Caine cleared his throat, making everybody else's heads turn towards him. "Now that Zooble and Y/N are back, let's discuss the next adventure! This one will be a bit different, so keep your ears open. Today will be a nature-themed hiking adventure! Bubble and I know that you have been stressed lately with whatever your heads worry about, so today you will be teleported to a digital forest that Bubble and I made and you'll just have a relaxing time in the woods! So? How's that? Fun, right?"
Silence rang through the tent before Jax started speaking, his voice tinged with agitation. "Sounds boring."
"Great! Anyway, let's start!" With a snap of his fingers, all of us (besides Caine himself and Bubble, obviously) were teleported inside a digital-looking forest, with a dirt trail to follow, like a regular nature walk you would go on, which seems pretty chill...for now. Who knows what Caine has planned, unless it truly IS a peaceful adventure this time around.
"So...is this just going to be a normal adventure, or...?" Pomni muttered, her eyes darting around nervously.
"God, I really hope so," I spoke to her. My eyes darted around the nature that surrounded us. From the looming trees, to the digital birds that were singing on each of the high branches, the dirt path that was spread in front of us, and the flowers that seemed to be blooming at the stump of certain trees.
"Let's get this over with," Zooble huffed. "Let's just start walking and see where that gets us."
All of us agree with their words and start following the dirt trail in front of us. The trail was pretty twisty, and there were many corners or curves, but everything seemed pretty peaceful. The first couple minutes were filled with silence as we were walking, not sure how to start a conversation. So, being the person I was and hating the awkward silence, I decided to break it.
"Do you guys think that this will actually be a normal adventure? Or does Caine have something secretly up his sleeve?"
"I think it will be normal," Ragatha responded. "I have faith that Caine won't put us through something that will likely scar us."
"Think again. All he does is either scar us or make us fight against each other with teams or whatever," Zooble countered. "It's one of the reasons why I don't do these little 'adventures' anymore."
"Yeah, but maybe this time will be different. Look at the plants and wildlife around us! Do you think any of this could turn out to be something negative?" Ragatha questioned while looking around the area we were walking in, which was honestly beautiful. From the trees on each side of the path, to the random spurts of wildlife here and there (like a squirrel, birds, or even a fox every now and then), I really hoped that Ragatha would be correct.
"Ooh, a pretty butterfly," Kinger gawked as a monarch butterfly landed on his shoulder, the purple robe complimenting the orange and black wings of the butterfly.
"Wow," Gangle gasped as she stared at the monarch. "It's so...beautiful."
"Yeah," I agreed as I slowly walked over to Kinger so I could look at the butterfly close up.
"Maybe this will be a peaceful adventure for once," Pomni spoke with a soft smile while staring at the butterfly, which started flying away from us and into the forest beside us. My eyes glanced over at Jax, since he was strangely quiet, and I would've assumed he would try to scare the butterfly off to piss us off or something. But no, he was just glancing down at the ground, staring off into who-knows-where.
While the group started walking again, I decided to stay behind for a moment to check up on Jax. Again, it's not like I actually care, but parts of me are worried that something is wrong and if anybody in this digital world is upset, I would obviously check up on them, like I did with Zooble before this adventure.
"Are you sure you're doing okay?" I questioned while looking at him with a raised eyebrow. That made him snap out of his momentary trace by blinking rapidly and looked at me, his neutral expression turned into a smug smile.
"Of course. I'm just bored that there's nothing going on. Like, there's no chaos, no blood, no gore, it's all boring. Now, why do you keep on asking me that? This is the second time, dollface."
"Because you keep on spacing out? It's not like you're special or anything, but if anybody seemed a bit out-of-it, it doesn't matter who the person is, I would still check up on them."
He rolled his eyes, though there was a hint of vulnerability in his eyes, even with the annoyance that was plastered on his face. "Uh huh. Sure. Anyway--" He looked around for a moment before speaking once more. "Wait, where did everybody go?"
I turned around to look at what he was looking at, and he was right. We were left behind. I knew I was staying behind to check on Jax, but I didn't about the repercussions of 'staying behind.'
"Um...I doubt they're far. Let's just start walking and following the path," I told him.
He let out a heavy sigh before nodding his head. "Yeah, okay. You're probably sadly correct on that. Let's go."
With that, we both started walking down the dirt path, silently hoping and praying that we weren't too far behind and that everything will be okay. Wait, now that I think about it, is there an end to this nature trail? It will have to end at some point, right? It won't just...go on forever until we're in a shitty situation or until Caine gets bored. Right?
