We continued walking, trying to gain some resemblance of hope, though I was starting to wonder how the HELL they got so far when I checked up on Jax for, like, a minute. Maybe even less than that. It just makes no damn sense, to the point it is starting to get on my nerves a bit. My eyes glanced at Jax once more, who seemed to be awfully quiet. Since he always seemed to be a 'let's make this person terrified' type of person or 'let's prank them no matter the situation we're in' type of guy. So his silence, though not unwelcome, I found a bit strange.

"You're awfully quiet," I heard myself speak accidentally. He looked over at me and rolled his eyes.

"What do you expect me to say? We've been walking for 15 minutes with no way of knowing where the others are. So I've just been enjoying the atmosphere around me, like Caine requested since I have nothing better to do. Though, it seems like your mind seems to be occupied by me, hm?"

Shit. Now I wish I didn't say anything. I forced an eye roll and a quick glare at him. "Ha. You wish."

"Never."

Suddenly there was a loud scream that rippled through the trees and into our ears. Only one character would scream like that. Jax and I locked eye contact, clearly having the same mindset on who would scream like that.

"Kinger," We say in unison as we both took off running to where that sound came from. My breathing came at a quick pace while I tried keeping up with the same pace as Jax, though it was no use. It felt like my lungs were closing in, making me feel like I was suffocating as I tried taking in more air and failing.

I was forced to slow down my pace by how quick and heavy my breathing was coming out, making me feel faint. Jax seemed to notice this, much to my dismay, since he slowed down his pace a bit so I could catch up.

"Wow, you're slow," He sighed as my legs finally caught up.

"Or you have tall legs," I spat back.

"Or you have short legs."

"Shut up."

"No, you shut up."

"No, you--"

"Wait." I stopped running and grabbed onto his wrist, making him jolt back with a mix of shock and surprise.

"What?" He sounded a bit disgruntled and annoyed that I had to grab onto his wrist like that, but I tried to shrug off his annoyance.

"I don't think the others are on this dirt path. Or at least...I doubt they followed it."

"What? But...why wouldn't they follow the path? Plus, why are you so confident that they didn't?"

I raised an eyebrow, shocked that he hasn't caught on to this whole thing. He always seemed to be one step ahead of everything. Unless he's just thrown off his game lately with whatever the hell has been bothering him so much.

"This dirt path goes in a circle," I mentioned. "As we've been running, I swear to god I recognize this area from when we were trying to catch up with the others. The same shape of the trees, same tulips that are blooming at the base, same...everything. It's one big circle. Which means, the others are either somewhere in the forest when they figured out there's no ending, or we're stuck in one big labyrinth of trees. Pick your poison."

His eyes widened as he finally decided to take a good look around. "Huh. Guess you're right. I thought I would've noticed that by now. But...where do we go from here? Inside the forest? That's definitely a smart decision."

"What do you suggest, Mr. Einstein?" A soft groan escaped my lips as I glared at him.

"How am I supposed to know? Where did that scream even come from?" Jax sighed.

My eyes glanced over at the woods, realizing exactly where Kinger's scream came from. "In the middle of the forest."

"Great. I knew Caine wouldn't make this a normal adventure. Should we just start heading in the woods like an idiot?"

"Yup. Basically. Let's go."

With a begrudging Jax and my unsettling mind, we both went inside the trees for the first time, deciding to finally break the endless loop we ended up walking into. The tree branches were a bit poky, and I definitely felt some minor pricks from thorns and sharp branches. While walking my eyes darted over to Jax, who seemed even more annoyed than he was before he walked into the trees. Probably because of how many damn branches there are.

"Oh my God," Jax growled, his ears flopped over his head. "I hate these branches."

"Same," I groaned as I tried to swipe away the branches the best I could, only to get my arms cut by the thorns. "F*beep*ck."

He raised an eyebrow. "What happened this time? Or did you just decide to--" A thorn poked his ear, making him wince a bit before continuing his sentence. "--to swear for no reason?"

