9 Days Before

Chandra and Dealix journey through the forest, stepping over debris of vegetation.

"We've been traveling for a while" Dealix grips a half crescent branch, lifting himself up top of a fallen tree, he takes his hand out for Chandra to grasp it—aiding her up.

"Seems about a full day.." she responds with a grunt by being pulled up, they hop down the foliage debris crunch underneath their feet.

"I'm pretty sure this is the correct way to head towards the other section…" Chandra mutters to herself, but Dealix overhears her murmur and thinks to himself about the first portion of Chandra's' sentence, having her being 'pretty sure' isn't being one-hundred percent sure of where they're going.

She strides towards a tree that's further ahead—seeing moss slightly reaching around it.

Chandra places her right hand on the trunk and leans to get a better view of the moss, taking in that the moss is growing north, she makes a mental note that they're heading the right way to another city section of Lypheon.

"Come on, let's continue heading this way" Chandra beacons Dealix to push onward, having her wary sense of direction turning more of a solidified one.

Dealix does a single nod, tailing right behind her as they continue into the wilderness, she closely eyes the moss to make sure they don't falter in the wrong direction.

Dealix slumps his head down—zoning out within their walk towards the location.

The walk turns into a hypnotic waltz for Dealix, his steps feeling numb and his breathing feeling like it needs a consistent guide, Dealix's vision becomes a blur having the littered ground becoming a mass junction of streaming colors.

Chandra continues to take mental notes of their direction, She becomes cautious, having her face wrinkle with concern as the surrounding area becomes a cascade of silence.

She darts her view from left to right, even taking a pause to strain her ear, trying to listen for any animals scurrying about within the forest—Hearing nothing within the vicinity.

"Do you hear that…?" Chandra asks Dealix, who is wobbling back and forth, making an effort to keep himself going.

The only answer she hears from him is the only sound that cracks the silence, the sound of his body thumping to the ground.

She turns around to see Dealix laying on the ground, she calls out his name as she rushes over to him—placing both of her hands onto his body.

"Dealix!" She says again, but there's no response, she moves her head, scanning any safe area to make camp.

Deciding the best spot is in-between a group of trees, she reacts quickly, getting a lengthy stick nearby and digs it into the ground to mark where Dealix is laying.

Chandra plans to gather sturdy branches or sticks to hold them up above the ground to keep any wildlife at arms length as they rest.

Chandra seeks out pieces to make a flooring for their camping spot, worrying to herself about Dealix's sudden collapse, though she places the worry on a halt—it's not the time to worry or to panic in a time like this.

She grabs a stick, feeling the weight and thickness with her hands. Chandra does a bob to confirm that this will do. Looking up and scanning any other pieces that may be as sturdy as the one she's holding.

Walking towards a few others she spots from her scan.

Chandra hauls a few pieces that are stuffed between her folded arms and drops them down next to the grouped trees, taking a moment to see Dealix still laying down at the marker.

She glances back at the pile of branches then at the grouped trees as she takes her blade out she got from the scavenge. Chandra takes the blade and starts to carve a cubby-hole to put the ends of the sticks into.

Grabbing one of them to test her craftsmanship, she bends the other end to fit it into the gap of the tree, she does this to the rest of the piled sticks making a dent to the haul.

Chandra tests the sturdiness of her crafted floor by grabbing the end of it—lifting herself up words and sits on it. Doing little bobs to see if it'll break under this circumstance.

Towards her delight, it doesn't, she takes her gaze to check up on Dealix.

"Alright." Chandra hops down and waltzes over to Dealix, dragging his body across the forest floor, having his bag collecting leaves as she hauls him over to the camp, she looks up seeing a little trail from the action.

She inhales, smelling the scent of rain, "shit." She says, doing another quick scan to check if there's any branches with extra leaves on them to shield from the rain, Chandra does a quick stride and grabs a branch she deems worthy for the sake of shelter.

Chandra hauls Dealix up and onto the crafted flooring with a series of grunts, he lays peacefully flat on the floor as she gathers more branches.

Deciding to do a quick climb to cut down limbs of trees that have the right amount of growth, making another thought about trimming the branches to conjure a makeshift rope out of them, even grabbing thinner–healthier branches that does a good bend.

She feels a light sprinkle peck on her hand, realizing that time is running out before the rain starts pouring onto them.

She takes what she can and does a job on finishing the shelter, taking her shoe laces as rope and tying the foliage together.

