Chereads / The Unicorn's Forest / Chapter 100 - Chapter 34 part 4

Chapter 100 - Chapter 34 part 4

No one had any arguments to that, so they each walked through the gate. None of them sure what to expect, but at least assured that it was safe enough to step through.

As Charlie emerged on the other side of the gate, warm tropic air greeted her. As well as a few palm trees. As she looked around, they could see they were at the edge of a beach on what looked like an island or peninsula of some kind.

Ralph had already started lounging by the beach, leaning against a palm tree. "Took you guys long enough," he commented, as if they were merely on a trip to the beach.

"You could have said something," Amelia groused.

"Where's the fun in that?" Ralph replied, amusement clear in his voice and expression.

Amelia rolled her eyes and Charlie completely agreed with the sentiment.

However, as she looked at the sky, she couldn't help but say, "Uh, maybe we should camp in the mountains," she said.

"Why? The temperature is perfect here. Why would we want to o back to somewhere so cold?" Ralph complained.

"Because I have no idea where that might be heading," Charlie said, pointing to a large, dark cloud in the distance. An occasional flash of light indicating lighting striking. Charlie also didn't say anything, but it was clear the sun was starting to rise, which meant there was another significant time difference between the two worlds.

"Okay, I can understand that, but whose to say it's heading this way?" Ralph insisted.

"If you want to stay and find out, be my guest," Wes said. "I'd rather explore this place after that storm passes."

"Yeah, I'm with Wes on this one," Hannah said.

"Well, we could at least look a little around this place," Beth suggested. "That way we won't have to do that again later."

"You sure about that?" Amelia asked, her voice full of worry.

"Of course," Beth smiled at Amelia. "As far as we know, that storm is at least a few hours away from us. So, we might be able to find something interesting in that time."

"I'll stay by the gate, all the same," Charlie said, not wanting to leave the safety that the other world promised from the storm.

"Oh no you don't," Beth said, grabbing Charlie's wrist and pulling her along as she started to walk along the beach. "You're going to enjoy this world as much as you can before we head back to the mountains."

Charlie couldn't say that she was unhappy with being forced to join in the exploring, but she couldn't stop glancing towards the storm clouds in the distance.

It wasn't that she was afraid of the storm, but she still wasn't interested in being caught in one when there wasn't any shelter of any kind. While they had tents, those weren't exactly secured to the ground in a way that a severe storm couldn't tear off. Which was what Charlie worried the storm might be.

Which she thought was a completely reasonable fear, given they had no meteorological data for this world, so it oculd be just a regular thunderstorm, but since they were by the coast, it could just as easily be a hurricane or something. Charlie didn't feel like finding out the hard way at the moment.

Although, while it became clear the clouds were heading towards them, even Charlie was surprised that it didn't take them very long before they reached the spot by the gate again.

"Uh, how far did we walk to get back here?" Tim asked.

"Maybe five miles?" Wes asked, scratching his head.

"Well, at least we know it's an island," Beth said cheerfully. "And we have plenty of time before the storm gets here."

"Well, let's explore the rest of the island when the storm has passed," Hannah said. "I'd like to be away from it when it reaches this island."

"How far do you think it's away from us?" Ralph asked.

"Not far enough," Hannah said, before anyone else could answer. "I'm heading back to the mountain world."

"I'll go with you," Charlie said, eager to leave, and a little confident that she wouldn't get stopped since Hannah was already heading through the gate.

When she reached the other side of the gate, she saw Hannah clearing a spot for her tent nearby the gate. She was clearly interested in not wasting any time once that storm had passed.

"Uh, maybe we should put our tents up a little more away from the gate?" Charlie suggested.

"Why? The storm's going to be on the other side of the gate."

Charlie nodded. "Yeah, but I wouldn't be surprised if the wind and rain could get through," she pointed out. "After all, the air was able to come through the gate from the elven world to this one, and there wasn't any weather contributing to that."

Hannah sighed as Charlie wondered when the others would be coming through the gate behind her. How long would they take? There wasn't much left for them to look at that wouldn't take much time, so as far as she could tell, there shouldn't be a reason for them to be taking this long.

"Fine, I'll look for another place that would be good to set our tents up," Hannah relented.

As Charlie accompanied Hannah to the other side of the gate, where a relatively good place to set up a camping site was, although not as good as the one where Hannah had been setting up her tent before.

"So, is it the lightning or something else that worries you about the storm?" Hannah asked as she started erecting her tent.

