It was not long since Leafy's and Firey's departure till the sunset had darkened to dusk, the moon slowly appearing over the horizon. The seas of Goiky were not particularly violent, remaining unusually still and peaceful throughout the night, a fortunate outcome accounting for the size of the boat as well as Firey's fatal weakness to water. It would be a long ways to another recovery centre, a thought that echoed in his mind repeatedly. What *does* happen to the forgotten objects who die and never recover? Would his friends on the mainland remember to recover them after a long absence?
Out of anxiety and with a bit of shakiness in his voice, Firey looked to his crewmate and uttered, "Hey Leafy?". No answer was gave in response from the now asleep Leafy, in which the realisation of her slumber resulted in a bitter sigh. He knew he was being paranoid, but he could not help to be with the primary agent of his many deaths all around him. Even still, he was exhausted, as the endless competitions of B.F.D.I. finally got to him, to everyone really. Firey could only feel sorry for those in T.P.O.T., he himself doesn't want to be apart of any more object shows for quite a while, which was half the reason for going on this journey. The other half though, was for Leafy. He did not know how to feel about Leafy even after wanting to be friends again, part of Firey still hated her after what she had done and was still reluctant to call her a friend out of fear of what his other friends would think. Not that they particularly cared. All he really knows is that he was that he hurt her, and even though she was not the best person either, she didn't deserve that.
These thoughts though, were overwhelming the poor flame while the main factor of his worries were lying right before for him, on a boat in the middle of the night, sleeping like a log. Eventually, Firey's tiredness beat his intrusive thoughts as he too succumbed to sleep, as the gentle waves bat the ship underneath, guiding the ship on a whim towards the mainland of the Goiky continent.
The first challenge of T.P.O.T. was already filmed weeks ago and yet Two was nowhere in sight, a prospect that barely worried the objects, least of all Golf Ball who was working on her experiments within her semi-secret factory/lab for days, which had been taking a toll on her. While Tennis Ball was trying to persuade her to take a rest, he already knew that he wouldn't be able to do so. This wasn't the first time she's been in a state like this and while the two were close, there was always some sort of friction between the two. She definitely wasn't the most polite object in the group by a longshot and even now Flower was nicer than her after her whole change in character. Her tendency to put herself in charge has always hurt her reputation with the other objects, not to mention how bossy she can get. Of course, this didn't stop Tennis Ball from doing everything he could to help her, after all they were best friends. But the reminder of the distance between them remained stuck in his mind as he made his way down into the laboratory, currently in disarray from Golf Ball's frantic search: papers, books, gadgets were all scattered across the vast floor as she paced back and forth, her teeth clenched so hard it seem it would shatter.
Though Tennis Ball was not at all surprised at the state of the lab, having survived similar events with her, he still gave way to concern nonetheless as he approached the smaller object, "Hey, GB?"
For a moment, she could not hear him, even as the sound of his footsteps grew closer. Her thoughts were elsewhere as her body was left to walk at a frenzied pace throughout the factory, as if the two were completely dissociated from each other. A bit puzzled by this, she usually woke up from her trance at this point, he came closer to her, tapped her shoulder with his foot and repeated himself, "Hey, GB!"
As if woken from a daze, Golf Ball voiced, "What? What's wrong?" She said this in such a manner as if she had forgotten the bedlam that she caused.
Sighing at this, the boy begrudgingly enlightened her, "First of all, you're burnt out and should be resting. Second of all-"
"I don't need rest, TB," she cut off. Slowly she made her way to a chair besides a small wooden table and sat. The table was also a mess, littered with papers, pencils, and pens, on top of it being a digital alarm clock. Facing Tennis Ball, she continued, "I need answers."
"You always need damned answers," he nearly said out of irritation before shaking that thought out of his mind and asked, "Answers to what? Two's disappearance?"
