Rift

Chapter 14: Spectator

CHRISTOPHER MOORE'S POV:

Here I was, making my way back to my group after spotting absolutely nothing strange.

"I was pretty sure that someone was following us, though" I mumbled, kicking some rocks while I mulled over the sensation. "I guess I'm becoming paranoid like Lemmy."

The others were in the spot that I and Terry agreed beforehand when I decided to temporarily split up from them after getting the feeling that someone was coming after us. The first one to see me coming back was Eric, who gestured with his head, letting the others know as well. They looked at me, eager to know if I had managed to ascertain someone else's presence. In response, I just shrugged and shook my head, showing a slight uneasiness. They didn't look too pleased with my answer, though, and came to me in search of more information.

"You didn't see anyone?" Lemmy was the first to inquire.

"No, I guess that I was wrong."

"It's rare for your instinct to go wrong, though..." Terry said before looking down with thoughtful air.

"Nah, I always come up with a lot of hypotheses, many of which turn out to be wrong. It's just that I like to tell things explicitly only when I'm fairly satisfied with the conclusions that I came up with" I said, somehow trying to reassure them.

"Even if that's the case, this means that you really thought that someone was pursuing us, isn't that right?" Evelyn asked with a serious expression. It was clear that my attempts to convince them were failing miserably, as far as she was concerned, at least.

"It doesn't matter if Chris is right or not, we have to stay on the lookout anyway. Maybe this episode will push us to do so more efficiently" Eric intervened. He was assisting me, trying to redirect their uncertainty into something more useful, but the look that he gave me conveyed his worry about this situation, he too believed in my intuition.

On the one hand, I was pleased by the trust that they placed in me, on the other, I didn't want to be the reason for everyone to be concerned about someone or something that might not even exist.

"Eric is right, why don't we just put the matter aside for the time being? More importantly, where is Cheryl?" I asked, looking around and noticing that Celara still wasn't showing up even after all this talk.

"I don't know, she walked away as soon as she was done eating." The answer came from Eric, but Lemmy replied to him before I could say anything.

"Why didn't you follow her if you noticed that she stepped away on her own?"

"Why? Did someone follow you when you went to take a piss? She was probably going to do the same, why don't you go take a look yourself if you care that much?" Eric returned, visibly annoyed by Lemmy's apprehension.

"And what if she went to see or talk to some of her friends instead? Maybe the same ones that were following us until a little while ago." Even Lemmy looked to be irritated by Eric's half-assed attitude, and the fact that he had been awake for almost thirty hours certainly didn't help.

Even though I agreed with Eric when it came to considering Lemmy's personality slightly tedious from time to time, I had to admit that what Lemmy assumed just now somewhat made sense. Not the part about her friends, I pretty much knew for certain that she had no friends here, after all, but the fact that I sensed someone following us and yet I couldn't find them could mean that the target was her, and she might be in danger at this very moment.

"Ok, ok, calm down, you two" I said before things escalated without even a proper reason. Then I turned to Eric, who apparently was the last one to have seen her. "Which way did she go?"