Everything was chaos.

Also, extremely loud. And right now the loud noises were echoing around Evie's head, bouncing off of the sides and staying in her head for longer than necessary, making the concussion feel even worse; and believe me, that was an accomplishment.

She tripped again, and this time she knocked right into Aiden, making him stagger as he nearly tripped headfirst down a flight of stairs.

"Sorry..."

Aiden muttered something again and kept towing her along. At this rate, Evie was starting to wish she was a mannequin. That would probably be easier to drag along than someone who was actively slowing them down.

"Where're we going?" Evie asked, but her already-quiet voice was so soft that she was pretty sure Aiden hadn't heard her.

Also, she couldn't tell if she'd actually said it, what with the concussion she was currently experiencing.

Aiden came to a stop a second later, but then there was a cracking sound (what was that sound?) and more screams. She felt his hand around her wrist disappear. Had he disappeared into thin air or something? No, that wouldn't make any sense...

"Evie, what the hell are you-" And then an alarmed shout.

Was that Petra? It sounded like Petra. Why was she so alarmed right now? Evie forced her eyes to focus, an effort that made her head start yelling 'ow' repeatedly because darn it all it hurt.

Yep, there was Petra. Had she gotten taller? No, she was floating... surrounded by purple...

Wait.

"OH SHOOT-" Evie flung herself forward and wrapped her arms around Petra's waist, anchoring the taller girl to the ground and scrambling to escape the tractor beam as her brain finally seemed to catch up with her body, but she wanted to throw up and her head was pounding like a bass drum and she couldn't feel the ground anymore (where did it go?) and her legs were kicking furiously-

"Evie, stop kicking!"

Jesse. That was Jesse.

Where was Jesse?

Evie looked around, her legs slowing in their furious search for ground, and she felt a hand snag her ankle, and then a gradual tug that began to form as the tractor beam continued trying to suck them up and Jesse (was that Jesse? She couldn't tell) anchoring them to the ground.

Petra let out a gasp. "Guys-!"

"I can't-" Jesse sounded alarmed now, more than before. What was wrong? Something was wrong. But Evie's eyes had landed on a patch of grass growing in the middle of the stone path, and for some reason it had become utterly fascinating. "- can't hold on-!"

There was a splintering, cracking sound, the sound of something breaking, but it sounded a thousand miles away, it sounded so far away, why was it far away, had someone broken something over there?

Now the tug was gone-

And now it was back-

Evie let out a weak grunt as she hit the ground again, the impact jarring something loose within her head and making it spin even worse. Was the ground supposed to tilt like that?

"-ie? Evie?!"

Why was Jesse sounding so worried?

"'M fine," Evie muttered, trying to get up and unable to find the ground with her hands. Was she on her back? She reached backwards with her hands. No, she still couldn't feel anything. Was she still floating?

A pair of hands grabbed her by the shoulder and yanked her upright, making Evie repress a low groan of pain as the entire earth started tilting badly, and now she was looking into a pair of hard eyes- Petra, there was a little flash of red hair. "Pay attention!" she barked at Evie, like a military general.

"I'm trying," Evie tried to say. At least, she thought she tried to say it. Maybe she was imagining it. She couldn't tell.

The anger in Petra's eyes melted to concern. "Evie? Hey, Evie." She gave Evie a little shake, making something rattle around in Evie's head. Had her brain come loose and started rattling around in there? Either way, her head started spinning like a carousel out of control. "You okay?"

Evie wanted to say she was okay- in fact, she was perfectly fine, she was doing absolutely wonderfully, if you ignore the fact that her head was spinning and throbbing and making her feel like she was floating away, but now she could see torchlight glinting off of Petra's hair and she couldn't stop staring at it.

"What's wrong with Evie?" Jesse sounded worried, her voice a tight squeak as she stared at Evie. Evie lifted her head to look at Jesse more clearly.

It took so much more effort than it should, so after a couple tries Evie just went back to staring at Petra's hair.