She paused for a moment, mumbling, "Oh yeah, I forgot all about that... hmm." Her tired eyes then met TB's and she answered, "But no. That's not what I'm talking about. They're probably crying in his room because we beat him up or something." This gave a chuckle from Tennis Ball, before GB asked a question of her own, "Do you remember Yoyle City?"
"Yeah, it was uh... the second season right?"
"Technically correct," Golf Ball assured, "But we were also there in the third. It was when we found the Science Museum- do you remember that?"
"Yeah there was a bunch of inventions there, though it was completely abandoned just like the rest of the city. Kinda creepy. I remember taking one of the gadgets but I forgot where I put it..."
She squinted her eyes and answered, "Yes, that's the one. When we were there I could've swore that there was something... watching us. Something sinister watching our every move. After we left, I felt it follow me all over the city, and then I got distracted by B.F.B. and forgot all about it."
He nodded, "Oh yeah, I remember you got all freaked out for some reason before we even left the first room. So that was the reason, huh? I never seen you act that way so it was kinda strange."
Standing up from her chair with a sharp creak, she walked towards the mess she had created in the center of the factory, "I was trying to look for any sort of history of that museum, of the whole city. I know when it was founded, who founded it, how many buildings are there, how big the whole city is, how many people used to live there-" TB stopped in her tracks, her hands would balled into a fist if she had any, "And still, I don't know why, why the whole city got up and left. No, not left, vanished." Turning around, Tennis Ball saw the true extent of her exhaustion, paranoia had gripped her mind just like it had on that day, albeit for but an instant, in much greater potency. She was terrified, not only at the prospect of not being able to understand or explain something, as well as at the potential horrors it could contain. The sight alone of him seeing his friend like this was enough to make the emotion infectious. This was not like the other times she worked herself to the bone. This was something serious.
"I have to go there," she concluded, "I have to know what happened there. Screw T.P.O.T., if Two comes back he can just eliminate me, I don't care. I want to go into that museum and figure out what happened."
Tennis Ball knew that he was not going to be able to stop her, she was too stubborn. This only gave him one option, "Alright, I'll come with you." In a reaction mixed with both relief and concern, Golf Ball opened her mouth to protest before being cut off, "I know I can't stop you, so you won't be able to stop be either. I'm coming with you." He smirked, knowing full well that he placed her in the same position that she did to him.
"Fine then," she finally bellowed, glancing at the clock on her table reading 20:18. "We'll leave tomorrow."
"Then you better get some sleep. I'll be back tomorrow," TB said, making his way towards the tall set of stairs to the surface.
Groaning, Golf Ball caved in, "Fine. Just be there, ok? Six o' clock or I'm leaving without you."
"As if!" he exclaimed midway from the stairs as the echo of his voice reduced to silence within the walls of the laboratory.
As she made her way into a small, plain bedroom hidden within the factory, in which she commonly used when she would get in her hyper-focused episodes, she could feel the weakness of her body with each step, her feet dragging on the tiled floor. Though she believed it to be a delusion, she thought she heard whispers coming from all directions. Semi-leaning her body on the wall, GB made her way to the bedroom and collapsed on the bed. Though her journey into sleep was quick, it did not alleviate the voices, rather they seemed to get louder, louder still until she could barely hear what they were saying-
"Stop her, stop her," little before passing out.
The gentle beat of the waves on the shore was the first thing Leafy heard when she woke up from a good night's rest. It was a bit after sunrise, the sun making its steady way throughout the horizon, the yellow light stinging eyes of the groggy object. As such, it took her a while that her companion was missing, though not long. "Firey?" she called out, her heart filled with both concern and sleepiness, but to this call there was no answer, turning said concern into anxiety. He wouldn't leave her like this, especially without waking her up first, right?
From inside the boat, Leafy provided shade to her eyes with her hand and looked around. In front of her was a massive beach and beyond that a tall grassy hill surrounding it. The sands were unusually coloured, being a light pinkish-purple that she had never seen before. Further on, a set of old wooden stairs was constructed on the beach, serving as proof that this place was inhabited. She could not see past the hill, she noticed no other people nearby, let alone Firey.
