The Vanished Kingdom

The vanished kigdom-trap

Audrey's fingers were curled onto a cold metal gun. She held it in a firing ready position with her index finger on the trigger and the four other fingers tightly gripping the handle. Her hands started shaking from the tightness of her grip holding onto the handle.

"Audrey," Ace said with a calm voice, "you can relax your hands a bit."

He carefully laid his hands on hers to loosen her grip a bit. The gun pointed forwards towards a tree that had a burnt mark in the centre to identify her target. Then Ace kept her other non-dominant hand on the other side of the frame aligning the two thumbs to point toward downrange. He motioned her feet so they were a shoulder width apart and told her to slightly bend her knees but not locked. When she was firmly balanced he commanded her to fire.

Audrey breathed in then looked straight into the target. She kept one eye closed and tried to focus on it but she became nervous and she couldn't focus straight, so the target looked blurry. Slowly she pushed down on the trigger and the sudden noise of the trigger startled her. After the trigger went off she slightly jumped, but Ace stood at her side and held her up straight.

"You alright?" He asked, concerned.

"Yeah I'm fine thank you," Audrey replied, straightening herself out.

They went to go check where she had hit, it turned out that she had missed the target by being a couple inches off to the left.

"It's not too bad considering it's your first time. Want to try again?" Ace offered.

Audrey nodded. She held the gun the same as before, but before she could shoot again Edgar's voice sounded in the distance. That made Ace sprint off to find him. Audrey stood there not knowing what to do, so instead she headed back to their cave where she awaited them. She found Thomas in the cave sorting out the berries, the edible ones from the poisonous ones. From a far distance she saw Ace and Edgar coming back to the cave. As soon as they came in they started panting since they had ran the whole way.

Once they both got settled inside Edgar exclaimed, "We found the water source, you all have to come quick!"

"Why do we have to come quick? And where is Gill?" Ace asked suspiciously.

Edgar looked to the side and thought for a moment, "uh, he is at the river but he hurt himself so we have to help him."

Ace didn't seem completely compelled, but then Thomas concluded, "Then what are we waiting for? I'll quickly pack up some things and let's go!"

Thomas was about to take the gun from Audrey's hand to keep it in a pouch, but Edgar stopped him.

"You shall not bring any weapons," he shook his head and put the gun back down.

"And why is that?" Ace asked while picking up the gun again.

"It-It's not necessary," Edgar spoke with hesitation while trying to get the gun from Ace's hand.

But Ace pulled back, "We will bring whatever we want, now quickly show us the way to the river, and Thomas, you don't need to pack anything, let's just go now."

Ace handed Audrey the one gun they had and the four of them set out to leave. Edgar nervously led them through a bunch of trees. They walked until the cave they slept in was out of sight. As they went on, it was getting drier the direction they were headed but they kept on going.

"Are you sure you know where we are going?" Ace asked Edgar.

"Uh yeah, it's just around here somewhere," Edgar said looking around while still walking.

Ace stopped after another ten minutes, "This is quite ridiculous! There is no stream or any sign of water anywhere! What are you playing at us Edgar?" Ace spoke with frustration.