309 Newcomer

Her eyelids were heavy, refusing to open. 

"Hey!!! Come on wake up, wake up!" The voice rang again. This time, it was a lot more anxious than before. 

"Come on god damn it!" The voice cursed. 

What followed were a series of slaps to Vyrena's face. Her eyes immediately shot open as she sat up. As Vyrena's eyes adjusted to the surroundings, she realised she was in a lush green forest. 

She had been lying with her back against a tree stump. Something about that felt awfully familiar but before she could say anything, the owner of the voice snapped at her again. 

"Good, you're awake! Can you stand?" The source of the voice whispered hastily. 

The owner of the voice was female, with blonde hair tied in a single braid. She had endless sapphire blue eyes, a tall nose and pale pink lips. Vyrena tried to speak but her throat was dry and parched. She could barely form a word. 

So, she nodded in response to the question. 

"Okay good, come on. We need to go," the blonde-haired woman helped her up. 

Once Vyrena was able to stand on her own, the blonde-haired woman unsheathed the sword that was on her belt and readied it for battle. It was as if she was expecting something or someone to jump out of the tall bushes at any time. 

Her sapphire eyes glided from side to side, making sure the coast was clear before she grabbed hold of Vyrena's arm. Without any warning, the woman dragged her through the tall cover bushes. 

Though it was a little difficult to keep up at first, Vyrena eventually synchronised with the woman's pacing. After some time, Vyrena wanted to ask where this woman's as taking her to. Where were they? What were they doing here?

As she tried to open her mouth to speak, her parched throat caused her to go into a coughing fit. This made the blonde-haired woman panic as she tried to get Vyrena to hush and lower her voice. 

"I know you're confused and you don't know what's going on. I'll explain everything once we get back home, so just keep as quiet as you can for now, alright?" 

Vyrena nodded in response and they continued their way through the foliage of the forest. After walking for quite some time, they finally arrived at their destination. It was a cleverly camouflaged wall gate covered in leaves, tree bark and twigs. 

The woman knocked on the wall gate twice before a small gap in the gate opened. A pair of suspicious eyes looked at them before opening the gate fully to allow them in. 

However, just before entering the gate, Vyrena's feet were rooted in the ground. 

Turning back to see Vyrena having not entered the wall, the blonde hair woman reassured her, "It's safer in here than out there, trust me."

After some slight hesitation, she entered the gate. As soon as she did, the gates closed up behind her. 

"Phew, that was a close one," the woman heaved a sigh of relief as she stretched out her arms. 

She walked over to the side to retrieve a small wooden bowl filled with water and handed it to Vyrena. She quickly gulped down the water to relieve her parched throat. 

With a smile on her face, the blonde-haired woman introduced herself, "My name is El, short for Elora. What's your name?"

Vyrena drank the final drop of water from the bowl before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, "Vyrena… or at least that's what I remember to be my name."

El nodded, "I'll just call you Vy for short. I'm sure you have a lot of questions. But first, what do you remember from before waking up?"

It was a strange question, but Vy tried hard to think. Needless to say, nothing much came up. It was as if someone had wiped her mind completely. 

"I... don't remember." 

El sighed, seeming a little disappointed. 

"What were you expecting, El?" A male voice shot out from far off in the distance. It belonged to the bearded man who was sitting by the lit fire pit. 

"I was hoping for a breakthrough!" El replied to the man with a grin on her face, "You can't blame a girl for being optimistic!"

Turning back to Vy, El was all too familiar with the look on her face. The uncertainty for everything around them was crushing. It was always hard for newcomers. Vy's eyes were darting around, looking all around hoping to find something that could help ground her. 

But everything was foreign and new. 

"Hey, hey, Vy… right? Don't worry, we all don't remember anything when we first arrived."

"First arrived? Where are we?" Vy can't help but ask. 

"Oh boy, that's a lot of questions. Let me start from the beginning. Oh, and you might want to take a seat. Here, let's go over here," El guided Vy to the side where there were tree stumps placed together like chairs. 

El sat Vy down and began to explain. 

"First of all, this place that we're in, we call it the Jungle. All of us, including you, was placed here."

Vy was about to ask a question but El stopped her. 

"Keep the questions till the end, cause it's going to be a lot," El explained. 

Vy nodded and continued to listen to El in silence. 

"We don't know why we're placed in here, but all we want to do is to get out of here. We've been trying to find the end of the maze, hoping that there would be an exit but so far it's been difficult."

"As for why you can't remember anything, I'm afraid I don't have an answer for that! None of us remembers much of anything prior to waking up here."

El's eyes traced downwards and noticed something different about Vyrena compared to everyone else. 

"Your wrists, are those red coloured bands?" El asked as she pointed at them. 

Vy looked down at her own wrists, surprised to see the red coloured bands there. While they were not uncomfortable or restrictive, there seemed to be something unique about them. 

El grabbed hold of Vy's hands and brought it up closer to her own face so that she could take a look.

She turned to the side and shouted, "Guys! We have another Red!"

Two other people came running over. Both of whom were intrigued by the red bands that were on Vy's wrist. Vy tried to understand the situation better by reading the expression on their faces. 

But she could not tell if it was good or bad.