Leafy had no choice but to leave the boat searching for her lost crewmate. The sand was barely warmed by the sun as she stepped onto shore, however the humidity around her was still dense- it was the height of summer. "Hmph," she scoffed as she walked the beach before her, clearly upset by the possibility that Firey would leave her alone, "If he really did leave me, I'm going to update his 'Nicest Person Around Here' ranking from 7th place to 12th." This, of course, was an empty threat only used to provide some small comfort to her. As she did so she discovered there was another problem, a problem that completely went over Leafy's mind until she started her search, a problem which makes finding Firey a lot more crucial, as well as more difficult:
Leafy had no idea where she was.
Both of them professedly left their home on a whim, without proper preparations such as a viable means of navigation. With both of them having been asleep in the night, they had no way to combat the change in course. Her mind went from insulting Firey's potential stupidity to her own. Nonetheless, she continued her search, periodically calling out for her friend by name, hoping that she would receive some sort of response. Yet there wasn't one, which did much to Leafy to consider the worst case scenario: Firey had died, and there was no way to recover him. She tried to ignore it, but she knew no other possibility; he must have been extinguished when she was asleep, leaving him completely helpless. At this thought, her body froze up. Only one thing remained on her mind now:
She had to find a recovery centre.
"Oh my tennis ball factory, how long is it going to take till we get there! We've been driving for hours!" nagged the bored tennis ball within the FreeSmart Super Van.
By the time Leafy was awake, the two had already departed on the long journey to Yoyle City and was much more prepared than the other pair. Bringing a map, rations, tools, amongst other things, the only thing they weren't prepared for was the boredom of riding through vast open plains without end, with nothing to do but to continue forward. They were lucky enough to convince Ruby to borrow the car, the luck slightly dampened by the fact that both of them had to take some time to implement a crude brake system for it, though it was not a hard task after bribing her a bag of gumdrops, as walking through verdant field and forest for so long would be near impossible, at least for Tennis Ball. His friend, and currently his driver, however, was ready to take that journey if need be.
Meanwhile Golf Ball, clearly annoyed by object sitting besides her, corrected him with contempt, "You mean I've been driving for hours considering I'm the only one who knows how to drive with legs alone. Secondly, it hasn't even been an hour yet!"
"Yeah, well I'm still bored," he pouted, turning his face towards the car window.
"If you say the word 'bored' one more time I'm going to kick you out of the van and you can walk the 2,763 miles to Yoyleland yourself."
This kept Tennis Ball quiet, at least for a while. He knew that she wouldn't do it, of course, yet he didn't want to put her more on edge after yesterday. Though she slept, Golf Ball's mental state was still in chaos, ever fixed on her one goal: to go to Yoyle City and to figure out everything she could. He was all the more willing to move heaven and earth for his friend, to help her in anyway possible, but this did not cure the boy's fear for his friend's wellbeing taking an even greater turn for the worse.
Hours of silence had past, not even the radio was put on to fill it. The aura of inside the car was tense and restless, and was enough to tire poor Tennis Ball out. It would be a long ways to Yoyleland as Golf Ball had lectured and the only thing to do that he could think of was to sleep. Closing his eyes and exhaling, he tried to rest briefly before the car made a sudden stop that shooed away any chance of that. A large forest lay in front of the van, a narrow dirt path with tire tracks engrained into the soil being the only entrance amongst a misty sea of dark-green pine trees.
The violent halt of the van alone was almost enough to make Tennis Ball curse, the prospect stopping at once when when he looked at Golf Ball's face, the feeling having immediately been replaced with another. "Hey GB, are you ok?" he asked, staring at her fearful expression towards the seemingly endless woodland. It took a while to come up with an answer, for she did not particularly knew why she hit the brake. All she could remember was a feeling of great dread emanating from inside the woods and with brief contemplation, she realised that she had been there before.