"Huh?" Charlie asked, surprised at the sudden question.

"Just curious about what about the storm that made you want to come to this side of the gate rather than wait with the others," Hannah clarified.

"Oh. Well, it's more that I don't like being in really severe weather when I don't have a secure roof over me. You know, one that's definitely not going to blow away in really strong winds."

"How do you know the wind is that strong?"

"How do I know it isn't? As far as we know, it's a hurricane and not just a simple thunderstorm."

Hannah stopped working on her tent for a moment to look at Charlie. "Wow, you really overthink these things, don't you?"

Charlie couldn't help but feel her face heat up a little in embarrassment. "So what if I am? Better safe than sorry, right?"

Hannah merely shrugged. "For me, it's more that I've seen too many movies with storms in tropical areas. It never ends well for a lot of the characters."

Charlie thought for a moment. She could only think of a few that had a storm in a tropical area, and with most of those, it wasn't that significant of a problem. At least during the storm. The problems in the movie always occurred after the storm and typically had nothing to do with the actual storm.

However, she didn't think it would be wise to point that out. Not that she really cared enough to press the issue. Hannah just might not want to share the real reason she didn't want to be around that storm, which Charlie was fine with.

Fortunately, the others started to come back through the gate at that time, so Charlie could just drop the topic, since she couldn't think of anything else to talk about. So, as the others came through the gate she was able to let the subject drop.

"You know, I think that we could at least get some coconuts from those trees, if nothing else," Tim said as they came through.

"If any are still around when the storm passes, you mean," Amelia retorted.

"There still might be something else that might be good in the interior of the island," Beth commented.

"What if there's something dangerous on the interior of the island?" Wes asked, looking like he was looking for an excuse to talk about that.

"What if there's something dangerous on this side of the gate?" Tim asked. "We can go over what might be dangerous and not come up with any place we can go that there isn't any possible danger."

"Come on, if there was anything dangerous that isn't a plant, it would have made itself known when we walked around the perimeter," Beth said, sounding like she was starting to get annoyed.

"How dangerous could a plant be?" Wes scoffed.

"You'd be surprised," Charlie called out, drawing the attention of her friends to where she and Hannah were. "Some plants are poisonous to keep animals that might harm them away."

"Well, what could possibly harm the plants there?" Wes asked. "There weren't any birds, and I'm pretty sure there weren't any animals that would need to be brought there in the first place."

"You'd be surprised," Charlie merely replied. "Especially since we've learned a lot of different creatures that involve magic. It's possible that there's some creatures around that island that can use magic and maybe even are amphibious too."

"Come on, Charlie," Wes said. "There's no need to act like you got another does of the spores."

Charlie felt herself go cold. Though, only Beth seemed to have picked up on Charlie's change of mood as soon as it occurred. Not trusting herself to say anything after that, Charlie merely walked off, acting like she was picking up loose branches from the ground to create a fire. She knew she needed space at the moment.

While she wouldn't have minded Beth to accompany her while she did this, she was at least glad that Beth chose to leave her alone at the moment. It allowed her time to just be by herself and enjoy the solitude, even though she could still hear her friends in the distance through the trees.

When she got so far away from her friends that she could barely hear them, she set down the few branches she'd picked up and sat on a nearby rock and looked at the scenery around her. She could see several mountains through the trees, with the spots of vivid color that indicated the rocks she and her friends had discovered helped replenish their magical stamina, or mana as her friends have started calling it.

Charlie thought about what Wes had said that cut her to the core. About referencing her experience with the fungaloid's spores that had her acting so much differently than she normally did. A manner that she still found mortifying and would like to have her friends not bring it up again, but she was starting to get the feeling that they weren't going to stop. No matter how she felt about it.

As she watched the colors of the mountains change colors as the sun went down, the shadow of the horizon muted the natural colors of the mountain, she couldn't help but feel like it wasn't a matter if she went a separate way from her friends, but more a matter of when.

She accepted that Beth and Amelia didn't bring up how she acted, though part of Charlie suspected that they were both embarrassed themselves about that time. Though likely for other reasons than Charlie was. Still, of all her friends, leaving those two would be the ones she'd regret not being around the most.

Then there was the point that if she wasn't around Beth, then whatever, or whoever, it was that killed Beth in her dream wouldn't be able to kill her. After all, for Beth to be killed in that scene, she'd have to be present as well. At least, Charlie hoped that would be the case, though she was still unsure about a lot of that.

