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Jasmine
I GET IT NOW.
Cari was standing beside me. I looked up to see her twisted expression and knew she was not actually there.
Get what?
You are an idiot.
The surface I had been lying on quickly became ground as soon as I wondered what it was. Wet grass sprouted out of it, making it softer than before.
Now that there was something underneath me, I could push myself off it. I sat up.
“What happened?” I asked.
“You turned yourself into a monster,” she replied. “At least you were going to if I hadn’t stopped you.”
“I...” Remembering came quickly. “What happened to the others? Are they still alive?”
Cari gave me a firm nod. She was angry. I wasn’t sure why.
“They are about to call a healer to look into your wounds,” she said.
“A healer?” I asked. “How? We are in the woods. There are no healers around.”
There was a brief but loaded pause.
“You’re in Terlyth,” Cari said finally. “It took me two days to find you inside the ditch you buried yourself in. You disappeared in your own mind. Your friends think you’re sick.”
“They entered Terlyth?” I asked, fear making my imaginary skin tingle. “Why? We have to stop them. We should go back to the forest. The monsters...” Then, I remembered. “You were gone.”
“I wasn’t gone!” Cari snapped at me, her long black hair lifting up as she stepped toward me as though she would strike me. She glared down at me. “You pushed me away. I couldn’t get back. I couldn’t even reach the monsters around you. They became... free.”
“I...” I didn’t remember what she was talking about. It was odd. The memory of that night came with the haze of passing time. The little details were gone, almost as if I had lived for months since then. “I don’t remember.”
Cari seemed worried. She got on her knee beside me and put her hand on my shoulder, squeezing it as though she thought the gesture would bring me back.
“Who are you?” She asked.
The real answer to that was too complicated to get into. I knew that. What that meant, I did not know.
“Jasmine,” I replied.
Cari let out a relieved breath. “I thought you were gone.”
“I...” words were hard to pick. There were too many to choose from. “What happened?”
“You pushed me away,” Cari replied. She was talking fast, as though she wanted to get the words out to keep me around. “You did it before the monsters attacked. You pushed me so hard that I could not reach them or you. It was like that part of the forest was protected against me.”
“I was talking to Kieran,” I mumbled.
“Yes,” Cari said. “I think you wanted privacy.”
I remembered. I had told Cari to go away.
“Since I couldn’t stop the monsters,” Cari continued. “They came. And when they attacked you, you allowed the monster to rise. That was stupid.”
“I didn’t think I had a choice,” the memories were slowly returning to me. “There were so many monsters. We could not fight them. I thought... I thought I could protect the others if I turned.”
