Lost

Chapter 14

*~ Future Plans ~*

- Ranboo's POV -

I shot up as I awoke from another one of my nightmares. The cold air hit me as I hyperventilated and tried to catch my breath. I closed my eyes and tried to slow my breathing.

"Ranboo, are you okay?" I opened my eyes and looked over at whoever was speaking to me. They had looked over at me but avoided eye contact. I don't remember who they are or how I know them. But I did know that I knew them in some way.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just had a nightmare." The other person looked back at their book and continued reading. The book looked familiar for some reason. I tried to recall who the person was, I knew I was close to remembering it, but I just wasn't close enough.

"You wanna talk about it?" The person glanced at me for a moment. This statement triggered some of my memories to return to me. I started recalling the conversation that we had before I had gone to sleep. They were fuzzy and unclear, but they were there.

"No thanks, I'm fine... To be entirely honest with you, I just want to forget the nightmare altogether."

"In my opinion, they only do more harm than good."

"Maybe, but if they happen regularly, then they might be something more than just nightmares."

"What do you mean by that?" The stranger paused for a moment, thinking about something before they spoke again.

"It's nothing, don't worry about it." Ah yes, the phrase "Don't worry about it." has always made people stop worrying and not just freak out more. I thought you were smarter than this Technoblade. Wait... Is that their name? I'm pretty sure it is. I'm glad I finally remembered it.

After Techno spoke, neither of us said anything else. They read their book while I stared mindlessly into the campfire, entranced by the soft licks and flickers of the flame. I heard Technoblade close his book but didn't pay much attention to it.

"Hey, Ran." I averted my gaze from the campfire and looked over at the pig. Ran? Were they trying to give me a nickname?

"Do you mind if I call you that?"

"No, not really. Just don't call me Ran all of the time. I quite like my name."

"Fair enough." They shrugged and faintly smiled.

"Did you want anything else, or did you just want to ask about a nickname." Technoblade grabbed their bag and pulled something out of it.

"Yeah, I do." They unfolded the object and placed it on the ground between us. It was a map, most likely of the surrounding area.

"This is the general area we're currently in." Techno pointed at the area around some mountains on the map.

"And this is where me and my group were planning on going before we got separated." They pointed at a village that was on the map. It was marked by a small house, and the map key said that the towns marked with that symbol had a population of less than 500. I wonder what kind of people live there?

"We're about a week's walk away if we went the way me and my group were planning on going. There's just one small issue, we're going to need to take a different route that's nearly twice as long."

"What, why?"

"I was getting to that. Just calm down."

"We're going a different way because there are a ton of rivers we would need to cross, and I don't want you getting hurt."

"Oh, I guess that makes sense, But I've crossed a lot of rivers. I think I'll be fine." After I said this, Techno glared at me, and I quickly looked away from them. But I could still feel them staring at me.

"Are you serious?" I was about to say something but was beat to it by Technoblade.

"Don't answer that." Techno paused for a moment.

"You know what, I'm not even surprised at this point." I felt Technoblade's stare fall off of me, and I turned to look at them again.

"I'm sorry-" Just as I was about to continue my apology, Techno cut me off.

"There's nothing for you to be sorry about, so you don't need to apologize to me as often as you do."

"Sorry."

"Ranboo, seriously." While saying this, Techno looked over at me, cocking an eyebrow while doing so.

"Right! Right, it won't happen again."

"Good, now then, as I was saying, there are a lot of rivers that we would need to cross, and I can't imagine the terrain in that area would be easy to traverse." I stopped staring at Technoblade and started looking at the map that they had laid out in front of us.

"But seeing as you have some experience crossing rivers, we can probably get away with crossing some of the smaller rivers I wanted to avoid."

"That's good."

"Yeah, it is, and once we get into town, I'm going to get you some new clothes."

"Or, well, make you some new clothes. I highly doubt that they have clothes your size, or even clothes that they're willing to give up. Hopefully, I'll be able to trade with them and get some decent fabrics as well as some needles and thread."

"That'd be nice. Hypothermia isn't very pleasant." Techno let out a small chuckle.

"Yeah, I didn't imagine it would be." Technoblade sighed.

"I'm going to study the map and hopefully find a faster way to go now. So you can do whatever it is that you do in your free time."

"As long as it's not something self-destructive or stupid."

"Okay."

"Wait, what do you mean by that!?" I looked up and glared at the pig that sat in front of me.

"I don't know Ranboo, what do I mean by that?" Techno looked up at me while saying this, and I quickly looked away. I'm not self-destructive. I'm just being safe, and if that means I need to cross a few rivers and nearly die due to hypothermia then so be it. But it's better than whatever will happen to me if I ever get caught by Smiles.

There was a long pause before anyone said anything else. At some point during this pause, Tecnoblade had stopped staring at me and continued to examine the map. I want to do something but there's nothing to do here except read, and I'm sick and tired of reading the same book over and over again. Maybe I could ask Technoblade if I can borrow one of their books. Yeah, that sounds good.

"Hey Technoblade, Can I borrow one of your books?"

"Yeah, sure." Techno, without looking away from the map, stuck their hand in their bag and fished out a book. They tossed it over to me as they continued staring at the map.

I moved over to one off the cave walls, dragging a blanket with me, and leaned up against it. I wrapped myself up in the blanket and opened the book. It was written in English. It was going to take me a little while to read it, but it beats reading my book again.

1210 Words: I forgot to mention this but, Ranboo's main language is Ender. Which means they would most likely read and write in Ender. And since I'm too lazy to rewrite any past chapters, Technoblade can now read and write in Ender. But he can't speak it or understand it when it's spoken.