But as we continued walking, the others were nowhere to be found. My heart was starting to quicken its pace as I internally started panicking and freaking out. I bit my lip, trying my best to not start hyperventilating in panic, knowing that won't help me.
Aching pain bloomed in my chest as my eyes darted from side-to-side, trying to calm myself down. It's fine, it's okay. Sure, you're with Jax (the worst person to be with in this scenario) but the others couldn't have deviated from the dirt path...right? So everything. Will. Be. Fine.
My heart kept on beating. The ringing in my ears slowly got louder as my body felt numb, not even the crisp spring air felt like it was touching my skin. It was like needles were slowly piercing my body, making my legs feel like jelly as I tried walking down the path. My breathing started to quicken as my thoughts started racing. What if we get lost? What if we're stuck here forever? What if this was part of Caine's plan? What if we die here? 'What if' scenarios continued playing through my head. Constantly. Never ending. Maybe I should just--
"Y/N?" Jax's voice cut my thoughts short, making my eyes start blinking again from spacing out for so long before glancing at him. When I looked at him, however, his eyes looked...concerned? No. I'm probably just seeing things. He can't possibly be concerned for me. He's probably just annoyed that I've been silently freaking out over something so minor. Yeah. That must be it. "Now it's my turn to ask, but are you alright?"
Am I alright? AM I ALRIGHT!? Why the hell would I be alright in THIS situation? How the hell is he staying so calm when my heart feels like it's pounding out of my chest, making me feel all lightheaded. I don't even know why he bothered to ask when I know he probably doesn't care. He's probably just asking for his own personal gain, which makes my blood boil, even with the needles piercing its way through my skin and into my nervous system.
Suddenly, Jax stopped walking and grabbed onto my shoulders, making me jump from the sudden contact. "Y/N, answer my question. Don't just ignore me."
Answer his question. Right. But what is there to answer? No, I'm not alright. But should I even tell him that when I doubt he even cared? Why did he also stop walking? We're going to be even further behind from the rest of the group if we're stopping. Which only made my heart rate quicken. Maybe I'm not in the right mindset at the moment, but who could blame me? We're lost, with no way of escaping whatsoever.
I heard a heavy sigh as a slight staining sensation blossomed through my cheek, making me snap out of my thoughts for the third time as my eyes widened. He slapped me.
"Snap out of it. Scratch the question I asked three minutes ago, you're clearly not okay," Jax huffed with a slight growl. "Look, this situation is worrying, but hyperventilating and letting your little thoughts run wild won't do anything. Just take a deep breath and don't overthink everything. You're not alone, I'm with you on this. Alright? Just take a deep breath and slowly explain to me when you're feeling right now."
I don't know whether I should even trust him at this moment, but I could care less since I need somebody to talk to or I'm afraid I will just go insane at this rate. My eyes were blinking slowly as my breath went in through my nose, and out through my mouth. Slowly. Trying to calm down my breathing. Trying to stop the needles piercing my skin. Slowly. Biting my lip and closing my eyes for a moment and slowly opening them once again, I tried to explain something--anything--without hyperventilating or letting my thoughts run wild once more.
"S-Sorry," My voice stuttered. "I just...I know th-this is stupid, but I'm just worried that we won't be able to catch up to them, or we'll be lost for who-knows-how-long or...something like that. I d-don't know." My thoughts weren't congruent enough to fully explain myself, and my heart was still skipping beats while thumping in my chest, making it hard to fully speak properly.
Another sigh left his mouth as he tightened his grip on my shoulders and looked at me in my eyes. "...Listen, we're going to be okay, alright? I never thought I would be saying this, but I understand what you're going through right now. But please calm down. Just a little bit."
My eyes glanced off to the side, but I slowly nodded. "O-Okay...thank you."
A soft yet sly smile spread on his face as he patted my back. "No need to thank me or get sentimental on me. Let's just go and find the others, alright?"
"Alright."
~~~
Hey guys! This chapter was actually pretty fun to write, and trying to write a panic attack scene was also pretty fun (even though I'm sometimes not the best at it). Also, I don't know how I just realized this, but I always seem to write pretty long paragraphs in this book LOL. I was looking over chapter seven to figure out where chapter eight was going (since I haven't written a chapter in this book in a while) along with seeing the first 3 paragraphs in chapter eight that I wrote a month or two ago and seeing how long each paragraph was, so I tried to continue that formula the best I could. I really hope you enjoyed this chapter! Have a wonderful rest of your day <3
-Sincerely, CB
