Chapter 2: Memories

“Fae help him out with the cape please.” Boris could see it was dragging across the floor. Fae came over to me and wrapped the cape around me properly. She put the hood over my head while she grabbed the dragging end of the cape and made a few knots to tie it.

“Is it too tight?” I shook my head as Fae tied the last knot around my waist. The cape wasn’t dragging anymore and was now covering my whole body, but left my arms and some of my legs were still exposed. After I was ready Boris asked everyone else if they were ready.

“Alright kid, we took care of most of the monsters up to this point. Just in case, stay in the middle of us as we walk. I’d rather not take any chances.” Leading the way Boris kept his hand on his sheathed sword.

Tristen is behind me with Amy, and Jace is to my right while Fae is closer to me on my left. She keeps trying to start a conversation but she can't find the right words to say.

“So who taught you how to talk?” Amy blurted out from the back, breaking the awkward silence. Fae and Jace looked back at her with surprise. It seemed like they were too embarrassed to ask themselves.

“No one.” I answered, looking at the ground while we walked. Fae started bickering at Amy about asking the question.

They stopped asking me things after that, honestly it seemed like my answer put them a bit on edge. While we were leaving the room with the giant flower I looked back. I wanted to memorize the whole scene as best as I could.

I’m glad I saw something as pretty as those orbs when I first opened my eyes. No matter what, this place was my home. If even for a little bit. Remembering the warmth of being cocooned in the plant, I smiled slightly.

The path we were walking on brought us to a staircase, almost as wide as the room we were just in. It took us up to the next floor, which had a completely different layout. Seeming almost like a maze with many different paths to take, and doorways to enter.

Lit torches were all along the walls, and there was a bit of plant life. Nothing more than a patch of grass and maybe a couple flowers in a few spots though.

We reached another set of stairs that took us at least 2 minutes to get through. The next floor was still a confusing maze, while similar to the last one, this floor had more wood structures instead of stone. This place is insane, if these people didn’t already go through it already I can’t imagine how lost we would be.

“We’re almost out, one more staircase and we’ll reach the entrance.” Boris said, looking back at me. I nodded. It didn’t take long to reach the next staircase and get to the top floor.

Once we got there it was just a big open space, if we didn’t come up from the stairs I would’ve just thought it was a cave. I could see a large opening in the wall, from where we stood it just looked like a really big light.

“Finally, we’ve been here for so long. Hey Boris, I think I deserve a raise.”

“You say that even if you just woke up after being black out drunk Jace.” Boris sighed.

“Okay but this time it’s true.” Jace said while jogging ahead of Boris.

“Stay in formation.” Tristen’s voice was a lot more hoarse than others. He’s the only one with a mask, I wonder if that’s what makes it sound that way.

“C’mon we took care of everything here, it’s just the entrance now. We should enjoy our victory.” Jace rebutted. I could hear Tristen click his tongue.

Jace started doing some weird dance, lunging his legs and flexing his arms while saying “we’re the best” repeatedly. I couldn’t help but chuckle at it. Everyone except Tristen was trying to hold in a laugh, but Boris didn’t even bat an eye. He made it seem like Jace’s antics were an everyday thing.

Jace looked turned to look back at us and his puckered joke face quickly turned pale.

“Amy!” He yelled.

As we all turned our heads towards her, what looked like a silvery spike was already impaling her chest. Blood started to seep from her mouth as tears started to run down confused face. She was quickly thrown against the wall, showing a spider-like creature with 8 sharp legs and a humanoid upper body with long black hair on its head.

The humanoid part of the creature looked like someone who hasn’t eaten in months. The gray skin it had was sunk in, showing all the details of its rib cage. Besides its spider legs, it had 2 long arms with 5 inch claws on the ends of them.

It’s whole body was gray, it’s mouth filled with fangs and it’s eyes glowing red.

“Fuck!” Boris shouted, while the creature let out a screech that sounded like it was the one that had been impaled.

