Chapter 16: I’m Alive

Sinking further into the icy cold water, my eyes thrust open.

I’m alive…? Blue! Where’s Blue?! 

My eyes darting around, I see my sword descending deeper as the water around me constantly contorts, limiting what I can determine is real and fake. I must be directly below the plunge pool, and I can feel my body drifting further away from where I first landed.

After swimming down and grabbing my sword, I resurface, gasping for air. My vision clearing up, I take in the sight of the monstrous waterfall plowing down into the water. It must’ve been a fifty-foot drop, at least. 

"Blue! Blue, where are you?! Blue!!”

As I continue to twist and turn in the water, my eyes dashing around as I tread my arms to keep myself afloat, I keep calling out. Eventually, a voice cries out from my left.

"I'm okay! Ace! I'm okay!!"

Sighing in relief, I glance over and see Blue's hair poking out of the water.

"I saw a safe place where we can get out of the water before landing. Follow me!"

Blue starts swimming off, one hand in front of the other, toward land. Following Blue's lead, I eventually caught up to him as we reached the edge of the large body of water. As we plodded out of the water, our clothes drenched the ground beneath us. Beyond relieved to be back on land, I gazed back over at the waterfall, and this time, I noticed these enormous, spiky, dangerous rocks at the bottom of the waterfall.

"We got lucky,” I say. “If we landed any closer to the middle, maybe even a couple of feet, we would've died..."

Blue looks at the waterfall as he rings out his shirt, his sword dropped on the ground, "Yeah… I know. I was really hoping you wouldn't say anything about that."

Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I can’t help but laugh. After a few seconds, I hear Blue emulate the same reaction. What a crazy, thrilling, death-defying experience we just went through.

"Guess it wasn’t our time to die quite yet..." I say, noticing two rivers branching off from the pool of water we just fell into. "Look over there, Blue, it forks off."

Blue puts his shirt back on and then looks around, locating what I’m talking about before surveying the rest of the area. "This isn't good, Grace and Delta aren't anywhere to be found. They probably went off in that direction."

Quickly ringing out my shirt before putting it back on, I walk toward the two rivers. 

"Let's go check it out,” I say. “Maybe Delta was able to leave us another message there."

Blue jogs over to me as he ruffles his hands through his hair, trying to dry it. I guess it was kind of drying his hair, but he stopped once he arrived at my side.

"Right, let's hope so,” says Blue.

As we arrive at the spot where the two rivers diverge, I see another arrow pointing to the left on the ground. Relieved, Blue smiles while I crouch down to touch the arrow, dragging my finger across the top of it.

This was recently carved here. Delta may put on a tough act, but I'm glad she knows she can rely on us. She shouldn't be too much farther…

"She's really helping us out, isn't she?" says Blue.

I nod, "Let's go. We can probably catch up if we hurry."

While we begin running down the left river, a crow watches over us, perched atop a tree in the middle of the two rivers. As we run out of sight without ever detecting it, the crow smiles. It then flaps its wings before taking off into the skies.

It got more and more difficult for Blue to breathe the longer we ran.

"Stay on the lookout,” I encourage. “Keep your eyes and ears open. Even the quietest of sounds might help us determine their location.”

Cupping his hands around his mouth, Blue heaves in a deep breath, "Grace!! Delta!!!"

Swiping at his hands, I sternly exclaim, "Blue. Shut up. We still don't know what's out there, what killed Flora. Of course, we need to find them, but there could be a new danger around every corner, just waiting to pounce and kill us. We're the prey here, so keep that in mind when you think about screaming and giving away our location again."

Wallowing in his mistake, Blue quietly says, "Sorry–"

A scream then resounds from up ahead. We immediately pull to a stop, shocked as dust flies up around our feet. After making brief eye contact, we resume running, picking up the pace to run even faster. After another minute or two, we notice that the river will soon branch off into five separate streams. We both slow to a halt once more, catching our breath.

"Damn... we have no…. idea… which one…. Delta took…" says Blue.

"I don't see… an arrow from… Delta either…" I add, glancing at Blue and getting my wind back. "Okay, we can check two…. at a time… if we don't go too far. These streams are really close together. Just make sure… we can see each other through the trees…"

Blue points to the stream on the far left, "Got it… you take this one… I'll check the one next to yours."

We split up and began walking down the streams, checking around us. The bushes, the trees, the streams themselves, every nook and cranny we can find.

Eventually, Blue calls out to me, "I got nothing! What about you?!"

Shaking my head in annoyance, I shout, "Nothing here either! Next two... let's hurry!"

As we run back to where the five streams first branch out and run over to the next two, Blue hunches over, gasping for air. 

“We don't have time to be tired... let's go Blue!"

Exerting a groan, Blue drops his head down for a second before lifting it back up, willing to push and persevere. Jogging past me, Blue begins trekking his way up the middle of the five streams while I start heading down the stream to his right. Just as we did with the first two, we search and look and scan and inspect everything in sight.

Eventually, our efforts are rewarded, as Blue notices a shoe trapped under a rock in the stream, "Ace!! Get over here. This is the one!!"

"On my way!"

Willing to take a shortcut and receive some cuts, I barged through the bushes, cutting some of the twigs and leaves in the way. 

"What makes you say this is the path?” I ask.

Crouched down in the stream, Blue holds up a shoe, "I found this trapped under a rock. This has to be the way they went."

Gazing at the shoe, I’m both relieved and confused, “This doesn't make any sense; this stream isn't fast at all, and it's also pretty shallow. A shoe can't get trapped under a rock like this unless…”

My face goes pale.

"Ace?"

"Ace?!"

Frustrated with no response, Blue walks over to me and shoves the shoe against my chest, snapping me out of my trance.

"You with me now?! Didn't think I would be the one reminding you that we are on the clock here!"

I look past Blue, staring at the rock that I found the shoe under, "Sorry, I was just... never mind. Let's get going."

Not wanting to waste more time, I take off down the stream, and Blue follows behind me, having his own speculative thoughts.

There's no reason not to trust Ace, but back then, when I first heard that scream… why was Ace hunched over like that? He had his hand out as if he was trying to touch something. What was he doing back then? And what was Ace thinking about just now? Was it not important enough to share with me? I mean, he could've just spaced out for a few seconds. Or maybe… whatever he thought about just now was something he couldn't tell me...