They walked back slowly to the camp, being careful not to make any noise to alert the others. Lara was probably a deep sleeper, which was not an issue, but the other new comer could not be accounted for, especially since they have all these new suspicions about her.Draven tried to think as they walked back to the camp, but he was distracted by the events that led him right here. No matter how much he thought about it, he needed Leo. He needed Leo so very much. He won’t be able to handle Diane all on his own.Speaking of Diane; she was no longer in the camp when they got there. The blanket she slept on was still there, the roughness signifying that someone had slept on it. Where had she gone? Now on alert the both of them looked around in fear, wondering where she might be.“A number of things could have happened right now,” Draven said.“Nothing happened right here. She stood up and left,” Leo said.He then brought out his sword from his side hilt. The sound of the sword leaving the
Diane was flabbergasted. The minute Draven touched her hand and his fingers burned into her skin, she knew the danger was closer than usual. How would she explain that he had endangered their lives far more than she would have? Here they were, all afraid that she was about to cut their heads off when they were the one inviting death closer with their actions. For all she knew, she was innocent. She only acted the way any player in the game would; it wasn’t her fault that they just won’t get over it.She bored holes into Draven’s back when he turned around to sleep. She could bet with her life that he probably slept with a smile on his lips now that he knew that she only had one life left. He even had the audacity to sleep with his back faced to her; like he was challenging her to act out and kill him if she has the tenacity to.Diane ignored the mad voices in her head and went to sleep on her back. It took a while before her eyes finally closed and her breathing eased into a slow slee
Diane hated the situation she was in. She stopped closer to him and looked into his eyes. He had changed in many ways that she had missed; his extra broad shoulders and his commanding aura. They would fit so much as a team, but she’d never seen him apart from Leo. She knew he would never leave him; someone that had lied to a couple of strangers just so they drove him to where Leo was. It was crazy.“What do I want?” She asked and then smiled. “Draven, if it was so obvious that I was using you, shouldn’t you have found out by now what I’m using you for?”“You’ve been evasive,” he replied with a grunt. “We’re apart from the others now. Stop with the mystery and tell me what the hell it is. What are you doing? What do you want?”“I want a partner!” She practically yelled. “My god, if you’re as smart as you claim, shouldn’t you have discovered this by now? I want a partner, Draven! I can’t afford to be alone…”“Because you just have a life left?”“No, not that… it’s complicated.”“I have
“What action did you take, Diane?” Draven asked seriously this time around.“Relax, it’s not that big of a deal.”“If it’s not that big of a deal, you won’t be here, fidgeting about telling them to me and seeking help,” he pointed out. Diane sighed and twined her fingers together. “Fine, I’ll just tell you anyways. You must understand that I didn’t know he was the owner of the game at first. I just happened to suck him there through my powers,” she explained.Draven resumed his walk towards the river. It was essential to get there. If by chance Leo comes across them talking, he’d think it was just unserious talk once they were in the water. Deep down he knew that Diane’s truth was meant for him and him alone; which was why she tracked him out here anyway.“Just tell me the next thing you did,” he said.“I wanted to make this story as short as possible but I’m not seeing the possibility of that happening.” She heaved a deep, depressed sigh. “Anyways I suck this guy here and he’s stunn
Draven was really beginning to enjoy the water. It was so warm and so relaxing to his muscles, that he decided he wouldn’t let Diane’s words get in between him and his pleasure.“So does this guy have a list of what he wants to do to you or what?” He asked carelessly.Diane popped her head above water again. “Yup, he has this long ass list. Ruining my flesh wasn’t even on his list. He wants a lot of things from me and trying to steal my womb was one of them.”Draven was so shaken that the water became dull and cold. “Damn, you must have pissed him off.”“If I did to you what I did to Draven, I don’t think you would have escaped it.”“I escaped your death.”“That’s because I let you go.” She stared into his eyes before swimming away. “You were useless to me and your death wouldn’t have motivated me in any way, so I let you go.”“Am I supposed to say ‘thank you?’”She looked back at him and smiled. “Nope. I’m just telling you what would have been if I had my hands on you and was bored.”
