"I said, what nonsense are you babbling? Who is General Odin? I don't have six brothers." Lara's voice rose in pitch nearly two octaves higher, which scared the teenager sitting beside her.
The sudden intensity of Lara's voice startled her. In an attempt to stifle her outburst, she clamped her hand over Lara's mouth, which displeased the young girl.
She looked around to ensure that none of the people at the front heard what her young miss said before speaking in a hushed tone.
"Miss, Reya will not speak nonsense to you. I have been with you since you were a baby. My mother was your wet nurse. You are hurt and have forgotten many things. When you get better, then you will remember everything."
Lara closed her eyes again. "Reya, is that your name?" She asked in a much calmer tone.
A beautiful smile blossomed on the tanned face of the teenager.
"Yes, Miss. Do you remember?"
Lara shook her head. "You mentioned it a while ago, and I assumed that's your name. How old are you and how old I am?"
"Miss, you will turn twelve this December 24, a month from now, while I am eighteen and will turn nineteen in three months."
Lara frowned. Even the timeline was messed up. It was January when they set out to do the ambush. How could it become November?
She breathed deeply.
"How long had I been unconscious?"
"It is three days and two nights, Miss."
"Do you know where we are going?"
Reya thought for a while before shaking her head. She had no idea which direction they were heading in.
"Which direction did the sun set?"
Reya pointed to her right.
Lara deduced that they were heading south. She closed her eyes and pondered the situation they were in. Judging by the angle of the light that passed through the small window, the sun was about to set.
"In the last two nights, did we stop to rest?"
"Yes. It was too dark for the coachman to see the road, so we stopped. They also allow us to relieve ourselves during our stops."
Reya wondered why her young miss was asking a lot of questions. It was probably because she lost her memory.
Lara's stomach rumbled. Only then did she realize that she was hungry. Reya took something from underneath her blouse and passed a small piece of bread to Lara.
"Miss Lara, I am only able to save this for you. Those bastards only gave us very little to keep us alive and not starve to death."
Lara accepted the small piece of bread. She was indeed hungry, but the bread was gone in two bites, not enough to satiate her hunger.
Reya's eyes reddened. Her heart ached as she thought of her miss, the pampered daughter of the general, who had never known the pangs of hunger or the weight of actual suffering in the past. Raised in luxury, surrounded by opulence, her life had been a sheltered existence, untouched by the harsh realities of the evil side of humans.
Lara closed her eyes and reflected on Reya's conversations with her. She found herself grappling with a whirlwind of emotions, desperately attempting to dissect and make sense of the bewildering events that had unfolded since she had woken up.
She was an exceptionally rational person, grounded firmly in logic and reason. Her skepticism toward supernatural phenomena was unwavering. She approached the world with a critical eye, seeking explanations rooted in empirical evidence.
Her father trained and raised her in this way. Every action she took, every thought she entertained, was linked to logic and scientific principles. Whether examining the wonders of nature or navigating everyday experiences, her conclusions always led her back to the fundamentals of science.
But, she was truly baffled by the fact that her body resembled a child's, while the people around her wore clothing reminiscent of ancient times she had read about in history books. To top it off, she was traveling in a wooden carriage pulled by horses.
She massaged her throbbing temple. She could still think that maybe someone from her father's men played a prank on her for failing her mission. These people around her and the wooden carriage were all a setup or a movie production. But how could she explain that her body was not hers and that of a child?
Before Lara could further think about the logic of her predicament, the horses neighed, and the vehicle jolted. Unprepared by the sudden stop, the people inside the carriage were forced forward, a few fell on the others.
Reya clutched on Lara and held onto the wooden stick that protruded from the corner of the carriage.
Cries of pain were heard.
"Stop crying. You're so loud that you're giving me a headache." A fierce-looking man with a scar on his right cheek opened the wooden door. The children who were pushed forward scrambled backward.
Lara gasped when she felt pain in her ankle when someone accidentally hit it with her butt.
"Everyone, come down and relieve yourselves. We will camp here for the night." The scar-faced man's voice was harsh and scary.
Sobs started to be heard but were stifled the moment the man glared at those who were crying. He picked the children one by one by their collars and threw them on the ground.
"Damnit Scarface! Don't throw them on the ground! Do you want to die? If you manhandled and crippled them, then no one would buy them. Can you afford the master's wrath?" A deep voice was heard from outside the carriage.
Scarface muttered some curses and then singled out Reya. "You! Come here and help these bastards get off the carriage."
Reya trembled as she crawled out of the carriage while assisting Lara. She was the eldest among the kidnapped victims and had been assigned the task of settling the scared children.
When Lara exited the carriage, she swayed because she felt dizzy. She held on to the carriage to steady herself, let the dizziness pass, and looked around.
The sun was about to set. The west was splashed with crimson and a tinge of orange and yellow.
Lara's breath hitched when her gaze landed on the mountain range to her left, especially at the jagged, tallest mountain peak!
It was the Ourea, the most treacherous peak out of the twenty peaks of the Alta-Sierra mountain range! It was there that she almost died during one of her training when she stepped on a loose rock as she scaled the cliff of the formidable mountain.