The Pillaging Chapter 13

Chapter 13: Evil Comes in Human-Sized Packages“I wonder how much longer we will have to wait.”Travis asked, although it seemed like more of a comment Jeanne would throw at us. We had been waiting for an hour now, and the flood of people, chariots and horses had become all but smaller.“I wonder why we can’t see the demons?” Jeanne responded. Jeanne now knew all we knew about the Spirit World.Kayla had told us some more information about the Spirit World. She had explained that Silver and Claire were both born in the Spirit World and both had younger brothers, although Claire’s younger brother only stayed in the Spirit World for a short time, until they departed from the time-trapped world and came to Ancient Rome and Egypt, where Silver and Claire were separated, Claire going to Rome as a daughter of a slave, and Silver becoming a prince of Egypt while his father, René took over the body of the king and wiped everyone’s memories into thinking that his attitude was normal and that Silver was always there.Kayla had information about the Temples and why there were even Temples, which was because they were honoring sacred gems of their element. The Darkness and Light gem have been long lost for no reason. Harmony Temple was created to honor all the elements, and a judgmental place, deemed the ‘Divine Court’, where a mysterious group of people with the better of all their powers met, bearing the title ‘Sage’. Silver was of course the better of them all, and became the heir to the throne of the Spirit World, which was given to him by Primos Rex, whose name literally translates to First King, which he was.The Spirit World was trapped in the beginning and end of time, so all the average people came to the Spirit World. Only heroes went to Heaven, and only great evil went to the Underworld. Silver and Claire were soul-mates, literally, and their souls before becoming active in Life- not Silver’s light alter ego, which Kayla had explained was Life personified, and Silver’s dark alter ego was in fact Death personified- had met each other and fallen in love, but were separated in Life, until the age seventeen, where they met each other in Life for the first time, and their love became known again. Silver and Claire became the King and Queen of the Spirit World once they died.The Spirit World was named the Spirit World for an unknown reason, but it is rumored it is named that because the spirits, in the beginning of time, were placed in this uncharted world, while the souls disappeared into nothingness, but Primos Rex passed over intentionally, not suicide of course, but had found a portal into the Spirit World, and had been killed there by one of the untamed demons named Perpes Nox Noctis by Primos. Primos was somehow caught between life and death. He tamed the beast and locked it away in the Underworld somehow. He found Elysium Fields; he defined all the portals, and made a deal with God to let everyone who dies to come to the Spirit World, unless they are a great evil or a great hero. But only for this, every soul will be caught between life and death like Primos, and are not immortal until they are stabbed in the heart. They will not be seen or heard by humans unless they drink a special potion or the humans truly believe they are there.Kayla also briefly mentioned that René was in fact incarnation of the Devil and was in fact older than time itself. Satan’s evil had been dulled down for his incarnation.When asked how she got this information, she said that she went to a not so mysterious cult website about the history of the Spirit World.“I wish the mobs would stop screaming and running around like lunatics, and I wish that a car or chariot, or something would be abandoned.” Kayla grunted, playing with a ball of water she had created.“I wish that we see Silver soon.” I crossed my arms, ashamed to need him to help me.“Ugh, I don’t want to see that jerk again.” Kayla groaned, throwing the water back into the pond. She lay down in front of the log. “Try your powers again. This time, you better want it to succeed.”I concentrated as hard as I could, but I couldn’t help to feel forced along with it, and failed again.Kayla grumbled, and I knew nothing had happened to them.

“Travis, call Myst, see if you can pick up signal. This time, stand on the log and turn away from the trees.” I muttered. Travis shrugged and stood up on the log and exposed his phone to the cold air again. He turned it around and around, towards the Psychic Metropolis, and then to the Main City. No signal, even from these advanced societies. He lifted the phone up, grunting as a reply.

“There has to be a way.” He mumbled to himself. He looked at the trees, and began clawing his way up.

“Travis, that tree is too high!” I called up to him. He was already a good four feet above me. “You’ll never get up there. And if you do, you’ll probably fall!”

No response. He climbed farther and farther, and soon was at a sturdy branch far above. Travis pointed the phone at the clearing, and something made a pinging noise. His face lit up as far as I could see, but his head was buried in braches and leaves. He dialed a number and I could hear a faint conversation overhead. After a few moments, Travis climbed down the tree, unscathed and beaming.

“Myst said that she is on her way in her brother’s car.” He wiped off a few loose twigs and grinned at us all.

