▌│█║▌║▌║Chapter 12║▌║▌║█│▌

I got up in the morning as soon as I could move my body. I felt really uncomfortable sleeping there with her. It seemed that she could move her body before mine too, and her arms were constantly hitting me across the face. When I got up from the bed, I started to get a better look around the room. There were ledges carved out beside the bed used as a nightstand with a potted plant sitting on it. I moved slowly throughout the right side of the room because I didn’t want to wake up Sasha, and I couldn’t move because of my sore body. I walked along the wall on the right side of the room, and I found a door. I went into it, and it seemed to be a bathroom. There wasn’t a toilet, but there was a carved-out bath made out of smooth wood. A bucket of water was standing right beside it. I assumed that it was the bath water. I looked up at the ceiling, and the glowing sap seemed to be brighter in here than in the bedroom. I took off my clothes and got into the tub and washed the water over my body. When I got done, I grabbed a towel hanging next to the bath, and I dried off. I was hesitant to put back on my dirty clothes, but in the end, I didn’t have anything else to wear. When I walked out of the bathroom, I had the towel around my neck shirtless, and I had my pants on. Limping back into the room, I almost forgot that Sasha was in there. I felt a killer aura when I entered, and I looked up to find Sasha giving me the death stare with her red eyes in the dark. “Is there any bath water left?” She asked very menacingly.

Realizing there was only one bucket in the bathroom, I put on a guilty smile and said, “Maybe there was one I didn’t see?”

The aura in the room got worse. Her eyes narrowed and she said sternly, “You dumbass! This is why I didn’t want a roommate!”

Wanting to retort back to her that I didn’t want one either, I thought better of it. I put the towel on the bed and quickly started to put on my shirt and sweatshirt. I hurried to the door as fast as I could in my condition and said, “Well, I’ll be going now! I’m sure you’ll find some water to use!”

I began to open the door in front of the bed to head out of the room, but I felt a hand grab my hood. I was stopped in my tracks. I was yanked back into the room onto the bed. I saw Sasha walk towards me saying, “You’re right I’ll find some water. It’ll be your tears.”

I was crawling backwards in the bed until I reached the very edge, and I was preparing to get hurt bad again when she eventually made her way to touching distance to me by crawling on the bed to me. Just then, Garen opened the door. He looked at us on the bed and grinned a bit. “Well, I was coming to wake you guys up, but I see you are already awake. I’m sorry, but we don’t have time for that this morning.”

Sasha immediately turned toward him and shouted, “Wait, it’s not what you think.”

I couldn’t care less about the misunderstanding though. I jumped off of the bed and ran towards Garen. I got there and gave him a hug as I told him, “Thank you for showing up when you did. I would have died.”

The expression on his face was full of confusion. The confusion soon turned to ignorance as he pointed out the door and too the left. He told us, “Well Gala wants to see you two now. She is at the top of the tree where the great pool of sap is. When you get back, please tell me what the pool of sap looks like. I haven’t seen it myself personally.”

Before I had time to respond, Sasha was pulling me by my hoodie again as she said, “Let’s get this over with bath stealer.”

She dragged me down the stairs into the main hall where we first met Gala last night. From there, I walked on my own. We walked up the stairs in single file because they weren’t big enough for the two of us to walk side by side. She got to the top first, and she stopped. Not being able to see the sight, I pushed her forward saying, “Let’s go! I want to see it too!”

When I finally pushed her out of the way, the sight I saw was amazing. The golden-yellow sap from the tree was amazing! Gala was floating in front of the magnificent pool, and she looked like she had an even brighter glow than she did last night. Gala motioned for our shocked bodies to come towards her and we happily obliged to get a closer look at the pool of glowing sap. She told us, “I want to thank you for getting rid of that pesky griffin in our forest last night. I wonder what he was after though?”

Wait, she knew that it was a griffin? I ripped my sight from the sap pool and towards Gala. I asked her, “How do you know that it was a griffin? When Garen was asking us what happened he didn’t know what monster it was.”

She smiled. She told me, “Well, it’s my forest. You would be hard pressed to find anyone or anything that enters here without my knowing.”

Sasha piped in, “What about thanking us for getting rid of the griffin. We couldn’t scratch the thing! It was John that stopped it with his godly powers.”

Sasha showed a knowing smile. She said, “I don’t know. I didn’t feel the normal god energy coming from him after gods use their powers. Since you two were the only ones there, I bestow the honor of my thanks upon you. Besides I sense something strange in you two. I will allow you two to bathe in the pool of sap for ten minutes.”

I was shocked. Part of me didn’t want to dirty the pure pool of sap. “Don’t worry, I have towels and a bathing clothes ready. Cody, I will need you to walk down the stairs while Sasha is changing though.”

I nudged Sasha with my elbow and told her, “Looks like you will get a bath after all.”

She slapped the back of my head in response. I walked down the stairs and waited for Gala to call me back up. I wonder how the sap will feel on my body, and I wonder what she meant when she said she sensed something strange in me?

▌│█║▌║▌║To be Continued║▌║▌║█│▌