We were walking for a long time, to the point that the constant trees, animals, and flowers that I thought was pretty in the beginning now felt like a total drag, and it wasn't an environment I wanted to be in any longer. On top of that, we had no clue where the other three: Pomni, Ragatha, and Zooble were.

"God, this is so boring," Jax finally spoke up after a few minutes of deafening silence. "Seriously, Caine needs to get better with his adventures."

"Agreed," I spoke with a sigh.

"I-It wasn't bad in the beginning, but..." Gangle's voice faded away, her eyes darting to the ground with a slight solemn expression.

"Come on, guys. It isn't that bad..." Kinger tried to reassure us. "Besides, there's beautiful butterflies everywhere!"

I didn't know what "butterflies" he was talking about, besides the first butterfly in the beginning of this adventure. But at this point, should I even question Kinger? I feel like he's already losing it, so should I believe everything he says?

"Uh huh. Butterflies. When was the last time we saw a butterfly?" Jax hissed, his ears flopped over as his eyes narrowed.

"Don't...don't be so negative," I heard Gangle mutter under her breath, which thankfully Jax didn't hear. Or if he did, he decided to ignore it.

"How long are we going to be walking?" I muttered with a cold glare at the floor.

"We can always take a break," Kinger mentioned. "Besides, maybe if he stay in one spot, the others will come to us instead."

"In another million years, maybe," Jax grumbled. "But fine, I guess we can take a break for a moment. But only for a moment. We need to be on the move, just in case something bad happens while we're just sitting around."

His voice sounded annoyed the entire time, a slight growl within his tone. One of my eyebrows raised as my eyes glanced over at him. He meets my gaze for a moment and his expression softens for a bit. Only for a bit.

"I agree with Kinger," Gangle spoke softly. "We should just relax. Or maybe wait until the other three stumble upon us. That's usually the smartest move when you're lost, after all." She looked at Kinger with a smile. "Nice thought, Kinger."

Kinger didn't respond right away, silence rang throughout the environment until he spoke...with a 30 second delay. "What thought?"

I mentally face palmed, but the other two didn't seem phased. More like they predicted that he would forget his idea after five seconds. Which also made me wonder if I've just been blind when it came to Kinger lately. Or anybody besides Jax, actually. I haven't really been speaking to the others all that much, besides Ragatha when it came to the first couple of days. Maybe I should probably change that eventually.

We all collectively decided to take a break and sit around this one big tree that had a pretty thick stump in comparison to most of the trees in this forest. I was silently hoping that Pomni, Ragatha, and Zooble will stumble across us, like Gangle has stated might happen, rather than searching for them when I knew they were probably on the move as well.

As we were finally relaxing from walking for around an hour or two without any other breaks besides this one. It felt nice to give my legs a long needed break from walking for so long. While sitting, I noticed that Jax's hand was lightly resting on mine. Whether he noticed or not, I didn't really know. But did I hate it? Well...not really. But I wasn't going to say anything about it, in case he hasn't realized and then suddenly realizes.

"What are we going to do?" Gangle spoke after the few moments of silence. "Are we just going to sit around and basically...give up? Just wait around and hope for the others to stumble across our little predicament?"

Jax, finally noticing his hand was touching mine, lifted his hand off of my hand and replied to Gangle's partially rhetorical question. "Probably. Giving up is the only option, isn't there?"

Even Kinger seemed to be down, a soft sigh leaving his body. "Maybe you guys are right. We're doomed."

Their negative energy started swirling around me, beckoning me to agree with them and simply give up. But that was never how I did things. One thing I knew about me, even with parts of my memory gone, is that I don't give up easily. Hell, one phrase kept repeating in my head, like I've heard it countless of times before. "No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, show up and never give up." And by God, that is a slogan I'll abide towards and always have. Subconsciously, I think one of my friends told me that quote once. Forgot who, though, because of this digital Hell.

"We're not doomed," My voice stated as I looked at the other three. Jax raised an eyebrow like I was insane, Gangle looked at me solemnly with a tad bit of hope, while Kinger stared at me like he was seeing straight through me. "It doesn't matter how we feel at the moment, but we shouldn't just give up this easily because some things inconvenience us. There was a quote somebody I used to know always told me when I thought things were too hard or I wanted to give up. Mainly when it came to school and projects. It's 'No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, show up and never give up.' And I want us to use that mantra to good use. Sure, giving up is an easy alternative, but if we give up. sh*beep* won't get done."

After I spoke, silence echoed throughout our environment, everybody seemed to be taking in my words (or ignoring it, I couldn't really tell). But after the deafening silence, Gangle finally decided to break it. "Y-You know what? You're right. We shouldn't give up this soon...and I bet we can find Pomni, Ragatha, and Zooble in no time!"

"Yeah," Kinger agreed. "Besides, I can't argue with that logic. I bet Caine won't want to see us sitting around and doing nothing, and I need to get back to my impenetrable fortress sooner or later."