Jeanne jumped up, her face blushing with excitement. “You mean, we’ll finally be out of here, without being devoured by hideous creatures that look like Brad Pitt?” she asked, too surprised to believe the facts.

“As far as I’ve heard.”

Jeanne squealed. Kayla was smiling widely, too. From the pond emerged a wave, dancing with elation. Now all we had to do is wait for Silver’s only a daughter to save us from a mob of people in a ruined forest.

Why was there a mob anyway?

Sure there was the threat of demons, but why? René was of course involved, but how did he get the demons? Why were the demons helping? I thought demons only… then again René is the incarnation of Satan. I left it at that and peered around the forest, which was more hectic than before. People were hanging around, cowering in shrubs, trees, and inside logs. One particular group of people were unlucky, because by standing beside the entrance, they had the possibility of being trampled by people or run over by cars; a black Volvo to be exact. Luckily these people were dead so when they got run over, they merely cursed a few times and scrambled to a safer position. The driver of the Volvo stepped out and saluted us, smirking at Travis.

“Myst, boy, I’m glad to see you!” Kayla exclaimed, running past Myst and into the car.

“Yes its nice to see you too, Kayla…” Myst stuttered, unsure of what to say over the greeting. “Come on Sarai and Travis… and whoever you are, get in the car.” We weren’t the only ones who had noticed what she had said. If we were to get in the car, the car must be unlocked, being proven by Kayla jumping inside promptly. Crowds of people were forming, waiting on cue for Myst to let her guard down. And Jeanne gave them that chance, accidentally.

“My name is Jeanne, nice to meet you.” Myst and Jeanne met halfway and shook hands. The gang attacked without further word, one person jumped in, and Kayla, terrified, jumped out. Myst spun around, hearing jeers and cheers, and everything in between. She opened the sunroof and waved her hand, and the person inside the car came flying out of the sunroof and back into the crowd. By now, the mob had realized in order for the person to come out of the sun roof, the sun roof must be open, and began crawling into the car via the roof and piling inside, regardless of the fact that the car only would seat five people, and by now, twenty or so had crammed inside. Travis was trying to distract the others, but eventually got backhanded and ended up literally crawling out of the mob and back to us.

Myst swayed from side to side, checking her jacket’s pockets for something. She eventually drew out a short, stubby black stick, swung it around a few times, and the whole crowd disappeared… or more of, migrated to the far side of the clearing, and, like mimes, didn’t seem to be able to get out.

“Get in right now,” she ordered, striding over to the car and getting on the driver’s seat quickly. Travis sat down in the passenger seat, and Kayla, Jeanne and I sat in the back.

“What’d you just do?” Jeanne asked, in awe.

“I have weak magic right now.” Myst admitted, unfazed. “I have stronger magic than others, it’s true, but no strong enough to be able to use it against larger, magical crowds. I have to use a wand to channel magic appropriately. Try it.” Myst handed Jeanne the wand, and she waved it a few times. Nothing happened.

“That’s cheap.” She muttered, handing back the wand.

“Nope, you just don’t have any magic to channel.” Myst corrected, taking the wand back and putting it on the dashboard. “My father wants to see the lot of you- except for you Jeanne, he doesn’t know you- but anyway, he wants to see you all. That means you Sarai, Travis and Kayla. And that boy, Aaron, where is he anyway?”

“Somewhere in the crowd over there.” I sighed, pointing out the window, which was hard, because I was in the middle seat. “I don’t see him, maybe he got out of the forest already.”

“Aw,” Myst sighed, grinning back at me. “You guys are sweethearts, right?”

I didn’t answer, just blushed. I couldn’t believe I was with a boy… a man like Aaron.

“That’s fine, though, he’ll show up sometime. I’ll get Father to track him down for you.” Myst explained, cranking the engine and back out to the forest’s exit, which was now empty because no one was running through, screaming like a mad man, at least not yet, because there were millions of people running to the forest, but they were a fair distance away.

“Well, I for one am glad that Aaron isn’t here.” Travis replied, envy trailing in his voice. “He’s nothing good.”

Myst elbowed him. I retorted, “No! Aaron is sweet and loyal,” Kayla half-heartedly nodded, I continued, glaring at Travis. “Unlike you, can’t you be happy for me?”

“Ah! So you are dating!” Travis sneered, leering back at me.

“Took you a while to figure out what was right under your nose!”

“He’s a liar and a cheat!”

