Divided Attention

Chapter 8: To Dreams We Fly

"We're totally going the wrong way."

"Mizu we are not going the wrong way."

"I swear I've seen that tree before."

"They all look generally the same. We did not backtrack."

I sighed, wishing that I could be like Maki and randomly turn into a bead. My feet were sore, I had a headache from all of the fumes, and my stomach was growling at me, about to eat itself. Only now was the time that I thought about the fact that we hadn't eaten for quite a while. And when I thought about food, I just got hungrier.

I had no clue what Kitty was thinking. She just kept moving along through this horrible terrain, barely even afraid. I was curious as to what was going through her mind. Even though she had cried in front of us, she showed no sign of it. Her eyes weren't puffy and she didn't seem to be on high alert for guards, though she was still on a high alert for other creepy crawlies that might be lurking in the mist.

But I knew for sure that she had to be starting to get tired. Her steps were getting slower and her eyes seemed to be starting to droop. Both of us were tired of fighting monsters that kept coming at us. There were always something trying to eat us or attack us, and we kept fighting so that we didn't become a high class dinner for one of them.

Maki wasn't much of a help either. He stayed in bead form, probably sleeping through all of the things we were going through, which was really unfair. He was able to sleep while Kitty and I were forced to go through this hell of a place. Totally not cool.

The plains kept getting darker and darker, the clouds eventually turning into a black. I couldn't see much, only about twenty feet in front of me. Even so, it was hard to see where I was going because the fog on the ground had started to turn different colors and coated the ground. It was starting to play on my nerves a little bit, and the ground kept crunching underneath us as we made our way along. Though I couldn't see my footsteps, I knew that it would be very easy for anyone to follow us if they dared venture in here.

We kept making our way through the plains with occasional things attacking us; some sort of hybrid alligator thing that had bug eyes and antennae, more spiders that kept getting more and more legs and eyes, abnormal birds with a mix of leather and feathers for wings and metal for beaks. Each time we defeated a creature, they would sink into the ground and become one with the earth. With the spider webs, they would turn to gold, sprinkle to the ground and then do the same thing. It made me wonder what I would do if I died here. Maybe my corpse would just sink into the ground and it wouldn't be eaten. I liked that plan better than the alternative.

Eventually, we seemed to find a good place to rest. A bunch of rocks pointed upwards with some logs at the bottom stood in front of us. Kitty and I both gave each other a look, then immediately headed for the rocks. They were cold as we laid back on them, which was nice, and I couldn't hear any sort of rustling of creatures nearby. I groaned, moving up high enough on the rock that I was on so that my feet didn't touch the ground. Kitty did the same thing on another rock, looking up at the sky.

"It's so dark," she said.

"It really is," I replied quietly. When I looked up, all I could see were swirls of dark clouds. So far, it hadn't rained in the slightest, and I was thinking that they were just part of the terrain that we were in. Acidic clouds to match an acidic environment. It seemed to match all too well.

"I'm sorry," I heard Kitty tell me.

I looked at her and furrowed my eyebrows. "Why?"

She sighed, her hands on her stomach twiddling together. "For bringing you into this place. For getting us in trouble and everything. I'm just... I'm sorry."