The Race Book 3
The Race
Runaway series: Book 3
By: Anna Rogers & Jules Collins
Chapter One
Rachel
The start
My names Athryst. I’m 16, 5’7”, I have long black wavy hair, and my power is death. I can control the dead, I can give someone the death stare literally and kill them, I can make the dead appear and so forth. I just can’t bring the dead back to life. It’s a rare power. An ancient lost power. My best friends are Halle, she’s 16 has long Blonde straight hair,with blue eyes and her power is air. Then there is Denny who is 16 has short blonde hair and hazel eyes. My canadian background makes people ask me to do their math homework for them, but I'm best at the literature. Well, maybe I should tell you about our little 'trip'.
"Yo! Athryst! Come on!" I heard my best friend yell up to me. She was a regular American. Her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She wore a pink tube top and a neon orange tank underneath. Her shirt denim shorts looked worn and her sneakers had little pink and orange dots. I changed into my beach outfit, a green tube top over a bandeau swimsuit. My bottoms were matching my bandeau top(which was pink) and wore some denim shorts over. I tied up my sneakers that were regular black. I grabbed my phone, put my hair up, and slid downstairs.
“Hey! Wassup Aura?” I welcomed her. I grabbed some towels and some money and headed out the door. I walked onto our driveway and threw the stuff in the backseat of my convertible jeep. We got in and drove down the jeep path towards the beach. We were leaving my huge house, my mansion. My parents are rich.
“Yeah!” Aura sang as she blasted the radio. We got down there and I put on sunblock, and my flippers and got a snorkel and ran into the water, today we were scuba diving in the sea caves.
“What about Denny?” Aura asked.
“He’s not coming.” I said. We started snorkeling, all of the fish were afraid of me because I was death powered. We looked around and I saw something, a submarine it shot something at us. We ducked. We swam to surface. I was a track runner so I ran fast. I grabbed our stuff and threw a towel at Aura. I turned on my jeep and went a secret backway that hid us underground. I stopped the jeep.
“What are you doing?! Keep going!” Aura said.
“That was Yak-Face’s son, he’ the new general you know since Yak-face was killed. That was Harry-face. Their last name is face I think.” Aura stared at me. I. Switched gear to reverse and pulle out. I put the jeep back in drive. I hit the pedal and we zoomed off.
We drove far and eventually we got to Denny's house. Right as j stopped to car I flung the door open and ran to his door. I banged on it hard.
"Denny! Get down here and get your runaway bag right now!" I screamed up to him. His bedroom windows was open just above us so he heard. I I turned my head to make sure no one was following. I looked back at the door and Denny walked out and jumped into the backseat of my jeep.
Most magical people live east, like in North Carolina. I ran and sat down and I started the truck up. It was running just and Aura buckled her seat belt. I put the gear I to reverse.
"You are gonna need that seat belt." I said and switched gear to drive. I sped off, not slowing down unless it was needed. We got to the interstate. It was deserted. We sped faster, to the point where my foot was on the floor. Aura's and my runaway bags were in the backseat. They always were. I had a lot of money with me. Like $1,100. That would be enough to rent a helicopter and get extra food and gas for us.
I few hours passed and I stopped for gas. I hopped out and filled the tank. I hopped back in when it finished and sped off. We drove for a couple more hours. My mom always told me to find Uncle Sean’s house in the mountains if I ever needed to. I knew what mountain he lived on and which cabin but I was using my gut to get there. We drove for about another 3 1/2 hours soon we pulled up in front of his house. I knocked on the door he opened it. He spotted my jeep and our bags and sensed my rush.
“Please Uncle Sean help us, mom always said you could.” I thought. His power was to read people’s minds. He nodded. He could also get into peoples heads and speak to them that way.
“Let me drive?” He thought I nodded. I jumped into the back with Denny. My uncle drove and soon we entered an underground cave.
“Hey Rachel you’re gonna need to use that death power of yours.” My uncle said. I called some skeletons and they ran behind us.
“I filled up your tank so you should be able to follow this path for the next couple hours. You’re about 1 week away driving, 6 days flying, and 2 weeks walking. That’s without any interruptions and deaths.” He said. I nodded and hopped in we drove off.H
“Do you think we are gonna make it Rachel?” Aura asked.
“Possibly, 90% of the people uncle Sean helps out with they make it.” I tell them. And if not I can just control you guys when y’all are skeletons. I thought
“Go to sleep guys, we’re gonna need it.” They nod and drift off, once they are asleep I get lost in my own thoughts.
What if we don’t make it? What if I die? How will they get there? How will we get to the Safe land? Where will we live? How will we make money? Will we still remain close? What if Denny falls in love with another girl and forgets me and Aura are his best friends? What if Aura disses me? What if I diss them? How will we survive? Is there even room for us? Will they accept us? What if I see some of my old family and they force me to move in with them and won’t allow me out like they did last time? Will I have enough courage to fight them? What if............?
I stopped myself there, I wouldn’t allow myself to. I focused on driving. After an hour I stopped. I woke up the others. Aura took my place and I slept. I dreamt that we did make it and a big war broke out amongst all of us. I woke up and we were in a totally different part of the cave.
“You’ve been asleep for 4 hours.” Denny said, he was driving now. I gasped.
“You should’ve woken me after 1 hour! Here let me drive and you sleep!” I said.
“I am not tired, I have only been driving for 45 minutes. Now just focus on getting us some food.” He said smiling. I pulled out a GPS unit and searched food areas.
“Anyone want tacos?” I asked.
“Yes!” everyone answered. I laughed a little bit and Denny made us some magic tacos. They were delicious.
“Okay so about 1 hour drive till we get out of this cave path and we will of traveled a day and half through there. It’s a magic cave path.” Aura told us, she also had another power sensing if anything is magic and if so what type of magic it is.
“Oh okay that’s good. Anymore secret tunnels? Any by chance with a gas station?” Denny asked.
“No but maybe...” Aura cut herself off and looked at me.
“Any fuel underground?” She asked me.
“Hey just because the skeletons come from underground doesn’t mean I control it... But yes, there is.” I could sense things underground if I wanted to. Denny whipped up some of the fuel from under ground and refueled us. He also made a magic barrier around us so we wouldn’t be seen when we got out.
This is easier than I thought, wow. I thought to myself. We drove for 10 minutes in silence.I was thinking to myself.
What if we do make it easily? Should I be happy? Or.... What if Uncle Sean betrayed us? No he would never do that. Or would he? No, he swore to my dad, while he was dying, that he would always protect me and my mother, he couldn’t break his promise now could he? Were my first thoughts then the old thoughts came back and so did the memory.
“Daddy don’t die!” I screamed.
“Hunny it’s my time to sweetie pie. Promise me one thing? Maybe two?” He asked. I nodded.
“Take care of mom is the first one. The second one is... No matter how much it hurts or you want too never call me to you with your death powers. I don’t want to be remembered by you as one of your skeletons. Please?” He asked me, I understood so I nodded.
That was in the hospital the day he died.
Maybe it couldn’t hurt to do it once... No! I will keep to my promises even though it hurts and I want too. I can not break this promise! I thought first. 10 minutes passed and Aura spoke up.
“Don’t think about it, it will hurt you too much.” She said. She was my best friend, my sister, so she understood what was happening. She went to open my bag to get a blanket and saw the razor blade knife. She eyed me silently and then my wrist and leg.
“No.” I mouthed.
“Why do you have it? You only used that for one thing!” She signed me in sign language.
“Athryst?” Aura called. I quickly put away the razor blade knife and called her to my room. Before I could hide it she saw the cuts I had made.
“NO!” She said. I looked down. Little trials of blood ran down my hand and leg. Aura grabbed my clean hand and dragged me to my bathroom. She cleaned out the cuts and used her hair to dry them, helping scabs form. I saw a little tear run down her face.
“Why are you the one crying?” I demanded.
“Because you never told me what was wrong. You should’ve. Remember when you caught me right before I was about to cut my wrist. It was over a main artery. You asked me why and I called, then I told you everything! Remember that? You saved me from further hurt. You helped me. I had three scars before that time.” Aura told me.
“Yeah, well, it’s more than three.” I muttered. Scabs were there and I looked at Aura. She made me go into the living room, keeping me away from sharp objects.
“Look. Everything is just horrible. My powers are kicking in and my dad isn’t here to help me! My mom is a stupid normal! Normal! She believes, but can’t help. Everyone at school makes fun of me for having ghost hang around. And when they realize that I have stuff connected with Death, they criticize me for not being goth, like a stereotype!” I yelled, letting a few tears escape.
I knocked myself out of the flashback. I looked up and screamed. There was a deer in front of the car, it ran away. And I gave a sigh of relief. We kept driving.
“Can I drive now?” Aura asked Denny. He nodded. We stopped and they changed. Maybe this would be a long trip. I fell asleep.
“Wake up. We just got out of the cave. You have been sleeping for about 10 hours.” Denny whispered. I sat up. I saw it was morning. We were on a road now so Denny made it so only magic people can see us. We were driving for about 6 hours before we drove into the woods. I looked behind and saw men chasing us. I stared and they died.
“I just saved everyone’s lives.” I mumbled.
Chapter 2
Death
We stopped and pulled off to the woods and camped out. Everyone went to sleep but I stood guard, I made myself some beans and bacon and ate. I was refueled. There was something I hadn’t tried in a while that I wanted to try.
“Deces.” I said, I came from a french town in Canada. Deces means death. I stood up and let the blackness fly around me and touch my clothing. When it was done I was dress in black armor and had a black staff in my hand. I was death, when I said that I became the door to death, and for the dead possibly life, only if I had a life power with me though. I could create skeletons a whole lot better now and make them stronger. Also if I was in battle it would be hard for someone to kill. That is only because I was neither alive or dead. I was a “spirit” as Aura called it. I heard a footstep, I jumped up. I heard some more footsteps behind it.
“Guys wake up!” I hissed. They got up and heard the footsteps to. Aura got her sword. Denny said a spell to clean up the campsite. Just then did Aura notice my outfit,
“Death?” She asked as if I was a totally different person. I nodded. Then came out all of the people. A bunch of guys, girls, and wolves.
Squelettes! I thought, that meant skeletons. A bunch of my soldiers appeared and took war form.
“Attack!” One of the other guys yelled. I sent my skeletons out on the field. A bunch of guys came and tried to kill me I laughed. I looked at one guy while kill the other with my sword, noth died. I kept killing all of the guys and then went to save my friends, I got there and they didn’t need help. They were doing fine on their own. I went after the big giant that came with them, wow for people who started a war against magic they sure have a lot of magical things on their side. I climbed up it and got right near it’s neck. I called some skeletons up and they stabbed all around him, I went and looked into his eyes. My eyes became pitch black and he started to fall forwards, I ran and jumped off his head.
“AURA!” I screamed. She sent a gust of wind to catch me. By the time I got down there was one person left, he was big and bulky. I looked at my friends and they nodded. I went to look at him and give him the death stare and he died as soon as I did. We quickly ran to the jeep.
“There is a bunch of fuel underneath the ground.” I said to Denny, he called up all we needed and more to save for later, we had a while till we got to the helicopter place. We hopped in and I drove. We drove for about 45 minutes in silence regaining our health and strength.
“This is a beautiful place.” Aura said. We were in a green, luscious valley. I nodded.
‘Yep, hey Aura check the map for the nearest town, or the gps.” I told her. She did and we were 10 miles out.
“Food?” Denny asked.
“Food!” I cheered. We drove the last 10 miles in happiness. We were hungry. I let my armor go away before walking into the diner that was crowded. We stopped in a big town. We motioned for three and the waitress gave us our menus.
“Your server will be right out.” She said. I picked mine up, there was so many things to choose from.
Bacon and egg salad, BLT, enchiladas, super burger, regular burger, 1 foot long hotdogs, caesar salad, iceberg salad, salad bar. I read to myself when the waitress came I knew what I wanted.
“Can I have the super burger no mayonnaise, extra pickles, no hot sauce, barbecue sauce, extra lettuce and tomato? And can I also please have a large fry, with ketchup? And also a salad bar? And a large Mr. Pepper to drink?” She wrote that down and looked at me again.
“Can I have a salad bar and some cheese enchiladas? And a large sweet tea.” Aura ordered.
“And may I please have the foot long hot dog, with fries, large Pope to drink and a chocolate milkshake?” Denny asked. She nodded and went to put that order in. We stared at Denny, nothing healthy to eat.
“What?” He asked. And we giggled. When the food came out 10 minutes later we chowed down.
“Wait. Blessing.” I said. They nodded and put down the food.
“Dear Lord, thank you for our food and please deliver us safely to where we are headed. Thank you for everything you have given us. Amen.” I prayed. I ate my food and then when I finished I ordered a strawberry milkshake. We payed (total was 35.76 dollars.) and we headed off. We stopped for gas and some drinks and food to go. Then we headed off on the highway. Denny casted a spell that kept us from being seen by anyone. Aura was driving. Denny fell asleep and Aura didn’t speak.
Should I put on my armor just incase we need it? I think I will. Deces! Wow this armor comes on in a really cool way. Should I sleep? It’s been 10 hours since I slept, if I can fall asleep I will. I thought to myself. I soon fell asleep.
“What about Athryst? Can I really kill myself and not blink an eye about her?” My mom asked someone, I was seeing what she was doing right now. In my dream. Wow.
“Don’t worry, she is death herself isn’t she? So you’d be able to see her if you wanted right? You could request her as your judge, of where you go in death. Heaven or hell? Right?” A raspy voice asked, my mom nodded.
“You can say goodbye you know you can.” The voice said.
“NO MOM DON’T IT’S EVIL! THAT THING IS EVIL!” I yelled but she couldn’t hear me. The thing handed her something.
“Use it when the time comes, your daughter will see you in 5 minutes. Do it for her. For you.” The thing said and it disappeared.
“I’m so sorry Athryst, I have to. For you. For me.” She said.
“MOM NO!” I yelled, she still couldn’t hear me. She unwrapped the paper and held a dagger in her hand. I took it and cut over her wrist and her neck then her temple, then last of all her leg.
“I love you Athryst, I love you. You’ll be my judge, only immortal who is death herself is my daughter, Athryst, I request her as my judge. She said the last part not to me. My dream shifted I was in my judging seat and my mom was there.
“Why mom? Why did you do it?” I asked her, tears brimming on my eyes.
“The thing told me I had to or the government would kill me harshly and then kill you. So I did.” She said.
“I sentence you to heaven, so may you rest in peace.” I said, my face became a tiny waterfall.
“Thank you my daughter, I’ll see you in about 80 or so years, when you die. Please do for me what you did for dad.” She said. She smiled.
“Bill, I’ll see him soon Athryst, there is another upside to this.” She disappeared and I woke up. I cried.
“What’s wrong?” Aura asked, Denny was awake to. I told them what happened and Denny jumped to the front seat and hugged me. He planted a kiss on my cheek, he does this all the time whenever I’m sad, only he doesn’t know I wish he really meant it when he kissed me. You see I have a crush on him, he’s tall cute athletic, smart and funny.
“Maybe one day you two will actually really kiss.” Aura said, laughing. She knew I had a crush on Denny, at the thought of it I couldn’t help to blush. Denny noticed.
“Athryst? Is there something you’re not telling me?” He asked teasingly. I shook my head, too embarrassed to speak. He hopped in the back again. We drove for a couple more miles laughing and talking when we pulled over to camp out. This time Denny put a spell on the campsite as well as the jeep. We set it up and we roasted some marshmallows. When Aura left to go to bed Denny turned to me.
“Why did you blush today when Aura mentioned us really kissing?” He asked me, he was dead serious and wanted an answer. I took a deep breath in and let it out. Here it goes. I thought.
Chapter 3
Aura
Misunderstanding
I woke up to see Denny in a ball and Athryst in a starfish formation. I laughed a bit and walked outside. I saw the sun was up. I looked towards the woods and saw a girl with brown hair. I stepped closer. Closer. Closer. I pulled my knife out. She turned around and raised her knife and I did too. I saw fear in her eyes. We lowered our knives.
"What do you want. Are you trying to kill me? What's my name!" I yelled. She shook and I saw a little tear forming.
