kpwu
long
tale

Yedor woke up, and found Feaser still asleep. Father Brend was sitting on the side of the platform they were on, his legs hanging in the void. He heard her stand up, and did as well.

"Ah, Yedor ! I hope you had a good night's worth of sleep.
-Right. Uhm...
-Seems our friend Feaser is still having that worth of sleep, eh ?" Yedor did not answer. A silence lingered on, when she finally spoke again, in a hesitant tone.

"Father... did you really... wake up here ?
-Well of course, you saw me go to sleep !
-No, I mean yesterday.
-What do you mean ?
-Something seems... off. We had met with two other people two days ago, before we got separated. All four of us had woken up at around the same time. But you woke a full day later, and quite far away from us.
-What are you getting at ?
-I... don't know."

Feaser shuffled in his sleep. They stopped their conversation and turned around to look at him. He woke up. "Good morning father, good morning Yedor," he said in a sleepy voice.

They continued their descent. The comfortable interiors led way to a metallic scaffold and staircase. All around, thin metallic pillars stretched into a forest that extended far into a deep abyss, full of mist. Some yellow lamps illuminated parts of the scaffolding, crushing all color into a dark grey.

It was scarier than the previous area. The scaffolds creaked and swayed in the air, and the darkness envoleped all, only stabbed here and there by stark yellow swords. But at least they were on real stairs, and didn't have to jump from step to step.

While they were descending, Feaser and Brend continued to talk. Yedor wasn't paying much attention to their conversation, as she was busy talking to Aria on her phone, but from time to time the other two tried to include her in the conversation by asking her her opinion on something. She usually replied with a single word then went back to her phone.

Eventually she got fed up. "What do you think about sunny side down eggs, Yedor, aren't they a terrible thing ?
-Sure. But, more importantly. Feaser, are you really going to just... talk away to this man ?
-What do you mean ?
-We met him yesterday.
-Someone's getting jealous !" butted in Brend
-Shut up.
-Yedor ! That's no way to talk to someone. Excuse yourself.
-No. This man is suspicious. First of all, I've never heard of a place called Criggion.
-Oh, that's not too unexpected. Criggion is a small village in the United Kingdo-
-I've never heard of this United Kingdom either.
-What about it ? Maybe it's just a small country we've never heard of before.
-My father was a geographer. I've never heard of him talk about this country, and he talked about most.
-Still !
-And also, yesterday, I asked Aria if she had maps.
-Aria ?" Brend again.
-I'll explain later. Yedor, where are you going with that ?"

Yedor took a breath. "I aksed Aria if she had maps of the area we were in. After some searching, she found multiple. I asked her if these maps showed our position. She found two maps that did. On one, she could count four dots in total, on another only three. After some figuring out, we found out what they corresponded to. On the first map, it listed our positions themselves, and on the other, the position of the devices, which didn't include my phone.

"But, in both maps, Brend did not appear. In the map with four dots, it only showed two, one for me and one for you, and on the map with three dots, it only showed one; your device."

She let this sink in. Seeing Feaser's dumbfounded expression, she told her conclusion out loud.

"Brend doesn't appear on either maps.
-And ?
-Don't you find that suspicious ?"

Feaser turned to Brend. Immediately, the latter started talking. He spoke with a sad tone, like a dejected dog. "Well, if you're not comfortable around me, what choice do I have but leave ? I understand I'm not welcome with you, and won't try to force myself onto you both any longer." He turned to leave on a scaffold that ran into the darkness from where they were.

"Wait, father ! Yedor didn't mean it !
-Yes I did mean it. He's suspicious ! I don't feel safe around him ! at all times, I feel like he's going to attack us !
-You're being ridiculous, Yedor !
-Do you not realize how weird this all feels ? All of this situation ? And now he comes along ?
-No, I don't ! I find you weird and suspicious, to tell the truth.
-Are you serious ?
-If that's how you're going to be, I'm going to go with father Brend. You can stay here, alone, if he's so susicious."

And just like that, Feaser followed in Brend's footsteps.

>BLACK_CORRIDOR_17 : Look at your back