"I-I don't know, I don't know what's up with her, uh-" Petra's voice was gaining in pitch and intensity.


Petra looked up at Gabriel, feeling a little spike of anxiety in her because why was Evie just staring at her blankly, why did Evie look like she was about to pass out, what was wrong with the girl?

Gabriel was frowning at Evie as well. "Is she usually like this?"

"No- well- I don't know," Petra said helplessly, letting go of Evie- the girl swayed slightly in place the moment Petra let go, but otherwise stayed upright- and wringing her hands slightly. "We met her today... but she's been pretty down-to-earth today, so..."

Aiden was the first to come back over, Lukas stumbling slightly as he caught up to his friend with Axel, Olivia, and Reuben also returning, having noticed that the others might've been in trouble.

"I think something's wrong with Evie," Petra said, in response to the quizzical look that Aiden shot her.

Aiden's eyes instantly widened. Lukas glanced at the girl currently sitting on the ground and staring into space as if the chaos around her was not happening with concern written across his face. "What's wrong?"

"We don't know, she just kind of blanked out..." Jesse bit her thumbnail, crossing her arms and glancing at Petra.

Evie tilted her head back now, squinting up at them all as if there was a bright light there. It looked like it was taking her a supreme amount of effort to keep her head from lolling on her neck. "Where'd... you all come from?" she asked, weakly.

Olivia bit her lip at that.

Gabriel's face hardened a moment later, growing more solemn. "We must set out for my fortress. We'll be better protected there." With that, he started running out of the convention. Everyone exchanged a look, before they followed suit. Petra glanced at Evie, who was still sitting still, before grabbing her wrist and yanking the shorter girl to her feet. "C'mon- we gotta run."

"Okay..." Evie gave a vague nod and then started following Petra, who was pretty much towing her along with the force of an iron golem.

Petra drew even with Jesse, who was sprinting as hard as she could to get out of there, green eyes glinting with worry. "Thanks for that just now," she told Jesse, through a couple of breathless gasps for air.

"Yeah, well, now we're even-" Jesse suddenly gasped, nearly leaping straight into Petra and Evie's path at the sight of the huge, three-headed black cloud with tentacles forming, not too far behind them. Another flaming skull shot at them.

"Incoming!" And Petra grabbed Jesse and yanked her back, just in time to avoid the skull that missed Jesse's nose by half an inch and detonated in the ground about two yards away from them.

And then they were running again, Petra practically having to haul Evie along as she sprinted into the flaming forest, because one of the skulls must've shot in here, must've set the trees alight like birthday candles, because the trees were emitting fire and smoke so thick that Petra could barely see half a foot in front of her.

She glanced back at Evie, as if checking that Evie was still there.

Right as she did this, Evie stumbled straight into her, and they both staggered a little before the taller girl regained her balance and continued sprinting through the forest, dodging flaming craters, avoiding columns of fire that had once been trees.

"Sorry," Evie told her weakly.

"It's fine, just don't catch on fire," Petra muttered, slanting to the left to avoid a flaming section of trees that had divided the group.

Up ahead, she could hear Gabriel yelling at everyone to keep running, they'd meet up on the other side. She glanced to the right to see Jesse catching up behind Axel and Olivia and Reuben, racing with a too-small group of people to escape the fiery trees.

Evie tripped again, nearly falling right into a tree, and it was with a huge yank and a possible dislocation of the arm that Petra was holding onto that she managed to keep Evie from not faceplanting or getting set on fire.

"Sorry," Evie repeated, but even with the way her voice had gone thin and soft and quiet, Petra could hear the sincerity in it.

"It's fine," Petra repeated as well, emerging from the tunnels of fire and smoke and choking ash, she could barely breathe, her legs were starting to strain, but she forced herself to run faster, run, because she was not dying here.

Tractor beams abruptly flickered to life, roving across the forest floor, picking up unsuspecting people and lifting them, screaming, into the air.

