Running in a breathless state of desperation, I ran and ran until my body could not bare to take anymore. I was utterly horrible with direction, and at the current point in time I had been without food or drink for more than ten hours. Plopping down by a nearby tree, I took this as time to rest. With broken breaths and a fastened heartbeat, I couldn't help but wonder why I decided to leave. Was all of this really worth not being changed? Should I just have let Shizuka have her way?

    Slowly, yet painfully, a wail erupted from the very depths of my stomach all the way outward into the forest. What have I done? Trembling within the empty forest, sobs began to escape from my body and echo through the darkness of the trees. Radiating throughout the empty atmosphere, I sat and wallowed in my own pain and fear. Sadness seeping through my veins and exhaustion coursing through my body, my cries slowly led me into a state of unconsciousness.

~~~~~

Opening my eyes, the horizon laid out a portrait of orange, red, and fluorescent yellows. Moving my muscles, a few of my joints popped and a soreness shot through my back. Standing up, I took advantage of the moment and watched the sunrise. It was a quite marvelous sight to witness, as sights like these are quite rare to watch.

While watching the rare sight unfold beneath my eyes, I was absolutely enamored by the rich, vibrant color of the rising sun. Never had I ever seen something so beautiful in nature occur so naturally. Wishing to have someone by my side at the moment, my mind flashed back to Nicco. A knot of guilt formed in my stomach just at the thought of his name. Should I have gave him another sign? Perhaps I should have told him that I was leaving in person versus just leaving him a note. However, if I would've wasted anymore time just hanging around, I could've been turned into some kind of mechanic monster! Who in their right mind would ever think or such a horrid thing to do to other humans? That woman was a monster, a creature of her own insanity.

A tear trickled down my face at the thought of him. Believe it or not, I missed him. I never knew it was possible to get attached to someone with only knowing them for a few days and being quite honest with myself, I knew I had to get a grip on my emotions. It wasn't possible to grow feelings for someone that you barely even knew and here I am after knowing him for a short amount of time, contemplating whether I could make it out of here without him. My head shook as I realized how weak and vulnerable I sounded. Being honest with myself, I sounded absolutely pathetic. Get a grip of yourself Charlotte.

After watching the sun rise, I continued aimlessly hiking through the trees. Where was I to go from here? I don't even remember enough about my past to even make it back home, and that was if I even had one.

Being careful not to prick myself with tree branches, I did my best to avoid the foreign looking insects that swarmed within the forest. My journey through the forest prolonged for a few more dreadful hours before I began to hear a rustling coming from the trees behind me. Suspicious, I did my best not to make any noise and I made sure to check my surroundings before proceeding onward. An eerie feeling overtook me, like I was being watched.

Cautiously and quietly, I took light steps throughout the forest. There was no place to hide in broad daylight so if I was being watched, I had a pretty high chance of being spotted. Looking at my surroundings once more, I heard another rustling noise coming from behind me. At this moment in time, I was pretty much ready to run. My heartbeat went wild as I tried to come up with a quick survival strategy. As I was about to run away, an arrow whizzed straight past my head. Someone was hunting me.

As realization hit me, I knew that Shizuka was behind this. Even more shocking was how she managed to hunt down my exact location in such a short amount of time. I can't believe this!

Another arrow was shot and then one more and yet I still couldn't manage to track down the source that they were coming from. Taking cover behind a tree trunk, I noticed that the arrows had stopped. Beads of sweat dripped down my forehead as my heart rapidly pumped. Where were these arrows coming from? Cautiously scanning my surroundings, all I really wanted to do was shut my eyes and believe that this was all a dream. Since when have all of these crazy things suddenly become my reality?

A loud thump from behind interrupted my thought process as something was pressed against my head with great force.

           " Who are you and why are you here?" An unfamiliar female voice demanded.

           " I don't know where I'm at! Do you have a gun pointed at my head?"

          " It's not only a gun. It shoots out arrows as well and can turn into a bow if I want it to. I made it myself," the odd character gloated.

           " I don't care about your stupid creation!  Get it off of me!" My heart was beating at such a rapid pace that I was sure that it was either going to jump out of my chest, or that I was going to have a panic attack.

           " Not until you tell me who you are and what you are doing here," she pressed on. From her tone of voice, it was hard to tell whether she was going to seriously harm me or if she was just trying to scare some sense into me. I hoped for the latter but after she dug the gun deeper into my scalp, I was pretty sure she meant business.

           " Look, I just told you that I have absolutely no idea where I am at or where I am headed. I'm just traveling through, that's all."

          " For some reason, I just don't believe you," the girl said. My level of anger and frustration just skyrocketed. Forcefully, I grabbed the gun from behind my head and kicked the girl in the stomach. As I went to move, I realized that my foot had been caught on something. Staring down in shock, I realized that a chunk of ice formed around my foot.

           " Wrong move!" She warned. She pointed her gun at me and I saw an arrow fly out of it and straight towards my head. I managed to grab it just before it touched my skin. Snapping it in half, I swiped my hand through the air and a pixelated type of sword appeared. Its yellow glow really freaked me out, but what was even scarier was that it actually turned into a real sword! What in the world is this thing and how did I ever manage to obtain it?

           She pointed her gun toward me and began to shoot multiple bullets. Spinning the sword around in a circular-type motion, all of the bullets ricocheted toward her. She froze all of them and they fell to the floor like a bunch of ice cubes.

           " What do you want from me?" The girl screamed at me.

           " For you to STOP!" A strong force took over the area, and she flew back into a tree.

