With Fabu still ahead of me I had to run to catch up to her. The distance was short however intimidating in every way, my legs were practically dragging across the ground as I ran. Ignoring the burn in my muscles, I pushed on. When I finally caught up to her she was looking at me with an irritated expression. Probably because it took me so long to catch up with her. I shrugged my shoulders and when I did, it felt sluggish and I could feel my muscles tensing up.
What is going on with my body?
"So, how are we getting into this cave?" I asked, not tearing my eyes away from the spot where I saw the man jump. Fabu looked me over once, and when she glanced at the cut on my knee a look of understanding passed over her features.
She softened her expression. " Are you okay? It took you almost three and a half days to get over here and you're sweating...a lot." She was paying close attention to body, and it made me feel really uncomfortable under her gaze.
"I'm fine, just a little winded but it won't stop us from going into this cave." I told her. "But how are we getting into this cave?" I changed the subject.
"We will have to get into the cave by sea," Fabu started. "Its under water, so we will swim there." We walked up to a cliff. Jumping would take us right in to the ocean, so I wasn't too afraid of shallow waters
As Fabu inspected the best place to jump from, I looked down at myself. There were large sweat stains on my shirt, under my arms. I flushed. What if the man I saw was really Jason? He couldn't see me like this. Looking back down the cliff, I felt some relief. The water at least, would drench me completely.
Looking back up, Fabu motioned me over. Walking up to her position, I could see the waves crashing against bottom of the was a long way to fall, I thought to myself with a sense of trepidation. Fabu intertwined our finger together and looked down at the waves. Unlike me though, fear was absent from her eyes. I could only see excitement.
"Ready?" She asked but I couldn't answer her without my voice cracking. "One, two, thr-"
I took one last breathe for good luck before we hit the water and held it in. The next thing I was felt was the wind whipping all around my body and suddenly the feeling of ice-cold water clouding my vision. I waited until my vision was clear enough for me to see underwater, and I noticed Fabu swimming ahead of me. I swam as close behind her as my worn muscles would allow, after about two minutes of swimming I saw this huge rock ahead of me.
There was a dark hole that was in the middle and Fabu swam right through it. Suddenly I was all alone and started to panic.I reminded myself not to breathe in any water and calmed down. I swam closer to the hole and looked at it, trying to see where she went. As I moved even closer a hand shot out and grabbed me yanking me though the cave.
Landing on the hard and cold wet rock was not pleasant. I started coughing to get the excess water out of my throat I looked up to see who pulled me through.
Fabu was combing her hair to one side with her finger so she could ring the water out. Her back was turned to me when she spoke.
.
"I told you to follow me Lindelihle, not look at the entrance all day." I knew she was angry with me from the tone of her voice, but at least she didn't yell this time. She walked over to me and held her hand out for me to take, I took it with slippery fingers and stood to face her. Her coal colored eyes were dim, the fire was put out and I sighed internally.
She walked around me and over to this cave wall with thick vines covering the grey rock. She was trying to climb it seeing as it was the only way to go besides the way we came, but when her hands grabbed a vine she slipped and fell.
"Shit, my hands are too wet to get up there," She stood up. "Lindelihle, let me stand on your back and I'll be able to hoist myself up."
Why do I have to get on my knee? I'm the tired one with the burning cut on her leg. I looked down at my left knee and inspected the cut, the blood from ealier had been washed away from the water and all I could see was a small cut. I ran my finger along the thin cut and winced as soon as my hand made contact. It was still really sore to the touch, but more than that my knee was starting to swell.
I heard Fabu grunt in front of of me, she had both hands on her hips and was tapping her foot impatiently on the ground. I groaned, brought back to the problem at hand. She was the smaller one so I didn't want to hurt her back by being the one to step on it. But I really didn't have the strength to argue with her so I compiled without a word.
I got on all fours and felt her stand on my back, and was glad she wore flat shoes today. When I felt her get off of me I stood up just in time to see her scramble over the top. She came back into my view a second later and held her hand out, I took it and while she was pulling me up I used the vines to put my feet though helping me get a better footing.
After I was up and standing we walked a short ways through the cave when I saw the man from earlier. His back was to me and was standing precariously on the edge of the cave ground, leaning over as if to get a better look. While I was looking at him from behind I saw that Fabu made a move to go forward. Stopping her with my hand to hold her back was when I realized whom it was in front to me.
"Jason!" I cried out. He let out a yelp and tumbled off the edge and fell forward, once again out of my sight.
Without thinking I ran after him, forgetting about how tired I was and only focusing on him. Fabu yelled in protest behind me but I paid her no attention and jumped of the edge. Once again I was surround by water. Today is starting to repeat it self a little too much for my liking.
I started swimming as soon as I hit the water, keeping up with Jason making sure not to let him out of my sight. He made it out of the water after a while of swimming and I followed after him. We still were inside the cave but this part was covered by tiny little mushrooms, he walked up another cave wall like I did earlier with Fabu, but he climbed up the vines without my help thankfully. I walked to the bottom of the wall prepared to climb up, but he looked down from the top of the wall and made eye contact with me.
My heart stuttered bit when I looked into his eyes, and when he held out his hand for me to take it, I think it might've stopped. I took his large hand and felt it tighten around mine. He pulled me up the distance easily as if I wasn't really a burden. But I blamed it on me using the vines as leverage again.
When I was at the top I tripped over one of the vines and stumbled into his warm embrace again, his arms enveloped my waist and locked us together for a moment. He smelled faintly of lemon and cinnamon, a perfect combination to my senses. I let go of him suddenly and spoke spilling out my conscience.
"I am really sorry, I didn't know you would fall...I should've known with how close you were to the edge. But I didn't...and you could have been killed...I don't even know where we are Ja-" He cut me off in the middle.
"Do I look hurt Lin?" He questioned bluntly and I didn't comment on the nickname.
"No..but you could've been if-" I had to let him know that I was sorry. He wore an irritated look on his face.
"That's not what asked," he said. "Am I hurt?" He repeated.
"No," I gave in unwillingly.
"Then nothing is wrong, and it wasn't your fault that I fell." He scratched the back of his head, a guilty look on his face. "I shouldn't have been standing that close to the edge anyway, it was bound to happen."
His words made me feel a little better about the situation, but I would find a way to make it up to him later. The silence between the two us was almost deafening.
I noticed many different things about Jason, now that I was looking at him. He had these tattoos covering his arms, all of them were different designs. When looking at his arms I also noticed how much bigger he was than the last time we met. He hadn't gotten fat, but more muscular I looked at his body from head to toe taking him the new differences.
"You like the view?" Jason spoke never taking his eyes off of me the whole time I was looking at him. I felt my face heat up. I looked away and suddenly found my feet very interesting. I turned my face to look at Fabu to see her expression, when I saw no one there. Jason must've saw my panicked expression because he started looking around for a threat. Then my eyes widened in realization.
Did I leave her behind?
I groaned out loud and Jason quirked his eyebrow at me, giving him a look of incredulity as I spoke.
"I left Fabu back at the beginning of the cave."
Thanks for reading! If you liked it or not please leave a review it means a lot. And a thank you to my beta Jazz.