"Oh. A damn thorn cut open my arm. Nothing big, it just hurts like hell." My eyes looked over at my arm, which had a black glitchy cut down my arm. "Wait...can we even get openly hurt in this digital world?"

His eyes widened a bit as he hastened to my side to look at my cut. "Nope. Not usually. These thorns are either extra extra extra sharp, or Caine did this for a reason."

A sigh escaped my lips. "I already hate this guy."

"I've always hated him. We'll bring this cut up to Caine when we see him so he can heal your digital body again," He explained before a branch poking him extremely close to his eye. "Ow! What the--? Was that branch trying to poke my eye out!?"

"Maybe coming into these trees was a mistake. What if the Kinger scream was a red herring and we screwed ourselves over?"

He stopped walking to look at me, which made my feet stop walking as well. "I swear to God, if that was a red herring, I'm going to scream."

"I already want to scream. First, I'm actually getting along with you for once, which is shocking. Two, we've been going into countless circles for over 10 minutes without realizing it until now. Three, we're actually getting cut and bruised by tiny little branches and thorns. What the f*beep*ck is going on!?"

A tired sigh escaped his lips as he slumped against the nearest tree. "I have no clue, dollface. But after this, I'm getting the much needed rest I deserve. I'm just too tired to even care right now."

This was probably the most tired and out-of-it I've seen him, to the point he's actually speaking about his feelings, albeit a bit lazily. From how his ears flopped over his head instead of standing straight up, his body laying limply against a tree, how uncannily normal his voice sounded instead of teasing and sarcastic, it almost sounded...defeated?

Instead of kicking him while he's down, I decide to try giving him motivation...even though I suck at motivation speeches, I guess it doesn't hurt to try. "Well...we shouldn't give up so soon. Sure, things seem kinda bad in our favor right now, but maybe if we make it to the middle of this forest, there's a possibility the others are there. This is an adventure from Caine, so what I can tell is that it won't be anything normal. We can't just give up, though. We just have to keep our heads held high and try our best, even if it's a pain."

He looked at me while I spoke, his expression was a mix of surprised yet confused. "Bravo, you're able to do a dumb hope speech. But is it really going to be that simple? I would rather just sit here and wait for Caine to get bored and possibly cut this adventure early and teleport us back to the circus or whatever."

I rolled my eyes and grabbed onto his wrist (for the second or third time today) to pull him off of the tree. "Wha-- hey! You don't just pull somebody like that."

"Then stop slumping like a child. You shouldn't just give up so easily because of some inconvenience. Now come on, let's start heading deeper in the forest. Then, once this adventure is over, I'll yell at Caine for us. Besides, I need to get him to 'heal my digital body again,' as you put it."

"Fine! Whatever. Let's just--" Another branch swings over to poke him in the arm. "...Where did that branch come from??"

"I think the trees have a vendetta against you, or these trees are alive somehow. I wouldn't be surprised if Caine gave these trees 'character' in the worst way possible. Maybe it's because you were complaining like a baby."

"Oh, shut up. This whole adventure is stupid."

"Agreed, but we still have to get going."

"I know, I know. Stop repeating yourself. Geez."

Without further ado, we both started walking deeper within the forest, hoping that we'll finally meet the others...and that's a big 'finally.' Seriously, I'm tired of just talking to Jax the entire time.

~~~

So...I know I said that in Chapter Ten we will finally be with the main group again, but...I got sidetracked with writing until I was like 'uh oh. I think I deviated from the original plan...' and it was starting to get a bit long-ish, so I decided to end it. Now for Chapter Eleven I hope that we'll finally meet with the others, but no promises-- I get side tracked while writing a lot when I'm absorbed into my own story. Oops. Anyway...I hope you enjoyed this story nonetheless and have a wonderful rest of your day/night! <3

-Sincerely, CB