Chapter 15

It has been a long time since Nina has been able to sleep peacefully as she is enjoying the comfortable lying on the luscious grass while hearing the birds singing around her. She jolts awake and looks around to see a bright blue sky, different trees blown by a gentle breeze, a beach with a clear blue sea and most importantly the house where she is staying with the bandicoots.

"This can't be right. We left to save Uncle Neo and Aunt Nadia. How did I get back here?" she said to herself, still looking around in confusion hoping to see the bandicoots, Aku aku or even N. Gin but can't see anyone. She is wracking her brain trying to remember what happened when the door to the house opened to reveal a beautiful woman with flawless blue skin, a black strapped dress and wavy black hair all the way down to her waist. She has the most kindest eyes Nina has ever seen and the brightest smile but she doesn't remember seeing her before and she would remember.

"Hello Nina. Welcome home." said the beautiful woman, bringing her arms out, welcoming her.

"What? Who are you? Where is everyone?" Nina feels desperate, "I am not suppose to be here, I was meant to save my Uncle!" the woman just gives her a comforting smile.

"Silly, everyone is safe and sound. Your Uncle just got here, ready to join us for lunch." She kneels down to Nina's level,

"Now stop being silly and give your mummy a hug." Nina's eyes widened.

"Mum? You are my mum?" she couldn't believe it. Her mum is in front of her, she can't help but smile with tears in her eyes.

"I can't believe it. Mum!" Nina runs towards her, ready to hug her long lost mother. Everything felt like it's slow motion no matter how fast she was running. She finally got close to her when her smile suddenly became distorted, eye going wide, bright yellow and teeth turns sharp. Brings out an evil laugh that bellows under the ground causing it to crack as the sky turns fire red with dark clouds, trees turn dark with every single leaf disintegrated and ravens flying around Nina and her mother, caging them with their feathers.

"Uncle! Help!" Nina shouted, terrified for her life.

"Sweetie, why are you shouting? You don't need your Uncle now your mummy's here." her hair's blown back to see bones at the side of her head instead of her ears and her voice sounds darker and demonic, a voice that Nina is too familiar with. She wants to run but she is trapped as the feathers around her combined together into complete darkness. All Nina can do is kneel down and use her hands to try and cover her eyes, hoping everything would go away.

"You think you can run away from me, little girl?!" She points at Nina and surrounds her with red aura and levitate her up in the air, feeling immense pain like thousands of knives stabbing into her. "You think those retched bandicoots are going to protect you after your Uncle abandoned you!?You are nothing! You are useless! Just like the rest of your family!" Nina can't stop screaming with tears welling in her eyes. She just want it all to stop.

"Believe me child, this is nothing compare to what I'm going to do." the woman's skin starts flaking off, revealing familiar markings that is covered in blood while laughing evilly at the pain Nina is in and all the poor girl can do is scream hoping someone would hear her, but then everything fades to black.

Nina's eyes flew open, woke herself up from her own scream in a cold sweat. She sees herself lying on her front and sees she's in a wooden hut with green and yellow hangings all around the room where she can hear coughing from behind. She tries to get up when she feels a sharp pain in the middle of her back where she was shot. She looks at herself and wondering what the rough material is, she is wearing an overgrown shirt with yellow trimming, made of burlap that scratches against her skin. She tries to get out of bed again when a hand pushes her back down.

"Oh no young lady."said a firm female voice,

"You are not getting out of bed until I say so." she looks up to a tall female bandicoot with wavy blond hair smiling down at her.

"My name is Tawna. I am an old friend of Crash, Coco and Aku aku. How are you today?" she said with a smile but all Nina does is groan.

"I had an awful dream. Is Aku aku around? I need to talk to him." she said as she is about to cry, Tawna gives her a comforting hand.

"Of course I can invite him in but first I need to check your legs to make sure you can feel them. Just tell me if you can feel it, ok?" Tawna gets a little needle and poke Nina at the thigh.

"Ow!" she just nods,

"I'll take that as a yes. That's good, it means you are not paralized from the waist down. The arrow didn't go in too deep to damage any nerves but it went deep enough that you need stitches, so you'll still feel pain. I'm going to make a mixture that will make the pain more tolerable." Nina just nods as she watches Tawna making the mixture, putting different herbs into the granite mortar and use the pestle to crush the herbs into tiny flakes.

"What happened?" Nina asked tiredly as Tawna just laughs,

"Do you really want to know?" she shyly nods her head again. Tawna takes a deep breath.

"Well...ok."

4 Hours Ago

"Ah!" Tawna squealed as she got squashed by Pinstripe and Dingodile, everyone just looks at them in shock that Dingo and Pinstripe just appeared out of thin air. Dingo immediately got up, points at everyone with his blow torch ready to fire a squeal of delight from Pinstripe interrupts him.

"My love! We are together again! That means we are meant to be!" he squeals as he constantly gives her hugs and kisses while she tries to avoid them. She gives out an angry growl and gives him an hard punch right on the jaw, making him fly across the room onto Papu papu. She shakes the pain away from the impact while looking around the room.

"What the hell is goin-" she stopped mid sentence when her eyes fallen on the unconscious Nina with an arrow sticking out of her back. Her goes goes wide then went narrowed facing to Papu papu who pushed Pinstripe off himself.

"That child needs medical attention this instant! Why didn't you take her to my hut when you got here!?" Papu papu gives her a disapproving look,

"These are Papu papu's enemies, injured girl included. Enemies get executed." Tawna puts her hand on her hips clearly does not take that excuse.

"Yeah? What have they done?"

"Well….they…..flew big scary thing above us." Papu papu try to explain.

"Did they attack you first or did you?" the tribesmen just look at each other and then look down feeling slightly ashamed. Tawna steps forward,

"I want my friends to be free, make sure they have food and a place to sleep and I want the child at my medical hut immediately." The tribesmen look at Papu papu and all he did was nod his head. They untie the bandicoots and N. Gin and two of them picked up Nina and went straight out the door. Dingodile went to pick up Pinstripe to see a massive swelling on the cheek, looking very dazed. Tawna noticed something on Pinstripe's face,

"Is that my bra!?" she storms over, took the bra and smack Pinstripe on the swelling cheek.

"Ah my dear sweet Tawna he...he...he" Tawna gives in a disgusting look as he fell unconscious, Dingo just shook his head.

"Dear God mate you got it bad." and carry him out. Tawna is about to follow them when she saw Crash by the doorway.

"How are you Crash?" Tawna asked with a smile but all Crash did was point outside, hoping to talk to her.

"I am sorry Crash but I need to go and save your friend." she walks past him where Crash can feels dejected. Felt like his heart broken all over again.

Hello Lads, Ladies and Lovelies. I hope you are well. I do hope you enjoy this chapter and take care everyone! 3