I woke up the next morning with yet another rush of energy, however this time instead of it being directed at my body.

It was directed at my legs.

Once I noticed this, I tried to shake it off by standing up again. But, standing up required a whole less energy as I could suddenly... walk again! I was ecstatic! Oh, how I missed being able to walk! I practiced walking around, saw Robert near the forest outside of the gap, and walked towards him.

"Hey, Robert," I whispered, mainly because the rest of our friends were sleeping around us.

"Hey, George." Robert also whispered. I was dumbfounded that he could hear me. I asked,

"Oh! Are you able to hear now?"

"Mhm! It's wonderful to hear again. Didn't think I'd know what a deaf person feels like for at least one day." Robert whispered back. I was confused onto how he could hear me and how I could walk but I didn't care as of right now. I was only happy for me walking and him hearing!

"Heh, yeah. Anyways, want to get some berries for the journey ahead of us?" I whispered, Robert nodded as I helped him up from the ground. I heard footsteps behind me.

Once I turned around, I couldn't believe my eyes.

"Mind if I join?" Steve whisperrd. He had woken up from his deep one-day slumber and wasn't exactly able to concentrate on us. Bur that might be because he just woke up.

"Oh hey, Steve! How was your actual day-long nap?" Robert whispered cunningly. Of course, though, Steve ignored his remark.

"It was pretty good! I had a dream of a bunch of flying dogs and cats, and I was able to fly with them! It felt amazing bro, you should've been there." He whispered at us. Me and Robert giggled as we got out of the factory and looked for berries with Steve.

Looking for berries wasn't as time-consuming and treacherous as I had previously thought it would be. From Angel's and Aquafene's scratches because of the thorns on their legs and arms, I thought that this would be way more tedious. But in reality, they probably weren't cautious as we got the berries quickly in silence and headed back rather early.

"Steve, why aren't you giving us some useless facts about these berries?" Robert asked him.

"I don't know anything about these berries Robert. I'm still a bit tired after sleeping for a whole day too." As if to show this, he yawned and tears formed in his eyes.

"Well, they shouldn't be poisonous. We ate some yesterday anyway." I stated. Steve then suddenly stopped and looked at us with confusion.

"Wait. I slept for an entire day?"

"Yeah! Me and George have been talking about it for minutes now." Robert stated, taking one of the berries from his hands and eating it.

"Ah, wow... I guess the realization sort of hit me right now huh?" He stated with a voice crack, grabbing a couple of berries he dropped from his realization. We went back to the factory.

"The weirdest thing was though. In that dream that I had, I felt a sort of... presence? I don't know, but it felt like something else was flying with me and those animals." Steve suddenly said.

"Probably just your imagination. Don't sweat it!" Robert said, picking up some berries into his mouth. I on the other hand remembered the strong presence of danger I had felt when I was in that bush in my dream. Though, I decided to play it off for Steve. He was likely already freaked out that he slept for a full 24 hours.

"Yeah, I agree with Robert. Whatever that presence was isn't real. It was probably just in your head." I said.

"Hm yeah, I hope so," Steve responded and started to help Robert pick even more berries from a bush. I guess they wanted a surplus.

"Oh! How is my sister?! Is she okay?" He asked us while he was picking a berry bush.

"She's good, just tired and a bit unbalanced," I said. Robert nodded while he picked another berry.

"Thank god. I was worried for her in my dream and I sort of forgot as soon as I woke up."

"You forgot about your sister?!" I asked him.

"No, no! I forgot to ask if she was okay!" Steve exclaimed. We headed back to the factory and heard noises coming from inside the factory. We began walking towards the sound as it wasn't familiar to our ears.

Once we walked inside, we saw Peo continue a loud yawn she had began beforehand. Steve walked past us and spoke in a whisper with Peo. I couldn't hear the conversation but it was obvious both of them were happy to see each other after a full day of doing the opposite. They hugged while me and Robert placed berries into the now empty cups.

Peo woke up the rest of the group by accidentally yawning as loud as she could once again. The yawn was more like a scream than anything else as she said to Steve,

"Yeah, I'm just really tiiIIREED! AHHHHHHH!" Everyone else who was sleeping woke up in a startle and Alice shouted,

"Peo! What the actual hell was that!?"

