A New World | THE BIG FOUR: Book 2 ✔

26 : THE UNKNOWN STORIES

The four teenagers, after everything went well according to their plan, moved out from their location to find a secured placed to stay in for the night—or days or even weeks. If their friends hadn't found them... yet.

It was a sacrifice.

Surely, time is another tricky part of their journey.

"Alright." Merida cleared her throat. "Let us all be honest, shall we?"

She might be healed but Merida still feels the weakening of her body. Like, the surging blast from the nightmare still dwells in her veins—or maybe, it was just too traumatizing for her to take in.

After Rapunzel's healing, Hiccup was the most grateful of them all. He hugged Merida as soon as she open both of her eyes weakly and thanked the heavens that she lived. Merida, on the contrary, thanked Rapunzel of her doing—rather, flabbergasted of what the blonde possesses.

The cave was narrow and dark and a little bit mossy but it was a great hideout from the nightmare's watch.

The three nodded as they circled around a faint bonfire, feeling the heat penetrating their clothing in to their skins.

Rapunzel and Jack were seated together, their eyes trembled constantly from the sudden confrontation. Hiccup and Merida have the rights to know, too. Their secret.

"When—when did ya know you have this kind of power, Punzie?" Merida opened. "Oh, don't tell me, ya hiding it ever since the first time we met."

Rapunzel's heart thumped.

"Well... it happened when I've gone missing. Remember, the first night of the weekend?"

She gazed at Jack who'd been nodding the whole time Rapunzel spoke. Of course, Jack knew it first. Rapunzel told him the story.

"I went into the woods, passing through the clearing." She swallowed. "I know—I've seen it, I would have turn around and got back in to the beach house any minutes after... I have not gotten that far. But when I did, the path vanished and I was like placed into nowhere. And that's when it started."

Merida and Hiccup listened attentively but an itch creeps through their mind. The time they were attacked to the time they've seen their capabilities. All this time, they're not the only ones.

"And there's this voice... he kept whispering things at me. He helped me got away."

Hiccup unbelievably blinked his eyes.

"Wait—what? A voice, Rapunzel?"

"Yes!" Rapunzel nodded. "An old man's voice."

And there's a stretch of silence. Hiccup gazed back and forth to Rapunzel, Jack and lastly to Merida.

Hiccup knew he heard it too. He helped them also—gave them weapons, a bow and arrow and a flaming sword. Maybe, it is the same man after all. He helped Rapunzel... he is trying to help them all.

"I heard it too." Hiccup confessed. "Mer, remember, I asked you the same question? The voice in the woods."

"But I haven't heard any." Merida answered.

Jack's head gaped at them, his white hair swayed.

"Yeah. Me too."

Hiccup picked up the weapons seating between him and Merida. Jack and Rapunzel saw it the very first time they found them—the flaming sword, to be precise. It caught their attention.