"I don't know your name, I don't wanna kill or try to kill you. And I just want to escape this magic hating place." She whispered. I stepped back.
“I’m Lucy.” She stuck out her hand.
“Aura.” I shook her hand. “What are your powers?”
“Life and light.”
“Opposite of Athryst.” I mumbled to myself.
“What are your powers?” Lucy asked me.
“Air user.” I said. “Why don’t you come meet my friends.” I led her over to the tent. Athryst and Denny were up, sitting by our fire and snuggling, weird. They saw and Athryst eyed Lucy. I felt powers fighting, like tension. They walked over to each other.
“Life, light. Your look doesn’t match.” Athryst said teasingly.Lucy sat down. A little ball of light formed in her hands, and some darkness formed in Athryst’s hands. I saw the spheres float to each other, then they collided. Lightning flew from the sphere’s. I went and stopped them from hurting each other.
“What’s with you two?” I asked them.
“I’m death, she’s life, I’m darkness, she’s light. Do the math.” Athryst said. I nodded. They were the exact opposites. They wouldn’t or shouldn’t get along.
“Hey listen dark, I don’t want to fight, I want to get to the Safe Land and live. So don’t go around picking fights with me or your friends.” Lucy said.
“Hey light, guess what? DON’T tell me what to do. I want to get along to but it’s hard.” She replied.
“Why don’t we start over then?” Lucy asked. Athryst nodded.
“Hi I’m Lucy.” She said.
“I’m Athryst, I got to pack up now, sorry bye.” She said. She turned around and went to pack up. Soon we were in the jeep again and we were driving along the road. Athryst was driving. She was just steering, not really looking out for anything on the road. I got lost in my thoughts, like Athryst does a lot.
“What if they don’t like each other and end up killing each other? Or split us apart? What was with the snuggling between Athryst and Denny? Huh.
I looked up and screamed. I felt our jeep hit something and then stop. We all jumped out. Denny went to check on the blue haired girl Athryst hit and I met a auburn haired girl, and a little girl, probably 13, with white hair stood behind her.
“Hey watch where you’re driving! You possibly killed her!” The auburn haired girl yelled. Athryst looked at her.
“She’s not going to die, it’s not her time.” Athryst said, Lucy went off to help recover the blue haired girl.
“How do you know huh? Rose could be dying because of you! THE ONLY ICE POWERED PERSON IN THE WORLD YOU JUST HIT! THE ICE GODDESS! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?! NOW WE HAVE A WORSE CHANCE OF RETURNING HOME! YOU!” She yelled.
“Because I’m the goddess of darkness and death.” Athryst said with a shrug, the auburn haired girl stopped in her tracks. The black and brown haired girl looked scared.
“Goddess of death? And darkness? Is your name Athryst? I’m Maxie, goddess of earth.” She said.
“Yeah, I’m Athryst this is Aura, Denny, and Lucy.” She said.
“I’m so sorry for yelling at you, Rose is like a sister to me.” Maxie said. The white haired girl stepped out.
“I’m Cassy, air goddess. What’s your power?” She asked me.
“I’m Aura, I’m another air user. And I’m pretty sure the air goddess didn’t give her power to a 14 year old girl.” I told her. We all made introductions and Denny used a spell to make the jeep bigger, we all climbed in.
“Again I’m so sorry to of hit you, Rose.” Athyrst said. We drove for a while learning about different things that we needed to know and then stopped to camp out. I set up my tent and went inside for 10 minutes, when I came back out I saw everyone getting dinner ready. Denny had his arm around Athryst, weirder.
“Okay what’s going on between you two?” I asked them.
“You haven't figured out yet?” Denny laughed. I was hurt a little, not because he was dating Athryst, but how he always laughs at me.
“I know you guys are going out. Easy, when you are Life, you also know love, because it brings new life. Like a baby.” Lucy said.
“So you’re saying that you have a love power too?” Athryst sounded so confused.
“Nope, just that I sense it. You see, people are in love when they have kids, like your parents were in love, and you were a new life that came from that. Does that make sense? That’s the only way it does really.” Lucy explained.
“Yeah, my parents.” Athryst whispered.
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t know that they weren’t alive. I just can’t say I know what it feels like. I’m so sorry I brought it up.” Lucy apologized.
“Yeah, Lucy, say sorry to the other three goddesses.”
“AirHead, I only see two.” Lucy snapped back at Cassy. Cassy rolled her eyes.
“So what life? Light? Who cares about you?” Cassy said.
“I know your life. I know your fears. I know you. I can also take that away from you. So don’t go around arrogant to everyone, and just because you are air and Maxie is earth, you don’t get to be a jerk. So stop it now.” Lucy was now gritting her teeth, her hands on Cassy’s neck. Cassy tried to fall back. She got out of Lucy’s grip and decided to run. Smart. I agree that Cassy could be a jerk but I wondered if she could be nice, I mean nice to anyone other than Rose. I don’t think so, she seemed to mean and cold. I had a headache so I decided to go train and get away from everyone. I walked a little bit out.
“Alas.” I said. My wings appeared, I flew up into the sky. I started training with wind. I kept blowing up these tiny tornadoes and then I heard something.
“Aura!” It was Rose. I flew down. Maxie was there too, along with Athryst. I had an idea. When I touched the ground I looked at them and said.
“Alae vis tibi.” That was latin for ‘I give you the power of wings.’ so now they had wings as well.
“What did you just do?” Rose asked me.
“I gave you guys wings. At first they will all start out as white angel wings but you can change them however you want. Like Rose can have ice wings and Maxie can have something that has to do with earth and Athryst-” I cut myself off Athryst had black wings, and they were scary.
“I’m death, anything I get becomes black and scary, apparently like me.” She said.
“No, you're very pretty.” I reassured her, she looked at me.
“Hey emo girl.” Cassy said from a distance.
Cassy didn’t have wings.
“Don’t call me that.” Athryst told her. I almost called her airhead but then I’d be offending myself.
“How come I don’t get wings? The air goddess doesn’t get wing-”
“Shut up. Just shut up. You won’t get them unless you change.” I said. She looked at me.
“I am superior over you you don’t tell me what to do.” She said, she tried to seem scary but I just stood there, I knew Athryst, I wasn’t scared of her. Then some wind started up really strong, I tried to control it but I couldn’t. We had to close our eyes and feel around to walk. All of a sudden the air stopped and I looked up.
“Aether.” I said, that was the goddess of air. My magical mom.
“Hi Aura. Cassy.” She said my name happily as if I was chocolate cake (which I love) and Cassy as if she was a dead rat in her pizza. I smiled. Cassy frowned.
“Now, I have come to clear something up. About who is the next air goddess, after today I retire.” She said. Cassy smiled.
“Cassy.” She said. Then she looked at me.
“Cassy meet the next air goddess, Aura.” She said. I smiled and jumped up and down. Cassy smacked me and walked away. She can never be nice, she is a jerk.
“Wow, Aura bon travail.” Athryst said. I did not understand what she said. All of a sudden she said.
“Deces.” And her armor came on. She let her wings out, I got mine out and so did Rose and Maxie. I don’t know why, I just trusted Athryst. A bunch of people, guys and girls and some monsters came rushing out of the bushes, Aether disappeared.
I opened my wings and flew straight at someone, using wind to put power into my air-roundhouse kick. The guy was knocked down and bleeding. I Made my wings super huge, like and eagle. I kept up in the air, kicking heads. People started climbing trees so I grabbed my sword.
“Come on Nubis.” I muttered to my sword. I swung and hit a guy right in the face. My enchanted silver and regular platinum mixed blade kills magic and normal enemies. I heard Athryst say,
“Epee de la mort.” She was french canadian. I knew enough french to make out what she said ‘Death Sword.’ The sword was black and wicked sharp. She could call up anything that had to do with death, like I could air, or Rose could ice, or Maxie could earth. I kicked one guy under the jaw and he fell off the tree. I felt a guy on my back, so I flipped like I was insane. When he fell off of me I flew down fast and hard. I landed on his stomach, kneeling. I slashed my sword through his head.
“Stay dead.” I said.
I whipped around to find only three men fighting. Lucy, Maxie and Rose had them, but I ran out help. On my way I saw Athryst and Denny making out.
“Cut it out, we are on a battlefield, not in a romance movie marathon!” I yelled. I ran over and grabbed Lucy’s hand. We looked at eachother and we knew what to do. We lifted up our hand and threw them down still holding them.
“Nobiscum morte, vita, lumen et auras iunguntur!” We yelled in Latin. A huge wind blew through, and life was bursting at our feet, making cracks in the earth. I closed my eyes and so did Lucy. I heard a bunch of screaming. It stopped and I opened my eyes, all the normals were dead. Athryst started walking around the dead bodies.
After the battle was over Athryst went around giving everyone their place in death. After that we hopped in the jeep. I thought of something.
“We can’t just keep driving the whole time, we have to do something else to. Walk, run, fly, swim, sail. Something else right?” I asked them.
“Uh, Aura, look up. We are at the helicopter place.” Athryst said. I did, sure enough we were there. I got out of the car.I looked at the money we had, I walked up to a guy who worked there.
“Yes mam.” He asked me,I looked at him.
“I’d like to buy a helicopter. The biggest most sturdiest you have.” I said, he pointed to one.
“Thats an 8 seater.” He said, that was perfect we had 7 of us.
“How much?” I asked him.
“700$” He said, I pulled out 700$ and paid him, but it was suspicious.. He handed me the keys to the helicopter. I nodded to the others. Denny took the extra gas out of the trunk and we hopped in.
“I’ll fly first and, uh, Cassy?” Denny asked.
“Why not Aura? She’s the air goddess apparently.” She hissed looking at me. I sensed she tried to mind-punch me.
“Because she looks ready to drop. She needs rest.” Denny said, Cassy sighed and went to the front. We buckled up and took off.
“ Am I the only one bothered by how cheap this was?” I asked. No replies.
The guy watching us the whole time, like he was thinking of something to do. I fell asleep quickly.
Chapter 4
Aura
The flight
I slept for a while but then quickly woke up. Somehow Lucy was driving now, and so was Cassy, still. Apparently she didn’t know I was up.
“That stupid Aura, who does she think she is? I bet Aether felt bad for her! I am the coolest, smartest, best one between me and her! I AM!” I muttered to herself.
“That’s the EXACT reason why Aether didn’t choose you. You’re self centered, don’t care about anyone, you’re mean to everyone, and you think you’re the best at everything! Newsflash for ya, you’re not.” Lucy said. Yeah, go Lucy! I thought. I listened to them argue back and forth for a while, Lucy could tell I was awake probably. It was hilarious. I couldn’t help but laugh when Cassy said.
“So, shut up life, I will end you.” It sounded so much like she wanted to kill herself!
“Well you could, but would you mind dying as well?” Lucy said, a hysterical laugh burst through my lips. Cassy whipped around and looked at me, she seemed pretty mad.
“Eyes on the air at all times Cassy.” I said, smirking to annoy her. She turned around.
“You can’t tell me what to do.” She said. She turned around and flung out of her seat and grabbed my neck, waking up the others. They screamed when they saw Cassy attacking me. I grabbed her wrists and hit them with my jaw. She pulled away, she punched me in the nose first. Then I dodged a punch to my eye, and she hit my check. I looked down and saw blood trickling from my mose. I looked up in time to see her punch my jaw.
“Cassy! STOP!” Rose yelled. I pulled back my arm, I gathered all my strength and got hit one more time in the stomach as I let my fist knock Cassy out. Rose looked at Cassy’s body and Athryst quickly jumped up front to help steer. I sat down. Rose was standing there looking at Cassy, Maxie grabbed some duct tape and bound Cassy’s hands and feet together, first separately then bound them together so she was in a ball basically. They put duct tape over her mouth, they left enough room for her to breath out of her nose. I sat down, my nose was bleeding. Maxie took out a tool kit and fixed it up.
“Wow, Cassy broke your nose, gonna take a week or
two to heal.” She said. I looked down at Cassy.
“Jerk.” i said, she has woken up now.
She looked at me. I ripped of her mouth duct tape.
“Ow. I still wanna kill you.” She said, she saw Rose.
“I didn’t say anything to you about your last comment, then you attacked me! And if I died, there would be no air goddess anymore.”
“I can’t believe you!” She smacked Cassy’s face. She tried to stand up. Rose didn’t like that, I saw she had a dagger, she gripped it ready for battle. Cassy laid down.
“Rose, I didn’t mean to! It was Aura who hit me first!” Cassy pleaded. Rose looked at me, I shook my head.
“Rose, Cassy hit Aura first.” Lucy said.
“Shut up life.” Cassy mumbled.
“No, it’s too late, you’ve been mean to Maxie and I’ve tried to overlook that but you go and attack the air goddess! And you’ve been mean to everyone else! It’s too late. You may finally get your wish and have your own apartment. Don’t talk to me!” Rose said. She climbed back 2 rows and sat
down. She put her head in her hands and shook her head a bunch. She lifted her hand and put up and wall of ice. Just her. I looked at Cassy.
“You’ve ruined it for you and Rose.” Maxie said before I could say the same thing. Maxie sounded happy about that. I smiled at her enthusiasm. Maxie realized there was a lot of ice, so she got some and put it on my face. Athryst turned around and looked at me.
“Don’t worry, you are nowhere close to death” She said.
“YEah, you are gonna live for a while, you’ve got a lot of ambition and life inside of you.” Lucy said.
“I didn’t think I was going to die.” I stated and sat up. I moved into a seat and watched Maxie duct tape Cassy to the opposite chair.
“Look, I tried getting along when we first met, but you crossed the line. You are staying here until other orders or you’re about to die. I still want you around, maybe you will change.” Maxie whispered to her, face to face. Her brown hair was long for the summer and I saw we were over a summer wonderland. All the trees were in a bunch of groups making a beautiful park of rolling hills and trees. I realized the trees were in a wonderful pattern. I saw one tree was out of line, it was being chopped down. I somehow saw the man who was taking the tree down. He looked unhappy. I then saw a man, he was yelling. It was- I don’t know how- suspicious. I looked back to Maxie. She looked at me as if to say That park is where President Zach lives, we need to get out of here.
“Lucy, go faster. We need to leave the area.”
“Why?” Lucy asked Maxie, wondering what was wrong. She knew something was up, like me.
“That is President Zach’s A.K.A Yak-butt’s land.” Maxie said. I saw her body shaking.
Chapter 5
Denny
Spacing out
“Maxie, calm.” Rose said. I nodded. We continued to fly, I focused on breathing and staying up in the air, me and Athryst switched places, she was busy with death stuff, and night. I think she has power over the night as well because Lucy has power over the day, but I could be wrong, hopefully I’m wrong. I thought to myself, a shiver went down my spine. Don’t think about it! I urged myself not to, but I couldn’t help it.
“Don’t be afraid my boy. It’s just the night. It’s only dark out, nothing more.” The voice said. I took one step out my house, then another. I was out. The door slammed behind me. I pounded on the door, the voice laughed. I turned around.
“SHUT UP!” I yelled at it. It just smiled at my madness. I walked towards it. I gripped a kitchen knife in my hand, I was 9 and this was in my old neighborhood in Texas, it was 12:00 at night. I charged it, it simply laughed.
“I am the night, your worst fear you cannot kill me!” It said, taunting me. I dove for the voice.
“I have control over you in the night, you cannot get rid of me.” It said.
“Oh yeah? I’d like to see about that?” I said out loud everyone looked at me, I was still in my flash back.
“Take this!” I said, Lucy knew what was happening.
“Denny! NO!” She screamed, I pointed the plane straight downwards and turned off the engine, my flashback still playing, Lucy grabbed my hands and looked into my eyes. She appeared in my flash back.
“Over here.” The voice taunted. I dove the opposite way.
“Your biggest fear is the night?” Lucy said, I couldn’t see her or reply. I kept jumping after the voice soon my parents came outside and heard the voice.
“Your parents are next.” It said, they grabbed me and pulled me inside, they shut the door and turned on the lights, killing the voice, leaving Lucy out there. She appeared inside my flashback. Then I felt it, the arm breaking feeling, the plane crashed into the ground.
