The Trials

Chapter Five

I didn’t want to wake Karoline, but I was so tired that I could hardly keep my eyes open any longer. Even if it was just an hour, I needed sleep. Since the silhouette disappeared into the night, it has become eerily quiet. Because of that, I felt safe enough to sleep.

“Karoline,” I said while nudging her awake. “Your watch.”

Karoline stirred awake, rubbing her eyes as she sat up in her sleeping bag. “How long was I out for?”

I smiled. “Long enough. You do realize that you talk in your sleep, right?”

She stared at me stunned, almost embarrassed then she cast her head down. “Yeah. I do when I have bad dreams. My mom told me that I haven’t done it in years, but I guess being in this place brought that back. Sorry if I disturbed you at all.”

Of course, she would think of only me in this situation. “I’m fine,” I smirked. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. If that’s okay. That will be another story for another day. For now, you need to sleep. It will be daylight soon and we will need to keep moving. I can’t believe you let me sleep for so long. I promise that I’ll have the first watch tonight.”

Yeah, I thought, if we survive that long. “Sure. Thanks, Karoline.”

I bundled up in the sleeping back, drifting off to sleep within seconds. I didn’t realize how overly exhausted I was, but I guess it made sense. Since coming to the mansion, I hadn’t gotten much sleep at all. The anticipation of the trials along with my inability to trust anyone kept me up all night.

My dreams were filled with the silhouette I saw in the woods earlier. The creepy voice continued to replay in my head as if it was a promise as to what I would find on this journey. It was a little unnerving to be here in the first place, but now I knew that there was a reason I was here. Erik may not know it himself, but I was placed here for a reason far bigger than even I would come to find out.

It seemed like I was only sleeping for an hour when Karoline had to wake me up. “Riven, it’s time to pack up and move on,” she said as she nudged me awake. Unlike Karoline, I was a light sleeper.

Once I got up and rolled the sleeping bag up, I survived my surroundings to see if anything seemed out of the ordinary. The fields were as empty as they were when I went to sleep, but something was nagging at me. It was as if you could feel someone watching you, planning their attack. My neck tingled, giving me a warning that I was right.

“Karoline, duck!” I screamed, just in time to see her duck before an arrow came flying at our faces.

I turned around in time to see a woman skipping through the trees. It didn’t take me but a few seconds to figure out exactly who it was, but why would Trinity attack me now? There was only one logical answer, Erik had made sure that the battle we began before now ended here. I wouldn’t put it past him to have told her he would reward her handsomely if she killed me. Not only did I have the enemy to worry about, but I also now had to worry about the women who I came here with. For just a moment, it made me second guess Karoline and if Erik had offered her the same thing.

Karoline was puffing, scared to death. “Was that who I think it was? My God, like we don’t have enough to worry about. Now we have to not only deal with whatever awaits us in these woods but now them too?” She stared at me for a moment with tear-soaked eyes. “We aren’t going to make it out of this alive are we?”

I rushed over to her, picking her up to her feet. “We have to keep moving, Karoline. If we keep moving, she can’t keep up with us and we can lose her. It’s the only way that we are going to win. We can face both enemies at the same time. I know that this is a lot, but we have to keep our heads on and be smart. You know better than anyone that the only way to beat our enemy is by being smarter than our enemy. Right now, we need to focus on what we are here to do. The sooner that we get this done, the sooner we can get back home to those that we love. Are you with me?”

With a smile, she stood to her feet and wrapped her arms around me. “You always know the right thing to say.”

Without her seeing, I rolled my eyes. As much as Karoline got on my nerves, I also really enjoyed her company. It wasn’t easy for me to make friends, even growing up, but she opened up to me so easily. It was scary to think that Erik may have her ear as well, but until I knew for sure, I would still protect her with my life.

After thirty minutes of running back into the woods, we were exhausted, but we had to push through. I hadn’t had enough sleep to give me enough energy to run for ten minutes straight, let alone more, but I had to push myself. I felt like there were so many answers around me, but I had to fight to get them. If I could make it through these trials and to the enemy where I could finally end this war for my family back home, I could then focus on ending Erik and saving everyone. However, the more I was in this place, the more my mind wandered. What if the enemy wasn’t our enemy at all? Yes, I’ve thought about this numerous times before, but the closer I felt I got to the enemy, the more I believed they were my enemy at all, but my ally.

