They haven't been walking down the narrow path in the trees for long before Takeru realises he's not sure which way the cottage is any more. They've lost the path, amid the sparse undergrowth of the forest, and the branches overhead cover the sun. He stops, and turns around and around, trying to work out which way they took to get here.
The girl rests a hand on his shoulder.
"What's wrong, Takeru?" she says.
"We're lost," he says, feeling the prickle of imminent tears. "We only just left and we're lost already."
Poyomon hops up and down in his hands, poyoing softly. The girl nods.
"Poyomon's right," she says.
He looks at her, frowning. "You can understand him?"
"Well, not exactly - at the moment at least - but his meaning's pretty clear. We shouldn't just give up and panic. You can't lose-" She stops abruptly, and looks away, closing her eyes. "…You need to keep going."
Takeru is a little confused by the way she talks, but it does sort of make sense. Even if she seemed to take her a little while to think of what she wanted to say. He wonders if she used to not talk, and is still getting used to how to make the words work. Maybe his other friends will talk the next time he sees them. That would be interesting, to have friends who talk. What if the boy could? The boy.
"I guess the boy is lost as well," he says after a moment's thought. "We're all lost apart at the moment, so now we just need to be lost together, and then we can find a way home and not be lost at all." He smiles. It sounds a lot easier when he puts it like that.
They start walking again, and after a while Takeru realises that the mist and fog seems thinner than it had been. Certainly he can see further into the forest around them. Amongst the tree trucks are metal poles with signs on them, all higgledy-piggledy. He stares at them as he walks along, wondering if all forests have signs in them - and then wonders how he knows they're signs, when he's sure he's never seen anything like them before. There's definitely something very odd about all of this. The back of his head throbs dully; not enough to hurt, but enough that he is aware of it as he walks along.
He catches the girl watching him. Little glances, now and then as they walk along. It's like she's waiting for something, but what?
Takeru doesn't really think about asking her why she's looking at him. After all, he's looking at her too, trying to work out if he really has met her before, like she says he has. He still can't remember anything like that. There's a general familiarity about her, of course, but then, maybe all new people are like that anyway. Or maybe he only met her once or twice, and that's why he doesn't remember. Memories are tricky like that. They go all blurry, and mostly they fade away completely within a few days. Already he can't really remember what the boy looks like, exactly. Or any of his other friends, for that matter. But then, he also knows that when he sees them again he will remember. And with the girl, he didn't. It's all very confusing.
They stop as the light begins to fade from amongst the trees. Takeru starts to get worried - he's never been outside at night before. But the girl seems calm and confident, although she sighs a little as they sit down in a V-shaped hollow between some tree roots.
"I wish we had a fire," she says ruefully. "I don't suppose you have any matches in that bag of yours? We don't have Agumon with us. Or even Gabumon or Piyomon."
Takeru frowns. "Who?" he asks, although the names - and he's sure they are names - seem to dance on the edges of his mind. Enough that he feels a little silly for having asked, especially as the girl simply stares at him.
"Oh, Takeru," she says with a sigh, and looks down at the leaves they've gathered to make their hollow softer. "Never mind."
"Are they…your friends?" he asks. It's strange to imagine the girl having friends he doesn't know. Strange and wrong. Or maybe that's just the throbbing in his head again, making him tired and a little confused. It hasn't stopped since the fog began to lift, after all. It's hard for anything to be right while his head just aches.
She smiles, although it's another one of the sad smiles. "Yes, they're my friends," she says softly.
Poyomon hops over to her, and nudges her arm with the top of his head. "Poyo poyo." He sounds a little sad, and Takeru frowns again before looking through the things he grabbed from his room. There aren't matches, but he pulls out some of the chocolate. It's definitely past the time when he normally has dinner, and he's hungry. After sharing it between them, they settle down in the leaves and try to get some sleep.
It's the burning dream. He knows it, even before the pain begins. Before he even starts to struggle, vainly tugging against the metal bands which prevent him from moving. There are no voices this time, just the spiky haired figure which looms over him and presses something both cold and burning against his neck.
The pain starts to grow where it is pressed against him, and then spreads, a wave of fire rolling out across his body. He screams, loudly at first, and then his voice runs out and everything turns to silence, as cold numbness seeps into his skin, chilling what had been aflame only moments before. But this time, before the numbness settles over his mind, amid the fog clouding his thoughts, images appear.
A giant black hand reaches out for him. He looks out over a wide lake at sunset, alone. He's huddled down behind someone taller, while voices cry out in pain. He falls through the air beside the girl, both plummeting towards a rocky ground. He sinks below the surface of the water as the world turns dark. A strangely familiar white figure, high in the sky above, slowly dissolves before his eyes.
Takeru wants to scream, with fear and pain and sadness. Everything is darkness. Everything is despair. There is no-
"Takeru!" The girl's voice breaks through the numbness. "Takeru, please! Wake up!"
His eyes open to a face not far from his, made shadowy by the gloom around him. He flinches, and Poyomon squeaks, hopping into view. The face moves back, and Takeru realises it's the girl, and not a monster. That her hair is smooth, not spiky. That he can feel each leaf he is lying on, with no numbness anywhere. That his eyes are filled with tears which overflow when he blinks.
He clings to Poyomon, as he always does after the burning dreams, and sobs. Everything is too different. This place where he is sleeping; a friend who doesn't leave at night; even the burning dream has changed again. The images play through his mind over and over again, as vivid as though he were still asleep and dreaming them.
And the girl. She was there. His breathing calmer, he sees it clearly in his mind. She was there, falling through the sky with him in the dream. He looks up, eyes wide, to see that she's watching him again.
"I saw you," he says at last, once he's sure he can talk. "You were in the burning dream. None of my friends were ever in my dreams before."
The girl stares at him, the whites of her eyes almost shining in the gloom. "Burning dream?" she asks, hesitantly.
Takeru cuddles Poyomon tighter, and nods. "I get them sometimes," he mumbles.
"Bad dreams? Nightmares?"
He nods once. "It's okay though," he says - more to Poyomon than the girl, really. "They're not real. I don't have to think about bad dreams when I'm awake."
A.N.: Whew! This chapter was surprisingly hard to write. Deciding which "images" to use for Takeru's dream was quite tricky as well. Hopefully they're recogniseable enough - although I think at least one will be quite tricky. Props to anyone who works them all out! Let me know if you get them all (or if you don't and would like me to clear it up).
I also have a review reply. Normally I reply privately, but seeing as this is speculation which I don't want to give away anyway, I shall reply here. So, FlightfootKeyseeker - Your guess is pretty good, but it also made me cackle evilly for quite some time. That may make me a bad person, of course. Rest assured though, there is a reason for everything that's happening, and it will be explained in due course.