Peo ended her yawning and said with tired eyes and a gentle voice.

"Huh? Oh, I'm sorry. I'm just tired is all. I don't know why I yawned that loud."

As everyone else was rubbing their eyes and started to stretch, I walked up to Maurice and asked,

"Hey, Maurice. A question, did you have any... strange dreams while you slept?"

"Hmm, no. Don't know why you asked me that but I had a peaceful night. I think Jack did though as I saw him late at night tossing and turning around on the floor." Maurice said as she was standing up. She touched her mouth in confusion and said,

"I don't feel like puking."

"Phew. Oh, OH!" Emily exclaimed, she could also speak now and was talking so fast that I could barely hear her coherently. But I think she was saying something about how happy she was she could talk with us now. Aquafene hugged her and also cheered on with her. She could now use her arms. Angel stretched out next to me as we saw Peo walk confidently now.

"I see you can walk now. Care to explain why you're not celebrating that?" Angel asked me.

"I would like to be able to celebrate that. But right now we have a lot of things to worry about. Our families, future, Altandor, and of course let's not forget whatever that monster was and Ethan Redwood." I replied. She nodded and stood next to me for a while. Her hands were shaking like she wanted to celebrate with them. Alongside a sigh and a roll of my eyes, I stated,

"Go ahead, celebrate with them." She was ecstatic and jumped about with the rest of our friends who had turned standard once more.

I walked up to Jack and noticed that he seemed a tad bit confused about not only where he was, but also what was happening in the first place or the celebrating, I sat next to him and said,

"Hey bud, you okay? I heard you had a bad night."

"Yeah, I'm okay now. I just went through a big nightmare you can say," Jack said.

"Alright, mind sharing with me what kind of nightmare?" I stated back, sitting down next to him.

"I-I felt like I was in a sort of nightmare. I was being chased by a rabid dog as I was running at god-awful speeds. I tripped and fell on some type of being. It felt light and when I looked up, it had a concerned look on its face. But before I was able to take a good look at the being, it vanished and so did my nightmare." Jack replied, staring at Peo bitterly. I barely held in a chuckle and patted his back.

"That's strange, I'm glad you were able to get out of your nightmare. Thanks for sharing that, must've been hard to remember it huh?" I asked him.

"Yeah, you can say that," Jack replied. He soon got up and went over to the cups in which he smelled one. He looked surprised and continued to smell the berries like a maniac. I was happy for him.

I wandered over to Steve who was talking to Emily about something. What was it? I don't even know, I think it was something about airplanes but I must've misheard him.

Emily was also talking back seemingly able to speak fluently once again even though she hadn't spoken for an entire day. After I saw Emily speak, I had a thought.

What if those capsules were curses put on us? The jungle that suddenly appeared from the factory was just the result of the explosion?

"Alright guys, I think it's time to go now. I'm pretty sure we've over-welcomed our stay here." Angel stated.

"Agreed," Aquafene said. She got the cups from the floor and placed them in each of our hands.

I rummaged through my brain once again on the map I had seen two nights beforehand. I was able to remember where the pond was and where the forest from the Isle of Colganla was. But getting from the factory, through the jungle, and into the forest would be a hassle and I didn't exactly remember where to go from here. As the rest of us got up and began walking towards the entrance. I noticed, along with everyone else, that Fron remained sitting down with his eyes closed.

Emily turned around, crouched beside Fron, and asked him,

"What's wrong?" Fron opened his eyes to reveal that the entirety of his eyes had been completely blackened. A literal void. Fron cried, saying,

"Why can't I see... why can't I see... how did this even happen? WHY AM I SUFFERING LIKE THIS!?!"

I felt horrible for Fron and based on my other friends' reactions, I believed they felt just as bad. Alice stepped up as Emily took a step back. Alice wiped away his tears and said to Fron,

"Hey, listen to me. I know everything won't be alright. Now that you're blind, and though I could only hope you regain your vision, I can't promise you that. But, I think you can get through this. We all think you can get through this! I find that being blind is very cool."

