Chapter 6: The Woods Of Layar

We walked into a deep, thick wood. The path we followed was narrow, only a few feet wide. It wound through clusters of trees and past steep cliffs. The trees were very dense, and seemed to go on forever. We walked alone the path, occasionally hearing a bird chirp or rustling in leaves.
"How far does this take us?" Cliff suddenly asked.
"Oh I dunno, a few miles maybe? The Mountain doesn't look too far away. Then we have to hike a few miles to get to Voray's Peak." I shrugged.
"Oh..." Cliff said, a look of disappointment in his face.
"What's wrong?" I asked.
"I can't wait to see Ann again, this will take longer than I had expected." said Cliff.
"Oh, don't worry, you'll see her again soon." I said, patting him on the back.
"I hope your right..." sighed Cliff.

After that conversation, we barely spoke for the next few hours. We had both started missing Ann and Karen, and it made the mission even more urgent. I wondered how Karen was, and if she was even still alive. We had been walking at a slow pace, when I mentioned this to Cliff.
"Cliff, maybe we should walk faster..." I said.
"Why, I'm tired, leave me alone." he said.
"I'll go off by myself if you don't walk faster. Karen is dying, don't you care?" I asked.
"Not really...I just am thinking." he snapped.
"Now look here. I didn't force you to come with me, you joined me. That puts you under my orders!" I said.
"Well, what did you want me to do? Turn you down in front of Ann? I'd look like a rude coward!" he said.
"So you really aren't doing this to just help me out..." I said, disappointed.
"Exactly." he said.

That was the end of our conversation for the next few days. I managed to get Cliff moving faster and we slept only a few hours in the afternoon. We were both dead tired, but I told him once we got to the base of the mountain we would rest.

On the third day of travel, with only a day of walking ahead of us, Cliff suddenly stopped.
"Cliff, what's wrong?" I said, running to his side.
"I...can't go on, you go..." he said.
"No, I'm not leaving you," I said, letting him lean on me.

We walked on like this for a while. When I was asking him why he didn't tell me he was that tired, his eyes opened wide with fear.
"What is it?" I asked.
"......" Cliff remained silent, shaking.

I turned around and saw a huge monster. I got stunned with shock. I couldn't move, I was too frightened. Finally, I regained my composure and tried to think of a way to get away from the monster. The monster was quickly running towards us, but was still half a mile away. I thought, and then turned and saw a cave that looked like it wouldn't fit the monster.
"Cliff, let's go." I said, practically picking him up and running.

We ran to the cave and inside. The cave was musty and damp. There were small puddles that had probably filled with water decades ago. The rocks looked very old, and the floor was smooth. We ran in and found a large rock to sit on.
"Wha...what was that?" asked Cliff, bewildered.
"I have no idea, but we should be safe in here." I replied.
"I hope your right..."

We were in the cave only a few moments when we felt a quake in the earth. The monster had found out where we were, and had stomped over to the mouth of the cave. He struggled to squeeze into the cave, but found it to no avail. He finally stuck his arm in it. His arm was scaly. It was extremely large. His hand was humongous, and had five sharp claws attached to it. It swiped angrily at us, each time getting closer and closer to us. We moved back into the cave. Part of the mouth of the cave gave way and the monster was able to move several feet closer. One time, the monster got part of my hair. We moved back even more. As we slowly inched our way, we felt the ground drop considerably under our feet. Finally, in one wrong step, we found ourselves falling...
*Thud*
"CLIFF!" I yelled.

I was crawling around in a small cave. Probably a crevice we had fallen into. The ground was covered in rocks and dirt. I put my hand on a sharp rock and cried out as I pulled it back. I felt around some more until I felt hair. I crawled over and picked up Cliff's head. I could feel blood coming out of his head, and I ripped off part of my shirt to bandage it. I didn't know what to do so I sat there waiting for Cliff to wake up.
"Ugh..." Cliff moaned, waking up.
"Cliff, you're ok!" I said.
"Yeah I guess...my head hurts." he said, feeling the back of his head.
"Yeah, you took a nasty fall. Well, how do we get out?" I wondered aloud.
"Good thing I brought this.." said Cliff, pulling out a flashlight.

He turned on a flashlight and we got a better look at where we were. The cave was not very big, only several feet. There was a small opening where we could see out, and we saw the forest.
"We'll have to open it up more, we'll never fit," I said.
"Good idea, let's go," said Cliff, clawing at the rock.

Luckily it was dirt, and soon we were able to crawl out of the small cave. I took the time to examine Cliff's wound, it was only a small scratch so I figured he didn't need any medical help. We started walking but we had no idea where we were. We saw some lakes and streams and decided to follow them, figuring that they had to come from the mountain.
"My head kills..." said Cliff all of a sudden.
"Are you ok?" I asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine, sorry." he said.

We continued walking and after a few more days we came to the base of a large mountain. We stared up in awe at it's height. We decided it'd be best to camp for a day at the base.