“Ugh.” I said. I sat up, it was dawn. I checked my watch. 5:25 am. I had been knocked out for almost 12 hours. I sat up, expecting to see everyone else up and rubbing their heads to. All I saw were bodies lying still barely breathing and a big pile of plane. I waited for a minute then went to find some water. I found a stream nearby. I boiled a whole bunch of water then let it cool. I walked up to Aura first. I sat her up and put one of the remaining backpacks under her head. I poured some water on her face to cool her off. I checked for broken bones. She had a broken ankle, and wrist. My mom was a nurse and my dad was a doctor. I got some sticks and medical tape and some cotton (We had landed in a cotton field) and I made her a makeshift cast for her foot and wrist then I made her some crutches. I let her continue to sleep. I walked to Athryst next, I poured some water on her. Then I felt for broken bones. She had two broken toes, a wrist, and a broken finger. I took some cotton and made her a cast. Then I went to Maxie.
“Broken shin, arm, and wrist. Great.” I made her some casts and a pair of crutches. I got her situated then went to Rose.
“Broken nose, wrist, and foot. Whoopdeedoo.” Then I fixed her up and went to Lucy.
“Broken knee, elbow, dislocated shoulder.” I said, while fixing her up then I went to Cassy.
“Uh oh, Rose is not going to be too happy about this. Broken leg, arm, 5 ribs, wrist, hand, foot, shin, ankle, there’s a whole lot more but worst of all, fractured skull, barely a heartbeat left. It has to be her time. But I’ll still try.” I tried fixing her up but it didn’t work, she was gone. Athryst shot up.
“Cassy!” She gasped. She tried to get up, I helped her and gave her some crutches and water.
“Cassy’s gone.” She said after gulping down water.
“I know, I was just getting ready to fix her up to bury her.” I said, so she was a jerk she still deserved a grave and a funeral.
“Heaven, though you were a jerk, mean, and other stuff you saved our lives and risked yours. Heaven.” She said.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Well after you and Lucy went all flash back on us Cassy tried to pull the plane up with air, you had ripped out the engine cords, totally shredded, Aura went into shock. When Cassy realized she couldn’t do it she flung all of us up and looked at Rose then Maxie then me and said ‘I’m sorry for being a jerk, forgive me.’ Then she took the blow for us. Saved us all.” She said, I took a moment to let it sink in.
“Explains the broken skull and the crushed bones.” I said. I warmed her up some water and made us some food. We ate. I looked around.
“How long do you think til they wake up?” I asked her.
“Apparently Maxie not that long.” She said pointing towards her direction. Maxie sat up and looked around.
“Be careful, you broke your shin, your arm, and your wrist. I made you some crutches, my moms a nurse in the hospital and my dads and doctor in the same one.” I said.
“I can tell, also goddess of medicene and healing. You have broken wrist and finger. Lucky.” She said. Lucy was the next to get up. I explained about her injuries, they looked at Cassy. I explained that too. Rose got up. I got her steady on her crutches and she ate some food.
“Where’s Cassy?” She asked.
“Uh, about that Rose. You see when, uh, Cassy took the fall for us, uh, it was tough on her, she didn’t make it. It crushed her bones and her skull.” Maxie put it softly. Rose didn’t say anything, she looked at me. Anger seemed to grow in her eyes.
“YOU! YOU’RE THE REASON WHY! IF ONLY YOU HADN’T SPACED OUT WHILE FLYING AND DIDN’T DIVE BOMB US TO THIS STUPID COTTON FIELD! SHE SAVED YOUR LIFE WHEN YOU RISKED OURS! YOU KILLED HER!” She yelled in my face. I took a step back.
“I’m sorry, uh, a horrible flashback came back to me and it involved my fear. I was trying to kill it, I wasn’t thinking. I’m so sorry Rose.” I said.
“SORRY DOESN’T CUT IT!” She yelled, she took a couple minutes to cry and calm down then she looked at Maxie, who was hugging her.
“Where is she?” She asked. Maxie pointed to Cassy, Athryst had decorated Cassy’s hair with cotton flowers and changed Cassy into a white dress. Rose sat down. She picked up a rose and set it in Cassy’s hand. She cried. Athryst went over.
“Hey Rose, I’m so sorry about Cassy, if it makes you feel better I gave her a big spot in heaven.” She said. Rose looked at her.
“Thanks... I guess... I’m so sorry for yelling at you.” She said turning to me.
“Ah, it’s fine you were mad and sad and angry and depressed, don’t sweat.” I said.
“And you weren’t the cause of Cassy’s death, I guess it was just her time.” She said. Lucy walked over as well.
“She died a hero’s honor for saving our lives.” She said, putting an arm around Rose, Maxie walked over as well.
“Yeah, I guess, she was still a white haired jerk though. Ha. Her hair kind of looked like a grandma’s. I’m sorry, too soon.” Maxie said, making Rose laugh. I walked over. I sat on the other side of Cassy. I looked at Aura, she sent a small breeze to Cassy and it lifted her up. Maxie made a hole in the ground and Aura gently set Cassy in it. Lucy, Athryst and Rose put dirt in her grave while I made a tomb stone. I let Rose engrave it though it said:
Here lie’s Cassy Duveua
She was funny, and pretty. I loved her so
2000-2012
We dug that in and packed up the remains of stuff and walked, slowly, away. We later started running again. Rose was still crying. I kept running and then out of nowhere I hit a tree.
“I swear that tree was not there earlier.” I mumbled. The others laughed.
“Oh it wasn’t. I put it there, call me the puppet master.” A voice said. It walked out of the trees and I realized, it was my fear. The master of fear. To me. Night.
Chapter 6
Denny
The fear master
Everyone shrieked. I gasped. I looked at him, he was about 7 feet tall. He had black long shaggy hair and had pitch black eyes. I looked at the others.
“Y’all see him to?” I asked. They nodded.
“Yes, yes, you’re not the only who see’s me Denny Desno. I am the master of ALL fears. Not just your’s. Oh, remember that time when you were 9 and I tricked you outside, into the night? Oh, I loved that, fed me well.” It said. It smiled a crooked smile to only show more than half of its teeth were missing.
“Metus.” Maxie said.
“You know my name? Wow, you are smart.” Mentus said. I don’t know how but I knew it meant fear in latin. Rose looked up.
“No. You guys my mom once told me all magic was based off of latin roots, apparently we are all supposed to know latin by heart without studying. I thought she was wrong, apparently not.” She said. Maxie nodded.
“Well, Rose Elvira your mother was correct. My name is Mentus, which means fear in latin.” Mentus told us. I searched my brain for latin and sure enough it was there.
“Vestibulum occasum senem.” I said. The others tried not to laugh. Mentus was offended. I had said ‘You’re going down old man!’ and he was. I ripped out my sword and the others ripped out there weapons as well. Athryst became death and Lucy became life. I took out my wand. I said a spell to keep us all safe for a good amount of time. Rose became a rock spirit and Maxie became an air spirit as well. Aura kicked up some serious wind around her and became wind. We started fighting all the trees and puppets Mentus was throwing us. Maxie had used her healing powers on us all. We were all healed by the time we had left the corn field. I swung at a tree and cut off it’s limbs and it crumbled.
“Hey! For the tree’s cut the limb’s or the trunks!” I yelled to the others. I slashed another one and then came up to a bush. I looked at it and slashed it in half.
“Maxie! Try controlling the trees!” Rose yelled. She nodded. She got a couple on our side and they killed the other trees and bushes. We kept slashing through tree’s and animals and bushes. Athryst looked at things and they would collapse. Lucy would suck the life from things. Wow, remind me not to provoke them. I thought. Soon it got too much after 15 minutes. We had fallen back because we were tired. Athryst and Lucy looked at each other.
“We have to, it’s the only way.” They said at the same time. They smiled. They stepped forward.
“Athryst no!” I said. She put her hand up, black dust and wind stirred around her, golden dust and wind stirred around Lucy.
“I claim power over the night!” Athryst yelled. Mentus laughed.
“No way! You can’t claim powers!” He said. He was distracted so Lucy and Athryst looked at each other.
“There will always be fear no matter what you do!” Mentus said, seeing their faces.
“We know. But fear can go away for periods of time if you try hard enough. Ponder it.” Lucy said. Mentus was thinking so they looked at each other, they took each other’s hands and said,
“Tenebrosam, et lux ligaveris simul vincere malum intra.” At the same time. I knew immediatley what they said, ‘Dark and light bing together to defeat the evil within!” a bright shiny light exploded in front of them. I wasn’t afraid anymore for some reason. Mentus screamed, he began to look old and he disappeared. I looked at them in wonder.
“Dark and light together is a powerful thing and if we control it we can do whatever we need when we do that, we took away everyone here’s fear. Which sucked some of his life from him, he feeds off the fear of others. So he disappeared because he was so weak.” Lucy explained. Athryst nodded. We set up camp here. According to Aura, who learned how to track and sense others, Harry-Face and his army were 97.6 miles away, walking slowly. We cooked some of the animals we killed and we ate them. We were all tired. I went to my tent. I layed down and went to sleep.
“You haven’t gotten rid of me forever.” Mentus said.
“Oh yeah? We have Lucy and Athryst!” I taunted him, the spell hadn’t worn off yet.
“But has Athryst been completely honest with you?” He asked me.
“Of course, she is my girl friend!” I said. Oh no, it was wearing off.
“Huh, so she told you she cannot die till her magical parent says so? And her parent vowed she’d be alive for along time? “ He asked me.
I needed to lie.
“Of course” I said confidently, though she hadn’t.
“There is a lot you don’t know.” He said. I woke up quickly, I checked my watch, 3:07 in the morning. I walked out of my tent. Lucy was painting and Aura was eating she looked up on mid swallow.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I asked. She nodded, Lucy was painting a cave with diamonds in it, there was a purple fire in the middle of the cave. And there was a body, tied by rope all over except for the neck and face, hanging to the right of it in the corner Aura stood there with a dagger in her hand and she looked scared. It was very realistic.
“What’s that?” I asked her. She looked at it.
“Just a silly dream. Nothing really, just a nightmare, don’t worry about it.” Lucy told me. I nodded.
“We were standing guard till you came along so now it’s your turn. They are 25 miles away running slowly and should be here by 8 in the morning. So wake us up at 6. Night.” She said and she walked off, I sighed. What was with that painting? She seemed really disturbed by it. Huh, maybe I should investigate more, nah just leave it be she’ll tell us if we need to know. Right? Can we trust her? Of course we can, I think. Don’t worry about it. Stick to your policy don’t think just act. I thought. I was feeling hungry so I walked to the stream right next to our campsite and I caught 3 big fish. I took out my knife and skinned them then cooked them. I ate 1 whole fish. It was good, so I checked my watch 5:25 I went back to the stream and caught several more fish by the time I had 8 huge fish it was 5:42 so I quickly skinned and cooked them letting them roast for a little bit. I got some water and boiled it then let it cool. I went and yelled into every tent to wake up. They all filed out, tired. I showed them the food and they ate happily.
“Hey Cassy wake-” Rose started but remembering about Cassy dying. Everyone was quiet for a couple minutes and seemed depressed except for Athryst, she seemed normal as always. Oh well, after eating we all got ready to go, I prepared for any kind of fight, who knows what we might run into?
Chapter 7
Lucy
My dream
____________________________________________________
“Come here.” The slithery voice said. I was in a cave lined with diamonds.
“Why? Why do you want me so bad?” I asked it, there was a purple fire in the middle of the room and I was standing in the corner holding a knife to my chest.
“You? I want you AND your friends to come here, lead them here and you may live, if I have to send my forces to get you, now we don’t want to ruin this nice dream do we?” It asked.
“Nice dream? This is a nightmare! Who are you what do you want? WHY PULL ME INTO THIS NIGHTMARE!” I screamed.
“somnum exterreri solebat? Why I think this is a good dream.” It said, avoiding my question.
“Who are you?!” I demanded.
“Hostis.” It said casually. I stopped in place.
“Hostis?” The latin word for enemy.
“Verum.” He said. That meant one word, yes.
“No, no, no! Why do you want us?!” I asked, shivering.
“You know why, you know all about me. I only need you and your friends, except for the death emo girl.” Hostis said.
“Why? Why us though? We are nothing!” I screamed at it.
“You are very powerful. Bring your friends but leave the death girl, if you do you’ll all surely die.” He explained.
“Aren’t we anyway?” I asked in a low voice.
“No, if you come I’ll spare your lives and you can become my minions but the death girl is impossible to hurt. Her stupid lifelong curse. Makes her basically immortal! Proh.” He spat.
“NO!” I screamed in his face, I forced myself to wake up. I sat in my tent for a while. It was the same dream as the last one but I didn’t hear his voice in it before, I just saw the fire and the body hanging. I guess one of my friends but I don’t know. Hostis is a bad guy who lures his prey into his cave and takes their body over with a spell and they serve him and that feeds him, but he can’t do it unless he has enough people in his army. I shook it off and went to go eat, I had a painting in my back pocket of the cave, I was going to take us there but to fight. We just had to get our hands on that fire, where he dips his prey into and then they become his, his main lifeline. Wate quickly then started running.
“Okay so in about 30 miles or so we are going to appear on a beach and a guy is going to show you a book of tattoo’s and they are your symbol to get into the safe land. Okay?” Rose yelled at us. I nodded, I had an idea of what to get if it was available. A white lion with a sword beside it. Family symbol. We kept running for several miles. According to Aura 7.7 miles. Then we slowed to a jog.
“Any ideas of what you’re going to get?” Rose asked Athryst.
“Yah, bones with the word letum underneath it, latin for death.” She said Rose nodded and looked at me.
“A white lion, family symbol we have a couple at home before I ran.” I explained then she looked at Denny
“A star, I want to be an astronomer so a star.” She just looked at him blankly then went to Aura.
“I want two swords with a mountain lion’s face behind it and a cloud underneath it with the words Ego sum Pugnator.” Aura mentioned.
“ Should I get something under my white tiger?I thought. Maybe my name in latin. Which was Lucy. So no. Maybe vita ex lut. Which means life and light in latin. I liked that. I decided to have that underneath it. I ran my finger over my wrist. What if they didn’t have that as an option?
“Beach. Swim, now.” Maxie said. We all jumped in. WE were swimming and got pretty tired. Maxie lifted earth for a minuted and connected to the beach. We walked on.
“Lucy come with me now.” A random guy with a suit said. Oh crap! it’s Hostis! I thought for a second. Then he pulled out a sheet of paper with designs. I scanned it and frowned. My choice wasn’t on there. The man then spoke up.
“Well, I can make one custom. It seems to mean a lot to you.” I smiled. I told him my design. He nodded and pointed me to a chair. I sat down and he pulled out a needle. He poked me but it burned. After a few seconds it subsided and the needle was out. I looked down on my wrist and smiled.
“Perfect.” I told him. Aura was next she scanned it and frowned as well but then smiled she pointed to one. And she headed in. She came out of the big tent with a mountain lion (full) then a gladius underneath it with the word ‘Caveo’ engraved in it. Meaning ‘beware’. He looked at her.
“I hope you know the price of that symbol.” He said then he
called on Denny, no stars apparently but he went in and came out with a telescope on it and engraved it had ‘Spatium’ meaning space. Athryst went in next. She was in there for a while. We were worried but we waited.
“She probably got a big one.” Maxie said, though she looked concerned. Athryst came out with a skull on her bicep and underneath in engraved in a bone it said ‘Ego mortem ne quid probate me paenitet te.’ which means, ‘I am death, do not try anything on me, for you will regret it.’ scary but accurate. He disappeared. Aura gasped and held her wrist. It was glowing a white light. I did some searching and I gasped to.
“Woah.” I said. She started glowing as well, the light got so bright we had to look away and we looked back and she was in white and gold armor with a big javelin in her hand. And a war helmet on her head.
“Woah, cool javelin.” Denny said, Aura studied it.
“It’s a iaculatione and gladius mixed. It can be whatever I want it to.” She said Rose and Maxie looked at each other.
“We have a friend whose is like that. Except her’s in on her palm and is a knife and dagger mix. Why is yours more latin?” Maxie asked her.
“Uh, I’m a latin background in my family.” She said.