"Yeah, no offense but how do you find that cool? I mean he can't see, I mean come—" Robert said as he got smacked in the head with a fistful of Aquafene.

"OW!" He exclaimed.

"Just shut up," Aquafene said.

As everyone reconciled themselves and with Fron now feeling half-motivated. Peo and Alice went side by side with him and we walked out of the factory and into the wild jungle.

It took us mere minute before we realized we were fully lost.

The jungle had outstretched farther than I could ever imagine. I didn't know where to begin my search for Altandor or even where to end as we aimlessly and confidently walked in one direction. Based on where I had remembered where we went into the factory, we passed the fence that we had jumped, nearly got entrapped in a tree in some idiotic way, and followed this kind of guessing game where we were going all the way to a river.

But it wasn't the same river me and Alice found and it wasn't the same river that Maurice had almost drowned in. This one was different. The water was more hazier and darker. Like the water had been polluted by the factory we had just gotten out of.

Maurice looked at the water and fully avoided it as much as possible. Alice of course, went inside the river water with no problem. The water went up to her chest but other than that it wasn't that deep.

"Why is the most dangerous-looking river I've ever seen the safest river?" Steve said. I shrugged and continued on through the river as Maurice looked at the water in revulsion.

After our dip into the presumably 1000 disease-infested waters, we went to a bush to help her dry up and went through a plethora of other bushes. Wait, why were these bushes continuing forward? Why was the whole sky and ground view filled with leaves?

Soon enough I figured it out, the bush was trying to trap us.

The bush we had gotten ourselves into turned out to be a full-on plant that was trying to trap and consume us. Robert was the first one to figure this out. Why? Well, he was the first to scream as sharp and snappy teeth suddenly surrounded all of us.

"What the hell did we walk into George!?" Jack exclaimed. I stuttered and looked behind me as the wall of leaves suddenly closed off the way we came from. It looked like a massive dome of leaves was slowly encompassing and closing in on us. Emily tried to tear off the plants' leaves with her bare fists but it was so strong neither she nor Angel who joined in could tear it apart.

"What the hell!?!" Emily shouted, pushing with all of her might on the leaves. This all, by the way, happened in the span of a couple of seconds.

The leaves continued to draw us closer and closer together. It was trying to suffocate us with an abundant amount of leaves and teeth! I knew I had to find a way for all of us to get out but how?! There were way too many of us and we barely had any supplies to fend for ourselves.

I perked up at what would've been the sky but it now only had a small opening of sunlight at the top. If only I could...

An idea popped into my mind like bread popping out of a damn toaster! I rushed over to Jack and stated,

"Jack, can you get two more people and follow me over to the center of the field?! EVERYONE ELSE, START PUSHING AGAINST THE LEAF WALL, WE NEED AS MUCH TIME AS POSSIBLE!" I yelled out. Everyone understood as Jack pulled in Angel and Robert to help us out.

"Okay, Jack you'll be the base, we have to do this quickly if we want to get out with our lives. Robert go on top of Jack and Angel just wait until Robert is fully seated on his shoulders." I sounded like a bumbling idiot but they got the idea. Robert went on top of Jack with little to no difficulty and Angel soon climbed both Jack and Robert's bodies to reach the top. I overlooked Angel climbing Robert and saw Fron, Alice, and Steve trying to push the leaf wall with all of their strength while avoiding the bush's teeth.

Dirt overflowed at the bottom of their feet giving them balance as they pushed against the wall. Maurice and Emily were bashing the sharp teeth of the plant with rocks they had found. Of course, the rocks barely made a dent but it surely created a distraction which I needed more than ever. I saw Aquafene hustle with a large boulder and try to smash through the plant wall. The rock bounced off the plant wall though and just barely missed Aquafene's head.

"Be careful!" Jack exclaimed from here. He too saw Aquafene almost decapitate herself. Angel had finally gotten up to Robert's head with a whole lot of struggling and I was the last one to climb up. I climbed over Jack and got onto Robert's legs when all of a sudden, a large-

BEEELCH!