“How do you know?” I grumbled; turning to the window and watching the trees pass by as Myst backed up and turned and headed towards the main city. Travis was quiet for the remainder of the ride, and so was I. He didn’t know how to explain, so he kept quiet. I did too. Kayla and Jeanne obviously got tired of the silence, and began idly chatting, and soon Myst joined in too. The entire time, I had my eyes on Travis, and the girls droned on and on, and could have kept on droning on and on but I couldn’t hear them. They were barely moving beside me, I couldn’t tell what they were doing; all my attention was centered on Travis. There was something about him that had changed… mentality possibly. The car stopped finally, after fifteen minutes, and Myst unlocked the doors and let us out. Travis snapped out of his ‘trance’ and got out too. The others were out by the time I had noticed the car was stopped, even though Kayla, Myst, and Jeanne came out at an orderly pace, keeping the conversation intact. I moped out of the car and into the house.

Aaron wasn’t inside. He wasn’t waiting for me to return, he wasn’t even in the house at all. Silver confirmed this, and knew that Aaron was nowhere near the house at this time. I sighed, heart heavy, and when I was about to leave, Silver stopped me.

“Sarai,” he whispered, his voice wavering. He wiped a tear from my eye. “It’s okay… Aaron’ll be back, it’s not the end of the world, because the world doesn’t revolve around him, ya know? He’s just another… athlete.” He smirked, averagely, and I smiled back, and then Silver let me get out of his lab with no further word, but handed me my instruction booklet, then shoved me in the kindest way possible, up the staircase.

I shuffled out of the room, holding the book tight in my hands, and sat down at a sofa beside Kayla, who was trying to work her magic on a bottle of water, which shook momentarily.

“What’d he tell you?” Kayla asked, looking over at me.

I glanced at her, flipping to the first page in the booklet, after the acknowledgements, and on a sticky note, in Silver’s handwriting, it read: ‘Meet me in my lab at 6 pm; I can help.’

“Meet me in my lab at six pm; I can help.” I repeated, taking off the sticky note and reading the title of the chapter, just to see the obvious: Welcome!

“Yeah, Travis and I got the same sticky note. Silver handed him a strange potion of some sort, and ordered him to drink it when the moon was high in the sky, which is five today, and that Travis will get a strange realization if he does it at the right time, a realization not able to be put in words. All he gave me was a bottle of water and expected me to know what to do.” Kayla muttered, turning back to her water. She paused, then looked at me and questioned, “Should I drink it?”

“Just a sip, maybe.” I nodded, reading the first chapter as thoroughly as possible.

“Mmm…” Kayla licked her lips. “Ice cold plain water. The best I’ve had though.”

I shrugged and looked up. “Does Travis hate me?” I whispered, trying to look emotionless.

“Nope, not at all, but he hates Aaron more, now. Poor Aaron, what’s the matter with him?” Kayla asked, rhetorically.

“That’s good, I need all the friends I can get.” I muttered, turning a page and looking back down at the book. This wasn’t at all interesting. All I had learned was that I would have an easier time reading psych waves if I knew the person better. Might as well try it on Kayla, if I even knew how to localize my abilities!

“For any particular purpose?”

“Yes,” I answered, recalling what Alden had said. “But I shouldn’t tell you yet, not until your more adventurous, and we’re all experts at our powers.”

“Whatever you say, big shot.” Kayla grinned and set the water down again, trying to move the water out of the bottle without piercing the plastic. No avail, the plastic exploded under pressure. Kayla shot up and ran to find a paper towel roll. I offered to help, but she waved me away, wiped up the mess, threw away the paper towels, and went to go find Silver to ask for another bottle of that pure water. Now, back to the most boring manual of all time.

 

Welcome!

 

Welcome to the wonderful world of Psychic aptness. This book, ‘Psychic Powers and You’ is the most advanced informational booklet for you to read at this ‘time’. Chances are, you just figured out you had Psychic powers. Congratulations! You are now part of one of the leading element’s community, first being Darkness of course, because the Master and Mistress of the Spirit World hail from there most of all. First of all, this power comes with responsibility. In knowing how to manipulate all things living, or those who were living at a time, or even those created by the living or once living, you have to first know that person or thing well enough to be able to come in tune with their psych, or life force, for this way psych manipulation shall be the easiest possible. In time, your other abilities will come naturally, and you will be able to manipulate without thinking at all about that person or thing. Yes, if you psych has been built up enough, you shall be able to even, maybe, manipulate Lord Stone himself. Continue to Lesson One.

 

That was the most boring time of my life. And there is the prime example of how monotonous and lame this booklet is. Maybe the lessons would be interesting. I suppose not, but I have no will to read it now. I threw down the book and went to apologize to Travis.