“Copycat much?” An old annoying voice asked, I turned to see Cassy’ s angel standing there.
“Hey shut up you’re dead.” Aura said.
“Well it’s true.” Cassy said.
“I’m a latine bellator. Which is latin for ‘latin warrior’. Incase you didn’t know.” She said. Cassy rolled her eyes. She stood a little taller.
“I know dumbo.” She said. She walked up to Rose.
“Hi Rose.” She said
“Uh, hi, uh, Cassy.” Rose said, Cassy looked behind her.
“You guys need to run now. Quick. Bye.” She said and disappeared. I looked at them and we took off.
Chapter 8
Lucy
Raining
We were running quick, away from Harry-Face and his army of who knows how many. Wait according to Aura it’s 3,000 oh joy. We ran for our lives. I turned around to set up a barrier and the others kept running, it was raining right now. As I was about 7 feet up with the barrier something fell and hit me hard in the head. I fell and looked for my friends, I was on my back. None were in sight. I could feel the rain hitting my stomach and body. I kept feeling stuff hitting me. I realized it was a mixture of things. Knives (hitting my arms) breaking through the barrier, sticks, and acorns. Black spots started appearing in my eyes. I closed them ready for the end. I reopened them when I heard the sound of a phone ringing. I looked around, I was sitting in a realtor's office and there was a really cute guy with blonde hair sitting there taking the calls. A girl in black armor entered, it was Athryst, I couldn’t find my voice.
“I’m looking for a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes.” She said he pointed to me and Athryst turned around.
“You’re not dead yet! YAY! You’re coming with me, don’t worry your body will also be teleported to us.” She said. She grabbed my hand and she closed her eyes, I followed I opened them and I was in Denny’s arms. Ugh. He set me down and I started running. We ran for several miles in the unforgiving rain.
“Good news, we have traveled very far and have a 2 days journey left bad news we need to get out of here quick in the water.” Rose said.
“Easy everyone climb in I’ll provide us with air. NOW!” Aura yelled. We obeyed. As soon as I could get under I was breathing normally again. And we could talk.
“Did you all know it’s my birthday?” I mentioned to get everyone focused on something else.
“No.” They all said at once.
“Well it is, happy 16th birthday to me. Running away from Harry-Face. Whoopdeedoo.” I said, Maxie did not like that. She looked at Rose.
“Form us an ice ball no water please.” She said and Rose did just that.
“We need fish and something to drink. You go to another room.” She said pointing at me. I looked around. Rose reconstructed it so there was rooms. I walked into one and all my clothes were there and dry and there was a bed. I put on some pj’s and crawled in.
“Air bed, nice.” I said. It was made of solid air so it was real comfy. I fell asleep soon.
“Happy birthday, Lucy.” My magical mom said.
“Thanks Elizabeth, er, mom.” I said. She smiled.
“Welcome. Wake up now.” She said
“How long have I been asleep?” I asked.
“30 minutes get ready and dressed in warm clothes.” She said.
“Oh-kay.” I said. And I woke up. I got dressed in long, warm, skinny jeans, a long sleeve white and blue shirt that was striped then I put on a warm thick waterproof jacket and put on some warm socks and waterproof thick black boots. I brushed through my hair and walked out. They had cooked me some fish and somehow made some red punch and gotten a turkey.
“Did you guys ma?ke this for me?” I asked as I sat down.
“Sure did.” Maxie said. This was the one time she was happy.
“Just so you know everyone. I love Life!” She yelled. We all laughed. I looked and saw a gravy boat. I snacted it and poured it on my turkey. We all ate and drank a wonderful meal. I helped save what little turkey was left and keep the punch. We all cleaned the dishes and went to bed.
“Just because your friends care about you doesn’t meant that they can overpower evil.” I heard the voice say. This time it sounded like nails against rocks.
“Love and friendship last through thick and thin.” I screamed at it. It chuckled.
“You know, I will have fun helping my master kill you all.” He said as he stepped forward. This time, there was no giant, just a really ugly guy walking to me. THen, he got really good looking. He went back to ugly.
“So hard to make this body as what you teen girl would call ‘hot’. I want the teen girl to fall at looking to me!” He bellowed.
“uh, what exactly is your name?” I asked, confident I could take this guy.
“Magna. I hate this normal’s body.” He practically yelled.
“Wow, your name explains why you are so loud. Use your ‘inside voice’.” I complained.
“This is my inside voice!” He boomed. “You shall go boom! Boom!”
I fell to the ground laughing. I finally got a look at the place. IT was in a castle.
“Why are you in ireland?” I asked him.
“Clever girl.” He said.
“I know my countries.” I said, he was trying to frighten me but it wouldn’t work. I sat there and stared him down. He blinked.
“I won.” I said, and he started bawling.
“All I want to do it succeed. My master says I’m a fail but I don’t want to be, waaaah.” He cried, the slithery voice came back.
“Because you are a fail. Now let me take care of the girl.” He stepped forward, I saw him for the first time. He was about 10 feet tall, had brown ugly big eyes and no hair. I decided to be ‘smart’.
“Hi baldy, er, I mean hostis.” I said he stared at me.
“Are you going to bring your friends here? Er, to the cave I mean? You’re actually very close. Just a few miles away.” He said. I thought about it, take out Magna first then Hostis, sure why not?
“Yeah I’ll come.” I said. He looked surprised.
“Good, great then. Now you need to wake up and bring your friends to me.” He said and I woke up. I told my friends my dream. They nodded.
“Now what?” Rose asked.
“My plan: We go in and we have one person, the weakest go in first for he’s going to capture him, er them, then tie them up then we all barge in and one person, a fast one good with fire, heads to the purple fire in the middle of the cave and put it out, there basically cutting off his blood stream and we battle, the strongest three will fight him and then two will take out Magna and then we’ll free the weakest one and we’ll help out if the three strongest need it.” I said, they all thought about this.
“Wait, you said ‘him, er them.” whose him?” He asked, we all looked at him.
“You’re the only guy here Denny.” Maxie said.
“Good luck. Now let’s move and eat at the same time.” I said. We got moving, Denny grumbling about being ‘the weakest, pssh. Yah right.’ I rolled my eyes. We were all preparing for battle. Aura became the latin warrior and Athryst got her death armor on. And I got my life armor on. We all pulled out our wings. Rose’s were ice, Maxie’s were angles, Aura’s were wind (but see able), mine were gold, and Athryst was having a hard time on choosing between just black or black bones.
“Go black.” Maxie said and Athryst did. We saw the cave. We looked at Denny and he groaned. We climbed up there and watched Denny go into the cave. He must of saw Hostis and screamed. We looked around the corner and Denny was hanging above the fire.
“Guys! HELP!” He screamed and we rushed in. Rose, Athryst,
and Maxie went off to fight Hostis, me and Aura went to fight Magna. We ran to him. He saw me and laughed.
“Well well Lucy.” His voice sounded like nails on rocks. He tried
to hit me. I dodged and sent my knife straight through his palm. He screamed and I looked for Aura, she wasn’t around me she was getting Denny.
“Way to stick to the plan.” I mumbled. Magna looked at me, his palm bleeding.
“I have a large blood supply, like my master.” He said shwing me the fire. I hatched a new plan, he seemed dumb enough to fall for it.
“Hey tell me more about this fire, how does it die? With water? Or other fire? Or what?” I asked him, he brightened up at the fact I wanted HIS advice on something.
“Well to kill it you have to take your sword and wet it with some blood and slash through it. Only my blood can do it. I find all the prey for my master.” He beamed. I looked at my sword, the blood dried up.
“Huh. That’s so cool!” I said like I meant it.
“Yes! Would you like to buy some?” He asked.
“Somewhat?”
“Bood. My blood.”
“Oh, that would be fantastic, how much?” I asked.
“For you, a smart girl, 10 dollars.” I pulled 10 dollars out and paid him. And he handed me TWO vials.
“One is healing.” He said pointing to the one.
“And the other one?”
“The one that kills the fire.” I took it and poured it on my sword. I ran like crazy to the fire. Magna, realizing what he had done, chased after me. Before he caught me I lunged at the fire and slashed my sword through it. Magna died right away, Hostis screamed and held him stomach blood was pouring out of it. Athryst flew up and sat on his head. Maxie got positioned on his wrist, Rose on his neck, Aura at his stomach, Denny at the ear and me at the other ear.
“On three?” Rose asked.
“Yes.” We all answered.
“1... 2... 3!” She yelled, Hostis screamed and we all sank our weapons into where we were positioned and he fell, all of us with the wings flew up, but Denny didn’t have wings. He was falling. Rose raced to grab him. And she did. Though he was bruised from the tight ropes that were tied around him. We flew out of the cave.
Chapter 8
Athryst
Just another “oops”.
“That was awesome!” Denny screamed. Rose sat him down. I retracted my wings. So did the others.
“Dude, don’t want you to fall and almost die, for the third time. So here you go.” Aura said and flung her finger at him. Wings popped out of his back.
“Yeah!” He groaned. He was badly bruised. We slowed him down, but he did get hurt. I walked over and made a tent. I hit my head against a tree.
“Black, black, black!” I yelled at myself. The tent was black. Denny walked up behind me and helped.
“There, is that better?” He asked. He was kinda geeky, but in an awesome way. He gave me a hug and I crawled inside the tent. He used his magic to make it like a house inside. He kissed my cheek and went into his room.
“I’m still irritated you two were kissing in the middle of battle.” Aura said behind me. I laughed a bit.I turned around to face Aura. I showed her to her room. I walked into mine with my eyes closed and fell onto the bed.
“Ow.” Denny laughed.
“Sorry, had my eyes closed!” I apologized. I got up and ran out. I smiled laughing. It was good to at least have my friends here. I mean, they’ve been there for me and vice versa. I walked into my actual room and layed down. It was dark and everyone slept.
Come on, come on! I have to get to the gates. “Denny! Lucy! Rose! Maxie!” I yelled. We got to the gates, then we disappeared.
I jerked upright and hit my head.
“Ow.” I grumbled. I went to make something to eat, I was pretty hungry! I heard a noise outside. I turned around and saw Denny. I ran out.
“What are you doing up?” I questioned.
“Run, run away. We can get there on our own! Come with me.” He said.
“Wow, someone got romantic.” I stated. He rolled his eyes. “But I will go anyway.” I said, accepting his offer. I grabbed his hand and we ran into the woods.
“Wait, this isn’t the way.” I said. His grip got tighter. I looked at him, my hand hurting. I looked tried taking a step back but the grip was too tight.
“You’re hurting me!” I told him, in a calm voice. He didn’t seem to care. I looked carefully at his face, something was different.
“You have black eyes. “ I whispered.He twisted my wrist, I saw a bird lady. I kicked the sheformia and dove under. The hand wasn’t on me anymore. I turned and said “Tenebris.” and I became darkness itself. I controlled it. So basically I was invisible.
“Mori avis domina rei.” I said. She looked confused.
“That means ‘Die bird lady thing.’ in latin.” I told her. She got madder.
“YOU THINK YOU CAN KILL ME??!” She screamed, I did it, I got her to yell.
“Yes, yes I do.” I said. Since I was darkness I had an advantage over her. I turned my eyes pitch black. I walked to one spot and said “Over here!” and she turned and so on for a while till she got dizzy.
“Now look at me.” I said, letting the darkness stop surrounding me. She looked in my eyes. I smirked waiting for her death but she didn’t die.
“You can’t use death eyes on me my darling!” She laughed, I could hear my friends searching for us. At the thought of Denny coming to rescue me my stomach tightened. I realized something, I was on edge with him now. I took out my sword.
“I’ll just have to kill you the normal way then.” I mumbled. She looked at my. I opened my mouth, she didn’t hear me.
“I’LL JUST HAVE TO KILL THE NORMAL WAY!” I screamed at her, my friends burst through the bushes. I slashed the neck of the bird lady thing. She turned to dust. I cussed in Latin. Denny ran up behind me.
“Give me time to think.” I said, pushing him away.
“Wow, someone isn’t so happy to see the man whom distracted her in battle and could have killed her!” Aura said. I laughed.
“Would you just shut up about that?” I whined. She climbed up the tree I was in. Aura little wind kicked up.
“Look, I know what happened. The weird sheforima tricked you. It happened to me too, a few weeks ago.” She told me.
“Who did it look like?”
“You, it made you seem like you needed help with something.”
“Help with what?”
“A dream.” She said quietly. She let her wings out and flew off to the tent. I went after her. I was running then remembered I could fly. I caught up.
“Look, I may not be psychic but I had a dream. We got to the gates then disappeared. That may mean something.” I told her. Her huge wings kept batting, keeping her in the air, but she wasn’t going anywhere.
“I had that too.” She said into my eyes. We flew back to the tent in silence. I sat down and looked at her.
“Dream meeting!” She clapped. We all gathered on the couches. We shared the same dream. Creepy. There was a guy laughing.
“They’ll never make it in. HAHA!” Then the dream went blank.
“Come on. Let’s move.” Rose said, grabbing everyone's stuff. We left. I started running because I saw something big in the distance. I looked around. There was a cave on a mountain, there was a bunch of trees and other things but I was too happy. I saw the gates. I started to run faster but Rose put a hand up, hitting my chest.
“Look, the gates, this is too easy.” Rose said. Thats when it all went wrong. We heard the same evil laugh and I panicked. I tried to grab something and a hole opened up underneath us, we fell into it, losing all sights of the the gates. I screamed. We were falling quick. We hit something hard and I went out for a couple minutes. I woke up and looked around. I could breath. I looked around. This was earth, or was it mr territory.
“Neither but both young deces.” The voice said, it was like a whisper in my ear. But everyone heard it.
“You? It’s talking to you?” Rose asked. Annoyed.
“Welcome to the trap.” It said
Chapter 8
Athryst
The trap
“Who are you?” I demanded to know.
“My name? It’s Dolus, but you may call me Master.” Dolus, meaning trick, said.
“I’m still calling you “It”.” Rose said. It laughed and the voice disappeared. I looked at Maxie before she could do anything a passageway opened up.
“Let’s go find Trick, er, Dolus.” Lucy said. I nodded. I went first and whispered to myself ‘Deces.’ and Lucy, right behind me, whispered ‘Vita.’ meaning life. We walked for a while and soon came across a sitting room, like a receptions room. I knew this place, this is where you went before either, Optio, or I decided where you went, Opti was tall and had blonde hair. His name ment ‘Choice.’
“Optio!” I yelled for him. He was my fathers assistant also. My father is Rex mortuorum. Which is latin for King of the dead. He wasn’t around.
“DAD?!” I screamed. We were very close. He always came when I called him. I spotted the elevator. One to heaven, one to hell, and one to the realm of the dead. People who had to judgement so they went there, for they were afraid of where they would go if they were judged. Then there was one to Palatium mortuorum. Which means “Palace of the dead.” It where my dad lives and I have a room and a throne there as well. I would spend some time down here with him.
“Who wants to go on an elevator ride?” I asked turning around. They looked scared but nodded. I first chose the realm of the dead we got on.
“Uh, where are we going?” Maxie asked.
“The realm of the dead. The place where people who don’t want to be judged in death go.” I said, nonchalantly. He wasn’t there and when we went on to the elevator to the palace everyone was shaking out of fear of that place. I was smiling.
“Wasn’t that scary.” I said.
“THEY WERE HISSING AT US!” Rose exclaimed.
“They were saying hi.” I said. They all looked at me.
“ I speak dead.” I explained. Then we hopped off and ran into the palace. I saw Optio there. He was wearing my dads cape and had his gladius strapped to one side and his baculus, Baculum mortuis, staff of the dead in one hand. I gasped.
“Optio?” I said. He smiled.
“Call me Dolus, or Master.” He said. I looked around and saw my father strapped to one chair. Optio had changed. He became Dolus and kidnapped my father and us. He had led us here. But why? I knew the answer in the back of my head, he wanted to take over, duh, but why kidnap us? I immediately knew why.
“To kill us.”
THE END
Book 4?
The fourth book is going to be happening at the same time this book is going on. Same time period.
What happens next to this group?
They are stuck in the palace of the dead now but what next? You’ll see in book 4.
