Laughs fill the tiny cave with sickly sweet sound, coating the walls with sugar.
"Camrin, oh my god, I thought you were dead!"
"So you can go live your happy life without me. Absolutely not."
"I'm actually not sure I'm fully alive."
"Girl you are freezing, how is it already winter outside?"
"No idea"
Above their chatter, Camrin hears a small, weak, even bitter, voice in the back of her mind.
[I have heard you mention the words 'season' and 'Winter' several times in conversation. We do not have that here. Mother Nature does as she wishes. Sometimes she obliges and we get a few weeks of similar weather and sometimes she likes to 'shake things up' according to her words]
"Camrin?" She startles.
"Yeah?"
"Why were you looking off into space? Everything ok?"
Camrin internally blanches. How is she going to explain this. She hasn't even had time to process the information she received. She wasn't even sure if she believed it. What was she going to tell Lila, that a random creature just spoke inside her head and told her they weren't on Earth. Pushing down the panic, Camrin decides to ignore everything for now. A question rises in her head, but she pushes it down. She'll ask the creature later. For now, she turns back to her friend.
"Yeah, everything's fine. I know this is really weird considering the fact that we just spent a week on the verge of death, but.... what's been up with you the past few days?"
Lila smiles. "Yeah, like you said I almost died a couple of times, but you know what they say, 'What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger'. Honestly, I'm glad I found you because I don't seem to be getting any stronger and I'm on the verge of breaking down because, " Lila's eyes break into hysteria, " WHAT THE HELL! HOW DID WE GO FROM COLLEGE TO...TO THIS AND NOW EVERYTHING IS CHANGING! IT DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE. WHAT IS GOING ON!" And then she bursts into tears. Camrin tries to comfort Lila, huddling together as if they share a secret Lilith has no place knowing.
"We need to leave Camrin; we need to leave. Something is wrong here."
"We don't know how we got here, how are we supposed to know how to get back?"
They both freeze, their minds racing.
"Wait a minute. How did we get here? The last thing I remember was having a lovely talk with my mom. And then- and then.... I don't know"
Camrin blinks slowly. "That last thing I remember was saying bye to you and Stacey", Lila's face morphs into anger for a split second, "and then something..., it... it... yeah I can't remember anything either." A moment of silence.
"Why did you make that face?"
"What?"
"When I mentioned Stacey."
"What do you mean?"
"Have you found her? "
"Camrin"
"Is she safe?"
"Camrin!"
"Did you leave her?"
"CAMRIN, SHE LEFT ME FOR DEAD"
"STOP SHOUTING, WE'LL DIE!" They both glare at each other and Camrin ties hard to take a calming breath.
"We could die because of this. It's no joke anymore, we're not in college acting silly and doing whatever we want."
"I know! that's what I wanted to tell you. One of us already adapted within a week. Did you hear what I said, Camrin, Stacey left me to die, knowing I was injured and hurt. Do you understand that?"
"Yeah, but you may have been wrong-"
"Don't deny this Camrin." Lila says as her friend starts trembling. "I don't know what happened or where we are, but I know what happened and Stacey is not going to help us. End of story."
Camrin stumps on the ground, curling in on herself, whispering "what is happening what is happening" over and over again. Lilia bends down to console her friend but she trips and falls on a rock. Pain lashes through her already injured arms as she falls, leaving her gasping for air. Lila looks back...and sees a giant monster hidden in the shadows. In a split second, Lila gets up and shoves? the eight foot tall, 3 humans wide of a monster back, screaming into the air, and placing herself in front of Camrin. But the girl besides her does not look worried or scared, she suddenly looks sad.
"Well, if we really are in hell, let me introduce you to this creature. It's a she creature, her name is Lilith. As for us, we're no longer on earth, and we've been transported to the Selcar system, and this is its only country called Heis Chora. ," Camrin stops for a moment then looks defeatedly at Lila "How did you shove her away?"
"What?"
"The creature. How did you shove her away? What did you do?"
"I didn't do anything."
Camrin sighs. "Fine never mind. "
Lila looks confused, then frustrated.
"Cam. We need to start moving. You're shutting down. Your brain is shutting down because you're overwhelmed like you used to do when there was too much work and too little time during finals, but this is not equivalent to that, and you could die if you don't start moving right now." Camrin looks helplessly up at Lila
"And you said Stacey adapted fast."
"Sometimes life or death situations force you to be something you're not. Now let's go."
"What happened to Stacey?"
"I already told yo-"
"In terms of injuries. For me, I got my hands cut and feet swollen and almost drowned for a while. You got you face very clearly smashed in and you winced when you fell on your crocked arm. What happened to Stacey. What did she have to fight this past week-"
"Nothing. She had not a single scar, not even a pimple on her face." Lila sighs "I think someone is protecting her. Only her. She had a hut. Inexplicably warm and always stocked with food and medicine."
"How did she even find another human? And one willing to help her at that?"
"Yeah, I don't know but she had a maid serving her most of the time. She tried to hide her, but I caught a glance of her once."
Lila fights to keep her face neutral. While they went through pain and injuries so bad they shouldn't have existed in the normal world, Stacey was just, what? playing around, getting warmth with unlimited food and having the nerve to leave Lila. She turns to look at Camrin, expecting the hatred and venom in her eyes to be mirrored in hers. For somewhere to share the weight of her life changing in a second, but Camrin does not give her that. Camrin looks torn, like she feels bad, like she remembers Stacey of the old world and isn't willing to process the Stacey of this past week.
"You still feel bad for her?" Voice like chards of ice.
"Lila-"
"I'm going if you want to come with, go ahead. I'm going to find a way out of this place or I'm going to die trying. Maybe then I'll finally go back to earth."
Lila marches away only for her to stop awkwardly near the opening and wiggle her way through. Camrin, however, looks back.
"I can't leave you. In feels wrong"
[It is alright. Go ahead. I will not lose breath over another lost thing.]
"Come on, you resisted the push of the Great Winds you keep speaking of. I know you have power. I can feel it coursing through your veins."
After twenty long minutes of pleading and encouragement from her human, Lilith attempts to get up. Big mistake. Two of her five limbs cramp in agony. But her human looks at her so with much hope and feeds her so much life, Lilith tries again and again and again until she finally straightens her muscles, crabs Camrin into her sticky embrace and breaks through the cave walls.
The feeling of freedom in Lilith at that moment could not be measured. She broke her enclosure. She went out. She feels the wind again, the tress again. She can count every atom of dried blood on both the girls. She is stretching. She is evolving. Finally, finally! her mind has regained its earlier strength. She hasn't lost it without reason. But now, she'll allow nothing else to hold her back.
Unaware of what has happened, Camrin drops from Lilith's limb and runs ahead saying "Do you think she left yet? Will she be alright?" The friends had not left. She still smelled the scent of The Winds nearby. Quickly enough, Camrin spots Lila a mile off and runs in her direction. Wheezing for air, Camrin reaches Lila and hugs her tight.
" I got Lilith out."
"And I stayed."
They both silently laugh, aware that the forest is still full of predators.
"I'm so sorry Camrin. Our emotions are fluctuating too quickly, and the bombardment of information didn't make it any better. We need to learn to live with this new environment for now" Lila turns back to the creature.
"How will you move with us?" Lilith does a quick demonstration of sliding across the snow before the girls turn around laughing, walking off, as if the cold, dark forest ahead, was all sunshine when they were together.
Ok well maybe they didn't completely understand that they could get attacked at any moment in this jungle.