"This is the Evil Forest," Golf Ball finally surmised, the feeling of panic relaxing as she regained her analytical bearings, "We should be fine as long as we don't get out of the van. I don't want to take chances to get eaten again."
Tennis Ball shuddered at that last part, he remembered the time he visited this place all too well. Without a word, Golf Ball continued driving, her left foot steady on the pedal while the right steered. As soon as they entered it, the sunny sky was immediately blocked by the tall evergreens, the atmosphere quickly turning dense and cold. The forest trail was bumpy, riddled with rocks and tree roots; although it was not the most ideal road, it was the only viable way in and going around was not an option. She had to go to Yoyle City, as soon as possible, whatever the cost. Her eyes focused intensely on the path and gritted her teeth, her friend instead opting to avert his eyes away, uncomfortable by the sight of her, fighting off her apprehension tooth and nail. Returning to his original idea, Tennis Ball turned his body towards the car window, seeing the blur of green and brown of the woods shortly before closing his eyes to sleep.
Leafy was an inch away before panicking and she was all too aware of this fact.
With deep breaths, though she was still pacing back and forth on the shore, she tried to piece things together in order to pinpoint her location. It had only been a couple hours since they left the site of B.F.B., perhaps only 10. She didn't know the exact time of their departure nor the current time but they shouldn't have gone far overnight, right? The boat they took was not a motorboat and with the waves not being especially violent, there was no room to cover much ground, unless the waves had picked up overnight. This was a somewhat comforting thought albeit not a full explanation factoring in that she didn't know what direction the ship was heading.
She breathed a sigh and faced the direction of the stairs on the hill before her. In hopes that she could see more of her surroundings, Leafy raced towards the stairs and quickly climbed it. By the time she reached the top, she found herself out of breath- that feeling, however, was soon substituted by incredible shock. Bracing her hand on the stair rail for support, she nearly slipped down the stairs when she saw the vast purple field surrounding her with sparse grass and bushes scattered across it. She felt her previous thought process shatter into several pieces- she knew exactly where she was:
She was in Yoyleland.
It was presumably impossible given the great distance between the object's home and there and yet she could not contest with the truth that was as clear and bright as the yellow sky. She, through means unknown, had managed to make her way by boat on the shores of Yoyleland. Leafy collapsed onto her knees as her mind wandered through the furthest depths of logic in order to somehow explain a nearly inexplicable event. In the end, she could derive only two possibilities:
1. Leafy had somehow teleported, along with the boat, to here. Firey had either not been teleported with her, leading him to his watery demise, or had died before then.
2. Leafy had been asleep for more than a couple days with she and the boat managing to venture onto shore unscathed while Firey was not so lucky.
With both of them being improbable, she could not be swayed by one or the other to be reality. Leafy could only accept the truth of the manner: she was a long, long ways from home which makes finding a recovery centre much more harder. With knowledge of her location, there was still some hope to get Firey back to restart their search for a new Dream Island, which lead her to come up with an idea. The leaf knew that searching for a centre amidst the violet plains would be a fool's errand, though she had an idea where one would be: hidden within the vast skyscrapers of Yoyle City. Not wanting to walk there, Leafy turned back towards the stairs to go around by boat, assuming she could get there faster. As she did so, she noticed something peculiar from on top of the hill:
The boat was missing.
As she rushed down the stairs towards the shore, she could feel as if she was being watched, though she couldn't tell exactly where. She stopped, calling out to the currently invisible stranger Leafy gave a meek, "Hello?" to no response. She attributed the feeling to her grogginess, it was just a short while since she woke up after all, and even so she could not shake it off her, no matter how much she tried. Slowly continuing her steps downwards, she went besides the ocean and confirmed that indeed, the boat that she was in just a couple minutes ago was no longer there, as if it got up and left-
Or vanished.
And as soon as that thought entered Leafy's mind, she could feel the source of her unnerving sensation- it was right behind her.
