The Crystal by Jones M (the chimp paradox .txt) 📕

yellow. My hands reached out, caressing the tops of the grass-field as my eyes moved around my surroundings. 

We were far from Crystalia. The only thing that met my view was the presence of scattered trees and grass all around. My eyes turned to face the sky.

The sun had already risen up. The starry day sky was clear with a few scattered clouds spread around. My eyes moved towards our destination. It seemed closer, and to be honest, bigger. 

No, larger.

"Look!" Selena shouted on the other carpet. I looked at the front, and my eyes caught a beautiful sight. It was a river. On it, there were some birds. The birds were white and they resembled ducks. We flew past them, making them flap their wings as they flew away from the disturbance.

An hour later, we came to a stop at the edge where the grassland met the mountain grounds. Also, one thing was for sure.

It was freaking freezing.

I had forgotten to get my coat. It seemed dumb of me to do that since the mountain had snow spread around its peaks.

Crystalia was considerately warm. I mean, I thought because it was warm, the mountain had to be warm. Turned out I was completely wrong.

"Guys..." Selena trailed off as she pointed at three erboons flying above us. They couldn't see us since we still had the invisibility spell over us.

"I'll deal with this," Emery said while closing her eyes. I stood, staring at her for a minute. My eyes blinked in confusion at her.

"Okay, what is she doing?" I asked.

"Don't just stand there!" Emery whisper-shouted, startling me. "Look for the damn passage through the mountains! This damned erboon is fast, and it's looking forward to cutting through me."

"I found it!" my mother yelled. I cringed in fear of being heard while the rest shushed her.

"Sorry," she apologized. "It's over there," she whispered while motioning a thumb to something behind her.

Erick walked towards Emery and carried her. In a rush, we followed Emery's mother towards the passageway. My eyes widened at the view. The route was a space as wide as one car in between two mountains. There were a few protruding grey-black rocks on the sides and also on the ground. In front of us, there was a long route that I had no idea where it led to.

I looked up, and I gulped. The space between the two mountains remained the same for a couple of feet. I felt like I was in a tight space. 

We all rushed to the route, making sure to avoid the rocks that were on the ground. Once we were a distance inside that felt safe, Erick turned to Emery.

"We're here," the Prince whispered into Emery's ear. She suddenly gasped, clutching onto Erick's shirt.

"I hate those animals. They were freaking close to tearing my stomach!" she shouted. A screeching sound was heard, making everyone halt. Then, as slowly as we could, we hunched up on one side. The large mountain protrusions above us made it easy for us to be hidden.

It took a moment that felt like thirty minutes for the screeching sounds to fade away before we resumed our journey. However, the screeches did not stop. They would be heard at intervals, making us pause for a moment before we continued towards the route. It took us an extra ten minutes to determine if it was safe to move. It was annoying and terrifying at the same time.

As we walked through the mountains, the air seemed to get colder. I watched the others, even Liam, put on snow coats and other cold weather gear. 

Why did I assume I did not need those?

Emery glanced at me. She sighed, opening her bag and taking out a large leather coat and some undershirts, a pair of snow gloves and some boots. I stared at her in shock.

"These were my emergency clothes. I knew someone was bound to forget that the weather would get cold on our way. I assumed it would be Erick..."

"Hey!" the Prince said with a frown.

"...but I did not expect it to be you. Anyway, wear these."

I looked at the pieces of clothing and shook a little. The coat was red, the gloves were a rose color, and the boots were pink with Barbie doll patterns.

"Are you kidding me?" I asked. She gave a smug smile before shrugging her shoulders.

It was either wear the girly clothes or suffer from cold. I picked the one that made sense.

I declined the clothes.

 

Kidding.

 

We continued walking while I was made fun of for wearing girly clothes.

"You look pretty."

"Pink looks good on you!"

"You should wear that ALL the time."

I grumbled under my breath while the rest laughed at me. A side of me wanted to get rid of the clothes, but I had to keep them or else I would die from hypothermia.

On our way, when the mocking had ceased, we came to a stop at a beautiful sight. At that point, the route was wider than the entrance, and there was a river on our right. It was wide, and it was flowing slowly. The river showed the reflection of the sky, which showed nothing but white.

"Is that—" I went to ask, but Emery's mother cut me off.

"The river that subdivides into two streams and flows past Crystalia. I always wondered where its pinpointed source was."

I looked on, searching for its point of origin. Sadly, the river turned to the right some meters from us.

"I wish we had time for that, mum. However, we have to deal with the erboon situation," Emery said in a bored tone.

"It's so beautiful," Selena commented as she looked around, amazed by the scenery that met her eyes.

"It is. Too bad it's next to Eva's minions," Emery said.

