Onyx

Chapter 24: Home

After an excruciating 20 minutes, they finally made it down the mountain. Rigel looked up and saw pathways. "Ludo are you serious right now?? We scaled down a massive mountain when we could have just walked down the path?"

Ludo scowled. "Rigel are you stupid?? We're busting you out not taking a nice hike down the hill. Alarms would have immediately rung out, signaling your immediate execution."

He had a point.

"Whatever."

Rigel looked away and analyzed their surroundings. They climbed down one mountain to just to stand on top of another one, though much smaller. The climb wouldn't be too bad, but that didn't mean he still wanted to do it.

"Okay so, if we keep walking forward we'll meet our military base and that's the last place we want to go to. As big as this place is there's only 2 exits. You can enter from anywhere but leaving is trickier. The first exit is right in front of the base, and the second one is behind the castle, but it's hidden....I know where it is though."

Ludo suddenly whipped his head towards Rigel. "Are you afraid of bugs?"

"What?"

"You know bugs...spiders, beetles, rats..."

"I don't think rats fall in the bugs category."

Ludo rolled his eyes. "Just gross stuff."

"I don't like them."

"Well thats unfortunate. Mentally prepare yourself...let's go."

Rigel felt like punching him in the face. He'd rather face the military base, than deal with creepy bugs and rats.

Ludo started walking towards the back of the mountain as Rigel reluctantly followed. He really didn't have a choice.

After about 10 minutes of walking, Ludo stopped and felt the side of the mountain. He put his ear up to it then licked the side.

Rigel winced. "You're actually disgusting."

"This is the place." Ludo put his hand on the spot he licked—gross— then chanted something in a strange language. After a couple of seconds the "rock" peeled away revealing a door.

Opening the door Ludo walked through motioning for Rigel to follow.

Rigel braced himself for spiders and bugs, but was surprised to find a perfectly clean hallway. "Didn't you say—?"

Ludo waved him off. "I just said that to mess with you. Now I know what to put in your bedding at night."

"You are the most insufferable-"

"We need to walk to the end of the hallway, that's our exit. Lets go." Ludo cut him off.

Rigel was ready to kick his knees in, but Ludo ran off before he got the chance to.

As they walked through the door at the end of the hallway, Rigel looked around and saw they were in the same woods he had entered from with Enzo, Neo, Reno...and Cassius.

Man. He really missed those three.

Rigel looked up and saw Ludo looking at him brows furrowed. "You okay there bud?"

"Yea I'm fine." he scowled.

"Okay so let's go."

Ludo started jogging away from the barrier, and deeper into the woods leading Rigel farther away from his home.

***

After about 3 hours of nonstop jogging, Rigel felt completely worn out. The thought of lifting up his leg was overwhelming. "Ludo I can't go any further I need to rest."