Leo was full of suspicion. All his life, he always trusted his instincts. He always knew when something was wrong and would fight solely against it. The first day he saw Diane, he didn’t necessarily fight her, even though he had his reservations about her.She was stunning then. She was still stunning now, but most of that allure faded when he discovered that she wasn’t even a good person. Worse of it was that she killed him just because he got in her way. Her heart was full of darkness. He knew that now and he was weary of her.He thought that Draven knew this two. The both of them had stayed up to discuss how they didn’t trust her, and even then Draven wasn’t fully on his side. He kept wavering, kept looking for unnecessary reasons as to why she would have come to him. Leo wasn’t as stupid as his friend, nor did he let his compassion get in the way of what he wanted. And all he wanted was Diane to be gone forever and out of their lives. How hard was it? Why would Draven say one thin
The journey was tense. Draven and Leo had not said a word to each other, while Lara and Diane seemed to be getting along—if Diane scowling at her for several times in a minute was considered getting along with one another. None of them rode on the mountain bear as they had not yet concluded their arguments. Leo would not speak to Draven until he had made it clear if Diane would be staying or not, and Draven on the other hand didn’t know how to send her away without revealing his secret.And so they continued to walk in silence until Diane stopped the bear in front of a flower field, forcing the rest of them to stop too.“I’m just going to feed baby boo so she doesn’t doesn’t find any of yall attractive,” she explained to them.Draven saw this as an opportunity, however a slim one. If he could convince Diane to feed the bear and catch up to then later, then they can use that opportunity to escape her.“You’re feeding him grass?” Lara suddenly blurted. “He eats grass? You should have to
“What are you doing here?” Draven asked harshly.Diane shrugged as she approached them. “I followed, why? Although I must say that the change of route was unexpected. Whatever for?”“We were running from you,” Lara admitted.“Running?” She shook her head regrettably. “You guys, am I some monster to run from? Although those attempts are futile because I have this beast with me. She can smell you from a mile away.”“You said she’s dying,” Draven chipped in, eager to remove the running away rumor. “What could she be dying from?”Diane stared directly at him. “I heard you guys discussing a moment ago that everything here is dying. I guess now that everyone is noticing these changes, I don’t need to keep it a secret anymore.”Leo stood up from his spot. This was it. This was the one thing he knew that wasn’t right.“What aren’t you telling us, Diane? Are you responsible for the silence in the forest?” Leo laughed. “It’s got to be way more than that.”“You’re right; it is way more than that
Draven couldn’t believe it was over. Three months later he was still thinking if he was making the right decision. Assistant David sat in his living room with a bunch of documents in front of him. He paced up and down, not sure what he would do.“You can just sign here,” the man said for the umpteeth time. “It’s not really that hard. You sign that you’ve taken ownership of the game and you decide what you want to do with it.”“But I don’t want ownership of the game,” Draven said again. He had repeated this exact words countless times but the guy didn’t seem to be hearing him.“You should have known what you were getting yourself into when you challenged late game owner Timothy—” David paused and looked to the heavens. “May his soul not rest in peace. You should have known that killing him would automatically make you the owner of the game. Those were his rules.”Draven rolled his eyes. He was sure that Timothy had made that rule because he didn’t believe anyone would be able to defeat
Timothy laughed. His laughter was vivacious and full of life. This was what he wanted, after all. The very end of judgement day where he would punish all those who failed him; those who went against him and those who was party to his torture.Here was Draven, the strongest man to ever grace his game. Timothy knew he was going to be a lot of trouble in the future and so he had specifically looked into him. Now that Draven has waged war with his full chest over a woman, he was ecstatic. This was historic, and he was living a historic time in the present. How many men brought knives to fight for their loves, anyways?Smiling, he snapped his fingers. A single door opened and his assistant ran to him carrying a box.“You’re about to experience an historic moment with me,” He said to Draven. “Diane will be our goddess Diana, and we will be the lowly men who are fighting for her love.”Diane scoffed. “You don’t have to do it, Draven. The guy is nuts. Let’s just get out of here.”“But darling
Draven panicked for a minute. He thought for sure that the darkness and pressure meant he was losing his consciousness, but that wasn’t the case. One minutes there was stark darkness and the next minute they fell into an extremely white room with hard cardboard. They fell through the sky, hitting directly on the wood and groaning in pain. The stark white color of the room blinded them. It was brighter than a sky or white paint. It was so bright that Draven closed his eyes and tried to regain his or he r senses. He knew there was a betrayal in the group—which wasn’t surprising as their group was made of weird, diverse people, but he needed to see who exactly did it.He won’t even be surprised if to was Lara. She was the one who had led them to the cage, after all. She was the one who offered to test the waters and make sure the portal was okay. Who in their right senses tests water and portal to make a point of the portal not working? Unless he or she was working with Timothy and knew