Chandra hops up-top placing what she had around them, making a decently dense roof over their heads as the rain starts to fall, seeing the drop pummel down the dry leaves that are blanketed across the forest floor.

Doing another big inhale smelling the wet foliage and taking in a job well done, she lays back to wait out the downpour.

The cold spots from the rain cling onto her face as she watches the rain, she looks over at Dealix having his eyes slowly move from side-to-side.

She tears the gaze and slides him at the end of the shelter, making room to start a fire from smaller sticks she had picked up in case they had planned to set up camp at night.

For Chandra it was the perfect time, the rain casting chills, they were in a nice shelter, and if she didn't they'll have to face the repercussions of staying in the cold.

She does a sigh realizing she might need to adventure into the rain to grab a slab to safely start the fire in their makeshift home.

With the thought, she takes a look into her bag, scrambling around to grab a coat that she stuffed in there from their scavenge from the crew's little hideout.

Still dwelling on the events that took place, even believing that they were lucky enough to escape, even if the Crew didn't tell them about the hole they made.

They could have had other plans—plans that didn't involve having the two of them tailing them the rest of the way.

She unfolds the coat and puts it on, thinking that'll have to do with the rain she's about to be in.

Chandra takes a big inhale and hops into the rain—the rain vastly peddling onto the coat tapping onto its fabric.

She quickly scans to see if there's any slabs that she can place the fire on, without seeing any she continues to another part where her vision had ended and recycles the routine.

Seeing a healthy slab that'll make its due, she picks it up, hauling it to the side of her and rushes back towards the camp.

Chandra leaps back onto the flooring and scoots into the shelter, seeing Dealix's eyes still sluggishly darting from side-to-side.

She takes the slab and places it in a comfortable distance inside the shelter, placing the smaller sticks and piling them onto the wet slab. She digs through her bag finding her lighter.

"Sweet…" she smirks, looking at the lighter and flicking it to create a flame, she hovers the small flame at the sticks and the debris starts to slowly burn.

The fire turns into a medium sized flame keeping shielding them from the cold wisps of the rain, keeping them warm.

Cracking of the fire relaxes Chandra, she places her hands near the open flame, embracing the warmth from it, she drifts her gaze to check up on Dealix again—seeing that his eyes went from a slug pace to a more solid dart.

His eyes going faster from the last time she had seen them, wondering what he might be going through inside his head, she wrinkles her face in concern, imagining what he may be seeing.

She squints her left eye, focusing back to the fire, trying her best to keep the brewing to a minimum.

Her eyes dart at the falling rain, then back at the fire.

Finding the smallest comfort from this situation that they're in.

Feeling of being lost in a forest takes a toll on the both of them, she believes that the stress got to Dealix and that's why he had collapsed. Although she doesn't want to dedicate the belief solely on that.

With Dealix sleeping, Chandra was alone with her thoughts and the rain made an excellent ambiance to emerged with her thoughts.

Staring at the open flame with a distant gaze she ponders on days where she was at home, without a mother, or even a father to look after her.

She did everything she can to aid herself to make the best of it—although finding herself in tough situations by acting out.

Remembering how she got a skateboard last year that somehow landed on her front porch: someone had ringed her doorbell and to her surprise no one was there but the skateboard. Who ding-dong-ditches a skateboard, recalling it with a chuckle.

Her mile-long gaze comes back with the chuckle, shuffling herself to another position. Her thoughts quickly came to the scene of Chandra taking it to school, even going through areas that didn't allow skateboards.

Finding crowds that did the similar things, riding with them, doing tricks, and eventually hanging out with them which led her to smoking.

After that she did all kinds of things like pulling pranks on guards, on teachers, and even breaking into abandoned places like the ones her, Dealix, and Mier had slept in.

Her thoughts drift to Mier, still having a curious yet annoyed tone to his disappearing acts, but she comes to terms with it—Chandra was sure that there were things he had to do, things that didn't involve them, much like what Crew Eight did, and much like her past friends had done when they abandoned her at the worst moment.

Chandra looks down, the fire casting a warm red glow onto her face.

Those friends were her own Crew of sorts, doing everything together until one day they did something that caught the attention of authority guards, nearly the same type of guards at the tower.

Abandoning her when she got caught, though she did what she could and bailed, almost like the time the three of them were stuck inside the tower, however that was different.

