364 Race Against The Setting Sun

Everything seemed to be the same. It only took her minute or two to reach as high up the tree as she could. Vyrena gently placed Sorren and the unconscious Mara down on a tree branch before taking to her human form. 

She had sweat trickling down her brow which she quickly wiped away with the back of her hand. Sorren was already looking up at the sky at a tilted angle. She could not read his expression, so she looked up for herself. 

Still, she could not see anything. Vyrena carefully stepped from side to side, testing out different angles to see it would make a difference. But nothing seemed to be working. She reached her hand up. Maybe if there was something, she could feel it. 

But how high could she reach?

Disappointed by the outcome, Vy let out a sigh as she sat down on the branch. She watched as the sun slowly disappeared behind the horizon, bathing the surroundings in warm tones of orange and yellow light. 

The sky soon grew darker, the warm tones slowly turned into dark hues of blue. The night was upon them and soon enough the moon would reveal itself among the stars

"Maybe Mara was right, maybe Pigeon is just lying to us," she sighed. 

Vyrena brought her knees up to her chest. Sorren did not reply to her. He was still looking up into the sky at a tilted angle. Vyrena looked over to the unconscious Mara and chuckled a little. At Least the entire journey was not a complete waste. 

It was at this point that Vyren noticed Sorren's unusually long silence. She looked up to see him still staring upwards. He had not moved in a while. Did he sprain his neck by accident?

"Sorren," she called out to him, but he did not respond. 

"Sorren, are you alright?"

He still did not respond. She stood up and walked over to him. She looked up in the direction he was looking at. She tilted her head to the right. Atfirst, there was nothing out of the ordinary. But just as she was about to look back down, she noticed something. 

Was her eyes playing tricks on her? Vyrena thought to herself. Maybe she had stared into the sun for too long. 

"What are you looking at?" she asked. 

When they first landed on the branch, Sorren could feel the strong presence of mushroom and funghi that grew on the bark and near the roots of the tree. Naturally, for such a huge tree, there were lots of them. 

Funghi and mushrooms work as one cohesive network through their roots in the ground. Sorren can tap into this network just by coming into contact with any plant form. If he chose to do so, he could even see the networks that connect them together. 

"It's a web-like network. Something transparent is covering the entire area like a dome or an umbrella. The source is from this tree and it spreads out in all directions."

Vyrena listened carefully to what Sorren had to say before making some assumptions of her own. 

"So you're saying it's like a dome shield spanning across? It is from the tree, and it expands all the way out?" 

"Yes, yes that's exactly right," Sorren nodded in agreement. 

She remained silent for a while, processing the new information she had just learnt. Vyrena was happy to know that Pigeon's words could be trusted. But the discovery also raised more questions. 

"Are you able to find out the purpose of this shield?" Vyrena asked Sorren. 

"I don't know. But I can try," Sorren closed his eyes and concentrated on the Funghi network. 

The shield seemed to be organic, which was one of the reasons why Sorren was able to see it on the Funghi network. After a while, he came to two conclusions. First of all, it is not possible to pass through the shield. 

Nothing can enter or exit. 

Secondly, it seemed to be able to affect most of its inhabitants. 

"So in order for us to get out of here, we will need to find a way to destroy the shield."

Sorren nodded, "That's right." 

"You mentioned that the shield is also causing some sort of effect over us?"

"Yeah, but I can't figure out what it might be," after thinking for a while, Sorren lit up, "Do you think it might have something to do with why we can't remember anything that happened before we were placed in here?"

Vyrena lit up, "That could be it. It actually makes perfect sense. If we were being fed some form of amnestic medicine, the effects would easily wear off over time. Unless they fed it to us through different sources."

Looking up into the sky, Vy realised that having the shield would have been the most effective way to keep everyone the way they were. Seeing how things were in the City and the Jungle, one thing was clear. 

While they were free to roam and move as they please, they were meant to be hunted and killed. They were not meant to live long enough to find a way to escape either. That chilling thought sent chills down her spine, she wanted everyone to get out of here as soon as they could. 

Having witnessed Fendrif's death first hand was chilling. A life gone, just like that. Vyrena could stomach it, but she did not want to see it happen again. Her nightmares of losing someone close to her always dropped the pit in her stomach. 

She often woke up in cold sweat thinking about what had happened. She wanted to know who she was before all of this. There were so many questions, so little answers. 

"In any case, we've got what we came for, we should head back now," Vyrena declared as she stretched out her arms. 

Mara was still unconscious. 

"Where should we stay for the night?" Just as Sorren finished speaking, Vyrena looked out into the distance with a dreaded look on her face. 

She heard something, something she had not expected to hear so soon.