Runaway series: Book 3
By: Anna Rogers & Jules Collins
Chapter One
Rachel
The start
My names Athryst. I’m 16, 5’7”, I have long black wavy hair, and my power is death. I can control the dead, I can give someone the death stare literally and kill them, I can make the dead appear and so forth. I just can’t bring the dead back to life. It’s a rare power. An ancient lost power. My best friends are Halle, she’s 16 has long Blonde straight hair,with blue eyes and her power is air. Then there is Denny who is 16 has short blonde hair and hazel eyes. My canadian background makes people ask me to do their math homework for them, but I'm best at the literature. Well, maybe I should tell you about our little 'trip'.
"Yo! Athryst! Come on!" I heard my best friend yell up to me. She was a regular American. Her brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She wore a pink tube top and a neon orange tank underneath. Her shirt denim shorts looked worn and her sneakers had little pink and orange dots. I changed into my beach outfit, a green tube top over a bandeau swimsuit. My bottoms were matching my bandeau top(which was pink) and wore some denim shorts over. I tied up my sneakers that were regular black. I grabbed my phone, put my hair up, and slid downstairs.
“Hey! Wassup Aura?” I welcomed her. I grabbed some towels and some money and headed out the door. I walked onto our driveway and threw the stuff in the backseat of my convertible jeep. We got in and drove down the jeep path towards the beach. We were leaving my huge house, my mansion. My parents are rich.
“Yeah!” Aura sang as she blasted the radio. We got down there and I put on sunblock, and my flippers and got a snorkel and ran into the water, today we were scuba diving in the sea caves.
“What about Denny?” Aura asked.
“He’s not coming.” I said. We started snorkeling, all of the fish were afraid of me because I was death powered. We looked around and I saw something, a submarine it shot something at us. We ducked. We swam to surface. I was a track runner so I ran fast. I grabbed our stuff and threw a towel at Aura. I turned on my jeep and went a secret backway that hid us underground. I stopped the jeep.
“What are you doing?! Keep going!” Aura said.
“That was Yak-Face’s son, he’ the new general you know since Yak-face was killed. That was Harry-face. Their last name is face I think.” Aura stared at me. I. Switched gear to reverse and pulle out. I put the jeep back in drive. I hit the pedal and we zoomed off.
We drove far and eventually we got to Denny's house. Right as j stopped to car I flung the door open and ran to his door. I banged on it hard.
"Denny! Get down here and get your runaway bag right now!" I screamed up to him. His bedroom windows was open just above us so he heard. I I turned my head to make sure no one was following. I looked back at the door and Denny walked out and jumped into the backseat of my jeep.
Most magical people live east, like in North Carolina. I ran and sat down and I started the truck up. It was running just and Aura buckled her seat belt. I put the gear I to reverse.
"You are gonna need that seat belt." I said and switched gear to drive. I sped off, not slowing down unless it was needed. We got to the interstate. It was deserted. We sped faster, to the point where my foot was on the floor. Aura's and my runaway bags were in the backseat. They always were. I had a lot of money with me. Like $1,100. That would be enough to rent a helicopter and get extra food and gas for us.
I few hours passed and I stopped for gas. I hopped out and filled the tank. I hopped back in when it finished and sped off. We drove for a couple more hours. My mom always told me to find Uncle Sean’s house in the mountains if I ever needed to. I knew what mountain he lived on and which cabin but I was using my gut to get there. We drove for about another 3 1/2 hours soon we pulled up in front of his house. I knocked on the door he opened it. He spotted my jeep and our bags and sensed my rush.
“Please Uncle Sean help us, mom always said you could.” I thought. His power was to read people’s minds. He nodded. He could also get into peoples heads and speak to them that way.
“Let me drive?” He thought I nodded. I jumped into the back with Denny. My uncle drove and soon we entered an underground cave.
“Hey Rachel you’re gonna need to use that death power of yours.” My uncle said. I called some skeletons and they ran behind us.
“I filled up your tank so you should be able to follow this path for the next couple hours. You’re about 1 week away driving, 6 days flying, and 2 weeks walking. That’s without any interruptions and deaths.” He said. I nodded and hopped in we drove off.H
“Do you think we are gonna make it Rachel?” Aura asked.
“Possibly, 90% of the people uncle Sean helps out with they make it.” I tell them. And if not I can just control you guys when y’all are skeletons. I thought
“Go to sleep guys, we’re gonna need it.” They nod and drift off, once they are asleep I get lost in my own thoughts.
What if we don’t make it? What if I die? How will they get there? How will we get to the Safe land? Where will we live? How will we make money? Will we still remain close? What if Denny falls in love with another girl and forgets me and Aura are his best friends? What if Aura disses me? What if I diss them? How will we survive? Is there even room for us? Will they accept us? What if I see some of my old family and they force me to move in with them and won’t allow me out like they did last time? Will I have enough courage to fight them? What if............?
I stopped myself there, I wouldn’t allow myself to. I focused on driving. After an hour I stopped. I woke up the others. Aura took my place and I slept. I dreamt that we did make it and a big war broke out amongst all of us. I woke up and we were in a totally different part of the cave.
“You’ve been asleep for 4 hours.” Denny said, he was driving now. I gasped.
“You should’ve woken me after 1 hour! Here let me drive and you sleep!” I said.
“I am not tired, I have only been driving for 45 minutes. Now just focus on getting us some food.” He said smiling. I pulled out a GPS unit and searched food areas.
“Anyone want tacos?” I asked.
“Yes!” everyone answered. I laughed a little bit and Denny made us some magic tacos. They were delicious.
“Okay so about 1 hour drive till we get out of this cave path and we will of traveled a day and half through there. It’s a magic cave path.” Aura told us, she also had another power sensing if anything is magic and if so what type of magic it is.
“Oh okay that’s good. Anymore secret tunnels? Any by chance with a gas station?” Denny asked.
“No but maybe...” Aura cut herself off and looked at me.
“Any fuel underground?” She asked me.
“Hey just because the skeletons come from underground doesn’t mean I control it... But yes, there is.” I could sense things underground if I wanted to. Denny whipped up some of the fuel from under ground and refueled us. He also made a magic barrier around us so we wouldn’t be seen when we got out.
This is easier than I thought, wow. I thought to myself. We drove for 10 minutes in silence.I was thinking to myself.
What if we do make it easily? Should I be happy? Or.... What if Uncle Sean betrayed us? No he would never do that. Or would he? No, he swore to my dad, while he was dying, that he would always protect me and my mother, he couldn’t break his promise now could he? Were my first thoughts then the old thoughts came back and so did the memory.
“Daddy don’t die!” I screamed.
“Hunny it’s my time to sweetie pie. Promise me one thing? Maybe two?” He asked. I nodded.
“Take care of mom is the first one. The second one is... No matter how much it hurts or you want too never call me to you with your death powers. I don’t want to be remembered by you as one of your skeletons. Please?” He asked me, I understood so I nodded.
That was in the hospital the day he died.
Maybe it couldn’t hurt to do it once... No! I will keep to my promises even though it hurts and I want too. I can not break this promise! I thought first. 10 minutes passed and Aura spoke up.
“Don’t think about it, it will hurt you too much.” She said. She was my best friend, my sister, so she understood what was happening. She went to open my bag to get a blanket and saw the razor blade knife. She eyed me silently and then my wrist and leg.
“No.” I mouthed.
“Why do you have it? You only used that for one thing!” She signed me in sign language.
“Athryst?” Aura called. I quickly put away the razor blade knife and called her to my room. Before I could hide it she saw the cuts I had made.
“NO!” She said. I looked down. Little trials of blood ran down my hand and leg. Aura grabbed my clean hand and dragged me to my bathroom. She cleaned out the cuts and used her hair to dry them, helping scabs form. I saw a little tear run down her face.
“Why are you the one crying?” I demanded.
“Because you never told me what was wrong. You should’ve. Remember when you caught me right before I was about to cut my wrist. It was over a main artery. You asked me why and I called, then I told you everything! Remember that? You saved me from further hurt. You helped me. I had three scars before that time.” Aura told me.
“Yeah, well, it’s more than three.” I muttered. Scabs were there and I looked at Aura. She made me go into the living room, keeping me away from sharp objects.
“Look. Everything is just horrible. My powers are kicking in and my dad isn’t here to help me! My mom is a stupid normal! Normal! She believes, but can’t help. Everyone at school makes fun of me for having ghost hang around. And when they realize that I have stuff connected with Death, they criticize me for not being goth, like a stereotype!” I yelled, letting a few tears escape.
I knocked myself out of the flashback. I looked up and screamed. There was a deer in front of the car, it ran away. And I gave a sigh of relief. We kept driving.
“Can I drive now?” Aura asked Denny. He nodded. We stopped and they changed. Maybe this would be a long trip. I fell asleep.
“Wake up. We just got out of the cave. You have been sleeping for about 10 hours.” Denny whispered. I sat up. I saw it was morning. We were on a road now so Denny made it so only magic people can see us. We were driving for about 6 hours before we drove into the woods. I looked behind and saw men chasing us. I stared and they died.
“I just saved everyone’s lives.” I mumbled.
Chapter 2
Death
We stopped and pulled off to the woods and camped out. Everyone went to sleep but I stood guard, I made myself some beans and bacon and ate. I was refueled. There was something I hadn’t tried in a while that I wanted to try.
“Deces.” I said, I came from a french town in Canada. Deces means death. I stood up and let the blackness fly around me and touch my clothing. When it was done I was dress in black armor and had a black staff in my hand. I was death, when I said that I became the door to death, and for the dead possibly life, only if I had a life power with me though. I could create skeletons a whole lot better now and make them stronger. Also if I was in battle it would be hard for someone to kill. That is only because I was neither alive or dead. I was a “spirit” as Aura called it. I heard a footstep, I jumped up. I heard some more footsteps behind it.
“Guys wake up!” I hissed. They got up and heard the footsteps to. Aura got her sword. Denny said a spell to clean up the campsite. Just then did Aura notice my outfit,
“Death?” She asked as if I was a totally different person. I nodded. Then came out all of the people. A bunch of guys, girls, and wolves.
Squelettes! I thought, that meant skeletons. A bunch of my soldiers appeared and took war form.
“Attack!” One of the other guys yelled. I sent my skeletons out on the field. A bunch of guys came and tried to kill me I laughed. I looked at one guy while kill the other with my sword, noth died. I kept killing all of the guys and then went to save my friends, I got there and they didn’t need help. They were doing fine on their own. I went after the big giant that came with them, wow for people who started a war against magic they sure have a lot of magical things on their side. I climbed up it and got right near it’s neck. I called some skeletons up and they stabbed all around him, I went and looked into his eyes. My eyes became pitch black and he started to fall forwards, I ran and jumped off his head.
“AURA!” I screamed. She sent a gust of wind to catch me. By the time I got down there was one person left, he was big and bulky. I looked at my friends and they nodded. I went to look at him and give him the death stare and he died as soon as I did. We quickly ran to the jeep.
“There is a bunch of fuel underneath the ground.” I said to Denny, he called up all we needed and more to save for later, we had a while till we got to the helicopter place. We hopped in and I drove. We drove for about 45 minutes in silence regaining our health and strength.
“This is a beautiful place.” Aura said. We were in a green, luscious valley. I nodded.
‘Yep, hey Aura check the map for the nearest town, or the gps.” I told her. She did and we were 10 miles out.
“Food?” Denny asked.
“Food!” I cheered. We drove the last 10 miles in happiness. We were hungry. I let my armor go away before walking into the diner that was crowded. We stopped in a big town. We motioned for three and the waitress gave us our menus.
“Your server will be right out.” She said. I picked mine up, there was so many things to choose from.
Bacon and egg salad, BLT, enchiladas, super burger, regular burger, 1 foot long hotdogs, caesar salad, iceberg salad, salad bar. I read to myself when the waitress came I knew what I wanted.
“Can I have the super burger no mayonnaise, extra pickles, no hot sauce, barbecue sauce, extra lettuce and tomato? And can I also please have a large fry, with ketchup? And also a salad bar? And a large Mr. Pepper to drink?” She wrote that down and looked at me again.
“Can I have a salad bar and some cheese enchiladas? And a large sweet tea.” Aura ordered.
“And may I please have the foot long hot dog, with fries, large Pope to drink and a chocolate milkshake?” Denny asked. She nodded and went to put that order in. We stared at Denny, nothing healthy to eat.
“What?” He asked. And we giggled. When the food came out 10 minutes later we chowed down.
“Wait. Blessing.” I said. They nodded and put down the food.
“Dear Lord, thank you for our food and please deliver us safely to where we are headed. Thank you for everything you have given us. Amen.” I prayed. I ate my food and then when I finished I ordered a strawberry milkshake. We payed (total was 35.76 dollars.) and we headed off. We stopped for gas and some drinks and food to go. Then we headed off on the highway. Denny casted a spell that kept us from being seen by anyone. Aura was driving. Denny fell asleep and Aura didn’t speak.
Should I put on my armor just incase we need it? I think I will. Deces! Wow this armor comes on in a really cool way. Should I sleep? It’s been 10 hours since I slept, if I can fall asleep I will. I thought to myself. I soon fell asleep.
“What about Athryst? Can I really kill myself and not blink an eye about her?” My mom asked someone, I was seeing what she was doing right now. In my dream. Wow.
“Don’t worry, she is death herself isn’t she? So you’d be able to see her if you wanted right? You could request her as your judge, of where you go in death. Heaven or hell? Right?” A raspy voice asked, my mom nodded.
“You can say goodbye you know you can.” The voice said.
“NO MOM DON’T IT’S EVIL! THAT THING IS EVIL!” I yelled but she couldn’t hear me. The thing handed her something.
“Use it when the time comes, your daughter will see you in 5 minutes. Do it for her. For you.” The thing said and it disappeared.
“I’m so sorry Athryst, I have to. For you. For me.” She said.
“MOM NO!” I yelled, she still couldn’t hear me. She unwrapped the paper and held a dagger in her hand. I took it and cut over her wrist and her neck then her temple, then last of all her leg.
“I love you Athryst, I love you. You’ll be my judge, only immortal who is death herself is my daughter, Athryst, I request her as my judge. She said the last part not to me. My dream shifted I was in my judging seat and my mom was there.
“Why mom? Why did you do it?” I asked her, tears brimming on my eyes.
“The thing told me I had to or the government would kill me harshly and then kill you. So I did.” She said.
“I sentence you to heaven, so may you rest in peace.” I said, my face became a tiny waterfall.
“Thank you my daughter, I’ll see you in about 80 or so years, when you die. Please do for me what you did for dad.” She said. She smiled.
“Bill, I’ll see him soon Athryst, there is another upside to this.” She disappeared and I woke up. I cried.
“What’s wrong?” Aura asked, Denny was awake to. I told them what happened and Denny jumped to the front seat and hugged me. He planted a kiss on my cheek, he does this all the time whenever I’m sad, only he doesn’t know I wish he really meant it when he kissed me. You see I have a crush on him, he’s tall cute athletic, smart and funny.
“Maybe one day you two will actually really kiss.” Aura said, laughing. She knew I had a crush on Denny, at the thought of it I couldn’t help to blush. Denny noticed.
“Athryst? Is there something you’re not telling me?” He asked teasingly. I shook my head, too embarrassed to speak. He hopped in the back again. We drove for a couple more miles laughing and talking when we pulled over to camp out. This time Denny put a spell on the campsite as well as the jeep. We set it up and we roasted some marshmallows. When Aura left to go to bed Denny turned to me.
“Why did you blush today when Aura mentioned us really kissing?” He asked me, he was dead serious and wanted an answer. I took a deep breath in and let it out. Here it goes. I thought.
Chapter 3
Aura
Misunderstanding
I woke up to see Denny in a ball and Athryst in a starfish formation. I laughed a bit and walked outside. I saw the sun was up. I looked towards the woods and saw a girl with brown hair. I stepped closer. Closer. Closer. I pulled my knife out. She turned around and raised her knife and I did too. I saw fear in her eyes. We lowered our knives.
"What do you want. Are you trying to kill me? What's my name!" I yelled. She shook and I saw a little tear forming.