Petra barely dodged one that had started picking up creepers and skeletons and who knew what else, resisting the urge to check on Evie- if she did, she was worried that Evie would trip again, and with all the tractor beams searching the ground, the chances that it would miss them if Evie tripped was less than Petra's chances of not losing at least one weapon when she ventured into the Nether.

Which was a very, very small percentage, so pardon Petra if she didn't make sure Evie was alive.

Moments later, Petra let out a groan, because rapidly approaching as they sprinted towards it was a literal wall of fire.

"Evie, there's a wall of fire, so you're going to have to jump over it, okay?!" Petra yelled to Evie, trying to be heard over screams and the roaring, crackling flames and the explosions.

No response.

"Evie-"

"I'll try..."

They were almost on the flames. "Okay, Evie, we're going to jump in three, two, now-!" And Petra launched herself into the air, glancing over her shoulder to check on Evie-

Evie landed so awkwardly that she stumbled backwards and one foot stepped straight into the flames.

"Sh*t-!" Petra hauled Evie forward, but the damage was done, Evie's lower pant leg was already on fire, she couldn't see what was happening to Evie's leg underneath, but Evie almost didn't seem alarmed, almost wasn't worried, Petra wanted to swat the fire off but hesitated-

A flicker of black in Petra's peripheral vision.

Petra flung them both to the side, just as a huge, black tentacle smashed into the ground where they'd been, making the ground rattle and making Petra's teeth clack together with the force of it, grass and tiny animal bones crunching dangerously under the force of it.

"Did I do something to my leg?" Evie asked almost absentmindedly, as if it was finally occurring to her that, oh yeah, her leg was on fire.

Petra glanced down-

- and then instantly forced herself to swallow the scream that had just threatened to fly out of her mouth. As it was, she made a little whimpering noise that she dearly hoped hadn't reached Evie's brain, because clearly at the moment something was wrong and she was totally out of it.

The leg that had been on fire literally seconds before wasn't on fire anymore, so that was good. But it had been replaced with the huge tentacle that had just smashed into the ground, and Petra was thinking that maybe the crunch of the animal bones had just been Evie's leg, because her calf had just been totally crushed by that tentacle and even though the tentacle was lifting off of Evie, that meant Petra could see the bone poking through her bloody, burned leg.

"... a little bit," Petra said weakly.

"Sorry..."

"Not... not your fault..." Petra swallowed back the vomit that was building up in her throat because yes, she had seen injuries before, yes, she had broken bones before, but she hadn't seen a leg that had gotten as deformed and damaged as this.

Evie's face was starting to tighten with pain now, as if the realization of what had just happened, what damage her body had just taken, what had just happened to her was finally taking ahold.

Petra looped one arm under Evie's, tried to lift her into the air so they could make it to the temple, make it out of there alive- and then had to stop because Evie was starting to make a sound like a wounded animal, she could see that Evie was practically biting back the sound, forcing it back down her throat, but it was coming out anyway and her eyes were screwing up with pain and the moment her leg moved blood leaked out of it like a broken water pipe and Petra was forcing back more bile because oh my god legs should not look like leaky water pipes.

"It's gonna hurt," Petra said, and she sounded hushed and anxious like she was trying to comfort an injured child, a little kid and not a teenager like this girl here, the teenager with the crushed, mangled leg. "It's gonna hurt, but we're- we're going to get to the temple, and you'll be fine."

Petra counted the seconds that it took for Evie to process this, one, two, three, and all the time she was acutely aware that black tentacles were writhing in the dark sky, they were searching for a vulnerable target and right now that was them.

Well, more accurately, it was Evie.

"You could just leave me here," Evie said at last, sounding surprisingly mild and yet as if she was currently experiencing every level of agony that she could actually physically experience.

"Are you crazy, then you'd die..."

"Well, I'm slowing you up..."

