City in the Clouds

Chapter 17

(*Drew's POV*)

It was morning and Flame was still lying on a log, unconscious. Pea was kneeling on the ground, sorting through our supplies.

"You didn't wake her up like you promised!" I glared.

Crystal shrugged. "She needed the sleep, trust me"

"She's going to be mad." I warned.

"At you, not me!" She scoffed.

"Why me?"

"She knew I wouldn't wake her up so she was counting on you to do that instead."

"That's not fair! I didn't know!

"Well that's too bad!" Flame sat up, rubbing her eyes. Despite having slept so long she still had dark circles under her eyes.

"Here's your breakfast!" Crystal said, handing it to her cheerily.

"What are you so happy about?" Flame grumbled. "Did you and Drew start going out behind my back?"

"That's right!" Crystal laughed, wrapping her arm around me in a head lock. "We're so in love! We've already decided to get married when we return home!"

"Why wait? I'm sure someone could do that in town." Flame remarked bitterly as she pushed her food around with her fork.

"Wait... Flame... it's..." I struggled.

Flame smiled weakly, "I know. We were only joking Drew. Stop taking everything so seriously." Crystal let go of me and walked away laughing.

I smiled, glad that she was almost all the way back to normal. I sat down next to her and hugged her tightly. "I only take it seriously because I wory about you."

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(Flame's POV)

Of course I was upset that they didn't wake me up, but that was all in the past.

They didn't and that's that.

"There's a town nearby, someone there might know where Amy is!" Crystal called as we ran through the forest.

"How close is it?" Drew gasped.

"A mile, maybe two. We should be able to make it in ten to twenty minutes- earth time."

"Earth time?" I asked, "Is time here different?"

"Yeah, the entire day is a few hours longer. A couple hours of day time and a couple hours of night time."

"That gives us a longer time to search." Drew remarked.

"Yes, and we need all of the time we can get."

"Well what are we waiting for?" I grinned. "Lets pick up the pace!"

I sprinted ahead of the other two.

"Hey, wait up guys!" Drew called, falling behind.

"Hurry up slow poke!" Crystal shouted back to him as she picked up her pace as well.

I laughed as I ran. This was the most happy, the most free I'd felt in such a long time. Lately I felt as if there was something dark weighing me down.

'Things will get better as soon as we find Amy.' I reassured myself.

Finally we broke through the dense forest right along the edge of a village.

"How long did that take?" I panted.

"About 5 minutes their time." Crystal said casually, as if we had just been walking in the park.