No one said anything after Diane’s statement. They were so tired and hungry and unsure of what to do next. Draven’s goods felt heavy to him. His sword even felt heavier than normal. He didn’t believe he came back to this game to be ridiculed and placed in a very unstable condition because of a silly fight that was going on between two lovers. When he looked at Diane, he wondered if she was toying with them again. Was she afraid to meet Timothy or what? He knew that the portal might likely take them to Timothy as the owner can easily manipulate events, but at least he was ready for that stage. He could exactly tell what Diane was thinking when she was looking her nose down on the portal.“We cannot just stay here,” Lara said. “Do you want us to keep waiting for him to keep finding opportunities to kill us? We’re certainly going to die of hunger if we keep waiting!”“She’s right,” Draven concurred. “We can’t keep lying about in wait like lambs to a slaughter. We must make the first move
Everyone was super awkward after the kiss. Leo avoided for the rest of the morning. He didn’t want to talk about it but it was too late; Draven had seen them and announced to the whole pack in the morning that the kiss was probably the most hottest he’d seen.“Whoa,” Diane said excitedly. “You two kissed? That’s great. Are you like a couple now or something?”“It’s nothing like that, okay? It was just a kiss, and a mistake at that,” Leo piped up.Even though he didn’t want to talk about the kiss or look at Lara’s face, he was glad that Draven brought it up. At least he’d air his opioid publicly about it so he won’t have to be in an awkward space with Lara.“Ouch, Leo, you’re a player!” Diane said, laughing. “You can’t say those kind of things to someone when you’ve kissed them!”“I didn’t kiss her, okay? She’s the one who kissed me,” Leo defended hotly.“It’s still hurtful that you say it that way. Have some feelings, pal,” Diane said, her laugh increasing.It sounded mocking and cont
Leo could not sleep. Draven had been out for close to an hour, yet he wasn’t back yet. Lots of thoughts assaulted his brain, but the one that stayed the most was Diane.Diane. Diane. Diane.He bet she was here to true their life again, and that bet was true. If Leo was the one to handle this, he’d definitely not want to help her out the way Draven was. It was as if the guy didn’t want to learn any lessons about why it’s dangerous to just not help anyone for too long. Draven was lenient when it came to Diane and he didn’t like it one but.He turned his head to the side and saw her sleeping peacefully.“Yeah, like you didn’t just send someone to their death,” he murmured to himself.He wondered if Draven was still talking to the game creator or if he’s been killed. If he was truly killed, Leo won’t honestly know how to handle that. He tried not to think about it because it was depressing enough. He sat up now, still watching Diane. If she had been careful, they won’t be in this shit hol
Draven waited until everyone was comfortable with him being their security for the night before he left into the woods. Diane was surprisingly quiet and compliant. It was like she was into her head too much to care about what Draven wanted to do. Seeing that all odds were in his favor, Draven waited a bit before withdrawing to the forest. He walked deeper and deeper, wondering if he should just sit on a log and wait for Timothy to appear.“Hi Draven.”He yelped and fell to the ground, startled. His shouts of surprise startled the forest a bit, and so Draven waited it out to make sure no one was coming to check what the noise was before turning his head slowly to the side. There was Timothy, standing under the moonlight. He looked attractive and mysterious and just too handsome to be standing there. Draven sat up as he brushed away the small dirts on his body.“You scared me,” he hissed at Timothy. “You know you should learn not to sneak up on people like that.”“I didn’t sneak up on y
They camped inside a cave, just as Draven wanted. He’d taken his time and made sure they covered a 12 hour distance just so he could find the perfect place for them to camp. Finding a cave was not just the problem—and caves were pretty scarce. The problem was finding one that was deep and big enough to accommodate more than three persons. When he finally found it, it was nearing dark. The blanket of darkness that fell over them was just the right thing Draven needed to carry out his plans. He’d been thinking for hours how he would get away with talking to Timothy without anyone noticing and this was the best part.“A cave?” Lara asked in disbelief when they stood before the place. “Isn’t this kind of weird, Draven? Some crazy monsters might be in there!”Draven nodded in understanding. “Leo and I are going to check it out and see if it’s free of monsters; how about that?”“I thought you said we were getting to the end of the game,” Lara moaned.Draven gave her a confused look. “Lara,
They walked a long mile, Draven and Leo leading the way while Lara and Diane walked behind. Diane stayed at the far end so she won’t walk on the same lane with Lara. There was something suspicious about the young girl that she didn’t like. Diane wasn’t usually suspicious of people but when she does, her instinct was definitely right—just as it was right with Draven and Lara. Leo cleared his throat and glanced at Draven. “So… were you lying?”“Was I lying about what?” Draven mumbled.“You know… about what Diane said?”“Why would I be lying about that?”Leo cocked his brows at him. “Don’t forget that I know you all too well, Draven. I know when you lie out of necessity and when you lie out of leisure. I usually don’t catch the leisure one but the necessity one is very obvious.”Draven glanced at him with an amused expression. “Really?”“Yup. You get all tense and defensive and violet most times if you’re pressured about it. It’ll make you want to protect that little lie of yours quite