As I stepped out of the tent, I was greeted by the sight of trees all around. Huge trees blocked my view in every direction. There were about three possible routes I could take, but I had no idea where I was or what I might find. Regardless, I still had to choose a path. I have never been the type to wing it, but in this particular situation, it seemed like the only choice. As I started to walk, I heard footsteps coming in my direction. I had just managed to recover my strength, and my movements were still too sluggish to run or do anything. I just grabbed my sharp piece of glass and prepared for the worst.
It turned out to be Emilia. She had just returned with another person. After seeing me tightly gripping the sharp piece of glass, both stopped.
"Hey, Ten," the man said, addressing me. "Dude, chill out. We were just getting something to eat," he said once more, noticing the piece of glass in my hand.
"The fuck is Ten? And why is she talking to me all calm and relaxed now?"
"Ten?" I repeated, yet again, confused by what he had just said.
"Your neck tattoo, it's your number, right?" Emilia said as she watched me relax and put away the glass in my back pocket. "I have one too, see?"
In the same fluid motion, she approached me, pulling her hair to the side. As she tilted her head, I could see she had a black mark just like mine. Her mark resembled a small V. Thinking back to what she said...
"If she called me Ten, that must mean the X on my neck is the Roman numeral for ten. Which means she has the Roman numeral for five on hers."
"So, does that make you a five?" I said sarcastically, pretending to make sense of what was going on.
"Hahaha, no man, I'm definitely a ten, an eight at worst..."
Her poor attempt at a joke was quickly dismissed by my lack of understanding. Still, it was ballsy of her to attempt it nevertheless, which was commendable. I had two total strangers in front of me, and I knew nothing else other than that Emilia might know something about these marks or tattoos on our necks, why we have them, and that she is somewhat of a failed comedian.
"My kind of girl."
Aside from that, there was another guy who had yet to introduce himself. Seriously, he hadn't said a word since they both showed up. Most of the time, he was just looking around, kind of alert. He looked at me probably twice but dismissed me quickly. Maybe I didn't seem like a threat to him. He had long black hair tied up in a bun like a ponytail. He refused to change his serious look as he continued admiring our surroundings. I also noticed he was carrying a knife in his side pocket, aside from another one in his ankle.
"Geez, Trent. Try to relax a little. We're safe here," Emilia said, putting her hand around Trent's shoulder, all easygoing, trying to help him relax. "He always gets like this," Emilia said, looking at me.
"You haven't even known me for that long, what are you talking about?" the ponytail guy replied, annoyed.
"Ah, he talks."
Seeing as he was finally willing to speak, it seemed like a good idea to get to know more about what was going on. I had to see if they knew anything I could make sense of.
"So, where are we?" I asked, looking at both of them.
Emilia sat down. "Well, to be completely honest, my friend, I have no clue. Mr. Stiff Guy here and I met each other a few hours ago and decided to rest where we are right now."
"Wait, you guys have only known each other for a few hours? Then how did you meet?" I asked.
"Hahaha, funny story actually."
"It's really not..." Trent said as soon as Emilia finished speaking, witch of course, she ignored completely.
"I don't know how he got here, but I woke up in the middle of the woods near a creek. I was pretty disoriented, but when I recovered, I started walking around and ran into this sorry excuse for a guy," Emilia said, constantly elbowing Trent. With every poke, you could see him get more and more agitated. "I mean, we ran into each other and then—"
"Actually!" Trent said, interrupting Emilia mid-sentence. "You keep forgetting to add that you actually tried to AMBUSH ME!!" Trent shouted as they started to argue.
Hearing them go back and forth was very amusing, to be frank. It seemed they were not all that bad—a pair of misfits just as lost as me. So, in hindsight, it felt like a good idea to partner up with them, at least until I could figure out what the heck was going on.
"Well, long story short, we almost killed each other, but now we're cool, right, Trentie?" Emilia said, punching Trent's shoulder slightly hard.
"Trentie???"
"Don't call me that..." Trent said, annoyed, as he took a step away from Emilia.
"Well, um, how about you... Trent?" I asked. It still seemed weird calling him by his first name. "You don't know how you got here?"
Trent took a brief pause before talking. "Well, I also can't remember how I arrived. I woke up sitting against a wall not too far from here. Next to me were two bags filled with some small boxes of first aid, some snack bars, and a tent kit."
"Hm, that's weird. Aside from him, none of us had bags or stuff of any kind next to us when we woke up. At least now I understand the mess inside the tent. He seemed awfully relaxed though; I'm going to have to keep an eye on him."
"Then, as you already know, I came across this idiot," Trent said, closing his eyes frustratingly without looking at Emilia.
"Aw geez, man, that's not very nice," Emilia replied.
"So did you get anything when you woke up... um," Trent asked me. Given the circumstances, we seemed to have skipped the formalities.
"Um, I'm Chris."
"Ok... Chris, did you wake up as you are now?" Trent asked, looking at me.
I had woken up with nothing on me but my shoes, pants, and without a shirt. I had a decent number of bruises all over me.
"Well, I don't know. I woke up in the tent. You guys brought me here, I assume?"
Trent took a brief pause and looked at Emilia.
"Well, now I know why you wanted me to come back, Emilia," Trent said as he turned around.
"Yeah," Emilia replied, looking at me. "I found you under a pile of dirt, all scratched up, so I picked you up and brought you here so you could heal. I actually wanted to see if you knew anything about this place."
"Actually, I was expecting you guys would know something..." I replied.
Sadly, it looked like we had no leads on what was going on or how we got here. But now that I think of it, Trent wasn't here when Emilia brought me. So, we didn't know much about what he was doing when Emilia was carrying me here.
"So, Trent, did y—" Before I could finish, Emilia interrupted me.
