing him to lie back down. She froze at the contact, but that did not stop her from giving one of the most bewildered looks possible.

“Say my name again.”

“Have you gone delusional?”

Aden brought his head slightly forward to stare into the girl’s hazel eyes intently before his forehead lightly tapped hers. “Charlotte.”

The girl in question wanted to pull back, but she was frozen underneath his gaze. Further, she realized that this was one of the first times he actually called her by her given name without a rude comment straight after. Further, she could not pinpoint a time that he had ever called out her name without a dire purpose.

“Why are you being so insistent about names all of a sudden?” She could feel his breath as he leaned closer in toward her. Emerald eyes stared intently into her wide hazel ones as he gave slight pause in his movement.

“Just say it already.”

“Give me one good reason why I—” She was going to chuckle at the whole situation of it, but as her lips were trying to form the next words, he had pressed his lips lightly on her cheek, effectively rendering her speechless. It only lasted for a brief second, pulling back slightly and staring deep into her eyes.

“Say it.”

Charlotte shivered at the close proximity he was creating. “Aden.”

His right hand that had been caressing her cheek and strand of auburn hair had moved just underneath her jawline and neck, tilting her into another one of his kisses. He was slow at first, lightly applying butterfly kisses to her cheek and neck, then watched her eyes drift slowly closed. He could hear the gasp she made, though she did not pull away from him as he ventured forward with his irrational hormonal behavior. 

He noticed that his arm agonizingly brought him back to reality just as her free hand went to his neck for support. He pulled away from her. She, at the same time, flushed a deep red and slightly turned her head away to regain her composure.

“I promise to protect you,” he spoke softly to her, closing his eyes and wishing that he could just stay where they were, exactly like that.

“Aden, do you—”

Suddenly, a light from up above shone through a tunnel near the top of the cavern. It looked like a lantern exploring the area, but it never shone down. Aden stopped to look up where the new light came from, and Charlotte could hear the familiar rumble of their other two companions.

“The nun was carrying a bottle of gin. How is that holy?” Damien’s voice perpetuated the cave, and Xavier’s voice carried over just as easily.

“Because her flask had a hole in it!” Xavier laughed full heartedly, but Damien had not. In fact, no one in that cavern did.

“Xav, your jokes are something I do not miss,” Aden replied resolutely up toward where the other two were while Charlotte waved her arms up and down to attract their attention without giving away her flushed face.

“Hey, Damien! Xavier! We’re down here!”

There was a moment of confusion with the lantern as it haphazardly flew around the top of the cavern, trying to find the origins of their voices, but Xavier leaned himself out of the end of the tunnel where they were at to see Aden and Charlotte sitting with a Cesium sleeping beside them.

“Oiii! You blubbers were here all along? Damien, do you have any rope?” The older male waved down to them before turning back into the tunnel they were in.

An excess amount of rope was thrown down, just long enough to hit the rock cluster where Charlotte was sitting at. She grabbed the rope and wrapped the first rope around Cesium’s torso and signaled for Xavier and Damien to heave the dog out first. 

Their comedy show lasted for quite some time, seeing the two older brothers struggle to bring the hundred-and-forty-pound dog up to where they were at. After some time, the rope was dropped back down.

Aden grabbed the rope while the auburn girl reached over from her sitting position to his now-extended hand. Taking it, she looked at the rope and then at the person holding it, seeing his emerald eyes harden as he looked down to her.

“Ready?” he dully replied to her, and she nodded. 

After all that falling, she wasn’t that afraid of the fall now. Charlotte still clung onto him despite him being in pain. When she thought it hurt him too much, she loosened her grip, and in response, he tightened his grip around her waist even more. With one look, she went back to grasping his body. He merely wrapped the rope around his and her waists, tying it in a tight knot, and used his left hand to hold on to the rope. 

As Damien and Xavier both pulled the two of them up, Charlotte could not help but try to find someplace to stare at other than the man with her. She could tell his arm was killing him, but her mind was reeling from the past incident that happened not ten minutes ago.

His words rung softly in her mind’s ear as they continued farther and farther up: “I promise to protect you.” Looking at the remnants of the ceiling where those magical glow worms were, she discovered that something was off as they scaled higher and higher up. 

Charlotte knew she recognized this area from somewhere. This was a similar version of the same cavern, but not quite the same, that she dreamt of a year and a half ago when she was with Simone and Elliot.

Those were not glowworms like Aden briefly mentioned. They were stones, stones that were embedded in the bedrock of the cavern, glowing inhumane colors from the spectrum.