"I don't know your name, I don't wanna kill or try to kill you. And I just want to escape this magic hating place." She whispered. I stepped back.
“I’m Lucy.” She stuck out her hand.
“Aura.” I shook her hand. “What are your powers?”
“Life and light.”
“Opposite of Athryst.” I mumbled to myself.
“What are your powers?” Lucy asked me.
“Air user.” I said. “Why don’t you come meet my friends.” I led her over to the tent. Athryst and Denny were up, sitting by our fire and snuggling, weird. They saw and Athryst eyed Lucy. I felt powers fighting, like tension. They walked over to each other.
“Life, light. Your look doesn’t match.” Athryst said teasingly.Lucy sat down. A little ball of light formed in her hands, and some darkness formed in Athryst’s hands. I saw the spheres float to each other, then they collided. Lightning flew from the sphere’s. I went and stopped them from hurting each other.
“What’s with you two?” I asked them.
“I’m death, she’s life, I’m darkness, she’s light. Do the math.” Athryst said. I nodded. They were the exact opposites. They wouldn’t or shouldn’t get along.
“Hey listen dark, I don’t want to fight, I want to get to the Safe Land and live. So don’t go around picking fights with me or your friends.” Lucy said.
“Hey light, guess what? DON’T tell me what to do. I want to get along to but it’s hard.” She replied.
“Why don’t we start over then?” Lucy asked. Athryst nodded.
“Hi I’m Lucy.” She said.
“I’m Athryst, I got to pack up now, sorry bye.” She said. She turned around and went to pack up. Soon we were in the jeep again and we were driving along the road. Athryst was driving. She was just steering, not really looking out for anything on the road. I got lost in my thoughts, like Athryst does a lot.
“What if they don’t like each other and end up killing each other? Or split us apart? What was with the snuggling between Athryst and Denny? Huh.
I looked up and screamed. I felt our jeep hit something and then stop. We all jumped out. Denny went to check on the blue haired girl Athryst hit and I met a auburn haired girl, and a little girl, probably 13, with white hair stood behind her.
“Hey watch where you’re driving! You possibly killed her!” The auburn haired girl yelled. Athryst looked at her.
“She’s not going to die, it’s not her time.” Athryst said, Lucy went off to help recover the blue haired girl.
“How do you know huh? Rose could be dying because of you! THE ONLY ICE POWERED PERSON IN THE WORLD YOU JUST HIT! THE ICE GODDESS! DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?! NOW WE HAVE A WORSE CHANCE OF RETURNING HOME! YOU!” She yelled.
“Because I’m the goddess of darkness and death.” Athryst said with a shrug, the auburn haired girl stopped in her tracks. The black and brown haired girl looked scared.
“Goddess of death? And darkness? Is your name Athryst? I’m Maxie, goddess of earth.” She said.
“Yeah, I’m Athryst this is Aura, Denny, and Lucy.” She said.
“I’m so sorry for yelling at you, Rose is like a sister to me.” Maxie said. The white haired girl stepped out.
“I’m Cassy, air goddess. What’s your power?” She asked me.
“I’m Aura, I’m another air user. And I’m pretty sure the air goddess didn’t give her power to a 14 year old girl.” I told her. We all made introductions and Denny used a spell to make the jeep bigger, we all climbed in.
“Again I’m so sorry to of hit you, Rose.” Athyrst said. We drove for a while learning about different things that we needed to know and then stopped to camp out. I set up my tent and went inside for 10 minutes, when I came back out I saw everyone getting dinner ready. Denny had his arm around Athryst, weirder.
“Okay what’s going on between you two?” I asked them.
“You haven't figured out yet?” Denny laughed. I was hurt a little, not because he was dating Athryst, but how he always laughs at me.
“I know you guys are going out. Easy, when you are Life, you also know love, because it brings new life. Like a baby.” Lucy said.
“So you’re saying that you have a love power too?” Athryst sounded so confused.
“Nope, just that I sense it. You see, people are in love when they have kids, like your parents were in love, and you were a new life that came from that. Does that make sense? That’s the only way it does really.” Lucy explained.
“Yeah, my parents.” Athryst whispered.
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t know that they weren’t alive. I just can’t say I know what it feels like. I’m so sorry I brought it up.” Lucy apologized.
“Yeah, Lucy, say sorry to the other three goddesses.”
“AirHead, I only see two.” Lucy snapped back at Cassy. Cassy rolled her eyes.
“So what life? Light? Who cares about you?” Cassy said.
“I know your life. I know your fears. I know you. I can also take that away from you. So don’t go around arrogant to everyone, and just because you are air and Maxie is earth, you don’t get to be a jerk. So stop it now.” Lucy was now gritting her teeth, her hands on Cassy’s neck. Cassy tried to fall back. She got out of Lucy’s grip and decided to run. Smart. I agree that Cassy could be a jerk but I wondered if she could be nice, I mean nice to anyone other than Rose. I don’t think so, she seemed to mean and cold. I had a headache so I decided to go train and get away from everyone. I walked a little bit out.
“Alas.” I said. My wings appeared, I flew up into the sky. I started training with wind. I kept blowing up these tiny tornadoes and then I heard something.
“Aura!” It was Rose. I flew down. Maxie was there too, along with Athryst. I had an idea. When I touched the ground I looked at them and said.
“Alae vis tibi.” That was latin for ‘I give you the power of wings.’ so now they had wings as well.
“What did you just do?” Rose asked me.
“I gave you guys wings. At first they will all start out as white angel wings but you can change them however you want. Like Rose can have ice wings and Maxie can have something that has to do with earth and Athryst-” I cut myself off Athryst had black wings, and they were scary.
“I’m death, anything I get becomes black and scary, apparently like me.” She said.
“No, you're very pretty.” I reassured her, she looked at me.
“Hey emo girl.” Cassy said from a distance.
Cassy didn’t have wings.
“Don’t call me that.” Athryst told her. I almost called her airhead but then I’d be offending myself.
“How come I don’t get wings? The air goddess doesn’t get wing-”
“Shut up. Just shut up. You won’t get them unless you change.” I said. She looked at me.
“I am superior over you you don’t tell me what to do.” She said, she tried to seem scary but I just stood there, I knew Athryst, I wasn’t scared of her. Then some wind started up really strong, I tried to control it but I couldn’t. We had to close our eyes and feel around to walk. All of a sudden the air stopped and I looked up.
“Aether.” I said, that was the goddess of air. My magical mom.
“Hi Aura. Cassy.” She said my name happily as if I was chocolate cake (which I love) and Cassy as if she was a dead rat in her pizza. I smiled. Cassy frowned.
“Now, I have come to clear something up. About who is the next air goddess, after today I retire.” She said. Cassy smiled.
“Cassy.” She said. Then she looked at me.
“Cassy meet the next air goddess, Aura.” She said. I smiled and jumped up and down. Cassy smacked me and walked away. She can never be nice, she is a jerk.
“Wow, Aura bon travail.” Athryst said. I did not understand what she said. All of a sudden she said.
“Deces.” And her armor came on. She let her wings out, I got mine out and so did Rose and Maxie. I don’t know why, I just trusted Athryst. A bunch of people, guys and girls and some monsters came rushing out of the bushes, Aether disappeared.
I opened my wings and flew straight at someone, using wind to put power into my air-roundhouse kick. The guy was knocked down and bleeding. I Made my wings super huge, like and eagle. I kept up in the air, kicking heads. People started climbing trees so I grabbed my sword.
“Come on Nubis.” I muttered to my sword. I swung and hit a guy right in the face. My enchanted silver and regular platinum mixed blade kills magic and normal enemies. I heard Athryst say,
“Epee de la mort.” She was french canadian. I knew enough french to make out what she said ‘Death Sword.’ The sword was black and wicked sharp. She could call up anything that had to do with death, like I could air, or Rose could ice, or Maxie could earth. I kicked one guy under the jaw and he fell off the tree. I felt a guy on my back, so I flipped like I was insane. When he fell off of me I flew down fast and hard. I landed on his stomach, kneeling. I slashed my sword through his head.
“Stay dead.” I said.
I whipped around to find only three men fighting. Lucy, Maxie and Rose had them, but I ran out help. On my way I saw Athryst and Denny making out.
“Cut it out, we are on a battlefield, not in a romance movie marathon!” I yelled. I ran over and grabbed Lucy’s hand. We looked at eachother and we knew what to do. We lifted up our hand and threw them down still holding them.
“Nobiscum morte, vita, lumen et auras iunguntur!” We yelled in Latin. A huge wind blew through, and life was bursting at our feet, making cracks in the earth. I closed my eyes and so did Lucy. I heard a bunch of screaming. It stopped and I opened my eyes, all the normals were dead. Athryst started walking around the dead bodies.
After the battle was over Athryst went around giving everyone their place in death. After that we hopped in the jeep. I thought of something.
“We can’t just keep driving the whole time, we have to do something else to. Walk, run, fly, swim, sail. Something else right?” I asked them.
“Uh, Aura, look up. We are at the helicopter place.” Athryst said. I did, sure enough we were there. I got out of the car.I looked at the money we had, I walked up to a guy who worked there.
“Yes mam.” He asked me,I looked at him.
“I’d like to buy a helicopter. The biggest most sturdiest you have.” I said, he pointed to one.
“Thats an 8 seater.” He said, that was perfect we had 7 of us.
“How much?” I asked him.
“700$” He said, I pulled out 700$ and paid him, but it was suspicious.. He handed me the keys to the helicopter. I nodded to the others. Denny took the extra gas out of the trunk and we hopped in.
“I’ll fly first and, uh, Cassy?” Denny asked.
“Why not Aura? She’s the air goddess apparently.” She hissed looking at me. I sensed she tried to mind-punch me.
“Because she looks ready to drop. She needs rest.” Denny said, Cassy sighed and went to the front. We buckled up and took off.
“ Am I the only one bothered by how cheap this was?” I asked. No replies.
The guy watching us the whole time, like he was thinking of something to do. I fell asleep quickly.
Chapter 4
Aura
The flight
I slept for a while but then quickly woke up. Somehow Lucy was driving now, and so was Cassy, still. Apparently she didn’t know I was up.
“That stupid Aura, who does she think she is? I bet Aether felt bad for her! I am the coolest, smartest, best one between me and her! I AM!” I muttered to herself.
“That’s the EXACT reason why Aether didn’t choose you. You’re self centered, don’t care about anyone, you’re mean to everyone, and you think you’re the best at everything! Newsflash for ya, you’re not.” Lucy said. Yeah, go Lucy! I thought. I listened to them argue back and forth for a while, Lucy could tell I was awake probably. It was hilarious. I couldn’t help but laugh when Cassy said.
“So, shut up life, I will end you.” It sounded so much like she wanted to kill herself!
“Well you could, but would you mind dying as well?” Lucy said, a hysterical laugh burst through my lips. Cassy whipped around and looked at me, she seemed pretty mad.
“Eyes on the air at all times Cassy.” I said, smirking to annoy her. She turned around.
“You can’t tell me what to do.” She said. She turned around and flung out of her seat and grabbed my neck, waking up the others. They screamed when they saw Cassy attacking me. I grabbed her wrists and hit them with my jaw. She pulled away, she punched me in the nose first. Then I dodged a punch to my eye, and she hit my check. I looked down and saw blood trickling from my mose. I looked up in time to see her punch my jaw.
“Cassy! STOP!” Rose yelled. I pulled back my arm, I gathered all my strength and got hit one more time in the stomach as I let my fist knock Cassy out. Rose looked at Cassy’s body and Athryst quickly jumped up front to help steer. I sat down. Rose was standing there looking at Cassy, Maxie grabbed some duct tape and bound Cassy’s hands and feet together, first separately then bound them together so she was in a ball basically. They put duct tape over her mouth, they left enough room for her to breath out of her nose. I sat down, my nose was bleeding. Maxie took out a tool kit and fixed it up.
“Wow, Cassy broke your nose, gonna take a week or
two to heal.” She said. I looked down at Cassy.
“Jerk.” i said, she has woken up now.
She looked at me. I ripped of her mouth duct tape.
“Ow. I still wanna kill you.” She said, she saw Rose.
“I didn’t say anything to you about your last comment, then you attacked me! And if I died, there would be no air goddess anymore.”
“I can’t believe you!” She smacked Cassy’s face. She tried to stand up. Rose didn’t like that, I saw she had a dagger, she gripped it ready for battle. Cassy laid down.
“Rose, I didn’t mean to! It was Aura who hit me first!” Cassy pleaded. Rose looked at me, I shook my head.
“Rose, Cassy hit Aura first.” Lucy said.
“Shut up life.” Cassy mumbled.
“No, it’s too late, you’ve been mean to Maxie and I’ve tried to overlook that but you go and attack the air goddess! And you’ve been mean to everyone else! It’s too late. You may finally get your wish and have your own apartment. Don’t talk to me!” Rose said. She climbed back 2 rows and sat
down. She put her head in her hands and shook her head a bunch. She lifted her hand and put up and wall of ice. Just her. I looked at Cassy.
“You’ve ruined it for you and Rose.” Maxie said before I could say the same thing. Maxie sounded happy about that. I smiled at her enthusiasm. Maxie realized there was a lot of ice, so she got some and put it on my face. Athryst turned around and looked at me.
“Don’t worry, you are nowhere close to death” She said.
“YEah, you are gonna live for a while, you’ve got a lot of ambition and life inside of you.” Lucy said.
“I didn’t think I was going to die.” I stated and sat up. I moved into a seat and watched Maxie duct tape Cassy to the opposite chair.
“Look, I tried getting along when we first met, but you crossed the line. You are staying here until other orders or you’re about to die. I still want you around, maybe you will change.” Maxie whispered to her, face to face. Her brown hair was long for the summer and I saw we were over a summer wonderland. All the trees were in a bunch of groups making a beautiful park of rolling hills and trees. I realized the trees were in a wonderful pattern. I saw one tree was out of line, it was being chopped down. I somehow saw the man who was taking the tree down. He looked unhappy. I then saw a man, he was yelling. It was- I don’t know how- suspicious. I looked back to Maxie. She looked at me as if to say That park is where President Zach lives, we need to get out of here.
“Lucy, go faster. We need to leave the area.”
“Why?” Lucy asked Maxie, wondering what was wrong. She knew something was up, like me.
“That is President Zach’s A.K.A Yak-butt’s land.” Maxie said. I saw her body shaking.
Chapter 5
Denny
Spacing out
“Maxie, calm.” Rose said. I nodded. We continued to fly, I focused on breathing and staying up in the air, me and Athryst switched places, she was busy with death stuff, and night. I think she has power over the night as well because Lucy has power over the day, but I could be wrong, hopefully I’m wrong. I thought to myself, a shiver went down my spine. Don’t think about it! I urged myself not to, but I couldn’t help it.
“Don’t be afraid my boy. It’s just the night. It’s only dark out, nothing more.” The voice said. I took one step out my house, then another. I was out. The door slammed behind me. I pounded on the door, the voice laughed. I turned around.
“SHUT UP!” I yelled at it. It just smiled at my madness. I walked towards it. I gripped a kitchen knife in my hand, I was 9 and this was in my old neighborhood in Texas, it was 12:00 at night. I charged it, it simply laughed.
“I am the night, your worst fear you cannot kill me!” It said, taunting me. I dove for the voice.
“I have control over you in the night, you cannot get rid of me.” It said.
“Oh yeah? I’d like to see about that?” I said out loud everyone looked at me, I was still in my flash back.
“Take this!” I said, Lucy knew what was happening.
“Denny! NO!” She screamed, I pointed the plane straight downwards and turned off the engine, my flashback still playing, Lucy grabbed my hands and looked into my eyes. She appeared in my flash back.
“Over here.” The voice taunted. I dove the opposite way.
“Your biggest fear is the night?” Lucy said, I couldn’t see her or reply. I kept jumping after the voice soon my parents came outside and heard the voice.
“Your parents are next.” It said, they grabbed me and pulled me inside, they shut the door and turned on the lights, killing the voice, leaving Lucy out there. She appeared inside my flashback. Then I felt it, the arm breaking feeling, the plane crashed into the ground.