However, she hadn't yet decided to actually leave her friends. Besides, if she did, leave their expedition group, how would she know which gate to go to in order to avoid them?

Of course, there would also be the possibility that they would come across the wordl with the friffin canyon and not know it was that world, since Charlie wasn't with them. Which meant that Charlie herself wouldn't know that that's where to find that world.

In the end she couldn't help but sigh. There were just too many factors for her and she felt paralyzed by them. Almost like she was merely a puppet dancing on the strings for someone else's enjoyment. Or maybe it was just for her friend's entertainment, she thought miserably to herself, wondering if that might be more true than she would like. At least for some of her friends, that is. As she felt that Beth and Amelia weren't like that, but she couldn't be sure about the others. Even Hannah might feel that way about her and she doubted she'd really know if that was the case.

Charlie sighed again and leaned against a tree that passed close enough by her left side that she could still sit on the rock without falling off it when leaning against it. She closed her eyes and just let the sounds of the world she was in wash around her. She felt her body begin to relax and let the sress she'd felt just melt away.

She couldn't say if she'd merely lost track of time or if she'd actually fallen asleep, but when she heard a twig snapping, she looked bheind herself and saw Beth walking towards her. The fact that she saw Beth there wasn't surprising for Charlie. What was surprising was how dark it had gotten.

There was barely enough light for Charlie to make out that it was Beth rather than just one of her other friends. Though, while she had wanted to be by herself, she figured that she'd already done that, though Beth's presence was one that she'd gotten used to, so she wasn't sure if it would qualify as the same if Beth had accompanied her in gathering firewood in the first place.

"You've been gone a long time. We were starting to wonder if you'd gotten lost," Beth said as she continued her approach.

"Just lost track of time," Charlie answered, not making any movements, just merely remaining where she was.

"Well, if you come back know, you'll be able to get dinner while it's hot," Beth warned. "If you don't, then you might get anything. You know the others don't like us to have any leftovers when it comes to cooking."

Charlie nodded, finding herself not caring if she missed dinner. She'd missed meals before, so she couldn't see why this would be different this time. Besides, it wasn't like she hadn't eaten anything lately. So, she couldn't see why it would matter so much that she'd join the others for dinner.

"You know Wes didn't mean what he said like that," Beth said.

"Maybe," was all Charlie would allow. She still wasn't convinced.

Beth merely sighed. "Be that as it may, we still have a few things to discuss about the island. It'll be better if you're there as well."

Charlie sighed. If there were things they needed to talk about, then she really didn't have much of a choice. She had to join them. For one thing, maybe there would be something that would actually interest her. If not, then at least she'd be on the same page as everyone else, so she wouldn't have to feel like she was missing something if the others mentioned something that was discussed during this meeting.

"So, what'll it be about?" Charlie asked as she stood up.

"You'll find out soon enough," Beth assured her.

"Oh, sorry I didn't get much firewood," Charlie said, picking up the few sticks she'd acquired on her way to this point.

"Don't worry. We already had plenty from before."

Charlie nodded, wondering if it really was alright or if Beth was just saying that to cheer her up. Either way, she did feel a little better, but mostly she was just tired. Maybe all the walking they'd been doing was doing her in, but she couldn't help but wonder if there might be something else. Maybe she should see if touching one of the colored rocks would help her out.

Charlie looked at the cave in front of her and had a feeling like she was there too soon. Not that she had any idea why that would be. The sense was there, but not in any tangible sense. It was weird and she couldn't say why she had that feeling in the first place.

They were back on the island and the storm had passed. The storm had lasted a long while. Even when they'd gone to sleep for the night, it was still going, from the rain and leaves coming through the gate. Then, even after it had passed, they had to wait more so that the sun could return to that world and give them enough light to see without having to use their magic.

Naturally, they continued their reading while they waited, but Charlie wasn't the only one who had difficulty paying attention to the words in the book. It was clear most of the others were thinking about the island and what they might find on it.

Though, what had taken her friends from coming back through the gate as quickly as Charlie had expected them before the storm was Tim finding out in which direction the next gate on that world would be. What that direction was, was that it was off in the distance, past the horizon, where they'd need to make their own boat in order to reach.

There wasn't really any landmarks for them to exactly define which direction, so they'd decided earlier to merely explore the rest of the island and then go back to the mountain world and head towards the next gate.

It took Charlie a minute to even realize that her friends were already entering the cave. As soon as she'd realized that, she quickly started following them. She could tell none of them had noticed she'd stopped when they found the cave, but she didn't care about that.