My Bothersome Life

Charles quickly got up and grabbed a stick he held onto during our hike. He had snapped a tree branch from one of the many pine trees on the way to this cave. The wind howled as the snowstorm wiped the land senseless like a whirlpool.

Before Charles had the chance to respond, a figure came into the cave to find shelter. He hid his face with his large hood, covered with mounting snow. He created faint clouds with his every breath while his shadow became bigger from the tiny fire.

The fire flickered and sparked against each other, unlike our long staring contest we had with each other. Charles stood in front of me, raising his guard while putting his position into a protective stance. But the tension disappeared when the figure took his hood off while shaking the snow off himself.

"Rika?" The figure, who possessed familiar honey brown hair met my eyes, asked in shock.

"You know him?" Charles loosened his stance.

"My name is Ben. I met Rika in the second district." Ben pulled one of his glove off to shake his hand.

"Ben!" I jumped to hug him, hoping he would bring good news.

"Are you with anyone else? Are you here to rescue us? Wait. Does anyone know about our disappearance in the first district?" I asked with great expectations in my eyes.

Before Ben could answer my questions, Charles intervened, "Just ignore Rika. I am Charles de Lumiere and I ask you of what is your current position and situation is in the sixth district."

"Excuse me for my rudeness Charles de Lumiere. I am known as Ben de Nuelle. I am positioned here as a scout for this current mission and I have been stationed here for a month so I do not know what is going on in the first district." Ben's face hardened from Charles' disrespect.

Charles' fingers dug into his palms from his blunder. He hung his head down to hide his blushed face when the tables were turned. Even I knew that you couldn't be rude to a person of a similar status when they were older than you. Unlike his usual friendly face, Ben stared at Charles with contempt.

"Wait. What happened to the story about being a student at Welms Collegiate Academy High School? I thought it was three levels down from our school. It doesn't make sense that a person in the top five would enter that school" I mumbled my thoughts out loud.

Their confrontation ended as they turned to stare at me instead. Ben pulled back his smile like he was appeasing a small child. He was back to the idol I knew that pulled in the gazes from others. Kindness radiated from his eyes unlike his treatment to Charles.

"Idiot," Charles muttered.

"Welms Collegiate Academy High School is the name for the high school section in the Abright Institute Academy," Ben explained.

What was up with all these names! Why couldn't they keep it simple and stick to one name.

"You were pretending to be surprised about Shelly, Alex, Luke and I in the second district then," I wondered why he had to hide the truth when we all came from the first district.

"Well I was undercover. I had circ.u.mstances which meant I couldn't reveal everything. I did give out hints though. Although, I was actually surprised how you managed to get there without the school's permission," Ben recalled his memories.

I was so done with people from the first district (not that the people from the sixth district were much better)! I felt that the people in the first district almost always spoke in codes. Why couldn't they speak more directly just like the people in the third district?

Tired of the constantly speaking in codes, I directly asked, "Is there a fast way to get to the first district?"

Ben had to know a way to get back to the first district more easily. Since he was assigned here, it was likely they had some kind of device to transport them to different areas. I decided to trust him since we seemed to be in the same boat because of the storm.

"Here's the situation. I accidentally teleported Charles and I to a hoverbus heading towards the sixth district. We went to the village for shelter and got attacked from the villagers. Now we're running away from the villagers while trying to get to the facility to get back to the first district." I summarized.

"Rika!" Charles shouted in embarrassment.

"If you tried to explain, it would have taken forever!" I yelled back.

Ben tried to make sense of the odd situation as he appeared to be in a period of deep thought. When he finally got the information around his head, he concluded, "So just like the second district, you never had the permission to come here."

"It wasn't intentional!" I defended myself while feeling like a runaway child.

"Rika. Just stop," Charles requested after giving up on his pride.

'What do we do now' I asked Ben silently with my eyes.

"Well, we do have a teleportation gate in the sixth district at the facility." Ben answered.

Yesss! Finally, a way to go home! I clasped onto his hands like he was hope itself. However, his face soon appeared downcast like there was unfortunate news.

"But we have to walk all the way to the facility." Ben added.

Bummer. I dropped down onto the floor in disappointment and let go of his hands. However, it did make sense since Ben was walking instead using a teleportation circle.

"Thank you for the information Ben de Nuelle and we apologize for disturbing you during your mission. Rika and I will walk to the facility alone to not disturb you even further," Charles said as if he was trying to recover his reputation while lifting me back up with a fierce glare.

"No, it's fine. I have enough time to escort you back to the facility." Ben replied back.

"In fact, this takes more of a priority over my previous mission." Ben continued eerily.

Charles and I added Ben to our group as Ben knew a better way to go to the facility. I dragged two of my arms forward that held onto long tree branches to hike on the mountains. Its steep slopes made both my legs and arms ache.

Murderous thoughts formed inside my head of the founder of the facility who chose to build the building on peak of the mountain. Eventually, I threw the two sticks onto the snow and flopped onto the ground. Ben and Charles stopped walking as they couldn't hear my footsteps anymore.

"I've had enough!" I shouted.

"There's no way we'll ever reach the facility!" I pointed at the tiny apartment not even the size of an ant.

Instead of straining my muscles, I chose to flap my arms and legs to create snow angels to heal myself. I would die from the cold, but at least I would have a peaceful death. I apologized to my parents in the third district and my former life.

The pain numbed as my limbs became increasingly frozen from the cold. I stared at the clear blue sky freed from clouds. If this was going to be my last vision of the world, then it wasn't that bad.

"Get up, it's not only you who has to walk," Charles tried to pull me back up.

"This is where I die," I flopped back down into the snow.

Charles' annoyed face looked down at me like he didn't know what to do anymore. We were all exhausted, not able to take a break until we reached another cave. All we ate were few flower petals to appease our hunger pangs.

"There's only half a day left," Ben tried to console me.

"There's no way we can climb up an entire mountain in half a day!" I laughed.

"There's teleportation circles for short distances in few caves," Ben revealed.

"And how close is that cave?" I searched for signs of a nearby cave.

"Three hours away."

I flopped back into the snow and continued to make my snow angels. There was no way I would last another three hours of hiking where the snow made every step heavier. Who knew when another snow storm would come to freeze us to death?

In fact, there was a villager about twenty meters behind us. He was covered by animal fur from head to toe and held a group of ten men. Each of the men carried bows tipped with neon purple on their h.i.p.s while daggers were hidden inside their boots.

"If we don't die from the snowstorm, then we'll die from the villagers not that far away from us," I pointed to a villager pulling the string on his bow.

The arrow flew to land right beside Ben's shoulder. The snow was dyed with purple poison from wildflowers nearby. Charles' face froze from the sudden attack while Ben pulled me onto his back. But, when he got up to position himself into a sprint, the sky was filled with poisoned arrows targeted at Ben.

I closed my eyes, afraid of a painful death while squeezing his clothes. Was this how I was going to die?