“Open your eyes, man,” Craig muttered and tapped my cheek hard. “Forrest?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here,” I muttered, and groaned when I tried to sit up.
“Take it slow, you hit your head pretty hard. Knocked you out for a few minutes.”
I sat up and peered around through squinty eyes. “We make it?”
He knelt beside me, staring into the familiar dead trees close by. “Yeah, I’d say we’re back, but the question is where. There’s not exactly a map of this place.”
“You have any idea where we landed?”
Crunching sounded close by, and I struggled to see past the shadows created by the trees.
Craig placed a finger to his mouth and hauled me to my feet. He motioned towards the right and we side-stepped that direction until we were under the boughs of the trees, crouching and waiting.
A few seconds later, a beast like we faced the very first time we came here emerged, sniffing the air as it slowly spun around searching for its prey.
Craig nudged me, and we quietly crept farther away, losing sight of the creature, before we broke into a dead sprint to put as much distance between us and it as we could.
When we stopped to catch our breaths, I hunched over double, cursing the ache in my head and caught sight of the glowing at my wrist.
“The bracelets,” I whispered and tugged up my sleeve. “It’s glowing, so is yours.”
“Kate... Lucy said they would pulse faster when we were close.” He turned his body, holding out his arm, and I watched as the pulsing slowed. He gritted his teeth and turned back the other direction, and it increased. “That way.” He started off, but I stopped him. “What?”
“When we were leaving, what happened?”
He glanced back the way we’d come and clenched his jaw. “Whatever stopped us from going through the first time, I think it broke through.”
“You think they’re alright?”
“Depends on what was thrown through the portal to attack.”
The screaming echoed in my ears, and my gut clenched, imagining what horror we left behind for the others to fight off.
I didn’t want to lay the blame at Kate’s feet, but if she had just waited, talked to us about what she was going through, they might not be facing down whatever plagued horror Zohar sent through the portal.
Or worse, it could be Allis, or Zohar himself.
“We have to move,” Craig whispered.
I nodded, taking off after him through the trees.
The glowing from our bracelets kept up a steady pulsing, and I prayed to the gods for us to find Kate quickly enough, so we could get back and hopefully find the others alive.