“Come on Sara, get up here!”

Roland reached down with his hand allowing Sara to grab onto it, swiftly pulling her up.

“You know Roland, you were right, this was totally worth it!”

Standing next to each other the duo screamed as loud as they possibly could. Their screams reached far and wide but there was nobody in the area. The duo began laughing as they dropped onto the grass, laying comfortably on the ground.

They had just climbed atop of a hill. It wasn’t easy as there was a bunch of shrubbery along the way, they had even spotted a hornet nest hanging on one of the small trees below the hill, if they hadn’t paid enough attention they might’ve been chased by the vicious insects.

Roland was a rather average-looking nineteen-year-old boy. He had short, brown hair but he usually wore a red cap. His eyes were a vibrant green and he had relatively strong cheekbones. He usually wore hyper-casual clothes but underneath that, he had quite the toned body.

Sara laid beside him, she was the same age as himself and had curly brown hair. She usually wore round glasses but since they planned to do some climbing today she was wearing her lenses. She had a very nice body but was taller than most guys, being about as tall as Roland. This was something that, together with her introverted behavior, stopped a lot of boys from talking to her. 

Roland never saw her as anything other than his best friend, hell, he considered her family. 

They only managed to survive the orphanage because they had each other. Apparently, they were even dropped off together at the orphanage, but since they were a few months apart in age it was clear they couldn’t have had the same parents.

It had almost been a year now since they had to leave the orphanage. Even though Sara could’ve stayed for two more months, she left with him. Together they managed to save up a very decent sum of money by dropshipping using the internet.

Thanks to the money they got from this they could afford to travel the world for a year. They had gone to all sorts of places. From Hong Kong to Seoul to Los Angeles to Paris. They had gone to all sorts of places finding things to do that were fun. They were at their last destination now, Luxembourg.

“So, Roland, when do you wanna go home?”

Sara turned her head looking into his eyes. He looked back at her before thinking, he had asked her to choose before but she never did, she preferred to follow his lead as it would usually lead to fun times.

“I dunno, let’s stay for another week or so I suppose? This is probably the calmest place we’ve been thus far and I’d like to enjoy it for just a bit.”

Sara nodded as they both looked into the sky. It was nearing sundown, they had gotten used to gazing at the stars together when it got dark. In most places they were they would climb atop the roof of a nearby building and lay down as they did now, thinking about everything that has happened recently.

But while for Roland this felt like an evening like any other, Sara was a bit uncomfortable. With a bit of an unsteady voice, she voiced her concerns.

“Can we keep doing things together after this? We’re running out of money so what do you want to do when we go back to Belgium?”

Roland knew her well enough to know what she feared and so he quickly reassured her “I’m not going anywhere, Sara. When we get back we can rent an apartment together, I want to try dropshipping once more, it worked last time and even though it’s been getting more popular recently I believe I’ll still be able to make some money with it. Then every evening we can climb onto the roof to gaze at the stars as we usually do.”

Sara smiled when she heard that. Thus far she hadn’t had a great experience with people. In the orphanage she often got bullied for depending on Roland too much, near the beginning when she thought she befriended a nice guy in Los Angelos, he drugged her drink. If Roland hadn’t been paying attention to her, she might’ve been raped that very night.

Roland sighed as he checked his phone to see the hour. He got up and extended his hand toward Sara pulling her up as well. “In six days a new year will have begun, it’s about time to change the tune right? Let’s try settling down for a bit!”

Sara smiled at his words. Indeed, in less than a week from now, it would be 2010. And he was right that it was time for things to change, sadly it wouldn’t be in the way the duo had intended. 

Roland grabbed the large backpack he had thrown aside earlier and opened it up. They were about four hours away from the town they came from and it wasn’t an easy walk so they decided to stay here for the night. 

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They each worked on setting up a tent and in less than five minutes both of them had been set up. Even though many people thought Sara wasn’t dependant enough, she was actually as capable as Roland at practically everything. They both had things they were slightly better at, Sara was slightly better at running while Roland was a bit better at climbing, but overall they were both very capable in most situations.

After talking to each other for a bit more they decided to turn in for the night. It was still quite early but they liked to get up at sunrise every day so they didn’t really mind. 

Soon Roland had fallen asleep, but his dream was extremely weird. He was floating above his own body. He could see he was sweating bullets, he even seemed to be letting out unpleasurable moans, his face was contorted as if he was asleep.