"We should take a drink of water," Brian said. "I doubt we'll have a source of water far ahead." It was a good idea.

We all dropped to our knees to collect the water and drink from the river.

"Is this safe?" Liam asked. "Are there any water-borne diseases in these waters?"

"It is safe, Liam," Selena answered, drinking water she collected on the palms of her hands. Liam shrugged, following the rest of us in drinking water from our palms.

"How much longer is the trip?" I asked.

"We don't know," the guards said, making me shocked.

"What?"

"No one knows where Eva resided. We are aware that it's along this way, but we don't know how far. The ones who know are either dead, or she killed them," Erick informed me with a frown.

"So they're just dead?" his eyes gazed at something on his right before he nodded.

After we had finished drinking our water, we continued walking.

It took a whole day to move past the mountains. The sun was in its last stages of setting, and the sky had taken a dark color. There was no moon that night, and it made it hard to see what was in front of us. A few minutes ago, we all turned on our torches because the route was hard to see.

By the time we were out of the route between the mountains, my feet were killing me. What met my eyes scared me to the roots of my bone. I thought passing through the mountains was the worst that could happen. 

Apparently, I was wrong.

There was a forest in front of me. It was a vast forest, enough to look like a jungle. The trees looked thick, and they were tall. They had large roots protruding from the ground.

You know at night when you leave a couple of things piled up together or place something somewhere and they look like a freaking demon or some other creepy thing staring at you? Well, that was what was occurring, except worse. The forest looked like it had eyes. I felt like I was in the freaking Disney's Snow White movie where the eyes were actually cute animals hiding from Snow White, with the difference that the eyes could belong to creepy animals.

"Is it too late to turn back to the mountains? I will feel a lot safe there instead of sleeping around here," I stated, shivering as a cold breeze drifted through the night.

"We'll stay here for the night," Erick announced, ignoring my question. "The forest trees will provide a perfect cover for all of us from the erboons."

An hour later, we had settled down and formed a campfire. Brian, one of the guards, said he would patrol the night while we all slept. It was very kind of him, even though the Queen's son mentioned the trees thing.

I just hoped nothing awful would happen to us in the night.

 

 

CHAPTER 17

Emery's P.O.V

"I have never felt so tired in my life," my mother said with a sigh as she took out a pan, plastic plates and food stuffed in her bag. I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

"You carried that in your bag?" Ethan asked in shock, earning an amused smile from Selena. The others who came with us were busy perusing their bags for their stuff.

"I did. Why? Is it wrong?"

"No, it's just that I didn't expect you to carry that."

My mother rolled her eyes at us.

"You guys are forgetful sometimes. We have no cooking devices around us. We only have nature to provide food for us. What were you going to eat?"

"Umm," Liam started while taking something out of his bag, "soda?" he said while revealing the liquid incased in a plastic bottle.

"Chips?" Erick piped in.

"Chocolate, biscuits--" Selena mentioned, but my mother cut her off.

"My goodness! That's not food. Those sound like desserts! You should all know better than to eat them," my mother chastised us.

"Miss Davis, what did you do when you had expeditions like this in the past?" Liam asked with interest.

"We never did this when I was your age. Our lives were quite simple. Well, except for the fact that Eva was around, but she was not that big of a problem after killing many of our kind."

"What?" Liam asked in shock. "Why wasn't anyone--"

"Trying to kill her?" she interrupted him. "She was a crystal, Liam. She was powerful than any witch, even powerful than Emery's father. And he too was a crystal. Basically, going after her was signing our own deaths."

There was a silence as my mother stared into the distance, mentally reliving the memories in her life. Liam and Ethan looked at her weirdly, probably hardly believing that my mother and other witches lived in such conditions.

"If you don't mind me asking, what happened to Mr. Davis?"

The air around became tense when Liam asked the dreaded question. I had a feeling that it was coming, but I thought Liam was smart enough to avoid the subject. But apparently, he wasn't  

 "It's okay if you don't tell me," he added once he read the sudden change in atmosphere.

"He passed away," my mother answered.

Way to put a damper on the mood, Liam.

He turned to face me, showing me a look of pity. I narrowed my eyes at him, urging him to promptly face the other way.

"I'm sorry about your loss," he told us. I looked down and shook my shoulders in a shrug.

"Life happens. Now, can we please change the subject to a lighter one?" I asked in hopes of avoiding the subject.

"Justin's management is asking him to get a girlfriend for publicity," Erick said. Selena spat out the drink she was sipping and turned to face him with a glare.

"What?" everyone asked. The talk we had was thrown out of the window.

"Ooh, gossip!" my mother said while clapping her hands in a silly manner.

"You all know that the world doesn't know I'm Justin's girlfriend, right?" Selena