Pov: Eirian
Halfway through most of the book, the sun starts to set. Paper was everywhere, some hung on threads that ran around the kitchen, others lay on the counter. Needless to say, we were translating faster than when it was just Ael and Eira. But still, it felt like we were getting nowhere.
A lot of the book felt like gibberish, or a piece of the text was missing. Other parts were too hard to translate. Ael established a pattern between our language and the book language, but at times it would divert from it, which made it hard to understand. Parts that we were able to translate wrapped around the kitchen on the thread, while other parts lay around in the kitchen. Needless to say, it was a mess in here.
As the sun was coming down, my eyes started to feel tired. The snow stopped, but now there was a fog that settled outside.
"When do you think he is coming back?" Eira spoke, looking at the door.
Ael didn't turn away from the book and instead kept translating the different pages. "He will be fine, I'm sure he'll be back soon," he replied.
I turned towards him, questioning if he would. I didn't know Amiel that well, but I did know one thing for sure. He wanted out of here. If he had to, he would spend the whole night there trying to figure out how to break the veil. I could still remember before the timeloop how he was pushing to make the wagon and how he wanted to work all through the night.
"He took his bag at least, so if he were to camp out, he should be fine," I added, not knowing how much of it was true. As I looked outside, the fog grew thicker. We spent all day here.
"You guys get some rest, both of you look like zombies," Said Ael. "If we work through tomorrow, we should be able to translate the rest."
---
"He's not back?" Eira asked as we all ate some canned food to start the morning. We didn't want to try cooking anything with all the paper hanging in the kitchen.
"Seems like it," I replied.
"We should go check on him, no? At least bring him some food." Eira continued.
Ael put down his food after taking his last bite and said, "He should be fine." He waved his hand leisurely, "he is our map boy after all, plus he brought his bag with him."
"Still, being out there all night seems worrisome, no?" She asked.
"He's the thing about Amiel, he likes working alone. The only reason we are all together was that we were forced to." I said, finishing my canned food.
Eira doesn't say anything. After a quick minute, she then said, "I'm bringing him food." She got up from her stool and grabbed food out of the wooden box in the corner.
As I watched her walk off, Ael said something to me, "Go follow her, I can handle this."
"But, it's Amiel, he should be fine," I replied, turning back towards him.
"Yes, but what about Eira?" He replied. "She doens't even know how to get to him."
I sighed, got up from my stool, and then said, "Fine."
---
As I stepped through the snow, Eira followed behind me. Making my way out here was growing tiring, not because of the injuries I had, no, they had been mostly healed, but rather because this trip had been made multiple times.
"How did you even plan on finding him?" I asked Eira.
"I don't know, was thinking of just walking around the viel till I ran into him." She looked up at the massive trees where some birds flew above our heads.
'You can't be serious.' I thought.
"These trees are huge," Eira said, cutting my thought short.
"These trees were actually this big before. For some reason, after we came out of the bunker, the trees grew ten times bigger, well, wildlife itself grew." I replied, still walking forward, not turning my attention.
We had just arrived at the trees that were shaved, meaning we were close to the edge of campus now. The trip itself was much shorter than before, now that I don't need a stick to walk.
As I saw the veil, off in the distance, I turned my head towards Eira but kept walking forward. "We are here-"
I stopped, holding my hand out to block Eira from walking. Something had caught my attention. I could see Amiel off in the distance, but something about him had seemed different. His once-pale, jade-like skin looked like fragments now with cracks between them. He scratched his neck over and over again, while a weird voice came from him. The voice sounded distorted while he let out different noises.
'Amiel is corrupted.' I thought. I grimaced at the sight of him, 'Why would he make a chaos pact?'
"Whatever you do, don't make a noise," I said to Eira. "Step back slowly and walk away."
As we take a step back, Eira said something, "What is that?"
"I'll explain later..."
As we continued to step back, growing more distant, a crack came from under my foot—a branch. Amiel, or what was once Amiel, turned towards me and let out a screech.
"Eira, run!" I yelled.
As I ran through the snow, Eira followed behind me.
"What happened to him!?" Eira screamed as we made our way, jumping through the snow.
I clenched my jaw, thinking of the situation, "Not important right now, just run!"
I could hear his screaming getting closer and closer. He was grabbing onto the sides of each tree and jumping from one to the other.
In a desperate attempt to make more space, I grabbed snow as I kept running, turned around, threw some in his face, and changed directions while I grabbed Eira by her arms. When I do, she yelped.
"Are you okay?" I asked while running.
"Yeah." She turned to see where Amiel was, but the corrupted beast didn't fall far behind.
Doing one last jump, Amiel grabbed onto Eira's foot, causing her to collapse.