Downstairs, the heating was a lukewarm, and I felt for the light switch with my left hand, zipping up my new jacket that Aaron had given me, and pulled down his beanie, over my ears. The lights flicked on, then quickly flicked off, I sighed with distress then walked down the hallway, down to Travis’s tenement. The door was unlocked. “Hello?” I called into the dim room. Only a lone lamp was on. Travis wasn’t here. I closed the door and hurried out of the hallway, my nose was turning red. I soon entered the living room again.

“Hey, Kayla.” I greeted. Kayla was back with another water bottle, a grin trying to be suppressed on her face. “You got another water bottle?”

“Yeah, this time he told me what to do. He wants me to drink it all, except for a little bit, and put that water in something.”

“But it’s already in something.”

“Exactly,” she nodded. “Something else he told me after I asked. Now I don’t know what. I drank as much as I could, except for one little bit. I wonder…” She got up and grabbed something from her purse.

“What are you trying to do?” I asked, sitting beside her and watching her pull a clear locket, which was completely empty at this point, out of her purse.

“Thank goodness for Mom’s never-ending need for pretty things!” She poured the remainder of the water into the clear locket and put the locket around her neck. “This water will be my life-line. I’ll use it if I ever get in some kind of trouble that I can’t get out of.”

“Such as?” I crossed my arms. “Throw it at them?”

“If that’s a last resort, yes, but otherwise, maybe it’ll give me powers or something! Just like your Medallion!” Kayla grinned and ran her finger over the locket, and I watched the water swish around inside.

“Uh… yeah. Go ahead and believe in that fantasy of yours…” I paused, remembering what I had to ask her. “Where are Travis and Jeanne?”

“Oh, Jeanne went back to the Darkness Temple, but I think Travis is outside with Myst.”

“Hopeless lovers.”

“Aren’t they? I think he better back off though, I heard that she already has a boyfriend, and she and her boyfriend are begging Silver to arrange a marriage between them before Myst turns seventeen, so she can carry on a tradition of some sort. Silver’s on the brink of letting them get married, though. If Myst is so crazy about this guy, then she should avoid getting close to Travis.” Kayla explained. I nodded in a distrait way.

“How do you know so much?” I asked, straightening and standing.

“Oh, well… the Water temple is full of gossipers sometimes, just regular souls who came to the Water temple to swim, and so on. They talk a lot about what’s going on, especially about famous people like Silver’s family.” Kayla answered, shrugging and standing up. “I’m going to take a shower, guard the door to some extent.”

“But… you’re not crashing here… are you?” I asked, unsure.

“I am, I moved in. My mom and dad say I need a change of scenery.” She shrugged and looked away from locket and smiling at me.

“Great! How long though?” I wondered, watching her dust off her jeans.

“Not too long, not too short.” She grinned and looked around for the restroom.

“Well, I’m glad you’re staying.” I nodded towards the bathroom.

“Yeah, me too! This’ll be a lot of fun!” She exclaimed and headed towards the room, shutting then locking the door.

I, on the other hand, headed outside to the courtyard, but Travis and Myst were nowhere in sight. Where else could they be? Another deck, possibly. Where would another deck be? I circled the house, and sure enough, I saw Myst and Travis on a terrace that jutted out of the second story. Making sure not to be noticed too soon, I went back inside, went upstairs, and found French glass doors that led outside to a deck. Myst and Travis were idly chatting. Travis was staring intently at Myst and Myst was fingering a ring on her finger. I ambled over to the doors and swung them open silently. I caught a snippet of their conversation immediately.

“Oh, so you’re dating someone already…” Travis sighed, running a hand through his hair, tensely. “… Who is he?”

“His name is Aiden. He is recently deceased… he works for us, specifically a bodyguard to accompany me. He was my first friend, and my first and only boyfriend, I’m pleading my father to get us married, but he isn’t quick on make decision, especially because this is a pure human boy, no powers or anything, and that could toll some defects if we ever have any children, maybe the child would be blind, maybe deaf or lame, or dumb… as in not being able to speak of course…” Myst muttered, her voice just above a whisper. “Then again this could bring about a very powerful person, because my father was born to a Dusk Elf, who has powers, and a human… a human who later became a Shadow, getting powers and everything… and my uncle, who the whole family, past my grandparent’s generation, figured out was related to us… he doesn’t have any known powers.”

“… That’s great…” Travis whispered, turning around, noticing me. “Sarai… were you listening in the entire time?”

