NOOO YOU ALL FORGOT ME!

Eh, well. I was gone for awhile.

RenThePyro—Thank you! Stuff happens this chapter. Like, exciting stuff. The plot shall thicken.

xXEnderMageXx—I think I can set this one off to the side for now. Whether I use him or not depends on where the story ends up going. If I consider him, I'll let you know. I'll ask for more OC's sometime in the future.

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I opened my mouth to speak, but as soon as I did, the canopies of the taiga trees began to rustle with a cold breeze. The four of us looked up as snow and dark green leaves tumbled to the ground around us, like a miniature storm. Agro sniffed the air with her giant nose a few times, taking a few steps back and turning around. As I watched her, I saw the fur on her shoulders begin to rise. She let out a small warning growl, eyes glowing a bit more brightly than usual.

"What is it?" I asked her as a cold feeling began to creep down my spine, sending frigid shivers through my body.

Before she could respond, a second sound, very faint but still there, rippled through the trees. It was a whisper, low and soft. We all froze to listen: The language wasn't ours, or any that sounded familiar. But it was ancient. Some part of me knew that. Even we could detect the threat in the words, the words that came from nowhere, from nothing but wind.

My gaze flicked to Azure, and even from where I stood, I could see her pupils dilate and the look of horror come over her face. She gripped Yverise, knuckles turning white. She was staring at a small patch of grayish-blue sky between the tree leaves.

As soon as it had come, the wind died down and the words were gone. The only sound was silence.

The voice freaked out all of us. But Agro and Azure's reactions were strange, almost as if they knew something about it.

Come, Agro spoke. We must get out of here.

"W-where did that voice come from?" I stammered, words quiet. Jordan just stood there, hand near his belt as if he was about to grab a knife. Azure was still frozen, but as I watched her, she suddenly burst into motion.

She shoved her blade into its sheath and ran, blond hair billowing out behind her like a golden cloud. Northward she went, away from our small clearing, sprinting as if death was giving chase.

"Azure, wait!" I called, breaking into a run to follow her, Jordan behind me.

When I left the clearing, I found I had to quickly dodge around the tree trunks, which were growing closer together. Many times I lost Azure in the trees, only to catch a glimpse of her a few moments later. All the while we were calling her name, begging for her to stop running.

She didn't.

"Cut her off," Jordan grunted a ways behind me. I gave a nod that he probably couldn't see and did my best to put on an extra burst of speed. Azure wasn't slowing, but I was beginning to catch up. I found her by the gleam of dawn sunlight off her hair and dashed straight for her, maneuvering around trunks and over thick snow piles till I was just next to her. Then, I leaped, tackling her to the ground. It wasn't hard; she was surprisingly light. I felt the air leave her lungs when I made contact, and we tumbled onto the hard, frozen ground. She didn't give up, though. She rolled over, flipping me off to the side.

"Azure," I cried, afraid she'd start to run off again. I scrambled to my feet again just as Jordan appeared on the scene. Just behind him was Agro. She bounded to the other side of Azure, cutting off her only other way to get away again.

We had her circled. She was standing now, wildly turning around, that insane look back in her eyes.

"Azure! What is wrong with you?" Jordan shouted.

She whipped towards him, hand darting to the hilt of her blade, making him flinch. "G-get away f-from me," she whispered, slowly drawing out her sword. "L-leave me alone."

She was staring at Jordan as if he were her enemy, and I watched as he drew out his two swords and faced her. "Look, Azure! Don't—"

She swung. "No!" I shrieked, about to jump forwards and tackle her again. Jordan raised his swords to block her strike, and as he did, a terrible thought occurred to me. I remembered what she had told me about her sword the last night: "Whenever I stab something, there's a shockwave, and big ones completely annihilate everything around me."

"Get down!" I yelled, collapsing in the snow just as she made contact. Sure enough, I could see light bend as an almost invisible seismic wave rolled out, originating from Yverise and throwing Jordan backwards three or four blocks. Agro had time only to duck her head. The wave washed over her, pushing her back but mostly just stirring the fur on her shoulders. I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up as it passed over me, and the leaves above our heads rustled again with its power. Of course, Azure herself was completely unaffected.

I watched in horror as she advanced on Jordan, raising her sword again to stab him. This time, he grabbed and iron knife and threw it, but with expert speed she sidestepped, and it imbedded in the trunk of a tree farther away.

Reaching behind me, I felt around in the snow till my fingers came in contact with a smooth heavy object. I grabbed it and stood up quickly, revving up and throwing it straight at her head. Somehow, she knew it was coming and turned, swatting it out of the air with her hand. How in Notch's name did she—

My thoughts broke off as Jordan leaped up, slamming into her and shoving her back into the snow. Her sword fell from her hand and landed a block away, and as soon as she landed, she wriggled towards it. I jumped forwards and grabbed her wrists, twisting them into a hold I had seen Tellun guards use once, one that would force her to flip over onto her stomach. When she did, I pinned her arms crossed over her back. She couldn't move her upper body like that, and her legs couldn't reach me if she kicked. She writhed, and I pulled at her wrists harder, causing her to gasp in pain. "Get off me," she ground out, panting and she lay in the snow, me kneeling over her.

"Not till you stop whatever this is," I muttered back.