The mist of the Evil Forest still hung heavy over the FreeSmart Super Van, the bumps in the road getting no less arduous and the focused Golf Ball who, despite being tired from now several hours of driving, had not removed her eyes off the forward path. The passenger, meanwhile was still within a deep sleep and even with his occasional snores; the driver unfazed as if the loud noise was not even present at all. Her mind was too inundated with thoughts and if she lost her focus on driving for a single sliver of time, she would break down, this Golf Ball knew for a fact; the knowledge of her current condition, of course, serving little alleviation. Her weariness from driving for hours straight on the trail without break was taking a toll and soon the little daylight which passes through the heavy branches of leaves and branches of the pine trees will be extinguished- and with that the object's body will give out.
This, she also knew.
And even still Golf Ball drove on, regardless of even her own reasoning, rejecting her own nature of thinking before doing. Her brain notified her of this fact, this "breaking of character" so to speak, only to her annoyance. She wanted to scream out of aggravation from these mental interruptions, only restraining herself for Tennis Ball's sake- she had woken him up without warning once already. All that she could manage was a heavy groan to vent out her stored-up emotions.
Taking a moment of rest from the road in front of her, the driver glanced at her friend, fast asleep. However inadvertently, such an action caused her focus to dwindle as Golf Ball fully internalised that her mental state may be affecting Tennis Ball, that she may be worrying him. From the beginning of this trip, she had truthfully only been thinking of herself and her own need to know the secret of Yoyle City's abandonment; she hadn't really considered his safety at all. She knew that the expedition may be dangerous, however she did not have that much regard for her life anyways, especially if it was for an experiment. The realisation that Tennis Ball may also be in danger was enough to send her panicking, even factoring in the existence of recovery centres. It wasn't his death that was particularly concerning, it was the fact that if he did die, it was on her hands. She would view herself as responsible.
Golf Ball felt her willpower slipping through her fingers and forced herself away from looking at him, returning to her previous task of driving the van. As her eyes adjusted back to the dark road, she noticed something peculiar: something was moving within the trees. It, of course, was not unusual for local fauna to move within their habitat, the driver evidently knew, nevertheless she noticed something strange about how the unidentifiable entity moves, seemingly doing so without making footsteps, the only noise arising from within the forest being the occasional rustle of grass. It was like it was jumping incredibly silently, barely making a sound- except Golf Ball knew there was no such animal that moves like that within this area. It did not take long a rumination for her to remember where she was and to notice that the creature was getting closer.
The driver hammered the left pedal, the increased speed of the van enough to wake Tennis Ball out of his nap, this time only confused as to why his friend was going so fast. The confusion would not last long as both of them saw a figure before them- resembling their friend Leafy with a scarlet hue rather than her typical green. For further contrast, her expression was completely different than of the other, the one in front of them giving an unchanging stare of complete and utter malice. This is who the object was afraid of meeting from the beginning, but deep down she knew it to be inevitable- this was Evil Leafy's forest.
Being reminded of the previous encounter with her, Golf Ball understood that she did not have a lot of options. If she continued forward, Evil Leafy would swallow the car to their death. Braking was also not on the table as she was going too fast to brake soon enough and would also get swallowed. Taking a chance, she could only think of one last ditch way to save themselves and her mission.
With her left foot still on the pedal, Golf Ball sharply turned the steering wheel counter-clockwise, turning the van to the left. Even so, it was too late: Evil Leafy simply responded by teleporting right on the hood of the car. As the van stumbled through the harsh terrain, the two looked forward in horror, not just because an chaotic being was on their vehicle, but at the outlines of a tree right behind her.
It was a blessing, indeed, that the FreeSmart Super Van does not run on gasoline, though the question still remains on what it does run on and how Pencil even obtained such an artefact. What was not a blessing however, was the fact that the vehicle was completely wrecked from the front side, yet another iteration of the FreeSmart Van family destroyed and funnily enough was again done Evil Leafy's hand. The inside of the van was adorned with small shards of glass scattered everywhere from the windows. While the force of this crash would have been more than enough to kill a human being, it was fortuitous that the two passengers were objects- setting aside the fact that one of them was knocked unconscious. This, of course, could have been something that could have possibly been prevented if the van had airbags, an oversight that, also noting that van did not have brakes before they had borrowed it, seems ignore the entire concept of vehicular safety. Yes, it was a blessing indeed that driving in Goiky was not common.