           She composed herself and stood up, her feline like eyes widened. " You're a....."

          " What? What do you possibly have to say after that? Huh? You want to threaten me again for no apparent reason?"

          Her jaw nearly fell to the floor." I can't believe it. You're a Breaker. This is the real, live thing. Ohmygosh, this is amazing," she rambled.

           " What in the world are you babbling about?"

          She smiled." You have a great power. My apologies. I was wrong to attack you. My name is Airilice," she said holding out her hand for me to shake. Having no clue what she was talking about, I figured that she must've escaped from an asylum of some sort. Reluctantly, I held my hand out and as I went to shake hers, she flipped me over. My teeth painfully chattered together as my head hit the ground forcefully.

           "What was that for?" I screamed at her. She had just pushed me to the limit.

" But for a Breaker, you're weak," she continued. "I won't attack you again, but you definitely need to step up your game or you won't survive out here. Got it?"

          " Yeah," I said, irritated. She held out her hand to help me up and like an idiot, I took it. This time she actually did help me, and I was actually somewhat grateful for that.

           Taking in her appearance, I realized that she was the type of girl that men would practically drool over. She had long,perfectly straightened, magenta hair that reached the end of her torso. She had big, magenta eyes to match and dark black eyelashes to give them a feline type of look. She had a fair complexion, and from a personal standpoint, she somewhat resembled a doll. Yet, her attitude was absolutely atrocious.

           " So what's your name?" She curiously asked, walking onward through the forest.

           " Charlotte," I grumbled.

           " Why are you out here?"

          " I'm running from someone. So it would be best if you didn't make a scene like that ever again."

          " So, in other words we better get a move on," Airilice said.

           " We?"

          " You're not gonna survive out here on your own. I barely survived out here and I've been out here for a few days. Barely any water or food, no hot guys. It's horrible!"

          Though I had a very strong sense of dislike for her at the moment, I couldn't help but let out a chuckle.

           " So do you at least know where you're headed?" She asked.

           " Nope. Just stopping at the closest place I can find."

          " Alright, let's get going then!" She said with a smile.

           For a few hours Airilice and I traveled through the woods. She explained what a Breaker was and why she assumed that I was one. I told her that I had never gotten the results of the tests that Shizuka had done on me, which she found quite peculiar.

Along with telling me a few of the things she enjoyed to do, she told me a little about her past. She told me that she basically raised herself and taught herself how to fight and survive. From what I could tell, she seemed pretty cool and laid-back person. She also managed to touch upon how she created her weapon and the mechanics that went behind it. She seemed to be a smart cookie as well. We conversed about Shizuka and how she wanted to change me into a battle machine. Then I told her about how nice Nicco was to me.

           " So you just left? Like that?" She asked, her jaw dropping to the floor.

           " I had no choice. Shizuka was going to hurt me!"

          " I know! But how could you just leave Nicco like that? I mean, you guys sound like a couple already! Like, you two just happened to meet and by fate you guys were soul mates! It's so cute!"

          I felt myself blush. " I had no choice. It's not like I wanted to leave him, but I wasn't going to stay there so I could die!"

          " But you like him, right?"

          " I don't know! I just met him. I feel like it's wrong to like someone you just met," I responded.

           She rolled her eyes. " Romeo and Juliet were married within days of knowing each other!"

          " And look how they ended up..."

          " Well besides the gruesome thought that they died, their love still lasted forever! And from how you described him, Nicco sounds like your Romeo!"

          I felt myself blush again. Thank God the sun was set so she couldn't see me blush.

           "Man, it's starting to get dark again," I said, trying to change the subject.

           " Yeah, guess we better start walking a little faster," Airilice replied.

           We continued walking for about another half hour until we both finally gave up.

           Sighing from exhaustion, Airilice unzipped her backpack and tossed me a mini water bottle. Looking at her weirdly, she squinted at me.

           " What?"

    "Where did you get this from?"

    She chuckled, "Hey, don't worry about it. Sometimes you have to steal to survive. Look at Aladdin."

    Sitting down by a tree trunk, I opened the tiny water bottle and was relieved to have some type of water in my system.

    "Heads up!" She warned as she threw a granola bar at me. "Luckily I packed a few of these babies. If not, we'd pretty much be screwed."

    "Right," I agreed. Unwrapping the granola bar and taking one bite, I could've sworn I was eating a gourmet meal. You never know how hungry you really are until your granola bar starts to taste like steak.

    We decided to camp out overnight by a bunch of trees. There was a little pathway that led to absolutely nowhere, but at least it created a nice scenery. It was a good way to break up the congestion of trees in the area.

    "My goodness, I am exhausted," she said, tearing open a granola bar wrapper as she leaned against a tree trunk. Suddenly, the floor began to rumble and Airilice looked like a deer in headlights.

    "Charlotte, I just pushed a chunk of this tree in."

    "What?"

    "Look!"

    Dashing over towards her, I stayed by her side. A perfectly shaped square had been pushed into the tree trunk. We glanced at each other, scared at what we had just done. Looking over toward the pathway, we realized that an opening had appeared.

    "That wasn't there before," I said.

    " Thank you Captain Obvious," she stated, making me annoyed once again. " I leaned on this tree and this happened," She said, motioning to the square indention in the tree trunk.

    "Should we check out what it leads to?"

    She made a psh sound and a wide grin formed on her face, "Uh, yeah!"

          And so that's what we did. We went forward and not once did we ever look back.

© Lightning_Stryker 2016