Chapter 7
After the awkward moments between Azurite and me had finally settled, we had our packs set up and we were ready to travel. We needed to travel low key as not to attract attention to ourselves. So in other words we had to walk though I didn't complain, it wasn't like I was overweight or anything but it wasn't going to be tiring. Walking for five days straight was gonna be killer. As we set off I noticed Darian and Lakota were becoming real lovey-dovey. Which just made Azurite in a foul mood, he refused to talk to me. It hurt though, I didn't expect that. If we had truly been close friends like he said we were then why would he be like this, it didn't make any sense. I sighed and kept my mind focused on walking. It had been an hour since we had left camp and I getting quite tired. It seemed now we were getting somewhere. The bricked path, seemed to change as the distance increased between us and the camp, not only was the condition of the bricks poor but the surroundings too. The vegetation was dying, trees were a sickly yellow, strange markings claw and burn marks made their way into the path as we got deeper into the rainforest. Darian halted us.
"What is it?" I asked.
"We're not alone," He said. "They've been following us for quite some time but their gone and now something else is here. Something unknown."
"That's impossible." Azurite input.
"No it's possible, whatever is out there right now is about a mile away we have to pick up the pace." He sniffed the air, looking straight at me, then at Lakota. He turned abruptly on his heel and ran into the forest but not before saying, "Stay here." Silence became eminent. I shifted uncomfortably, looking at Azurite. He was eerily still as if listening for something. I heard something rustle inside the bushes. A brown and black stripped wolf leaped out. Its eyes pierced through me, it trotted over to Lakota and jumped up on her, it's paws on her chest, licking her face. She started laughing, petting the wolf's head. It stopped, looking at Azurite and growled. It paced towards him, Azurite unsure of what it was doing stood very still. It nudged him towards me pushing him until Azurite was practically hugging me. Then the wolf sat down on the ground became Darian.
"I'm a genius." He said, pulling himself off the ground.
"Damn don't do that, you scared the crap outta me." Azurite said.
"Come on I needed to break the tension between you two. I couldn't stand it and neither could Lakota, get back to the way things were before." He said, brushing himself off.
Azurite fixed his eyes on mine. "Look....I'm sorry about this morning. I don't know what I was thinking."
"No it was my fault if I hadn't made you the way you are none of this would have happened."
"Don't say that!" He snapped, "It's not your fault, you may not remember but I didn't feel this way about when you created me. I...fell in love with you a couple years ago." Again silence visited us once more. "I shouldn't have said that but it's the truth."
"I don't care, maybe I like you that way too." The thick wall of tension collapsed between us and we hugged. "I can't stay away from you." He murmured in my ear.
"I know."
"All right love birds now that your back to being your normal selves let's go. I wasn't kidding about that creature I have no clue what it is and I don't want us to run into it." Darian said.
"But it doesn't make any sense to how we wouldn't know what it is. We can identify any creature here." Azurite said.
"Unless it was just created." They said together.
"You mean the reaper now has my manifesting power too?" I asked.
"We have to hurry, cut our five day trip into three days." Our pace sped up ten fold. It grew darker and darker as time and distance increased. The weather became colder, clouds covered the sky, and being in a rainforest meant...rain. And lots of it. We ran into big cats of all types, jaguars, leopards and tigers. Lush plant life was thriving unlike the pathway earlier. I could tell we were getting closer to a healthy area. By the time we set camp everyone was soaked to the bone. Azurite manifested a house, very plain but it had indoor plumbing, beds and a roof away from the rain. That's all I needed. Azurite barely had the energy to make it. When I saw the bed, I nearly cried because I was so tired. I fell asleep almost instantly.