The only one awake, Tennis Ball, was still stunned from the event, the shock of having seen Death (again) and yet survived he was still internalising. Slowly, he turned to check up on Golf Ball, his body aching from the crash. She was non-responsive, the smaller ball not being able to withstand the force without passing out; additionally, there was a small crack on the right side of her body, barely noticeable at first glance, Tennis Ball himself also having some injury primarily from the shards of glass that are currently sticking into him with moderate pain. Slowly, he picked up his unconscious friend from the driver's seat and kicked the side door with his foot, placing her humorously on his head. The door, however, did not respond to the object's meagre use of force and so was left with crawling through the shattered window to squeeze his way out. This proved successful, dismissing the additional glass shards stabbing him along the way. The relief that both of them made it out relatively unscathed, however, softened the sharp discomfort when his foot touched the grass below.
Almost forgetting about the whole exchange with Evil Leafy, Tennis Ball looked around for her to no avail, disappearing deeper into the forest. "Perhaps she thought we're dead already?" suggested the balancing object to himself, but he disregarded this at the moment, his mind was at trying to get as far through the forest as possible before Golf Ball wakes up and potentially goes into a fit at the discovery of the broken vehicle. Opening the back doors of the van carefully with his foot, he retrieved their collective belongings all compiled in one green satchel. Unzipping the bag was awkward considering his lack of arms, but necessary to check whether anything was damaged. Taking inventory, the container had:
- Two dozen cans of rations,
- Two Thermoses full of water,
- One water purifier of Golf Ball's own design and creation,
- Several books on Yoyle City, including a journal detailing Golf Ball's sloppy and hastily written notes,
- And one fully charged laser gun.
With the sight of the last item, Tennis Ball could feel the dread that was surely in his comrade's heart when she had packed it, a gnawing paranoia not only out of fear for her wellbeing, but at the prospect that she considered there would be danger of such calibre to bring a gun for. It was, of course, fitting for her character of "always being prepared", but all he could wonder was of what she expected she would find when they got there.
Stopping his train of thought to pivot to more important matters, Tennis Ball zipped up the bag as completely as he could and wrapped its handle horizontally around him tightly at the back. The whole thing looked a bit silly and dragged a bit on the ground without arms to position it higher but he did not care much about looking fashionable at the moment. Right now his only concern was getting out of the forest alive with Golf Ball. With no knowledge on their location, the object started to retrace their steps back to the path they started on, following an obvious trail of broken branches, with only the occasional sound of snapping twigs to fill the emptiness of the air.
She woke up with a migraine. Yes, that was the first thing she noticed as the oddities around her began stacking on top of each other. One would think, in a situation such as this, she would first perceive other far more important things. For example, the time of day having far progressed from the last time the object had opened her eyes. Or perhaps, in addition to this, she had not have a bite to eat in a while, perhaps several hours- her body facing a most nagging hunger.
Or maybe, she would notice that she was in a completely different place than she was before.
But no, that would be the third thing, the second being how dizzy she was when Leafy tried to get up and nearly collapsed on the grassy floor of the forest. Her eyesight was a blurry mess, pressing her body onto a nearby tree, she waited for daze to end. It was not the first time she had experienced these episodes after waking up, but it was surely more intense than she could remember- her head was throbbing with a pain foreign to her memories. It took several minutes for the grogginess to lift, albeit slightly, and with that the realisation of her current whereabouts. The panic set in quickly after that, as she recognised the forest, as well as the insinuation that she had travelled easily hundreds of miles from whence the object woke up. Sleepwalking for Leafy was not uncommon, but not to this extent.