“Actually no, I just got here.” I answered. “I came to say I’m sorry, but I guess I caught you at a bad time.”

“No, it’s fine, apology accepted. See you guys later, I’m going to take a shower.” Travis replied walking closer to the exit.

“Kayla is taking a shower now, you better not.” I told him, and he shrugged.

“I’ll be fine, I have a shower in my tenement.” He grumbled, pushing past me and entering the mansion, stomping downstairs and slamming the door on his way.

“What was all that about?” I asked Myst, who sat down in one of the chairs.

“Travis asked me out. He said if I accepted that we could go to an expensive restaurant. Maybe even double date with Aaron and you, but I didn’t accept. I wanted us to get to know Aaron better, but, I already have a boyfriend, and I love him…” Myst smiled weakly. “I’m used to this though, being ‘Lord Stone’s’ daughter. Most boys find me one of the most beautiful girls ever, and if not, they still want my money. They never really like my personality. Travis liked my personality, but I could tell also that he had a strong lust for me. Aiden’s the same, but Aiden… I don’t know, he just seems more my type.”

“I feel your pain,” I confided.

“Yeah… you better go inside. It’s almost lunchtime. I’ll fix you all something. I got to hone my cooking skills if I want to be married.” Myst grinned, stronger. She stood up. “Thanks for being my friend, Sarai, boys can be crazy.”

“I know!” I exclaimed, walking with her into the house. “Aaron is so moody, and I’ve only known him for a day and he’s already saying he loves me.”

“He’s a good guy. I’ve only gotten to talk to him once, and it wasn’t a long talk either, he complimented my powers, I said thank you, he asked where you were, and I didn’t know, so he went off to look for you on his own.” She explained. “I didn’t even know if I should say thank you, because he had never seen my powers.”

“Oh well,” I rolled my eyes. “Aaron’s too secretive.”

“He shouldn’t be to you.” Myst told me.

“He’s not all that secretive to me, but otherwise, he barely speaks to anyone.”

“Maybe he’s just shy.” Myst offered, as we went down the spiral staircase.

“I guess,” I concluded. “But that still doesn’t explain why he loves me! I mean, I like him too, he’s attractive and all but…” my voice trailed off unintentionally.

“But what? He can love you. Just like if you try some really good food that you’ve never had in your life and you say ‘I love this!’” Myst responded.

“So he doesn’t mean it?” I sibilated, touching the jacket and rubbing the beanie.

“Not necessarily.” Was all Myst could say. “I don’t know.”

“Myst,” I said, rationally. “He seems so honest.”

“Don’t…” Myst didn’t finish. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything.” We entered the kitchen, but I didn’t remember going through the living room.

“It’s okay. You have Psychic powers. Where is Aaron?”

“I told you I don’t have strong magic.” She got out some bread from the pantry, and some meat from the fridge.  “Ham, Turkey, Corn beef, Steak-”

“No, you told us you have weak magic.” I grinned widely. “Um, steak?”

“Yeah me too.” Myst put the steak near the microwave. “Hot or cold?”

“I guess just heat the meat for um… thirty seconds.”

“That’s the best way, isn’t it?” Myst smiled and put the meat on a plate and put it in the microwave. She turned back to me. “You love Aaron don’t you?”

That was a little late. We were talking about Aaron, then talking about sandwiches, now Aaron again? “No, I don’t love him.”

“You like him a lot?”

“Yeah,”

“You’re sure you don’t love him?” Myst asked, suspicious, she even added the raising of an eyebrow.

I was about to answer ‘No’ but the microwave finished heating the meat. I didn’t answer. Myst just smiled wider. Instead, I changed the conversation. “So, demons, right?”

Myst frowned and turned to the microwave, took out the meat, and put it out to cool. It was far too warm, obviously. “Yes, demons, René seems to be an activist on their territory, maybe he made a few friends there and eventually… you know the rest.”

“Why just demons?”

“Well, I heard that the Shadows have sworn oath to father as of today.” Myst smiled warmly. “And the spirits aren’t considered, really. Angels don’t like fighting, so there.” She put together a sandwich and put it on a plate, then handed it to me.

I bit into the sandwich and swallowed. “Good stuff,” I took another bite.

“Yeah, I know, the best meat comes from the Darkness Temple, they hunt a lot. This came from their pure-bred cattle.” Myst pressed the intercom and called into it, “LUNCH IS READY!”