“Ugh.” I said. I sat up, it was dawn. I checked my watch. 5:25 am. I had been knocked out for almost 12 hours. I sat up, expecting to see everyone else up and rubbing their heads to. All I saw were bodies lying still barely breathing and a big pile of plane. I waited for a minute then went to find some water. I found a stream nearby. I boiled a whole bunch of water then let it cool. I walked up to Aura first. I sat her up and put one of the remaining backpacks under her head. I poured some water on her face to cool her off. I checked for broken bones. She had a broken ankle, and wrist. My mom was a nurse and my dad was a doctor. I got some sticks and medical tape and some cotton (We had landed in a cotton field) and I made her a makeshift cast for her foot and wrist then I made her some crutches. I let her continue to sleep. I walked to Athryst next, I poured some water on her. Then I felt for broken bones. She had two broken toes, a wrist, and a broken finger. I took some cotton and made her a cast. Then I went to Maxie.
“Broken shin, arm, and wrist. Great.” I made her some casts and a pair of crutches. I got her situated then went to Rose.
“Broken nose, wrist, and foot. Whoopdeedoo.” Then I fixed her up and went to Lucy.
“Broken knee, elbow, dislocated shoulder.” I said, while fixing her up then I went to Cassy.
“Uh oh, Rose is not going to be too happy about this. Broken leg, arm, 5 ribs, wrist, hand, foot, shin, ankle, there’s a whole lot more but worst of all, fractured skull, barely a heartbeat left. It has to be her time. But I’ll still try.” I tried fixing her up but it didn’t work, she was gone. Athryst shot up.
“Cassy!” She gasped. She tried to get up, I helped her and gave her some crutches and water.
“Cassy’s gone.” She said after gulping down water.
“I know, I was just getting ready to fix her up to bury her.” I said, so she was a jerk she still deserved a grave and a funeral.
“Heaven, though you were a jerk, mean, and other stuff you saved our lives and risked yours. Heaven.” She said.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Well after you and Lucy went all flash back on us Cassy tried to pull the plane up with air, you had ripped out the engine cords, totally shredded, Aura went into shock. When Cassy realized she couldn’t do it she flung all of us up and looked at Rose then Maxie then me and said ‘I’m sorry for being a jerk, forgive me.’ Then she took the blow for us. Saved us all.” She said, I took a moment to let it sink in.
“Explains the broken skull and the crushed bones.” I said. I warmed her up some water and made us some food. We ate. I looked around.
“How long do you think til they wake up?” I asked her.
“Apparently Maxie not that long.” She said pointing towards her direction. Maxie sat up and looked around.
“Be careful, you broke your shin, your arm, and your wrist. I made you some crutches, my moms a nurse in the hospital and my dads and doctor in the same one.” I said.
“I can tell, also goddess of medicene and healing. You have broken wrist and finger. Lucky.” She said. Lucy was the next to get up. I explained about her injuries, they looked at Cassy. I explained that too. Rose got up. I got her steady on her crutches and she ate some food.
“Where’s Cassy?” She asked.
“Uh, about that Rose. You see when, uh, Cassy took the fall for us, uh, it was tough on her, she didn’t make it. It crushed her bones and her skull.” Maxie put it softly. Rose didn’t say anything, she looked at me. Anger seemed to grow in her eyes.
“YOU! YOU’RE THE REASON WHY! IF ONLY YOU HADN’T SPACED OUT WHILE FLYING AND DIDN’T DIVE BOMB US TO THIS STUPID COTTON FIELD! SHE SAVED YOUR LIFE WHEN YOU RISKED OURS! YOU KILLED HER!” She yelled in my face. I took a step back.
“I’m sorry, uh, a horrible flashback came back to me and it involved my fear. I was trying to kill it, I wasn’t thinking. I’m so sorry Rose.” I said.
“SORRY DOESN’T CUT IT!” She yelled, she took a couple minutes to cry and calm down then she looked at Maxie, who was hugging her.
“Where is she?” She asked. Maxie pointed to Cassy, Athryst had decorated Cassy’s hair with cotton flowers and changed Cassy into a white dress. Rose sat down. She picked up a rose and set it in Cassy’s hand. She cried. Athryst went over.
“Hey Rose, I’m so sorry about Cassy, if it makes you feel better I gave her a big spot in heaven.” She said. Rose looked at her.
“Thanks... I guess... I’m so sorry for yelling at you.” She said turning to me.
“Ah, it’s fine you were mad and sad and angry and depressed, don’t sweat.” I said.
“And you weren’t the cause of Cassy’s death, I guess it was just her time.” She said. Lucy walked over as well.
“She died a hero’s honor for saving our lives.” She said, putting an arm around Rose, Maxie walked over as well.
“Yeah, I guess, she was still a white haired jerk though. Ha. Her hair kind of looked like a grandma’s. I’m sorry, too soon.” Maxie said, making Rose laugh. I walked over. I sat on the other side of Cassy. I looked at Aura, she sent a small breeze to Cassy and it lifted her up. Maxie made a hole in the ground and Aura gently set Cassy in it. Lucy, Athryst and Rose put dirt in her grave while I made a tomb stone. I let Rose engrave it though it said:
Here lie’s Cassy Duveua
She was funny, and pretty. I loved her so
2000-2012
We dug that in and packed up the remains of stuff and walked, slowly, away. We later started running again. Rose was still crying. I kept running and then out of nowhere I hit a tree.
“I swear that tree was not there earlier.” I mumbled. The others laughed.
“Oh it wasn’t. I put it there, call me the puppet master.” A voice said. It walked out of the trees and I realized, it was my fear. The master of fear. To me. Night.
Chapter 6
Denny
The fear master
Everyone shrieked. I gasped. I looked at him, he was about 7 feet tall. He had black long shaggy hair and had pitch black eyes. I looked at the others.
“Y’all see him to?” I asked. They nodded.
“Yes, yes, you’re not the only who see’s me Denny Desno. I am the master of ALL fears. Not just your’s. Oh, remember that time when you were 9 and I tricked you outside, into the night? Oh, I loved that, fed me well.” It said. It smiled a crooked smile to only show more than half of its teeth were missing.
“Metus.” Maxie said.
“You know my name? Wow, you are smart.” Mentus said. I don’t know how but I knew it meant fear in latin. Rose looked up.
“No. You guys my mom once told me all magic was based off of latin roots, apparently we are all supposed to know latin by heart without studying. I thought she was wrong, apparently not.” She said. Maxie nodded.
“Well, Rose Elvira your mother was correct. My name is Mentus, which means fear in latin.” Mentus told us. I searched my brain for latin and sure enough it was there.
“Vestibulum occasum senem.” I said. The others tried not to laugh. Mentus was offended. I had said ‘You’re going down old man!’ and he was. I ripped out my sword and the others ripped out there weapons as well. Athryst became death and Lucy became life. I took out my wand. I said a spell to keep us all safe for a good amount of time. Rose became a rock spirit and Maxie became an air spirit as well. Aura kicked up some serious wind around her and became wind. We started fighting all the trees and puppets Mentus was throwing us. Maxie had used her healing powers on us all. We were all healed by the time we had left the corn field. I swung at a tree and cut off it’s limbs and it crumbled.
“Hey! For the tree’s cut the limb’s or the trunks!” I yelled to the others. I slashed another one and then came up to a bush. I looked at it and slashed it in half.
“Maxie! Try controlling the trees!” Rose yelled. She nodded. She got a couple on our side and they killed the other trees and bushes. We kept slashing through tree’s and animals and bushes. Athryst looked at things and they would collapse. Lucy would suck the life from things. Wow, remind me not to provoke them. I thought. Soon it got too much after 15 minutes. We had fallen back because we were tired. Athryst and Lucy looked at each other.
“We have to, it’s the only way.” They said at the same time. They smiled. They stepped forward.
“Athryst no!” I said. She put her hand up, black dust and wind stirred around her, golden dust and wind stirred around Lucy.
“I claim power over the night!” Athryst yelled. Mentus laughed.
“No way! You can’t claim powers!” He said. He was distracted so Lucy and Athryst looked at each other.
“There will always be fear no matter what you do!” Mentus said, seeing their faces.
“We know. But fear can go away for periods of time if you try hard enough. Ponder it.” Lucy said. Mentus was thinking so they looked at each other, they took each other’s hands and said,
“Tenebrosam, et lux ligaveris simul vincere malum intra.” At the same time. I knew immediatley what they said, ‘Dark and light bing together to defeat the evil within!” a bright shiny light exploded in front of them. I wasn’t afraid anymore for some reason. Mentus screamed, he began to look old and he disappeared. I looked at them in wonder.
“Dark and light together is a powerful thing and if we control it we can do whatever we need when we do that, we took away everyone here’s fear. Which sucked some of his life from him, he feeds off the fear of others. So he disappeared because he was so weak.” Lucy explained. Athryst nodded. We set up camp here. According to Aura, who learned how to track and sense others, Harry-Face and his army were 97.6 miles away, walking slowly. We cooked some of the animals we killed and we ate them. We were all tired. I went to my tent. I layed down and went to sleep.
“You haven’t gotten rid of me forever.” Mentus said.
“Oh yeah? We have Lucy and Athryst!” I taunted him, the spell hadn’t worn off yet.
“But has Athryst been completely honest with you?” He asked me.
“Of course, she is my girl friend!” I said. Oh no, it was wearing off.
“Huh, so she told you she cannot die till her magical parent says so? And her parent vowed she’d be alive for along time? “ He asked me.
I needed to lie.
“Of course” I said confidently, though she hadn’t.
“There is a lot you don’t know.” He said. I woke up quickly, I checked my watch, 3:07 in the morning. I walked out of my tent. Lucy was painting and Aura was eating she looked up on mid swallow.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I asked. She nodded, Lucy was painting a cave with diamonds in it, there was a purple fire in the middle of the cave. And there was a body, tied by rope all over except for the neck and face, hanging to the right of it in the corner Aura stood there with a dagger in her hand and she looked scared. It was very realistic.
“What’s that?” I asked her. She looked at it.
“Just a silly dream. Nothing really, just a nightmare, don’t worry about it.” Lucy told me. I nodded.
“We were standing guard till you came along so now it’s your turn. They are 25 miles away running slowly and should be here by 8 in the morning. So wake us up at 6. Night.” She said and she walked off, I sighed. What was with that painting? She seemed really disturbed by it. Huh, maybe I should investigate more, nah just leave it be she’ll tell us if we need to know. Right? Can we trust her? Of course we can, I think. Don’t worry about it. Stick to your policy don’t think just act. I thought. I was feeling hungry so I walked to the stream right next to our campsite and I caught 3 big fish. I took out my knife and skinned them then cooked them. I ate 1 whole fish. It was good, so I checked my watch 5:25 I went back to the stream and caught several more fish by the time I had 8 huge fish it was 5:42 so I quickly skinned and cooked them letting them roast for a little bit. I got some water and boiled it then let it cool. I went and yelled into every tent to wake up. They all filed out, tired. I showed them the food and they ate happily.
“Hey Cassy wake-” Rose started but remembering about Cassy dying. Everyone was quiet for a couple minutes and seemed depressed except for Athryst, she seemed normal as always. Oh well, after eating we all got ready to go, I prepared for any kind of fight, who knows what we might run into?
Chapter 7
Lucy
My dream
____________________________________________________
“Come here.” The slithery voice said. I was in a cave lined with diamonds.
“Why? Why do you want me so bad?” I asked it, there was a purple fire in the middle of the room and I was standing in the corner holding a knife to my chest.
“You? I want you AND your friends to come here, lead them here and you may live, if I have to send my forces to get you, now we don’t want to ruin this nice dream do we?” It asked.
“Nice dream? This is a nightmare! Who are you what do you want? WHY PULL ME INTO THIS NIGHTMARE!” I screamed.
“somnum exterreri solebat? Why I think this is a good dream.” It said, avoiding my question.
“Who are you?!” I demanded.
“Hostis.” It said casually. I stopped in place.
“Hostis?” The latin word for enemy.
“Verum.” He said. That meant one word, yes.
“No, no, no! Why do you want us?!” I asked, shivering.
“You know why, you know all about me. I only need you and your friends, except for the death emo girl.” Hostis said.
“Why? Why us though? We are nothing!” I screamed at it.
“You are very powerful. Bring your friends but leave the death girl, if you do you’ll all surely die.” He explained.
“Aren’t we anyway?” I asked in a low voice.
“No, if you come I’ll spare your lives and you can become my minions but the death girl is impossible to hurt. Her stupid lifelong curse. Makes her basically immortal! Proh.” He spat.
“NO!” I screamed in his face, I forced myself to wake up. I sat in my tent for a while. It was the same dream as the last one but I didn’t hear his voice in it before, I just saw the fire and the body hanging. I guess one of my friends but I don’t know. Hostis is a bad guy who lures his prey into his cave and takes their body over with a spell and they serve him and that feeds him, but he can’t do it unless he has enough people in his army. I shook it off and went to go eat, I had a painting in my back pocket of the cave, I was going to take us there but to fight. We just had to get our hands on that fire, where he dips his prey into and then they become his, his main lifeline. Wate quickly then started running.
“Okay so in about 30 miles or so we are going to appear on a beach and a guy is going to show you a book of tattoo’s and they are your symbol to get into the safe land. Okay?” Rose yelled at us. I nodded, I had an idea of what to get if it was available. A white lion with a sword beside it. Family symbol. We kept running for several miles. According to Aura 7.7 miles. Then we slowed to a jog.
“Any ideas of what you’re going to get?” Rose asked Athryst.
“Yah, bones with the word letum underneath it, latin for death.” She said Rose nodded and looked at me.
“A white lion, family symbol we have a couple at home before I ran.” I explained then she looked at Denny
“A star, I want to be an astronomer so a star.” She just looked at him blankly then went to Aura.
“I want two swords with a mountain lion’s face behind it and a cloud underneath it with the words Ego sum Pugnator.” Aura mentioned.
“ Should I get something under my white tiger?I thought. Maybe my name in latin. Which was Lucy. So no. Maybe vita ex lut. Which means life and light in latin. I liked that. I decided to have that underneath it. I ran my finger over my wrist. What if they didn’t have that as an option?
“Beach. Swim, now.” Maxie said. We all jumped in. WE were swimming and got pretty tired. Maxie lifted earth for a minuted and connected to the beach. We walked on.
“Lucy come with me now.” A random guy with a suit said. Oh crap! it’s Hostis! I thought for a second. Then he pulled out a sheet of paper with designs. I scanned it and frowned. My choice wasn’t on there. The man then spoke up.
“Well, I can make one custom. It seems to mean a lot to you.” I smiled. I told him my design. He nodded and pointed me to a chair. I sat down and he pulled out a needle. He poked me but it burned. After a few seconds it subsided and the needle was out. I looked down on my wrist and smiled.
“Perfect.” I told him. Aura was next she scanned it and frowned as well but then smiled she pointed to one. And she headed in. She came out of the big tent with a mountain lion (full) then a gladius underneath it with the word ‘Caveo’ engraved in it. Meaning ‘beware’. He looked at her.
“I hope you know the price of that symbol.” He said then he
called on Denny, no stars apparently but he went in and came out with a telescope on it and engraved it had ‘Spatium’ meaning space. Athryst went in next. She was in there for a while. We were worried but we waited.
“She probably got a big one.” Maxie said, though she looked concerned. Athryst came out with a skull on her bicep and underneath in engraved in a bone it said ‘Ego mortem ne quid probate me paenitet te.’ which means, ‘I am death, do not try anything on me, for you will regret it.’ scary but accurate. He disappeared. Aura gasped and held her wrist. It was glowing a white light. I did some searching and I gasped to.
“Woah.” I said. She started glowing as well, the light got so bright we had to look away and we looked back and she was in white and gold armor with a big javelin in her hand. And a war helmet on her head.
“Woah, cool javelin.” Denny said, Aura studied it.
“It’s a iaculatione and gladius mixed. It can be whatever I want it to.” She said Rose and Maxie looked at each other.
“We have a friend whose is like that. Except her’s in on her palm and is a knife and dagger mix. Why is yours more latin?” Maxie asked her.
“Uh, I’m a latin background in my family.” She said.
