Caia reached their resting spot in record time, racing to her friend. Just as she was about to reach her, she heard a loud noise. Fern was awake. She made eye contact with Caia, and there was an unspoken agreement.
She would help Fern, and Fern would help her. That's just the way Caia's world worked now. There was no alternative.
"Hey, catch!" Fern called out to Caia as she gave her a dagger.
"I have no idea what to do with this!" Caia shouted, having to yell over the birchers, which were just about on top of them.
"We just have to survive long enough to get about twenty minutes North of here! That's where we have to summon the portal!" Fern called.
"Why can't we just open the portal here?" Caia asked, shuddering as a bircher cry shook the trees.
"It doesn't work that way, unfortunately, there's only a certain place we can summon a portal with as much energy as it requires," Fern replied back.
"Good luck!" Fern called as the calls stopped abruptly. They had found them.
The first bircher had emerged from the forest.
It was, quite frankly, the scariest thing Caia had ever seen in her entire existence. The bircher was ginormous, its legs reaching up to Caia's head. It was a spiders head, with eight enormous eyes. The eyes so much so that Caia could see its pupils. It had the legs of an ant, long and thin, and the body of a bee, it's abdomen so furry that there was other smaller birchers burrowed into its fur. Caia wondered if those were its children.
Fern gave a battle cry and ran at it, battling it with so much force and energy that Caia couldn't believe she was the equivalent of a twelve year old on Earth.
One of the smaller birchers jumped off of the "mother" bircher and ran straight for Caia.
"Be warned, it shoots acid!" Fern yelled, although Caia had no idea how she had the time to watch what they were doing.
"Good to know!" Caia yelled back and stabbed it in the back as it tried to jump on her.
"Bad bircher!" She muttered to herself.
Caia was stunned to see that, after she stabbed it, it immediately stopped moving. Caia poked it with her newfound dagger to see if it was dead.
"It's weak spot is its back!" Caia yelled to Fern.
"Thanks!" Fern called back to Caia.
After that, things went rather smoothly. At least, Caia thought so. There weren't any major injuries, and there was just one more bircher.
"Hyahhh!" Caia yelled a final shout of anger as she stabbed the bircher in the back. It quickly stopped wiggling and fell over.
"Come on!" Fern yelled, grabbing Caia's hand as they scrambled over the bircher and raced to the portal spot.
As soon as they got there, Fern ran over to the portal entrance point, which was a circle mad of smooth, gray stones.
Fern started humming as misty white energy surrounded her, opening the portal.
"Now, once this spell is started, you can't turn back. You have to make a decision, Caia. Do you really want to do this?" Fern yelled, her eyes turning blue as she turned to her friend for the answer.
Caia thought about the life she could have here. Touring Eplar with new friend, having the ability to fly, it sounded amazing.
But she still had her mom, the ability to make more friends, her old friends that she could visit every once in a while.
After two minutes of sitting there with her palms held to her head, Caia made a decision. She may regret it later, she really didn't know. But it was her decision, and she was sticking to it.
"I'm ready to go," Caia told Fern firmly.
Fern gave Caia a sad smile, and continued with the incantation. Caia noticed her friend was sweating. After a few more moments, Fern started to sway. The energy was pouring out of her, eager to make the portal. Fern was turning a sickly gray color, and started leaning heavily on Caia's shoulder. But she kept going. Caia could hear the raw exhaustion dripping from Fern's voice as she kept doing the spell. Caia had to keep Fern standing upright, and Fern was putting more and more of her weight in Caia. Caia was getting worried for her friend. But she kept going. Fern looked like she was going to pass out. But she kept going. She kept going, no matter what the cost. At long last, the portal was created. It looked perfect.

But Fern didn't. As soon as she finished, she collapsed onto the ground, her energy fading. Caia started crying, the tears dripping from her face into her friend's rapidly graying one.
"You knew," Caia wept, "you knew you were going to die, yet you kept going. Why?"
"You.. we're the only real friend I had here. You made my life all worth it. I'm just trying to repay the favor. Go, the portal won't last forever," Fern made out, her eyes filled with hope for her friend.
"Thank you," Caia called as she regretfully stepped through the portal.
"Forever."
Caia leapt desperately through the portal, faintly hearing her metallic blue watch ping eerily, signifying the end of her 5 days. As she landed gracefully into a front roll out of the white, misty portal, she raced down the old mahogany stairs. She saw her mom, light blonde hair in her face, leafing through the mail.
"Mom?" Caia asked breathlessly, skidding to a stop, as she was approaching her mother with caution.
Her mother stood from the table suddenly, having an alarmed look on her face and her light brown eyes wide, like a deer caught in headlights.
"Who are you?