Fae grabbed me, then everyone quickly jumped away from the monster and drew their weapons. To my surprise, Jace let off 3 arrows made of ice. I looked back and saw he had a whole bow made of ice that he definitely didn’t have a second ago.

“It’s at least an A class, everyone be careful.” Boris charged at the creature while his sword started to cover itself in raging flames. As he slashed at the creature it blocked boris’ sword with its already bloodied leg, it seems its spider-like parts were as durable as steel. Fae shot blades of air at the creature's head and body while it was trying to hold off the sword engulfed in flames.

The creature moved its head out of the way from the air blades but its body was still hit, leaving a long gash on its stomach. In a spurt of anger from being hurt, it blew Boris back 5 feet with its leg and threw itself back a couple feet.

Can they win against this thing? All of them look surprised, they definitely didn’t see this thing when they entered this place. How strong is an A class supposed to be?

“What the fuck is that?” Jace muttered while shooting five more ice arrows. The creature dodged four of them and caught one with one of its humanoid hands, it made a sound that sounded oddly like a laugh.

“We can figure it out later, just fucking kill it.” Tristen punched the floor and the rock under the creature erupted, shooting the creature in the air.

“Now, Aim for the body!” Boris aimed his right hand and let off a giant bolt of lightning at the creature. Jace conjured a 5 foot long icicle while Fae shot more wind blades, Tristen joined with a couple of high speed mounds of earth.

They got it!

Or so I thought, the creature shot a web from its abdomen towards the wall, and pulled itself out of the way. After all of their attacks hit the walls above, as the creature latched on to the wall on the left side and gave us a wide smile that said it was having fun. The creature let out another screech before locking on to Fae and me and jumping off the wall to make its way towards us.

After the thing reached the ground again, it was running towards us at an insane rate, Fae shot a couple more wind blades at it in a hurry, and Jace shot 3 more arrows. The creature dodged most of the arrows but one hit right in its shoulder, but it didn’t slow the creature down at all.

I don’t want to die from this disgusting thing, but what can I do? Boris and Tristen are running towards us as fast as they can, and Jace is shooting more arrows but none of them will make it before it reaches me and Fae. The creature jumped towards again, increasing its speed as it had its claws ready to kill.

Instinct kicked in. I put both my hands up, closed my teary eyes, and screamed.

“Stop!”

After a second I was surprised to not feel any pain. Opening my eyes I was confused to see the creature on the ground, trying to get up but it couldn’t. It seemed like something was weighing on it.

Immediately once I saw the creature struggling, Boris and Tristen had made it to us. Boris used his sword, this time there were no flames around it but the sword itself was a burning red. He cut off the creature's head.

Tristen took a couple seconds to erupt 7 foot walls made of earth and brought them together to crush the creature’s body slowly. The sounds of crackling from the spider-like body being crushed reverberated through the walls. After it was over, everyone had a look of dread on their face.

Fae fell to her knees and tears flowed out of her eyes while she sobbed.

“Jace, go get Amy’s body.” Boris said.

Tristen came over to Fae and helped her up. After Jace started carrying Amy’s body, we headed out the entrance. No one said a word.

Once outside, we were in a forest. I could see a carriage, a couple hundred feet away from the entrance with a couple horses leashed by some rope and a tree. The carriage had an insignia on its sides that looked like a golden 4 pointed star. Jace brought Amy into the back and covered her with a blanket.

Tristen got the horses and sat in the front to drive the carriage. Fae was sitting up front with him while crying as he held her. Everyone else was in the back, silent.

After a couple minutes Boris spoke to me with a monotone voice.

“We’ll be in the kingdom within a few hours, it’ll take us the rest of the day to reach the castle. Get some rest until then.”

I could tell he was holding back his emotion. He was trying his best to not look at the covered body, and failing every once in a while. Jace was sitting next to Amy’s body with his hands covering his face.