Kayla came in fairly quickly, in some new clothes. She had moved in for sure. Next, Claire came in, dripping with rainwater from the short ‘drizzle’ outside, her coat wrinkled, and letters in hand. Silver came rushing in afterwards, and covered Claire in a blanket and carried Claire into bedroom, and brought both of their lunches in and slammed the door behind him. Travis came last, ate his sandwich in a bite, grabbed another one, and headed straight downstairs afterwards.

“Where’s Talos?” I asked, through bites of sandwich.

“Wherever he always is.” Myst answered, preparing her own sandwich and sitting beside me.

“Which is?” Kayla wondered, finishing her first sandwich and starting on her second.

“Wherever his girlfriend is.” Myst shrugged.

“Whom?” Kayla and I inquired.

“Ophelia,” Myst said flatly.

“And?”

“She’s a real idiot.” Myst grumbled.

“Where?”

“Wherever her friends are.” Myst’s voice lightened.

“And…?”

“Wherever their boyfriends or girlfriends are.” Myst yawned.

“Which is?”

“Parties.”

“Where?”

“Bars and houses. Sometimes run down hospitals.” Myst seemed to search for an answer briefly. “That’s all I know of.”

‘Well, that’s good, because that answers all my questions.” I shrugged and headed for the dishwasher. I put my plate in and stretched until my back popped.

“Yeah, same here.” Kayla stood up too, and put her plate in the dishwasher, also.

“Hey don’t leave!” Myst was only starting her first sandwich.

“Heck no, I’m not leaving until I get dessert…” I sat down at my seat.

“What do we have for dessert, Myst?” Kayla asked, searching the freezer, scratching her head. “Nothing in here.”

“Check the cabinets, we might have some chocolate bars. Mom and Dad usually keep some. They like to feed it to each other. It’s a sick process, but it’s good chocolate… bars… Really good actually, try it. They can restock easily, it’s magical chocolate … after all, as in created by magic, and the darkness temple loves chocolate candies, so they have a lot.” Myst finished her sandwich and started on her second one. “Yum, two sandwiches are a lot but who cares… yum…”

I searched the cabinets high and low, but never saw any chocolate sweets. “They must have eaten it all.”

“They probably did. If not them, Talos and some of his friends found them. Or maybe Talos alone ate them all.” Myst shrugged and finished her second sandwich, then put her plate in the dishwasher. “I’m not going to worry about turning this on.”

“Oh well. So what time is it?” I forgot that I didn’t have a watch or a cell phone. Kayla had one, but she didn’t use it much.

“Around twelve,” Myst said, checking her watch. At least she had one. “Dad told me about the five-o’clock thing. Sorry, you’ll have to wait another few hours.”

“Aw, that sucks. I’m going to wait it out. Bye.” I stood up and headed downstairs without another word, (Probably seeming bipolar) and to my tenement, ignoring the excessively cold air. I flopped on the bed, mind awry, but as soon as before, I drifted off into a deep, dreamless sleep.

 

      * * * * * * * *

 

 

Someone nudged me.

My mind shot into full-awareness a bit too quickly, and the shock from someone getting near me was so sensational, that I flew up from the pillows.

Who just nudged me?

“Sarai, get up.” They poked me harder this time and I spun to face them, obviously too fast for their liking, and they flinched.

No one I knew.

At first at least, then I knew exactly who. Travis stood beside the bed, eyes begging to be shut.

Wasn’t I angry with this guy? Or was he angry with me?

To be right to the point, I didn’t care. I was dizzy from sleep, and rather disoriented. “Hey… uh… Travis, what time is it? How long was I asleep?”

“It’s almost five. You were asleep for about six hours.” Travis answered, kneeling and putting his head on the bed, sleepily.

Five? Wasn’t something supposed to happen at five?

My mind was full of unanswered questions. I had woken up to early. I rubbed my head and sat up, absently. “Oh, Travis, why can’t I think straight?” I kept on repeating his name in my mind so I wouldn’t forget it.

Was Travis the one who loves me?

“You’re dysfunctional. I should have let you sleep longer. I’m sorry.” He stood up again and offered a hand.

Does he always do that? There is someone who does that but I just can’t put my finger on it…

I stared at his hand blankly for a few moments, and eventually took it. My mind went dry for a moment, my head throbbed, and I felt sick at the stomach. My hand automatically flew to one especially painful spot, right in the center of my torso. A bump. What was a bump doing there?

When my mind went racing again, my head stopped throbbing, and the sickness passed, I remembered everything that had just recently happened. Ironic, isn’t it? My Medallion… it must have something to do with this. It must have been configuring my mind or whatever Alden said. I wonder what I knew how to do now.

