There was no way of knowing how much time had passed, how long she had laid here on the floor, unconscious. No, it wasn’t the floor, was it? At least, not entirely. There was something a bit softer beneath her head. Struggling to open her eyes, Aeris looked up, blinking as the blurred world slowly came into focus. Looking up, she saw a face, which slowly brought her to the realization that it was An-Lok’s lap that she was sleeping on.<br/><br/>Groaning, she reached up to rub her eyes, chasing away the remaining blurriness that plagued her vision. “An?” she murmured softly as she looked up at her for a moment. “What happened?” she asked, but before the other woman would have time to answer, the memories came flooding back. A grimace twisted her face as she recalled the visions she’d had before she’d lost consciousness. Her hand dropped to her face, covering it and the pained look with it.<br/><br/>“Right…” she muttered with a quiet whisper, wishing that she felt as strongly resolved now as she had when she’d broken the vision before. She wanted so badly to say that she truly<span style="font-style: italic">knew</span>that everything would be okay, that the vision was an illusion and nothing more, that she could truly break apart that future and create the one she wanted. But she would be lying if she said that it hadn’t affected her at all, that her heart and mind were truly unwavering.<br/><br/>Regardless of whatever seeds of doubt might have been planted, though, she couldn’t let them take root. This wasn’t the time to let her fear take over. She had to be strong. Anything less and they might not have a future to worry about, or they may face a future far worse than the one she had seen. So, shaking her head, she brushed the thoughts aside and forced herself to sit up, turning a bit to face her friend. “What about you? Are you okay?” she asked with a concerned, but a more composed expression.<br/><br/>“Was it you I saw before I passed out?” she wondered with a curious tilt of her head. “How long<span style="font-style: italic">was</span>I out?” she asked another question before shaking her head. “Too many questions. Sorry,” she apologized with a small, embarrassed smile before she began looking around the room, taking stock of it, of the fog that still hung lightly in the room, growing slowly closer, but not yet encroaching upon them.<br/><br/>“Anyway, I suppose we should get moving,” she said, forcing herself up to her feet and holding out her hand to help her friend up. “I get the feeling that staying here too much longer probably isn’t a good idea,” she noted as she glanced to the fog again. “I doubt we could find our way out of here by going back, so I suppose the only way to escape this damn place is to go through it,” she sighed softly, looking between the paths that remained before them, trying to use the Force to aid her decision on which way to go.<br/><br/>“I suppose something is still interfering with our senses,” she observed when she found that she still couldn’t reach out too far using the Force. “How annoying,” she let out a heavy, resigned sigh. “Well, my instincts tell me to go this way,” she gestured to a hallway to their left. “What do you think?” she asked, wondering if the other woman had any thoughts on the direction they should take.<br/><br/>--<br/><br/>Jax frowned just a little when Jek suggested that the girl could not defend herself. He could only assume that this meant that the other man was suggesting that they find the girl first. He knew it was the right thing to do. As far as they knew, even though this girl was Force Sensitive, she had no training, so unlike An-Lok and Aeris, the Force may not be of much help to her. Still, even knowing all of that, knowing that it was the right thing to do, somehow, it didn’t<span style="font-style: italic">feel</span>right.<br/><br/>Sighing, he nodded at the statement that the girl should be their priority. Kneeling, he placed his palm to the dirt, closing his eyes and using the Force to sense traces of information about what had happened here while they slept. His vision filled with white light, and he saw flashes of Aeris and An talking with a Sith, then leaving with him. He saw many other things flash through his mind, most of which were dark and unpleasant, but nothing of the girl in question. So, removing his hand from the dirt, he stood and looked at Jek.<br/><br/>“It is heavy with the Dark Side, but that isn’t it. There’s…” he said thoughtfully before shaking his head. “Nevermind. I guess it’s just me,” he shrugged as he took the cloak and put it on without hesitation. “I won’t leave it behind,” he said more firmly than he meant to. This was the only real connection he had to her right now, so he wouldn’t let it go, no matter what. Once he’d voiced this, he fell silent, looking around the area briefly as Jek used his own connection with the Force to attempt to track them.<br/><br/>“Yeah, that’s what I got, too,” he agreed with Jek’s assessment of the direction in which the girls had gone. “They left with what looked like a Sith,” he observed with a small frown, his blue eyes shifting from the direction they had gone to the other path Jek had pointed out. “Perhaps. Although, there’s no guarantee that this path will lead us where we need to go,” he pointed out. “And worse, I worry that if we abandon this place, we might never be able to find it, or the path to An-Lok and Aeris again…” he voiced his concerns.<br/><br/>“I don’t think the girl was ever here. I didn’t pick up any trace of her before. So, I don’t know which way will lead us to her,” he admitted, glancing to Jek. “Now that I think about it, though…” he paused for a moment, trying to recall the moments before he’d lost consciousness. “I remember Aeris saying that she felt the girl just beyond the border of this place and that she was unconscious,” he recalled. “But where exactly is the border?” he wondered to himself more than to Jek, although he knew he would get no answers.<br/><br/>Jax took a deep breath and sighed as he looked at the two paths before them. “Yeah,” he finally replied to Jek’s question, confirming that he was ready to go. For the first time in a long time, he didn’t feel truly confident in his decision. Whether it was the influence of the Dark Side here, or something else, he felt as though his judgment were clouded. But he was the one who had gotten them into this with his insistence that they would save this girl. He had been sure of himself then, so he would just have to trust his past self and press on with what he knew he should do. “Let’s go,” he said as he took a step forward, toward their chosen path.