40 The Way Back 2

Charles quickly got up and grabbed a stick that he cut from a tree on the way to this cave.

However, before Charles had the chance to respond, a figure possessing familiar honey brown hair met my eyes.

"Rika?" The figure asked in shock.

"You know him?" Charles asked in surprise.

"My name is Ben. I met Rika in the second district but I'm actually from the first district." Ben explained.

"Ben!" I ran to Ben and jumped to hug him while 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 answered with a smirk.

Charles looked down in shame as 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.

"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 tried to reason.

Both Ben and Charles suddenly stared at me. Oopps. I must have said my thoughts out loud again.

"Idiot," Charles mumbled.

"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.

"The love story?" I voiced my thoughts out loud again.

"The story of my friends," Ben smoothly replied.

"So you were pretending to be surprised about Shelly, Alex, Luke and I in the second district then," I accused Ben.

"Well I was undercover. I had circumstances which meant I couldn't reveal everything. I did give out hints though." Ben answered back smugly.

I sighed. 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 constant speaking in codes, I directly asked, "Is there a fast way to get to the first district?"

"Rika!" Charles shouted in embarrassment.

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

Ben stood frozen beside us trying to make sense of the odd situation.

"So just like the second district, you never had the permission to come here." Ben said when he finally got the information around his head.

"It wasn't intentional!" I defended myself.

"Rika. Just stop," Charles requested while patting my shoulder.

'So 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!

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

Bummer. I dropped down onto the floor in disappointment.

"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 an 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 looked up to see the front entrance of the facility. The modern glass walls reminded me of home.

Ben knew a good shortcut that would only take us half a day to come here rather than the original two days that Charles had planned. I teared up in happiness as both Ben and Charles were surprised from my sudden tears streaming down my face.

"Yess!" I shouted. I jumped up and down with the little energy I had as I couldn't help myself after knowing it was the end of the excruciating long tortuous walks I had to suffer to get here.

"Now let's use the teleportation gates!" I said in excitement.

Ben led us to the glowing teleportation gate and set the destination to the location in the first district located in front of our school.

I excitingly pressed the button to activate the gate. However, the gate didn't activate. It hummed in silence which surprised all three of us.

I kept on pressing the button in disbelief repeatedly.

"No way. Why isn't it working Ben? Ben!" I shouted.