Holly's Travel

Marny was the first one to spot the small raccoon. Its eyes bugged with fear as it found itself face to face with an angry looking Manticore. Marny morphed back to human form with a gasp of exclamation.
“Holly!”

The raccoon trembled slightly, and the air shimmered around her before the animal changed into a scared, tired and hungry looking Holly. Mary and Natalie smiled at their friend while Allyssianne looked at her with a strange look on her face.
“Is that... blood?” The sorceress asked, looking at Holly’s sleeve, where there was a very dark stain on her white uniform, and something glistening red. The girl grimaced.
“Yeah, it’s stopped bleeding though, I think...”
“Let us see.” Allyssianne said.

Holly reluctantly rolled up her torn sleeve to show a large rip in the muscle and flesh. Allyssianne took one look at it and turned to the fire, starting to melt a pot of snow over the flames. The three girls teamed together to help clean and bandage her bleeding wound with strips torn from the bottom of the cloaks.

Once they had finished, they gave Holly some of the leftover meat from their dinner. As she ate, she told the trio why she had come to join them. She had set off with Illianna, and they had travelled for several days until things had started to go wrong.

Illianna had been walking in front, Holly lagging behind, tired out. They came within sight of a rundown city. It was dark, and Holly didn’t bother to look at the signs bearing the name of the town. She was too tired to think, but there was some sort of nagging feeling in the back of her mind that something wasn’t right, as it had been for the last three days. Lara had felt the same thing, and that’s why she had left them about twenty kilometres back, turning to try and find the others. Holly had stayed, truly believing that Illianna could get her out of the mess she found herself in. She had learnt to ignore the nagging feeling, when Illianna said that she was just being paranoid, and her mind turned to concentrate on her hunger and tiredness. Even the normally ever-present topic of boys wasn’t in the foremost of her mind, ever since she had met the others and their iron-hard will to rescue the boys trapped in Cairo.

Illianna continued to march on, and Holly tried doggedly to keep up as the other girl passed over the border into the city. That’s when the first alarm bells started to ring in her head. There was something eerily familiar about this city, a fleeting memory of fear. She walked past the rundown bell tower, seeing its bell lying on its side.
“Illi?” Holly asked, slightly scared.
“We’re nearly there.” The other girl replied without so much as turning round.
“No, where are we?”
“Somewhere.”

Holly stopped dead, and folded her arms. Her face was stubborn, the tiredness having vanished as an adrenaline rush started to creep through her muscles. She looked around, and saw the that they were in the Red Square. She pushed her fear back down into herself.
“I’m not going any further until you tell me.”

Illianna stopped as well, and Holly heard a small click. Illianna turned round and pointed a small colt pistol at Holly’s heart. There was o pity, no sorrow, no remorse in her eyes, just wells of cold, steely determination.
“Come on Holly, don’t make me shoot you.”
Holly swallowed hard, fear welling up in her mind again, threatening to take over.
Illianna put her finger on the trigger, threatening to shoot.
Holly’s mind screamed at her to run, to get as far away from Illianna as she possible could.
Illianna took aim, looking down the short barrel of the gun.
Holly could do nothing by stare, feet stuck to the ground. She stared at Illianna, disbelieving that someone she considered a friend would be capable of shooting her. With a millisecond’s notice, anger started to boil within Holly’s mind, and her feet came unstuck from the ground. She turned and fled back the way they had come.
A shot rang through the Square as Illianna squeezed the trigger, and fired the shot.
Holly felt the tearing, searing, burning pain in her arm and heard the dull thunk of metal on wood as the bullet hit a building in front of her. Something scarlet splattered onto the snow beside her, and a warm liquid ran down her arm, and Holly knew that she hadn’t been spared from the bullet. She turned a corner quickly, the forest back in sight again, and left Illianna far behind.