Jordan took a few steps to her sword and kicked its handle away from us, to be sure she couldn't get to it. "Why are you attacking us?" he asked, bending over to look down at us. She turned her head on its side and glared at him with a single crystalline blue eye. She didn't say anything, but the hatred in her gaze spoke for her. There was no recognition in it, nothing but fury.

"A-Agro!" I cried helplessly, looking at the she-warg who had stood by the entire time, watching. "Help us!"

She paced forwards, paws leaving huge prints in the snow. She stopped in front of Azure, lowering her muzzle close to her head. I felt the girl begin to shake a small bit the closer Agro got, which didn't make sense—she knew Agro wouldn't hurt her.

The warg continued to get closer until her nose touched the top of Azure's head, and she let out a small whimper. I had never seen her show any fear in the two weeks or so I had known her, so this surprised me even more. "Azure," I whispered. I didn't know what to say.

Her mind is perceiving the world as a living hell, Agro suddenly spoke in my head. To her, you are not Jade. You are a demon.

"What?!" I gaped at her. "Why?"

"What's she saying?" Jordan asked, dropping to his knees next to us. I ignored him, staring straight at Agro.

I do not know why, Agro said. But I can manipulate her mindscape to change it back to normal.

I nodded, watching as the warg closed her eyes. Azure froze to the spot, staring straight ahead. An idea occurred to me, and I copied Ago, focusing my thoughts on her. Maybe I could enter Azure's mindscape with her.

I steadied my breathing, focusing as much as possible.

All of a sudden, I was falling. As soon as my eyes opened, the feeling went away and I stood on solid ground.

And as soon as my eyes opened, I wanted to close them again.

It really was a living hell. The grass was black, the snow wasn't snow, it was ash. The trees were burning, and bloodcurdling screams erupted from all directions, varying in distance. The sky was a deep red, clouds made of smoke. The land distorted itself and cleared again, earth rolling as if I was at the epicenter of an earthquake. Hands shot up from the ground, gray and covered with blood, grabbing hungrily at my ankles.

And I saw demons. Creatures with no face—just a black hole of a mouth that consumed everything around it, pale skin that peeled back to reveal black bones and stark-white organs.

Gasping, I curled into a ball and squeezed my eyes shut, feeling the hands grab me and pull me down into the earth. With effort, I stayed still, waiting for the falling feeling to take hold of me again. Thankfully, it did, the hands melting and screams dying out. I opened my eyes again, finding myself back in reality, a reality in which Jordan was staring at me with a wide orange gaze.

"Jade?" he asked. I looked back at him, noticing I hadn't moved since I went under. I tightened my grip on Azure's arms, taking a deep breath as I tried to clear the images of her mindscape from my memory. "What's wrong with her?"

"She's…hallucinating." It was all I could say.

"What is she seeing?"

"You don't want to know, Jordan."

Movement from beneath me made me almost jump, and I looked back down at Azure, squeezing her wrists in fear she would start struggling again.

For a moment, she was completely still. Agro raised her head, looking down at her.

"Hey, Jade?" Azure suddenly murmured, turning her head in an effort to look at me. I tensed—had Agro fixed her? "Um…yes?"

"Tell your psychic wolf to stay out of my head."

Thank Notch.

"So…you're okay now, then? You're not going to attack us again?" I asked.

"I'm…fine. Please get off of me."

"Oh! Right."

I let her arms go and scrambled to my feet, watching intently as Azure slowly stood, grabbing at her shoulders and wincing. She cast me an annoyed glance. "Thanks for practically ripping my arms off."

I shrugged. "Sorry. Had to do it."

There was a long, silent pause. Then she said, "No. I'm sorry. I forgot that happened to me."

"What was that?" Jordan asked, stepping forwards.

She sighed, walking over to pick her sword off the ground. We all backed up, even Agro, as she sheathed it at her waist. "I get really bad hallucinations from time to time, but I don't feel like explaining now. Let's wait till nightfall to talk about those kinds of things."

"Okay," I said. "Yeah, Jordan, tell us why you 'don't know'." I could see him tense up at this statement, but he didn't comment.

"Come on," was all he said. "Let's keep going. I have a camp set up a few chunks east of here."

Azure shrugged. "Okay, I have no better ideas. Let's go."

We began to follow Jordan as he started to walk off, but after a few steps, I stopped. "Azure," I said. She paused and turned around, looking at me with an expectant blue gaze. "What?"

"Will you be okay? You won't flip again, right?"

She gave me a grin, which seemed a bit strange at the time. "Yeah. I'll be fine."

I nodded, following them. Agro kept pace with me, sniffing the air every few moments. I could tell she was still on edge, and so was I. We had both seen the horror that lived in Azure's mind. I thought about the eerie looks I could sometimes see in her eyes. It was insanity, I knew that. But if she lived with those hallucinations, then it made sense.

I just didn't understand how she had come to have them. Something must have happened to her.

And Jordan… his eyes and the fact he claimed to not remember his past.

Then me. My nightmares, and Agro.

All of us had something strange about us. Was it a coincidence we had met?

As we walked, no one spoke. There was a lot to say, but no one wanted to say it.

It would have to wait.

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Here's something else for you guys to think about. Review and tell me what you predict.

-Angel