Now his vision moved up higher, through the tent. He now had an areal view of their campsite. His tent seemed to be shaking slightly as his body started to thrash around wildly. It was rather dark but under the moonlight, he saw Sara came out of her tent. She seemed to have heard the noises in his tent as she rushed over to see if he was alright.

Yet before she got their Roland noticed dark shadows creeping toward his tent. They were flying through the air and seemed like they were made from nothingness itself, they looked terrifying with its constantly changing shape, but Sara didn’t seem to be able to see them.

When Sara arrived outside of the tent the trashing of his body had gotten a lot worse, he seemed to be possessed by something, even though there were no yells coming out of the tent it was close, his moans were getting louder and louder as he seemed to be in a great deal of pain.

Just before Sara entered the tent, his sight moved again. It rushed down the hill at insane speeds. Within a second he was at the bottom of the hill, his sight seemed to be focused at a certain bush next to the hill, yet as his sight went forward once more he realized it was hiding a cave. Once more he moved a hundred meters in an instant, arriving at the inner area of the cave system. He could see some tables made out of stone, next to them were skeletons, nothing more than a few rags on their bones. 

Now he felt as if something was pulling him away from everything he was seeing, but at the same time, he could tell there was one more thing ‘it’ wanted him to see. His vision floated downward, just below the floor and there he saw a hidden compartment with a purple crystal within.

Now he was unable to resist the force pulling him away, his vision reverted back to his own as he saw the worried face of Sara appeared above him. She was shaking him harshly until she realized he had awakened. Tears were inside of her eyes as she hugged him.

Roland felt stunned for a bit as he laid on the ground with Sara hugging him. What he did notice was that a terrible smell permeated the air. Once Sara got off of him he noticed he was covered in sweat when he tried getting up he would’ve fallen down if Sara didn’t grab his arm.

An incredible thirst assaulted him as he stumbled toward the bottle of water in the corner of the tent before downing it in one go.

All this time Sara was looking at him with an incredibly concerned expression, her eyes were still red as she waited for him to say something.

Since he felt like he was going to puke if he stayed within the tent for another minute, Roland walked out before sitting down in between the two tents.

“Sara I, I’m pretty sure I had some sort of out-of-body experience. I’m sorry for worrying you.

He was unsure what to say so he decided to plainly tell her what he knew and apologize. She was now sitting across from him, her eyes still red. Her lips even seemed to be quivering as she said a few words “I told you eating those berries wasn’t a good idea you idiot.”

Even though her words were quiet Roland knew her words were extremely serious. He had eaten some red berries a few hours ago but he had been relatively certain they were safe as the nearby town sold them. 

“Sorry Sara, I will be taking a quick shower using some of our spare water before I make us both puke. I’ll go to the doctor as soon as we get back alright?”

Sara didn’t reply as she just sat there staring at him. Roland could only take her stare for a bit as he quickly turned away and got up. He then grabbed a few bottles of their emergency water supply they always had with them before disappearing behind some trees.

He took a spare set of clothes with him as well. When they went out for a single day they usually slept with the same clothes they used to travel, then they’d change once they got back to their hotel. When they camped out the first time they didn’t have a set of spare clothes nor did they have an emergency water supply but after getting lost once for a couple of days they adapted and decided to always take these things with them.

When Roland undressed he felt even more disgusted. His clothes were absolutely drenched with sweat, when he had to pull his shirt over his head he couldn’t help but gag for a moment.

Once this reflex was over he washed himself a bit using a couple of liters of water. He obviously couldn’t clean up properly without a river or lake but he could always take a shower when they got back to the town.

After cleaning up for a dozen minutes he went back to the campsite. The tents were already packed up and their belongings within their bags. Unlike usual Sara didn’t hand him his pack so it was clear she was still somewhat mad.

And so they started heading back down the hill. Yet after an hour had passed and they got to the base of the hill Roland suddenly paused in his steps. Sara looked back with a questioning glance while Roland intensely staring at a tree to their left, or rather, the shrubbery behind it.

Sara got serious as she silently took off her pack “Wolves?”

She asked in a whisper as she crouched down but Roland just shook his head before absentmindedly replying “No, there’s just something I have to check.”

With those words he put down his pack before heading toward the shrubbery, closely followed by a somewhat confused Sara.