The sun was high in the sky, peeking through the trees. In a weird way, it was peaceful. However, that only lasted a short time before Karoline, and I began hearing growling sounds coming from everywhere around us.

“Riven…” Karoline whispered with worry evident in her voice. “What is that sound and what does it feel like it’s circling us?”

Here we were to the second part of the trials without realizing it. Creatures surrounded us in the woods, but these weren’t normal creatures at all. I could tell from the sound they made alone that these were killing machines, ready to devour their prey.

I looked to Karoline, who had fear-struck eyes. “That tree. Climb it and stay high. Don’t come down unless you hear my voice to do so. Do you understand?”

“But what about you? We can climb together and wait them out. Creatures are known to get bored quickly and will move on. Once they do, we can escape together.”

“Not these creatures, Karoline. If I don’t come back soon, go on without me but pay close attention. These creatures are not normal, which is why I need to lead them away and get the advantage. This is their home. Therefore, they know the area a lot better than I do. If I want to make it past this trial, I need to do it alone, so I’m not distracted.”

I didn’t stick around to wait for her reaction. I dashed into the woods, running as fast as my legs could carry me. They felt like weights with each step that I took, making it harder to move forward. Still, I wouldn’t give up. I would keep going until I had nothing left to give.

The sound of snapping tree branches and snarls came from both my right and left. My plan was working. I barely made it back to the clearing before something grabbed my leg, making me fall flat on my face. My eyesight was blurry for a moment, but I quickly recovered. Luckily for me, it was just in time as one of the creatures made itself known for the first time, charging after me. Holy s**t! This creature was massive when walking on all fours, but I could only imagine how big it would be on just two. I took out the knife in my pack, placing it in front of my face. Terror wasn’t a word that I would use to describe how I felt at this moment because I didn’t have time to think about how scared I was. There was only one way for me to make it out alive and that was to kill every last thing in my path.

The creature that had been following behind me caught up in no time. Staring at me with its teeth drawn back, I knew that I was in trouble. It had rough skin, skin that would be hard to penetrate with my little knife. I thought this would be an impossible battle until the creature did stand on two legs in front of me and I saw a small soft spot in the center of its stomach. That was how I was going to kill it.

Before I could make the first move, the creature took one giant step toward me, using its claw to tear right through the skin of my forearm. I screamed in pain the second its claws made contact. I had thought that if I was tough and didn’t show any fear, I might be able to win this, but I could see now that wasn’t the case. I was in this creature’s territory regardless if it was in the woods where it liked to stay hidden or right here in the open. With one swipe that creature could end my life before I had a chance to end it.

I moved forward with all the energy that I had, managing to get under the creature. It realized this too and pinned me to the ground beneath it. With the arm that I was holding the knife in, I pushed it upward, barely making contact with the creature’s skin. I couldn’t see but I moved the knife down further until I felt the soft spot and plunged the knife into its stomach. It whimpered and wined just before collapsing on top of me with all its dead weight.

I began clawing at the ground beneath me, struggling to breathe and trying to find a way to get it off me. However, I began to hear the snarls of the other creatures around me. Their fallen friend had only pissed them off rather than scare them into retreating like I had hoped. I could hear them getting closer and closer. Instead of continuing to struggle to get the creature off me, I closed my eyes, giving in to what I knew was going to happen. Either I was going to die from the other creatures or die from suffocating. If it were up to me, I’d rather die from suffocation than be torn apart.

My eyes began to drift closed as it was getting harder and harder to breathe. My entire body went limp, no longer being able to fight. I began gasping for air, praying that a miracle would happen, but that didn’t happen to girls like me. Girls like me had to fight for our own miracles and pave our own way. No one was going to do it for us. As much as I wanted to continue to fight, I was also so tired of fighting Erik. I wanted a chance to save everyone but in that moment, I wanted to see my father so badly that it didn’t no longer matter.

I took the one long big gasp of air that I had left in my lungs. As I did, I could feel the weight from my chest being lifted. Maybe this is what it felt like right before death. If so, it was sort of nice not to die feeling suffocating but feeling as if I could breathe all along. That is when my eyes sealed tightly shut for the last time and everything around me had gone black with it.