SAVE POINT 71

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Rosabella

I, honestly, wasn't sure Joy and I had much in common, but, trudging after the girl up the steep slopes of these craggy mountains, I realize we share one important thing: spades of determination.

And we've both dug deep for it.

My muddy boots slam into the hard, rock ground with each step. Really, we've been 'climbing' instead of 'hiking'—hoisting ourselves upward. My thighs burn from the effort, and my palms sting with far too many cuts and scrapes from these sharp rocks. My neck burns from the unrelenting sun beating down overhead. We probably shouldn't be attempting a trek like this at the hottest crest in the day... My breath comes in staggering spurts—rushing in my ears which have been popping for the last twenty minutes—as sweat makes me swipe at my forehead again. ...And, to be honest, I'm starting to wonder when the 'downhill' part of this journey begins.

Coughs rake through my body. I wipe the black blood on the edge of my sleeve which has become dark and wet from the repeated motion.

Joy pauses, tilting her chin back towards me but not exactly looking at me. The toe of her boot wedges against a steep incline, "If you have to take a break, we can take a break."

It's the first thing she's said to me the entire climb...and almost sounds...nice? I take in a shaky breath, monitoring how it scrapes up my windpipe. It's like a rusty wheel—not completely broken, but definitely catching in some areas it shouldn't. My head feels light and dizzy. If only this darkness would give me a break! I've been carefully rationing the root powder—

"Last thing I need is you slipping and falling off the face of this dimension. You're the only one who can fix The Game. Take the damn water."

And there's the Joy I know. I grit my teeth together. She holds a round canteen extended, and I grab it from her with less gratefulness than I probably should show.

I watch the pink-haired girl's eyes scan the horizon as I tip the canteen back and cold water drenches my lips. She knows these mountains—every ridge and peak, even without a map. I'm not sure how she knows it, but I've noticed her careful direction: around this tree, not that one, up that ridge, not the other. Her eyes are always sweeping the ground, nearly like looking for clues. And she's gotten us up this far. I look down beyond my toes. Bits of rubble scatter down the rock face when I shuffle my books, plinking against the solid, steep slope down. Below, ridges level out to meadow, seeming far away and flat in comparison to the height we've climbed.

"Mind your feet," Joy grumbles, "that ledge is slippery."

...And there she is almost sounding helpful again. She has the strangest lock secured over her heart. I'm pretty sure there's no key, and she's the only one who can pick it.

I hand her the canteen back, "Thank—"

But the ground begins to rumble.

Shake.

I leap away from the edge, my hands bracing be against the cliff face. Joy's alarmed eyes scan the mountain above us warily, darting, afterwards, to the valley. "Not again," she grumbles under her breath as the wavering settles.

And we're left again.

Still.

Breathless.

And more disturbed than either of us want to admit.

I shake my hands out, finally feeling safe enough to unlock my knees. I glance over at Joy, tucking my hair behind my ear as I gather myself to start climbing again, "You want my opinion?"

"Not really," Joy gripes, reaching for a ledge above her. The flat tone of her voice tells me she's telling the truth. But I don't care.

I want to talk about it. I'm not sure if it's because we haven't been talking about anything on this trek so far, and it's because I want to reach across this invisible brick wall that's been spacing us at least two feet apart up this entire mountain or what but. But I'm fucking going to tell her my opinion.

"I think the tremors are coming from the valley—" I allege, "where the nerds are—"

"You think the nerds know black magic?" Joy questions pointedly, her perfectly-arched eyebrows creasing as a snort of disbelief parts her lips, "Because this is what the darkness tremors felt like when our world started to go to shit before—"

> Rosabella.

I whip around, towards the path behind us, but it's just us on this trail. I spin back around, a piece of hair catching in my mouth which I quickly bat away, "Joy, did you say something?"

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"I mean besides about the darkness I'm trying to tell you about?" the girl huffs.

"Did you say my name?" I interrupt her.

But her face is blank and empty, "No."

...And I believe her, so...so, I have to be going crazy. Plus, it might have been my imagination, but the voice sounded...like my voice...

This heat, elevation and darkness stuff really needs to go take a hike—no pun intended. It's been two hours since my last dose of root powder, and I'm hoping I can stretch it at least for another forty minutes.

"You want my opinion?" Joy chuckles saucily, spinning on her heel and throwing her pink hair over her shoulder as she starts upward again, "Those nerds aren't capable of black magic." Is it just me or is there a little more than a condescending vibe to her words?

"They got into our dimension, didn't they?" I argue back, feeling like I'm carrying the torch for a million geeks around the world right now, "They literally figured out how to jump dimensions."