Petra groaned. This girl was possibly worse than Jesse. "C'mon, if we get to the temple, we can- we can fix your leg, we can-"

Petra was starting to lie through her teeth because there was almost no physical way that this leg could be fixed, no possible way that Evie could ever really stand on this leg unless they had a potion master with them and there was absolutely no one in town that could fix it-

Evie was just looking at Petra, eyes surprisingly lucid and not dull or blank or empty like they'd been before. It was as if this pain was clearing up the fog had been infecting her mind, if only a moment. "You can leave," she repeated. "I won't mind. I don't think we'll both make it if you try to help me get there."

Petra looked around, but there was no one in sight, everybody already had entered the temple, it was just those two, there was no one that was going to be able to help Evie out of that situation.

"Better one than neither," Evie said softly.

"No, dammit, I'm not going to just- let you die, what the hell do you think I am?!" Petra exclaimed, glancing at the sky anxiously because if that monster spotted them, if that Witherstorm saw her, it was going to kill them both because they were total sitting ducks right now-

"A practical person who sees that trying to help someone whose leg is completely crushed is just going to end up getting her killed," Evie replied mildly, still lucid somehow, not screaming in pain or going back to that weird foggy state but just staring at Petra. "Come on, Petra, just go, you're going to end up dying if we stay here much longer."

As if on cue, another tentacle smashed through a swath of trees, decimating the flames and blasting things down with the force of a bomb.

Evie let out a long, tired sigh. "Look, I'm not really going to be of any use, so just hurry up and get out of here before we both die, alright?"

"I'm not going to-!"

"Look, I'm glad that you're a good person and you don't want me to die, but look, my leg is completely crushed and I won't be able to get two yards without that monster killing us." Evie looked at Petra, and then gave a sheepish grin and chuckle. "And no, I'm not trying to be a heroic sacrifice or something. It's just completely unpractical and I think you ought to stay alive."

Petra stared at Evie, trying to decide whether or not Evie was insane. "Evie-"

"Please just leave, I'm not changing my mind. I'll catch up in a minute when it hurts less, how about that?" The wavy-haired girl gave Petra a small smile and a wave.

And the redhead knew she was lying.

She wasn't going to be able to catch up.

Not in a million years.

But she found herself getting up and continuing towards the temple, running away from the shorter girl, running because she wasn't going to let that go in vain, she had to stay alive.

Evie was lying, and she'd gone anyway.


The pain was starting to make Evie's head go dull again.

The searing, burning feeling in Evie's leg had become more intense, more painful than before, so much so that it was allowing more fog to creep back in her mind- she supposed that she'd stopped being able to process it and the fog from her concussion (she was sure it was a concussion at this point) was returning full-force.

"What the-?"

Great, someone else had come along. She hoped she could jolt herself out of this stupor long enough to convince them to keep going, to ignore her, since she could see her leg, a red bloody smear against the darkness that was encroaching.

With the effort of someone lifting weights, Evie lifted her head, focused her eyes-

And found herself staring straight at Ivor.


A/N: Cliffhanger!

Yeah, sorry. xD

In other news, you know how I was on hiatus for a month? In Composite, if you read that, you may have read that I've released a game co-written by Toni42 and me. You can check it out at the link below:

arizaluca . itch . io / trust - fall

(Just get rid of the spaces and the link should work!)

It's a lot of fun, and I'm really proud of it, so I hope y'all will like it too!

Responses to reviews~

LunarTheMooncake: And now her leg is crushed too, yay xD

NoItsBecky: ... uhhh (sweat)

Princess of Muffins: I mean, she DEFINITELY needs it now, lol / Haha, same. / Indeed she did xD / Hehehe xD

J.M.M.: (pats)

AquaK13: ... uhhhhh... / Indeed she did xD / Lol, if anything she's my kid xD

EnderKitty68: Forget pass out, she's gonna let a leg crushed.

Well, uh, that's about it.

...

See ya, so long, and g'bye! xD

x.X. A.L. X.x