“Are you okay?”

Of course we’re okay!

Wait, back up a half a second; I didn’t think that. I hit myself on the forehead. “Yeah, I’m okay now. I just was feeling weird a moment ago. I’ll be fine. So, Silver needs us?”

I don’t know why, he’s stronger than you.

Shut up, Medallion, or I swear I’ll cut myself open and pull you out.

You can’t do that.

You wanna bet? You’re just a necklace!

… I beg to differ…

Alright, I’ll give you one more chance.

Okay, okay, I’ll let you live your mortal life until I’m stronger, don’t fall asleep too quickly, Sarai…

I found myself feeling even worse than before, although I was only shocked. What had just happened? Was the Medallion communicating with me? That’s impossible! Was I going crazy? That’s probably the so. Besides that, I had missed all that Travis had said, and he had begun to drag me out the door, with me instinctively following.

“Travis, let go, I’m oriented again.” I grunted, struggling now, as we walked through the hallways at a slow pace.

“I don’t believe you.” Travis grinned. “You might jump out the window.”

“Hmm? Really now…? If you don’t let me go, I’ll make us both jump out the window.” I smirked, and he frowned. “It’ll be good, friendly bonding.” He sighed and released me.

“Oh whatever, suicidal.” He grunted, raising an eyebrow and smiling again. “Are you sure you’re still not delusional?”

“Positive.” I walked past him and up the short steps, opened the door to the living room and stepped through. Kayla was still fiddling with her locket, staring into it and then briefly looking up at a pitcher of water. “Hey Kayla! Come on, it’s almost five!”

“Oh, cool.” Kayla stood up, careful not to tip the pitcher. “So, to the lab!”

“Yep,” Travis answered, walking past me and opening a door then climbing down the stairs ahead.

“Well after you.” Kayla was staring at her locket again. How obsessed is she? What makes that locket better than my Medallion? I turned to the staircase. I wonder what Silver was plotting. Was he going to steal my Medallion? I wouldn’t let him do that. And then I heard a faint chuckling in the back of my head. I knew what was happening. The Medallion wasn’t as smart as it acted! I dismissed the almost maniacal chortling way back in my mind and proceeded down the staircase, the still trancelike Kayla trailing behind me.

“Took you long enough.” Silver called up, as soon as he even cared to notice us. “I’ve been waiting for five minutes.”

“You’re so impatient.” I strode in front of him and smiled kindly. He spun me around and gave me a noogie. Although I would normally attack whoever had given me a noogie with my Kung-fu action skills, I knew this was a gesture of affection in Silver’s mind state.

“Alright, this is your first out of many- I guess- lessons you will have from me. First, we will have a preemptive ‘test’ that I like to-”

“Hey Dad,” Myst came down the stairs, gently pushing Kayla to the side and jogging over to her father. “Can I train with you guys?”

“Be my guest, it’s not you can make this ‘friendly’ training event I have allowed these morons.” Silver shrugged. Myst waved at me and walked to my side. “Kayla get over here, we don’t have all day! Stop staring at that stupid locket! Don’t make me use it against you!” He waved her over and walked over to a pedestal, slamming the mallet as if Kayla had defied his order by not moving immediately.

“So, you were saying?” Travis wondered.

Silver let out a big sigh and sat down at a stool. “Well, I have this plan. I will figure out your specific powers and the extent of your powers, what you can do especially. Then we’ll build up from there.”

“And the test?” Kayla chirped, pocketing her locket to keep from staring at it too much.

“Glad you could join us.” I muttered as she took her place beside me, in between Travis and I.

“I like to call it the all or nothing test. If you don’t pass it, you don’t have any powers, and I can’t train you.” Silver fished something out of his pocket.

“What’s that?” I asked, as he placed it on the table.

“Frankly, I don’t know. I don’t have a name for it.” Silver shrugged.

“Yeah, he used it on me the first time I trained with him, a few years ago, and it didn’t have a name then either.” Myst replied, nodding.

“Well ‘duh.” I rolled my eyes.

“What is it? I can’t see it!” Travis’s eyes are still bad.

“It’s right in front of you dipstick!” he shoved the item in front of Travis.

“Dude, you’re holding air.” Travis frowned and turned away.

“No, the cone is in Silver’s hands!” I exclaimed, taking the cone and showing it to Travis, even putting it in his hand. The cone fell right through. I caught it and gave it back to Silver. “What’s wrong with you?”

