Rift

Chapter 12: First steps

CELARA FAERIUTH'S POV:

We departed as soon as everyone was done with the introductions. We walked for several minutes without anyone uttering a single word. I wouldn't say they were relaxed when they met me, but now they were certainly more on the lookout compared to when we were still talking.

The older man, Terry, was walking ahead of me, and I could see his head continuously making small movements from left to right and vice versa. Christopher and the other guy, Eric, I think, were arranged and focused respectively on my right and left side, whilst Lemmy closed the line. In the center of this formation, together with me, there were the girl and the kid.

It looked like they were protecting the most defenseless of the group, but why was I with them? If I was right in believing that they didn't trust me completely, then wasn't letting me so close to their weakest members a false step?

Now that I was looking better at the girl, Evelyn, I noticed that she had a knife attached to her belt, but it was not stored in a sheath. On top of that, looking behind me I noticed that Lemmy was watching me, even though he quickly averted his eyes, pretending to pay attention to something else.

So much for my new group of allies. Well, I guess this is normal, looking at our surroundings I can assume that there are not many people around. I've read about singular individuals or even small groups of people that secluded themselves in isolated places and disdained any contact with outsiders, going even as far as attacking them on sight, at times. I wonder if there's a similar factor at play here.

Anyway, this wasn't the right time to let my mind wander, if they were being so careful, maybe we were in danger. One step at a time, we left behind the civilized area we were in, and the further we got, the more reassured they looked. At some point, they began walking more freely, without paying too much attention to maintaining a composed formation. Christopher even went closer to Terry and mumbled something that I didn't hear.

"Hey, Cheryl, sorry if we made you worry." It was Evelyn who spoke, approaching me from behind and tapping my shoulder with one hand, holding hands with the quiet kid with her other hand in the meantime. She was a little shorter than me, and had straight, fair hair, although a little messy and dirty at the moment.

"No worries, I was just a little surprised. I didn't expect all of you to become so serious so suddenly. I was beginning to think all the journey would be like this" I told her, smiling and showing myself relieved. Truth be told, it was probably better for me if we talked as little as possible in order to avoid any possible slip-up on my part. On the other hand, though, I'm a sociable person and I like to engage in conversations even with people that I'm not too familiar with, so I don't know how well I would be able to adapt if they really behaved like that all the time.

"Eheh, we can be quite careful at times, as you might have noticed. But there's no need to worry, if something dangerous pops out, those four will take care of it in no time." She smiled back while saying so, but I had the feeling that she wasn't being completely honest. Maybe that was because I knew that they had lost a member of the group in a fight just yesterday.

"I see you have a knife with you, aren't you able to fight as well?" I asked, trying to notice if she would give me the same feeling with her next answer.

"Not at all, you should know that owning a weapon doesn't automatically make you a master with it" she said, taking it and showing it to me. I was no expert, but I could easily tell that even if someone were to try to use it as a weapon, it probably wouldn't be very effective. It was clearly in bad condition, with green and brownish stains along the edge. "And on top of that, this thing is so damaged that it would surely break if I tried to use it in a real fight. Here, look" she continued explaining while lending it to me to let me get a closer look at the blade. It was blunt, and there were small cracks here and there, even the tip was slightly ticked. "I just use it when I cook or when I have to harvest some plant whose stem is too hard for my bare hands" she concluded.

"You are right, I don't think you would be able to do much harm to anyone with it" I said, giving the knife back to her, who calmly put it back on her belt.

We kept walking for a few hours, making small talk, mostly with Evelyn. We just took a short break to put something in our stomachs and to relieve ourselves, once we reached a small elevation. Terry suddenly stopped once we reached a little clearing surrounded by some trees on top of the hill and turned to look at us, nodding. Everyone began to put down what they were carrying and began to take stuff out of their bags to eat. It was clear that they were used to this, on the contrary, I was slightly taken aback at first, but quickly mimicked their actions.

Without paying too much thought to the choice, I took one of the things that were in the bag that Christopher handed me, and began to peel the transparent layer to reach what was enveloped inside of it, as I saw the others were doing. I took my time to look at all of them to see what they took. Apparently I chose the same thing as Eric and Evelyn.

I might have been too obvious while looking at them because Eric returned the glance. "Hey, have you been without food for so long that you're having a hard time believing your eyes?" He said jokingly. Hearing that, the others began to turn in our direction.

"You are quite skinny, young lady, you should really put something under your teeth before you collapse" Terry interjected.

"Yeah, as you might have noticed, we tend to walk a lot" Lemmy added.

They looked to be more well-disposed towards me compared to this morning. "It's just my constitution, but I'll make sure to eat enough, so don't worry for me" I answered cheerfully, turning then to Terry specifically to rectify one thing. "And please, just call me Cheryl."

He just nodded, and I began to eat, after briefly checking the food I had in my hands and concluding that it didn't resemble anything from my world, not anything that I knew of, anyway. After the first bite, a burst of sweetness filled my mouth, the taste wasn't too different from some of the sweets that I was used to, but it looked like the person who prepared this really exaggerated the sugar.

I then decided to take a walk to reach a clearer area approach the hillside to take a better look at our surroundings, noticing in the meantime that Christopher was not with us. From the top of the slope, I could see the landscape below very clearly. If we kept walking in the same direction, we would end up in thick woodland, not exactly the safest route, but there was something else that I found more important. It was the fact that the more we walked, the more this world looked to be healthier than I thought. It still felt quite colourless compared to my homeland, but the environment here was way less miserable than it was around the rift.

Maybe I've made the right choice when I decided to remain in this world to look for allies. I should have known better that you can't really judge a region where a rift is located to determine the overall condition on a larger scale. I can't be too hard on myself, though, the knowledge that I have about this topic is shallow and purely theoretical, but this is my first experience on the field. I should be happy that I managed to come this far, still alive... and free.

I heard some heavy footsteps of someone drawing near from behind me while I was absorbed in my thoughts, looking in the distance. It was probably someone coming to tell me that it was time to resume our journey.

"Celara! Behind you!" A voice shouted. I recognized it, but it felt too distant and distorted for me to be able to associate it with the person it belonged to. Whoever it was, why would they get behind me and then warn me about it? I quickly made some steps forward and turned to look at who was giving me bad feelings, making my skin crawl. What I saw in front of me was enough to make me lose strength in my knees.

"Did you really think you would be able to escape?"