Retro-cognition

Chapter 16 - The Next Step

Chapter 16 – The Next Step

Unique jerked up. She’d fallen asleep, and her dreams had been filled with nightmarish images. She wasn’t sure where they came from, but as she looked around in the dim lit room – she could still feel the hair rise on her arms.

Where was Sion? It was dark outside now. He should have gotten back by now.

“Sion?” she called.

When there came no reply, her anxiety increased. Something must have happened to him. It had been close to mid-day when they escaped from the Carnival, and the sun had been high on the sky. She stood up and walked outside. The moon and the stars was the only thing that lit up her surroundings. Forest noises reverberated from all around her.

A gentle breeze caught her hair, causing it to flutter around her head. It was cold.

In a weak attempt to calm herself, she thought of all these odd sensations that humans suffered through each day. Her stomach rumbled, and she cringed. She’d gotten somewhat used to the feeling of hunger, but the loud noises were far behind. It baffled her that her body could sound so scary without any notice beforehand.

Perhaps there was food inside the—

A sound startled her, and she jumped on the spot. As she turned around, she saw Sion crumble down on the platform. Unique hurried over to him and kneeled by his side. Her eyes widened at his pained expression, and she quickly scanned over his torn clothing to see if he was hurt.

His healing abilities made it difficult to spot where the problem was, but she took his hand and forced him to look at her.

“What happened? Where does it hurt? Who did this?” The questions rushed to Unique’s mind, and she couldn’t stop to think any of them over before speaking.

“Unique…” He struggled to speak.

“What? Talk to me. Please be alright. Can I do anything?”

“You can… shut up.”

She closed her mouth and leaned back on her heels. With loud groans, he rolled over and slowly rose to his feet.

“I’m fine,” he said and supported his weight on the side of the house.

“What happened?”

“I might have had a little meeting with Envy”

Unique gasped. “Did she do this to you?”

“No. I had to run pretty fast, and transporting, while running, often causes the destination to get skewed.”

“What do you mean?”

He looked away and mumbled something inaudible.

“Sorry, I can’t hear you.”

“I sorta might have transported straight into a few trees.”

Unique knew that it wouldn’t be polite to laugh, but the corners of her mouth moved upwards anyway. She tried to hide it with her hand.

“It’s not funny.” Sion stared at her with a small pout.

A giggle escaped. “It’s a bit funny.”

“No,  it’s not.”

By now, Unique couldn’t hold it in any longer. She started to laugh – she couldn’t explain why; relief just flooded into her body and replaced the grueling fear inside her.

“Stop it,” he mumbled.

But she couldn’t stop. The fit of giggles erupted through her, and her stomach muscles ached with every laugh.