"Hey Trentie, that reminds me. How did the scouting go? Did you manage to find the source of that sound we heard earlier?"
"A sound?" I quickly asked. "I hadn't heard anything."
"Well, when we were setting up the tent a while back, we heard what appeared to be some sort of roaring sound followed by light tremors. So, I suggested that I check it out while Emilia finished setting up camp. I had to be sure it was safe to stay here; we obviously don't know what's out there. I didn't find anything around the area. While I was coming back, I saw Emilia running towards me, so we came back and found you here."
"Hm, tremors. Kind of like earthquakes?.. That sounds very familiar. I think I've heard something like that before. Am I imagining things?"
"Well, when you put it that way, it makes sense. Better to be safe than sorry, right?" I said to Trent, following his train of thought.
"Right," Trent answered. "We can't stay in the same place too long, and it's been a few hours since we made the tent here. Whatever it is, it's moving constantly."
"But the real question is where, Trent? Where are we going?" Emilia said.
"Wait... wait... everything is going too fast... I practically just woke up. And now we're being chased by something? What the hell is going on?"
Emilia had every right to be concerned. If there was a slight chance of a confrontation, our chances for survival would be fairly low. From what I could see, we didn't have much of anything. Food was almost out (Emilia probably ate it all), and for self-defense, we had like two knives, a few small boxes of first aid, and a tent. We didn't have anything to help us look around or find out where we were.
"Maybe we could use this," Trent said as we stood there.
He looked at us while he pulled out a small compass. It was gold-coated and had a delicate chain attached to it. It looked more like a necklace. For some reason, he had put it in his pocket.
"Shit, man, you had a compass all this time?! What were you waiting to tell me?! I almost got lost looking for you," Emilia said, pissed.
"Well, you should've stayed in the TENT like we agreed, dumbass!"
As they started to argue again, I took a look at the compass. Trent had dropped it without noticing as he argued with Emilia. It was completely black inside. Just like a clock, I could see a moving pattern of Roman numerals scattered around the sides of the blackness within the compass walls. This compass struck me as odd. It had a lot of inconsistencies. To start, it had no cardinal points. There was no north, no south, no anything. Also, the order of the numbers was incomplete. A gap between two and four was empty. Aside from that, it stopped at ten. So, it couldn't be a clock either. Trent referred to it as a compass, but I wasn't sure what to make of this. I looked at it some more, a bit discouraged. It made no sense until I noticed that the hand of the compass was constantly moving between the numbers ten and five. It just kept moving back and forth between those two. Finally, I noticed an engraving on the back. It had three subsequent lines and a message engraved: "Invenerimus, cavendum decem." I had no recollection of what language it was. I read it a few times, trying to understand it, when Trent abruptly pulled the compass away from me. He pulled it away very strongly, almost as if he didn't intend for any of us to see it in the first place.
"Hey, um, Trent," I said, wondering if he had anything to hide.
It was more than suspicious that he had pulled the compass away from me like that. The colored numerals, the frantic single hand movement, and the engraving had left me wondering. Also, when he talked about how he woke up, he never mentioned the compass along with the things he had found on or with him.
"Where did you get that compass? You didn't mention it at all," I asked directly.
At first, it seemed inconsequential. Sure, I had just met these people, but they didn't seem hostile. I asked from a curious standpoint. Although, I'd be lying if I said I didn't care about the compass or what it was for. I knew this much so far: that wasn't an ordinary compass. I'd be smart to keep it in the back of my mind somewhere.
Trent looked at me and Emilia for a few moments, then looked at the floor as if he were hiding something. He put both his hands into his pockets. At that moment, Emilia and I began to feel a bit suspicious. Emilia knew him a bit more than I did. Her alertness level had clearly increased, so if she was just as alert as me, maybe it could mean something. As he began to remove his hands from his pockets, I instinctively reached into my back pocket, ready to use the sharp piece of glass I had. Emilia was just standing there, frozen. As he began to remove his hands from his pockets, she gave me a look, opening her eyes wide... that gesture was just enough for me to stand down. I mean, I'm no fighter. Trent would probably wipe the floor with me. But when you feel in danger, for a moment you get this sort of adrenaline pump that gives you a sense of fight or flight, a help for survival one might say.
"Kind of like when Greg tried to save Hu-. Wait, who are these people? Who am I talking about?"
As I relaxed, I saw Trent lift his hands from his pockets. He had pulled the compass out again, and a second piece that looked to be part of the compass we had already seen. I mean, you can't blame me for thinking he had bad intentions. I don't know the guy. The first thing I saw when we met were the two sharp knives he had on him and that serious look.
"You can't blame me... can you?.. I mean, you shouldn't... anyway."
"This compass was a gift from my parents. It's the last thing I have that reminds me of them. When I woke up here, maybe It fell on the floor or something and this piece came out, so I stored it in my pocket," Trent said as he showed us the broken piece of the compass. It seemed like a button of sorts, like the ones old clocks used to have to adjust the time.
"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," I said. Honestly, I was pretty relieved. I was in no condition to fight or even run. "So... I noticed that compass looks different. How exactly do you read it?" I asked, trying to find out more about it.
"Well, it just works like any other normal compass, nothing too different," Trent said, slightly fumbling his words.
It was obvious that he felt uncomfortable talking about the compass, so I stopped. Besides, we needed to stay together and get along to survive here. There was just too much we didn't know.
"Well, I guess it's time to move," I said to get us started and remove the tension in the air. "You're the man with the compass, lead the way."
"Yeah, Trentie, lead the way," Emilia said encouragingly. "But wait, where to exactly?"
Emilia had a point. Maybe Trent using the compass would eventually help us navigate around the place. But, where to exactly?