She shivered in the unusual chill of the forest, the leaves above her swaying in the breeze- though no brief glitter of sunlight escaped the dense canopy. While the knowledge of her bizarre displacement still on Leafy's mind, she unwittingly noticed a strange texture on the tree she held. The object removed her hand, revealing a peculiar symbol clearly and sharply carved into bark and wood: an arrow pointing to Leafy's left. An impulsive look to the direction yielded another, this time pointing up.
Putting aside questioning the reason these were carved in the first place, the leaf opted for following her fellow plant guides as it was logically better than getting lost or doing nothing. Amongst the twists and turns she saw additional symbols carved in the trees: the words "THIEF" and "STOP HER" repeated, a spiral with a line connecting the inner and outer ends, and other strange, angular sigils to which Leafy had no knowledge of. The longer she stayed on the path however, the more she felt as if the forest was intensely familiar, as if she walked through the woods many times before- a thought which was more unsettling than the landscape she found herself in.
Yet, after a half-hour's time (unbeknownst to her), amidst the constant continuance of dreary trees and darkness, something new showed itself by chance, taking Leafy by surprise. Upon walking closer she found two parallel lines stretching endlessly in the distance through multiples of trunks and branches, etched onto the forest floor. It looked like a road charted by a vehicle of sorts, a desire path made from years of use, eroding both rock and soil. Thinking this was what the arrows were leading towards, she did not hesitate to walk along it- but her actions were immediately regretted.
Before Leafy, detailed on the trees surrounding the trail, was several of the same exact symbols: an circle with a large "X" inside and below it the previously seen spiral with a line through it.
By all prospects they were lost, or rather Tennis Ball considering Golf Ball was out of commission. The remains of the van's crash, comprising of shredded leaves and broken branches, lead to nowhere. From what he could remember, the site of the now dishevelled vehicle was only a few metres away from the path, which has become elusive upon search. For all he knew, it simply got up and left during the bedlam or simply vanished into thin air. The distressed man was certain that he went in the right direction and by all sense of logic Tennis Ball should have seen something, anything by now. But there was nothing to be derived from the two's unfortunate circumstances. Only more trees. The trail still went on, and his awkward walk continued.
He did notice one thing though, the trail and the forest around them was getting rockier, the fields of grass growing sparsely in comparison to the swarms of small stones and pebbles around them. With the added weight of Golf Ball on his head, these conditions was making it very hard for the poor object to walk. This, combined with this mist in the way made him barely able to see where he was going, having to go by his poor sense of direction and the faint glimpses of the trail at his feet. The temperature was also dropping, the mist only getting thicker as they went further down the trail until eventually-
The trail stopped into an all-obscuring fog. There was no wind but a general chillness irradiating from their location. There was something off about it, a suspiciousness to this blindfolded air. An omen, as it were, gripping Tennis Ball with hesitation, practically freezing in place (and he might as well be with this weather). For a moment, there was only a sharp silence shared between the objects and the landscape itself before a whisper emerged from above,
"Leafy?"
Too startled to answer, Tennis Ball just stood in place as he felt his friend sluggishly climbed down, while he was unable to parse her words. Golf Ball, awake and now having her feet on the ground, slowly trudged forwards despite the dense fog in front of her eyes. Again, now louder and more confused, she repeated herself, "Leafy?" Her partner could only look into that which could not be seen, trying to divine a sliver of understanding as he inched forward to follow her. He could not see what would make her cry out for someone who should be miles away. Nonetheless, he followed before noticing what this place was, and of its dangers. His walk became a sprint, tackling GB to the ground. Previously half-asleep but most assuredly awake now, she passed a glare at TB who did not make eye contact. Instead his eyes went through her, towards a dense mist far below the cliff they are on, covering a unseen den of spikes. They had almost wandered into Evil Canyon.
Quickly, Golf Ball's expression changed with the realisation of this fact, a silent reflection of her near-death. Any potential relief though was quickly replaced when an answer to her previous callings called out from the mist, in a very familiar voice,
"Golf Ball?"