Chandra still remembers them, remembering the details of their backs fleeing from her without a second glance.

Her chest begins to burn.

She sighs, taking herself out of that moment and looks at Dealix and smiles, he hasn't done that yet.

Chandra is grateful for him, even if the two of them have only known each other for not even a week. Though she remembers that he always did stories in class, writing them down like he was in some sort of trance. He always loved writing and she could tell that in some way.

He was the first one done when they had a free session of writing, she snaps back again.

Dealix's breathing is fluent.

The rain slowly starts to die down, but where things are headed they might need to stay here for tonight.

Chandra hopes that Dealix wakes up soon so they can find a place to have this all behind them, she reaches for her bag and gently lays her head onto it, making it a pillow.

Her thoughts spiral onto other memories as the rain casts a relaxing moment, the fire turning into a small flame.

As she takes a rest of her own, Dealix's fluent breathing steers into a slightly more rapid session, his eyes darting faster.

{●}

Dealix runs in an endless abyss that he can't escape from, running aimlessly to avoid an eerie feeling.

He takes it in, realizing that he's in a dream of some kind, but can't wake up from it.

Pinching himself , he lets out a small yelp from the prick, he knows it's a dream because the last place he remembers was walking with Chandra in the forest.

That's when everything turned into a spiral, his hearing became a void, and his senses started to sway.

After that he was in this endless darkness, smelling nothing, seeing nothing, hearing only the vibrations of his blood flowing through his veins.

He crouched downwards, placing his hands over his ears in hopes to block the sounds of rushing rivers. Although the action didn't help, his panic started to show.

Feeling somewhat of a pulse throughout his body, the feeling of uncontrollable breathing breached along with the urge to look around.

He feels his skin starting to bubble, the sense of goose-flesh that starts from the nape of his neck, then crawls towards the ends of his hands.

Dealix perks up, without thought he begins to race in any direction to escape from it.

He learned that if he stands still the sensation will occur again, learning by an attempt to catch his breath, the goose-flesh had rippled from the last spot down towards the half of his back.

Dealix's lungs start to inflame from the constant sprinting, however he does his best to prevail onward trying to keep the pace to avoid it. Whenever it occurs it's like his body starts to act on its own.

He reaches a point where underneath his feet starts feeling like treading through waters, bringing the sound of water being impacted with. Having a sort of relief to him from only hearing his own blood.

His legs start to weigh heavily, pushing onward into ankle high, dark waters. The straining of muscles making his knees buckle, tripping on himself and plummeting into the waters.

Dealix's body is drenched from head to toe, he does a series of quick inhales and exhales as his eyes dart from side-to-side, trying to look around in the blinding abyss.

He wants to get up, but his legs won't let him. The goose-flesh comes, spreading through his entire back, making him stretch his hand to his back in an attempt to stop it, letting out a yell into the void.

Goosebumps travel towards his cheeks as he clenches his eyes closed, goose-flesh strides towards his eyes, the feeling of a cold numbness bursts Dealix's eyes open.

His head shivering as it travels to the rest of his body.

{●}

Within the shelter that Chandra had made, Dealix's eyes spasms behind his eyelids, his breathing becoming a rapid stroke, halting within a split moment before it continues again.

The fire's life cycle is reaching its end and the rain is kept to a slight drizzle, pattering up on-top of the leaves.

Dealix's movements turn into a halt, bringing it back to normal, Chandra had placed her hand on his, tightly gripping it telling him that everything is okay, it will soon pass. His eyes changed its rhythm into a soft pace.

She leans over him, her eyes heavy, her head thumping from the sudden wake up call.

"You're okay" she whispers to him, as she leans back, taking a moment to breathe while confirming that this was no ordinary dream.

Chandra lays her other on her chest, taking a deep breath—realizing that tonight will be tough on the both of them.

She gets up, slowly slipping her hand off of him to gather more sticks to dry for tonight.

Chandra will attempt to keep watch in case it happens again.

Hopping off of the shelter, the ground squishes underneath her feet.

The water pileup reaches inside her shoes, doing an unpleasant expression as it soaks in, she pushes it off to search the area for more twigs and sticks.

The forage doesn't take long as plenty are scattered across the forest floor, after she gathers enough to last them for tonight she gets back up into the shelter and begins to lay them out to dry.

"Hang in there." She murmurs to him, his posture keeping a healthy state as she begins to ready herself for night fall