-sound that came from the plants' teeth. My heart dropped as I thought someone had been eaten by the bush. I glanced in Peo's direction and saw her accidentally feeding the plant rocks and dirt. I think she was trying to hit the teeth but kept missing because Maurice screamed at her,

"STOP FEEDING THE BUSH!"

"I-I'm trying alright!" She stuttered, she threw another dirt patch into the plant's mouth. But I couldn't get distracted because of that. I climbed up Robert's lap, almost hit his groin with my foot, and leaped up to Angel's arms. I grabbed onto them for dear life and pulled myself up from her body. She lifted me as much as she could without losing her balance. I finally got on top of her and saw that the little opening wasn't an opening at all, but instead some type of white flesh.

"The hell?" I was about to poke this weird, white fleshy object but I realized something. This whole dome of leaves was a living nightmare, but also a living thing. If those leaves were the bush's mouth then this must be...

"Angel!" I called her, she leaned over to one side and looked at me.

"Yeah?!" She asked in an alerted voice.

"Do you have anything sharp on you by chance?" I asked her. She shook her head and asked below to Robert and Jack if they had anything sharp. Jack dug into his pockets and shook his head while Robert pulled out a necklace tucked under his shirt and handed it to Angel.

"What's this?" She asked him. I tried to look at the necklace but Angel's head was in the way.

"It's a knife necklace my mom got for my birthday. But that doesn't matter now, do what you need to do with it." He stated. Angel turned around and I hadn't noticed how close I was to the back of her head so once she turned around, she bumped her nose with mine.

"Oh, my bad," I said. I don't know why I was embarrassed when we were in a very, very, VERY  bad situation but that didn't matter. Angel handed me the necklace and I pointed the miniature knife from the necklace at the bush's eyeball. The bush looked at the knife and I could tell it was nervous, maybe as nervous as I was. But it wasn't the time to get sentimental with a plant that was trying to kill us. Well, more accurately a bush but whatever.

I plunged the miniature knife into the bush's eyeball just in time as Jack slipped from the monstrous amount of dirt that was being piled up around his feet from Alice, Steve, and Fron. All of us had been pushed into a space no smaller than a bus stop station. Once Jack slipped, so did Robert and Angel as they plummeted to the ground and fell hard.

I was still dangling on the ceiling by the necklace directly inside the eye of the bush. The bush screeched and I grabbed onto the leaves on the ceiling of the plant dome and pressed harder into the plant's eye. The walls stopped moving as the mouth also suddenly stopped screeching. Plant juice—which oddly tasted like root beer and had the color configuration of a child's drawing—spewed from its mouth and mainly its eye on my face. I grabbed the necklace just in time as I fell down the bush's ceiling. Steve got up and caught me before I landed head-first into the soil.

"Are you alright?!" He asked me.

"Never been better!" I exclaimed sarcastically. The plants' walls dissipated and all that remained was me covered in plant juice. My clothes were soaked and I still had the necklace, also covered in plant juice. I headed over to Robert still rubbing his back from the fall and handed him the necklace.

"Here, this came in handy. Thank you," I stated. I again was in no mood to celebrate us escaping out of that mess and for the first time neither was any of my friends. Hell, Robert just nodded and put the necklace back on his neck. I poured the plant juice into my cup and thought of emptying it before I realized, I didn't die yet after I had drank a mouthful of the plant juice. I smelled the juice, gave myself a few seconds, and took a sip. Everyone else was grossed out.

"EW!" Emily exclaimed.

"I think I'm going to vomit again," Maurice said.

"Guys relax, my god. It tastes like root beer, the same root beer from the Waterway. Trust me." I said, walking over to Angel. She looked at my clothes and with a deep breath took her cup out and nodded. I pulled out my left sleeve and poured her the plant juice. She looked at the liquid in her cup with contemplation before drinking it.

"Oof. . . That aftertaste is a bit brutal, but other than that it reminds me of that Waterway root beer yeah. It tastes nice." Angel said. Suddenly, everyone was surrounding me apart from Fron wanting my root beer or plant juice from my clothes.