CHAPTER 16 - THE WARNING

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The training day was now over, and as a result, all the narwhals returned to rest in their tents as usual. The small group of four individuals returned to their respective section of the tent.

There was to be admitted, seeing Eneas’ empty bed in their tent was a little strange to everyone, but the fact that all of them, if not for Riaca and Natirra, had known each other for a day or so made most of them feel better, if not for Natirra, she was worried at that point.

They all sat in their respective places to rest for a while, but that did not stop them from engaging in conversation.

Igre, first of all, was the happiest, and it all went back to that bet they had made long ago.

«"See? There's no need for us to engage in useless investigations, the officers will take care of everything."»

Natirra did not respond, she let others do the work, Monomia instead threw something out. «"Hey, we can't trust them! What if it’s like Natirra said: they made her disappear or something happened, they will just tell us she disappeared without telling us the truth."»

That was not in any possible sense what Natirra had theorized, but what Monomia was saying also made a modicum of sense, come to think of it, if she had discovered something big, it would make sense to get rid of her.

«“Don't be an idiot, these conspiracy theories will get us nowhere.”»

Natirra put her hands to her head, “Damn it,” she thought, of all things, why did this have to happen to her?

She was in a situation where she didn't want to be. Yes, she had made friends, some more bizarre than others, and nice acquaintances, but she simply wished she could go home. She felt an annoying itch coming constantly from her uniform, and she struggled with the idea of sleeping with it. Then, this whole thing with Eneas... There was a part of her that told her she was going a little too deep, that she was analyzing her a little too much, that in the end it was no big deal, but there was that paranoid part of her instead, the one that kept her on the edge, the one that drove her crazy.

What did Eneas see?

Why was she so afraid? Even more afraid than she had always been from the first moment Natirra met her?

How come she disappeared? Where did she go? Did she really run away?

What could be behind all of this?

These were all thoughts assailing Natirra's mind, which did not know what to do, why did she have those strange ideas in the first place? Was her sanity falling apart?

In all that, she noticed that her companions were calling her, specifically, she was being called Riaca.

«“Natirra, are you okay?”»

«"Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah, everything's okay. I don't like this whole thing, I think there's something going on."»

Monomia jumped into the conversation, cutting Riaca off before she could tell Natirra some sweet words of consolation.

Riaca turned offended toward Monomia, and locked herself in her thoughts as well.

«"Don't worry Natirra! It’s nothing. Igre after all is right, we should not think too much about it. After all, what can we do? We wait for the authorities to give us some direction, and voila. In the meantime... I think we should sleep on it, we're all too tired to think it through, right?"»

She was right after all, and Natirra had no idea what else she could do. Their discussions from there on quickly dissipated into small talk, and inevitably everyone kept quiet, and with the tent devoid of natural light, everyone in turn was struck down by the angel of sleep.

But Natirra, on that night, had nothing but nightmares, and among those, there lurked a dream that revealed itself to be very peculiar.

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A mysterious figure appeared before her. She, as if inside the sea, felt that she could swim anywhere. Nevertheless, the density of the liquid around her kept her fixed on where she was. On the one hand, she felt herself pressing down, suffocating, but she did not seem to be in the midst of death, but simply in constant discomfort.

In front of her, she observed a shadow, a silhouette. It seemed to be similar to her brother's in that remote memory, which she could not, however, fish out at that moment. She remained curious to observe, until she saw it approaching.

A faceless narwhal, but with characters so familiar, so clear, that Natirra seemed to have seen her before, surrounded her like a snake surrounding its prey. The gigantic shadow stretched out like a sea serpent and squeezed her, taking her breath away.

Then, she observed before her the face of that abstract snake. It had no characters in its face, no eyelashes, no nose, no lips, no eyes, but short hair and broken glasses above it.

Her short, bright hair floated rapidly.

She did not speak, could not speak, and could not even open her mouth. But Natirra, who was actually in the same condition, being underwater, could somehow hear her.

«“Natirra...”»

Natirra could not avoid asking questions, she was confused, but felt from a certain point of view that this was something natural. Bathed in cold and warm water at the same time, she did not know how to feel.

Natirra suddenly felt the sudden ability to speak.

«"W-who are you? Where am I?"» But the creature seemed to ignore her questions, and kept repeating her name.

«“Natirra... Natirra... Natirra... Natirra... It's a trap... Natirra... Natirra... Natirra...”»

«“A trap?”»

«“Natirra... You believed me Natirra... Unlike the others... Save me, find me, Natirra... It's a trap... It's a trap... The offices... The offices... Save me...”»

Although Natirra tried desperately to free herself and ask more questions, it was all in vain, the creature kept repeating her name incessantly, asking to be saved. But then she made a move that determined the whole thing.

«"E-... Eneas? But how on earth..."» She recognized the figure, and Eneas suddenly started to fade away.

«“The offices... Of the chief...”» Before she could say more, Natirra felt herself drowning, and her vision grew dim.

...

Suddenly waking up, all sweaty, she had a moment to breath. It was daylight outside, this was normal, the days lasted exponentially longer than the night, after all there were two suns, only a small part of the day was without them, but all her companions were still sleeping, and in general it was still to be considered a period of rest.

Natirra, who had just realized that what she had witnessed was a dream, was firmly convinced that it had a deeper meaning. Before she lost consciousness in the dream, she had received guidance, an outline of where to go, which had stuck in her mind, along with the entirety of the dream.

She stood up suddenly, in a firm tone. Too many strange things, she needed to verify for herself.

She knew that the events that were happening were not normal. There had to be something behind them.

She tried to walk stealthily toward the tent exit when she heard a recognizable voice from behind. She had a shudder and turned around, seeing Monomia standing up.

«“It's early, where are you going?”»

At that point, she pondered. If she tried to explain to the others what had happened to her, they probably would not have believed it, so she refused to tell Monomia as well. But if he was awake, it meant that she had woken up when it was now late enough for everyone to wake up, and consequently it was useless to try to reach the offices, because they would be probably guarded.

Besides that, it was better to do it in a group. She would have been able to persuade her comrades, but it would have been useless to do so now.

From the way Natirra thought, she seemed incredibly determined, she could almost appear as if she was not in the situation she was in, but the reality was that she too found herself incredulous, and she did not know what to do. That still left the option that she had simply gone mad. That everything she was seeing was the result of her fear, that there was nothing deeper going on. But she couldn't--she couldn't get that thought out of her head, could she have dreamed a prophecy? Or a warning?

One thing was clear, she had to find out where Eneas had gone. Today she would most likely find out from the authorities. But one thing was certain, she could not have escaped, no.

Natirra turned towards Monomia.

«"Nothing, I just woke up early. What's on the agenda today?"»

«"Oh, don't you know? Today there is no training for the first half of the day."» Natirra was not aware of that. If there was no training, then what the hell was going on?

«“Well, classes start today!”» Monomia said in his usual enthusiastic tone. «“You know, like school, but here...”»

Natirra fell desperately to the floor of the tent. She already had to suffer being here, and now she had to go to school too! Could she get a hell of a break at some point or not?

Inevitably, and most likely because of the high volume Monomia insisted on keeping in his voice while talking, everyone else woke up, Igre with an annoyed face and a tone full of lamentation, and Riaca woke up normally, but upon seeing Monomia and Natirra having an early morning argument, she turned away, with a bitter taste of jealousy in her mouth.

Natirra turned away, and thought in her own head for a while.

“I don't feel like saying these things early in the morning, I really don't feel like it, but... I have to, I can't go alone. At the end of the day, I will say everything. We just have to see if I can survive.”