“Copycat much?” An old annoying voice asked, I turned to see Cassy’ s angel standing there.
“Hey shut up you’re dead.” Aura said.
“Well it’s true.” Cassy said.
“I’m a latine bellator. Which is latin for ‘latin warrior’. Incase you didn’t know.” She said. Cassy rolled her eyes. She stood a little taller.
“I know dumbo.” She said. She walked up to Rose.
“Hi Rose.” She said
“Uh, hi, uh, Cassy.” Rose said, Cassy looked behind her.
“You guys need to run now. Quick. Bye.” She said and disappeared. I looked at them and we took off.
Chapter 8
Lucy
Raining
We were running quick, away from Harry-Face and his army of who knows how many. Wait according to Aura it’s 3,000 oh joy. We ran for our lives. I turned around to set up a barrier and the others kept running, it was raining right now. As I was about 7 feet up with the barrier something fell and hit me hard in the head. I fell and looked for my friends, I was on my back. None were in sight. I could feel the rain hitting my stomach and body. I kept feeling stuff hitting me. I realized it was a mixture of things. Knives (hitting my arms) breaking through the barrier, sticks, and acorns. Black spots started appearing in my eyes. I closed them ready for the end. I reopened them when I heard the sound of a phone ringing. I looked around, I was sitting in a realtor's office and there was a really cute guy with blonde hair sitting there taking the calls. A girl in black armor entered, it was Athryst, I couldn’t find my voice.
“I’m looking for a girl with blonde hair and blue eyes.” She said he pointed to me and Athryst turned around.
“You’re not dead yet! YAY! You’re coming with me, don’t worry your body will also be teleported to us.” She said. She grabbed my hand and she closed her eyes, I followed I opened them and I was in Denny’s arms. Ugh. He set me down and I started running. We ran for several miles in the unforgiving rain.
“Good news, we have traveled very far and have a 2 days journey left bad news we need to get out of here quick in the water.” Rose said.
“Easy everyone climb in I’ll provide us with air. NOW!” Aura yelled. We obeyed. As soon as I could get under I was breathing normally again. And we could talk.
“Did you all know it’s my birthday?” I mentioned to get everyone focused on something else.
“No.” They all said at once.
“Well it is, happy 16th birthday to me. Running away from Harry-Face. Whoopdeedoo.” I said, Maxie did not like that. She looked at Rose.
“Form us an ice ball no water please.” She said and Rose did just that.
“We need fish and something to drink. You go to another room.” She said pointing at me. I looked around. Rose reconstructed it so there was rooms. I walked into one and all my clothes were there and dry and there was a bed. I put on some pj’s and crawled in.
“Air bed, nice.” I said. It was made of solid air so it was real comfy. I fell asleep soon.
“Happy birthday, Lucy.” My magical mom said.
“Thanks Elizabeth, er, mom.” I said. She smiled.
“Welcome. Wake up now.” She said
“How long have I been asleep?” I asked.
“30 minutes get ready and dressed in warm clothes.” She said.
“Oh-kay.” I said. And I woke up. I got dressed in long, warm, skinny jeans, a long sleeve white and blue shirt that was striped then I put on a warm thick waterproof jacket and put on some warm socks and waterproof thick black boots. I brushed through my hair and walked out. They had cooked me some fish and somehow made some red punch and gotten a turkey.
“Did you guys ma?ke this for me?” I asked as I sat down.
“Sure did.” Maxie said. This was the one time she was happy.
“Just so you know everyone. I love Life!” She yelled. We all laughed. I looked and saw a gravy boat. I snacted it and poured it on my turkey. We all ate and drank a wonderful meal. I helped save what little turkey was left and keep the punch. We all cleaned the dishes and went to bed.
“Just because your friends care about you doesn’t meant that they can overpower evil.” I heard the voice say. This time it sounded like nails against rocks.
“Love and friendship last through thick and thin.” I screamed at it. It chuckled.
“You know, I will have fun helping my master kill you all.” He said as he stepped forward. This time, there was no giant, just a really ugly guy walking to me. THen, he got really good looking. He went back to ugly.
“So hard to make this body as what you teen girl would call ‘hot’. I want the teen girl to fall at looking to me!” He bellowed.
“uh, what exactly is your name?” I asked, confident I could take this guy.
“Magna. I hate this normal’s body.” He practically yelled.
“Wow, your name explains why you are so loud. Use your ‘inside voice’.” I complained.
“This is my inside voice!” He boomed. “You shall go boom! Boom!”
I fell to the ground laughing. I finally got a look at the place. IT was in a castle.
“Why are you in ireland?” I asked him.
“Clever girl.” He said.
“I know my countries.” I said, he was trying to frighten me but it wouldn’t work. I sat there and stared him down. He blinked.
“I won.” I said, and he started bawling.
“All I want to do it succeed. My master says I’m a fail but I don’t want to be, waaaah.” He cried, the slithery voice came back.
“Because you are a fail. Now let me take care of the girl.” He stepped forward, I saw him for the first time. He was about 10 feet tall, had brown ugly big eyes and no hair. I decided to be ‘smart’.
“Hi baldy, er, I mean hostis.” I said he stared at me.
“Are you going to bring your friends here? Er, to the cave I mean? You’re actually very close. Just a few miles away.” He said. I thought about it, take out Magna first then Hostis, sure why not?
“Yeah I’ll come.” I said. He looked surprised.
“Good, great then. Now you need to wake up and bring your friends to me.” He said and I woke up. I told my friends my dream. They nodded.
“Now what?” Rose asked.
“My plan: We go in and we have one person, the weakest go in first for he’s going to capture him, er them, then tie them up then we all barge in and one person, a fast one good with fire, heads to the purple fire in the middle of the cave and put it out, there basically cutting off his blood stream and we battle, the strongest three will fight him and then two will take out Magna and then we’ll free the weakest one and we’ll help out if the three strongest need it.” I said, they all thought about this.
“Wait, you said ‘him, er them.” whose him?” He asked, we all looked at him.
“You’re the only guy here Denny.” Maxie said.
“Good luck. Now let’s move and eat at the same time.” I said. We got moving, Denny grumbling about being ‘the weakest, pssh. Yah right.’ I rolled my eyes. We were all preparing for battle. Aura became the latin warrior and Athryst got her death armor on. And I got my life armor on. We all pulled out our wings. Rose’s were ice, Maxie’s were angles, Aura’s were wind (but see able), mine were gold, and Athryst was having a hard time on choosing between just black or black bones.
“Go black.” Maxie said and Athryst did. We saw the cave. We looked at Denny and he groaned. We climbed up there and watched Denny go into the cave. He must of saw Hostis and screamed. We looked around the corner and Denny was hanging above the fire.
“Guys! HELP!” He screamed and we rushed in. Rose, Athryst,
and Maxie went off to fight Hostis, me and Aura went to fight Magna. We ran to him. He saw me and laughed.
“Well well Lucy.” His voice sounded like nails on rocks. He tried
to hit me. I dodged and sent my knife straight through his palm. He screamed and I looked for Aura, she wasn’t around me she was getting Denny.
“Way to stick to the plan.” I mumbled. Magna looked at me, his palm bleeding.
“I have a large blood supply, like my master.” He said shwing me the fire. I hatched a new plan, he seemed dumb enough to fall for it.
“Hey tell me more about this fire, how does it die? With water? Or other fire? Or what?” I asked him, he brightened up at the fact I wanted HIS advice on something.
“Well to kill it you have to take your sword and wet it with some blood and slash through it. Only my blood can do it. I find all the prey for my master.” He beamed. I looked at my sword, the blood dried up.
“Huh. That’s so cool!” I said like I meant it.
“Yes! Would you like to buy some?” He asked.
“Somewhat?”
“Bood. My blood.”
“Oh, that would be fantastic, how much?” I asked.
“For you, a smart girl, 10 dollars.” I pulled 10 dollars out and paid him. And he handed me TWO vials.
“One is healing.” He said pointing to the one.
“And the other one?”
“The one that kills the fire.” I took it and poured it on my sword. I ran like crazy to the fire. Magna, realizing what he had done, chased after me. Before he caught me I lunged at the fire and slashed my sword through it. Magna died right away, Hostis screamed and held him stomach blood was pouring out of it. Athryst flew up and sat on his head. Maxie got positioned on his wrist, Rose on his neck, Aura at his stomach, Denny at the ear and me at the other ear.
“On three?” Rose asked.
“Yes.” We all answered.
“1... 2... 3!” She yelled, Hostis screamed and we all sank our weapons into where we were positioned and he fell, all of us with the wings flew up, but Denny didn’t have wings. He was falling. Rose raced to grab him. And she did. Though he was bruised from the tight ropes that were tied around him. We flew out of the cave.
Chapter 8
Athryst
Just another “oops”.
“That was awesome!” Denny screamed. Rose sat him down. I retracted my wings. So did the others.
“Dude, don’t want you to fall and almost die, for the third time. So here you go.” Aura said and flung her finger at him. Wings popped out of his back.
“Yeah!” He groaned. He was badly bruised. We slowed him down, but he did get hurt. I walked over and made a tent. I hit my head against a tree.
“Black, black, black!” I yelled at myself. The tent was black. Denny walked up behind me and helped.
“There, is that better?” He asked. He was kinda geeky, but in an awesome way. He gave me a hug and I crawled inside the tent. He used his magic to make it like a house inside. He kissed my cheek and went into his room.
“I’m still irritated you two were kissing in the middle of battle.” Aura said behind me. I laughed a bit.I turned around to face Aura. I showed her to her room. I walked into mine with my eyes closed and fell onto the bed.
“Ow.” Denny laughed.
“Sorry, had my eyes closed!” I apologized. I got up and ran out. I smiled laughing. It was good to at least have my friends here. I mean, they’ve been there for me and vice versa. I walked into my actual room and layed down. It was dark and everyone slept.
Come on, come on! I have to get to the gates. “Denny! Lucy! Rose! Maxie!” I yelled. We got to the gates, then we disappeared.
I jerked upright and hit my head.
“Ow.” I grumbled. I went to make something to eat, I was pretty hungry! I heard a noise outside. I turned around and saw Denny. I ran out.
“What are you doing up?” I questioned.
“Run, run away. We can get there on our own! Come with me.” He said.
“Wow, someone got romantic.” I stated. He rolled his eyes. “But I will go anyway.” I said, accepting his offer. I grabbed his hand and we ran into the woods.
“Wait, this isn’t the way.” I said. His grip got tighter. I looked at him, my hand hurting. I looked tried taking a step back but the grip was too tight.
“You’re hurting me!” I told him, in a calm voice. He didn’t seem to care. I looked carefully at his face, something was different.
“You have black eyes. “ I whispered.He twisted my wrist, I saw a bird lady. I kicked the sheformia and dove under. The hand wasn’t on me anymore. I turned and said “Tenebris.” and I became darkness itself. I controlled it. So basically I was invisible.
“Mori avis domina rei.” I said. She looked confused.
“That means ‘Die bird lady thing.’ in latin.” I told her. She got madder.
“YOU THINK YOU CAN KILL ME??!” She screamed, I did it, I got her to yell.
“Yes, yes I do.” I said. Since I was darkness I had an advantage over her. I turned my eyes pitch black. I walked to one spot and said “Over here!” and she turned and so on for a while till she got dizzy.
“Now look at me.” I said, letting the darkness stop surrounding me. She looked in my eyes. I smirked waiting for her death but she didn’t die.
“You can’t use death eyes on me my darling!” She laughed, I could hear my friends searching for us. At the thought of Denny coming to rescue me my stomach tightened. I realized something, I was on edge with him now. I took out my sword.
“I’ll just have to kill you the normal way then.” I mumbled. She looked at my. I opened my mouth, she didn’t hear me.
“I’LL JUST HAVE TO KILL THE NORMAL WAY!” I screamed at her, my friends burst through the bushes. I slashed the neck of the bird lady thing. She turned to dust. I cussed in Latin. Denny ran up behind me.
“Give me time to think.” I said, pushing him away.
“Wow, someone isn’t so happy to see the man whom distracted her in battle and could have killed her!” Aura said. I laughed.
“Would you just shut up about that?” I whined. She climbed up the tree I was in. Aura little wind kicked up.
“Look, I know what happened. The weird sheforima tricked you. It happened to me too, a few weeks ago.” She told me.
“Who did it look like?”
“You, it made you seem like you needed help with something.”
“Help with what?”
“A dream.” She said quietly. She let her wings out and flew off to the tent. I went after her. I was running then remembered I could fly. I caught up.
“Look, I may not be psychic but I had a dream. We got to the gates then disappeared. That may mean something.” I told her. Her huge wings kept batting, keeping her in the air, but she wasn’t going anywhere.
“I had that too.” She said into my eyes. We flew back to the tent in silence. I sat down and looked at her.
“Dream meeting!” She clapped. We all gathered on the couches. We shared the same dream. Creepy. There was a guy laughing.
“They’ll never make it in. HAHA!” Then the dream went blank.
“Come on. Let’s move.” Rose said, grabbing everyone's stuff. We left. I started running because I saw something big in the distance. I looked around. There was a cave on a mountain, there was a bunch of trees and other things but I was too happy. I saw the gates. I started to run faster but Rose put a hand up, hitting my chest.
“Look, the gates, this is too easy.” Rose said. Thats when it all went wrong. We heard the same evil laugh and I panicked. I tried to grab something and a hole opened up underneath us, we fell into it, losing all sights of the the gates. I screamed. We were falling quick. We hit something hard and I went out for a couple minutes. I woke up and looked around. I could breath. I looked around. This was earth, or was it mr territory.
“Neither but both young deces.” The voice said, it was like a whisper in my ear. But everyone heard it.
“You? It’s talking to you?” Rose asked. Annoyed.
“Welcome to the trap.” It said
Chapter 8
Athryst
The trap
“Who are you?” I demanded to know.
“My name? It’s Dolus, but you may call me Master.” Dolus, meaning trick, said.
“I’m still calling you “It”.” Rose said. It laughed and the voice disappeared. I looked at Maxie before she could do anything a passageway opened up.
“Let’s go find Trick, er, Dolus.” Lucy said. I nodded. I went first and whispered to myself ‘Deces.’ and Lucy, right behind me, whispered ‘Vita.’ meaning life. We walked for a while and soon came across a sitting room, like a receptions room. I knew this place, this is where you went before either, Optio, or I decided where you went, Opti was tall and had blonde hair. His name ment ‘Choice.’
“Optio!” I yelled for him. He was my fathers assistant also. My father is Rex mortuorum. Which is latin for King of the dead. He wasn’t around.
“DAD?!” I screamed. We were very close. He always came when I called him. I spotted the elevator. One to heaven, one to hell, and one to the realm of the dead. People who had to judgement so they went there, for they were afraid of where they would go if they were judged. Then there was one to Palatium mortuorum. Which means “Palace of the dead.” It where my dad lives and I have a room and a throne there as well. I would spend some time down here with him.
“Who wants to go on an elevator ride?” I asked turning around. They looked scared but nodded. I first chose the realm of the dead we got on.
“Uh, where are we going?” Maxie asked.
“The realm of the dead. The place where people who don’t want to be judged in death go.” I said, nonchalantly. He wasn’t there and when we went on to the elevator to the palace everyone was shaking out of fear of that place. I was smiling.
“Wasn’t that scary.” I said.
“THEY WERE HISSING AT US!” Rose exclaimed.
“They were saying hi.” I said. They all looked at me.
“ I speak dead.” I explained. Then we hopped off and ran into the palace. I saw Optio there. He was wearing my dads cape and had his gladius strapped to one side and his baculus, Baculum mortuis, staff of the dead in one hand. I gasped.
“Optio?” I said. He smiled.
“Call me Dolus, or Master.” He said. I looked around and saw my father strapped to one chair. Optio had changed. He became Dolus and kidnapped my father and us. He had led us here. But why? I knew the answer in the back of my head, he wanted to take over, duh, but why kidnap us? I immediately knew why.
“To kill us.”
THE END
Book 4?
The fourth book is going to be happening at the same time this book is going on. Same time period.
What happens next to this group?
They are stuck in the palace of the dead now but what next? You’ll see in book 4.