My eyes glanced over towards Jax, to see if he will agree with my words like the other two or if he'll decide to be difficult. He was staring off into space, like he was lost in thought about something for a few moments before sighing softly. "...Alright. We won't give up. Only because I know you'll bug me about it if I decide to give up when everybody else is filled with hope or whatever."

In other words, he found my speech uplifting? I mean, I know that's not exactly what he said, but...he's always very vague when it comes to his actual thoughts, so I might as well just think that Jax was subtly hinting that he agreed with the things I said. Or that's my hope for what he thought. I don't know, and I'm thinking about this too much.

A bright smile spread on my face that I was able to get everybody's spirits up, even a little bit. "Great! Now...I have an idea, actually."

"What's your idea?" Gangle questioned, hope seemed to be sparkling within her black mask-like eyes.

"I want Kinger to scream. And loudly. If us three heard him scream when he wasn't that close to us and we could follow his voice based on where we heard it...if Kinger screams and the other three are close by, then they'll be able to find us. Good idea, right?"

"Wow. For once you have a good idea, dollface," Jax chided, even though I've been basically helping him out the entire goddamn time. Hell, I was the one telling him the original path was a loop! I think he's trying hard to find reasons to chide and upset me, and by God it was working quite well. But I tried to not let his words get to me all that much.

"Thanks," I sigh halfheartedly before looking at Gangle and Kinger, to see if they're okay with the entire as well. Gangle looked at me, a light smile was on her face, even without her comedy mask.

"That's a great idea. I think, if the others are close by, it will possibly help them come over to us quicker!" Gangle exclaimed.

The rest of us looked over at Kinger, to see if he would be okay with screaming randomly to possibly attract the last three that we needed to find. Kinger glanced at all of us for a moment before speaking. "So...you want me to scream?"

"Yep. As loud as you can," I told him with a light smile. Kinger seemed a bit unsure, but nodded his head regardless. He stood up and took a few steps back until he screamed as loud as he could. Let me tell you--it was loud. I winced and plugged my ears from the impact of being this close to him while he screamed.

As the scream vibrated off the trees, my eyes darted around, hoping to find some sort of resemblance of the others. Anything. And thankfully...we did. The plan worked. We heard loud footsteps behind the trees and bushes, which made the four of us look forward to where we were hearing the heavy footsteps. After a few moments, we saw them--Pomni, Ragatha, and Zooble jumped out of the bushes and ran towards us.

"Guys? Thank God you're okay!" Ragatha gasped as they made it to where we were.

"Yeah. What is even going on here? First we were together, then separated, and now everything looks much...spookier," Pomni spoke with a slight grimace.

"This whole thing is bull*beep*," Zooble huffed as they looked at us. "I'm glad you guys are okay, though. Well...everybody besides Jax."

"Hey! What did I do?" Jax growled and glared at Zooble.

"Now, now. Calm down," Ragatha told the two of them. "Now that we're together, we can finally escape this place eventually. I know it. Caine, hopefully, might get bored and then we're able to leave! Right?"

"Let's hope that will be the case," I mentioned with a sigh. "Should we start walking again, or...?"

"I don't know about you, but I'm so tired. I haven't taken a break in ages," Pomni moaned as she sat down. "Also, why did Kinger scream?"

"It was a lure to get you guys to find us...we were tired of walking around," Gangle informed them.

"Oh. That's smart," Ragatha complimented with a smile.

"It was Y/N's idea," Gangle spoke. "So they should take the credit for that idea."

"Come on, it really was nothing," I muttered.

"It was still pretty impressive," Zooble told me. "Anyway, should we all just take a break for the time being until we're ready to continue walking--" Suddenly their eyes landed on the gash on my arm. Their eyes widened. "Y/N, what happened to your arm??"

That's when Pomni and Ragatha looked over at my arm with a slight gasp. I tried to shake off their concern while I explained to the best of my ability. "Oh...the thorns are able to cut our digital bodies."

"What??" Ragatha and Pomni yelled at the same time.

"Why would Caine add something like THAT!?" Pomni growled while eyeing my arm with a twinge of sympathy.

"I don't know...but let's just sit back and relax for the time being so we can get enough energy when it comes to looking for the exit, okay?"

Everybody agreed with what I said and--once again (at least for my group)--we were sitting back to relax and recharge our energy. But two things were left in my mind: Could we die in this forest? And is this a fucking death trap?

~~~

Hey guys! Thank you for reading this chapter, I tried my best to make it enjoyable, even if we're STILL on this adventure. Question: Should I make it so every adventure is a few chapters (like this one) so I can fully expand out the adventure, along with how each character reacts with one another and the relationship between Jax and Y/N growing with each adventure, or should I keep each adventure to a chapter or two and keep it shorter? I would like to know your opinions on what is the most interesting for you guys. Without further ado, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day! <3

-Sincerely, CB