Joy holds one pointed finger over her shoulder so I can see it, "One word: Prickgada."

"Three words," I counter, just as quickly, "Nerds. Are. Smart. I mean, nerds are doctors, mathematicians, freaking rocket scientists! I wouldn't underestimate them—"

"More than three words," Joy spits sourly, her voice filled with I-told-you-so, "Don't play a game you're going to lose. In case you've forgotten, I'm armed with fourteen knives."

"Thirteen," I correct, swiping one from the back pocket of her satchel. Her mouth drops open abruptly from the movement. "I forgot to grab one when we left," I admit, tucking the commandeered weapon in my belt.

I hear the pink-haired girl grumble something under her breath about a sissy bitch. Honestly, it just makes me crack a little bit of a smile as I prepare to hoist myself over a rock opening—

"Let go."

It's not a random voice this time; it's Joy's.

I spin to face her, my face scrunching up as I try to process the words, "Let go?"

"If you release your unexperienced, white-knuckle grip on that top rock, you'll slide down the ridge," the girl informs me tersely, "Do you want to reach the Dark Woods in two hours or two days?"

Point taken, but I have to...

Let go???

With far too much resistance—apparently, I am a control freak after all—I shimmy myself to the middle of the rick gap, close my eyes and pry my fingers off the—

My stomach drops.

I drop.

Literally.

My side and arms scrape fast against the dirt slope, jarring my bones and neck—painful—oof!

I land.

On two feet. The shock of the abrupt landing soaks of into my knees. I'm—okay? I look up and notice the dirt slide overhead I just shot down. It's an opening in the rocks—mostly smooth on the sides and just large enough for a human to pass through. Brilliant. Maybe I should start trusting the girl more.

"Move," she spits from above, her voice echoing in the rock enclosure and her pink hair dangling down in the opening like she's peering over the ledge, "Unless you wanna play bowling with your balls."

I've never stepped to the side quicker.

Like an agile panther, she lands easily in her feet beside me.

"What's with this place?" I ask shakily. It's barely taken me one minute to realize that this part of the forest is different than the rest. The bases of the trees are burned black here, and torched shards of the trunks split upward like something else has taken an axe to them. No green. No growth. Only dusty ash and dirt underfoot. And in the air—like I'm breathing death and...quiet.

Everything is silent here. No movement, no birdsong. It's a dark forest, yes, but sounds more like a desert—not even a wind. Where the fuck are we?

"Better if you don't know," Joy says solemnly, brushing past me to charge into what is probably the next long leg of our hike.

I trail behind the girl feeling stupid and small. She doesn't want to answer my question about the place? Obviously, that means it's bad and/or dangerous... "...I'd really, honestly, rather know," I tell her—trying to sound confident and fearless when the statement is because I'm currently neither of those things.

"Well, I'd honestly rather not tell you," Joy barks back, "Let's move. We're too exposed out in the open."

...And it doesn't look like I'm going to get my answer. But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying. The soles of my boots stumble after the pink-haired girl who has definitely increased her determined pace; the ground is rocky and uneven lumps under the rubber and a strange mist rises from the dirt, coiling around my ankles and giving me a definitive chill even in this heat.

"What are we running from? Darken?" I pester, elevating my voice so she can hear me even from two paces ahead, "Dragons—?"

"Keep your damn voice down," Joy hisses, irately, rearing on me like a snake as she twists around, "we're running from shadows, shadows of men and shadows of warriors. If you want them to find us, keep hollering."

Whoa. It's serious.

I clam up, zippering my mouth shut as my eyes zigzag across the rows of burnt trees around us—all lined up like offerings. I just hope we aren't next.

Suddenly, each footfall sounds loud—echoing in the silence.

Each stick breaking.

Each wheezing breath.

What's out here? Has it already seen us? Heard us? —Smelled us?

"Get down!" Joy suddenly snarls. She comes at me like a bear. Her hand wraps around my protesting lips as she wrestles me, like a kid, to the ground. And we pant together behind a huge log—like one body. Our hearts hammering together. Our eyes sharing tense glances. Even as her sweaty palm presses into my compliant mouth.

What is it?

What has the plucky girl so shaken?

I'm about to spit out her hand.

I'm about to spit out her hand and ask her, right there.

When I turn my head.

And my heart stops.

Dead.

In terror.

Because the decaying face of a Darken woman, crusted in blood and moss, sniffs just centimeters from my face. And her yellow eyes bulge as she locks pupils with me.

And she screams.

Shrill.

Eardrum-blasting.

FUCK.