“I’m normal.” Travis winked at me and headed upstairs. I rolled my eyes and shook my head vigorously.

“Well, that didn’t work out well.” Kayla blew out some air as Silver handed her the cone. “What am I supposed to do with this?” The cone opened, so it was now in the shape of a star.

“I think you should know.” Silver leaned on the table, arms crossed. He smirked as Kayla scowled at the star on her hand. “What do you think you should do?”

“Stare at it.” Kayla glanced up and her frown deepened. “Myst, what should I do?”

“I don’t remember doing anything. Dad just took it back.” Myst shrugged and stretched, heading over to a lab chair and sitting down.

“Well, you remembered right,” Silver took the cone back and it went back to its original form quickly. He glanced at it and marked something down, and he handed it to me next.

As I stared at the star that formed on my hand, Kayla chimed, “What was that supposed to do?”

“Um, it’s supposed to tell the extent of your powers.” Silver took the star back, and it became a cone again. “See, it has a gauge.” He pointed to a gauge as he stared at it. “That can’t be right.” He marked down the results anyway, though.

“So what’s my extent?” Kayla took the paper and looked eagerly at the results. “A fourteen?”

“It’s a scale from one twenty, one being the highest score.” Silver put the cone in his palm and the gauge dropped down completely. “I have a one.” He smirked.

“I have a six!” Myst grinned, spinning in the chair.

“What do I have?” I took the paper from Kayla’s hands. “A zero? I’m that bad?”

“That good.” Silver corrected me, taking back the paper. “I’ve figured it out. It’s not abnormal.”

“What’s the matter with me?” I asked.

“Nothing. The Medallion was created by people much more powerful than me. Without it, you’d be, I’d say,” he grabbed my arm and felt my pulse. “Quick pulse… I’d say you’d have a fourteen, too.”

“I thought that meant that I had more body fat.” I grumbled.

“Not necessarily.” Silver said absently, marking down results. “The good news is that you can both train together. And these are fairly easy to learn elements. Did you read your manual?” He pointed at me.

“Yeah, only the first page. It bores me.” I yawned for emphasis.

“It should. I read the lessons; they are bogus too. I’ve got shortcuts, and easy ones too.” He turned to Myst. “Don’t you remember Psychic training?”

“I remember everything. I learned a fairly complex spell it a day.” She nodded, still spinning, making all of us in the room dizzy.

“Yes.” Silver turned away.

“I thought you said your magic was weak.” Kayla wondered, staring Myst down.

“I did. It is weak. I know how make it work, but I can’t control it very well.” Myst answered and stopped spinning.

“Which isn’t technically weak.” I looked away too.

“This is true, this is true.” Myst nodded, spinning again.

“When does the lesson start?” I asked, impatiently, turning to Silver.

“Soon enough.” Silver was marking down things, occasionally glancing up as if the ceiling held the answers. He finally dropped his pen. “Okay.”

“Okay?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Okay.” Silver nodded.

“We’re going to start the lesson?” Kayla inquired.

“Yes.” Silver paused. “What else?” He glared at us all, then stepped out from behind the pedestal.

We all stared at him for the longest time, except for Myst who was still spinning around like a crazy person.

“I have found your specific powers.” Silver finally said. “And now I shall teach you the easiest. Also known as, the trick just learned by a slacker who wants to amaze his friends.” He took his papers from off the pedestal.

“Her friends.” Kayla corrected, smiling smartly.

“Oh, you two are both girls? I thought you were just gay guys. My bad.” Silver smirked (which earned him a punch in the stomach) and handed us both a sheet of paper. I took one glance at it, and then put it in my pocket.

“So let’s get to the lesson.” I declared, as Kayla scanned the sheet of paper, and then pocketed it also.

“Okay…” Silver’s cell phone rang. “Not okay. I’ve got a text message from Claire… what does it say? I’m not in the right clothes to come down there and tell you this…” he looked confused then continued, “And I don’t think I want to telepathically ask you either because that way someone might look into our conversation… Do you want to…?” Silver paused and scrolled down, then grinned widely. “Hey, kids, I’ve got to go, don’t go into the master bedroom.” He began texting wildly, exiting the lab.

“That was a waste of my time.” Myst and I said in unison. Myst shrugged and headed for the exit also, Kayla following soon after, in a trance again because she had retrieved her locket again. I sighed and went to my tenement to brood.

The Pillaging Chapter 11-12

Chapter 11: Life Worth Living

“Hey I’m back!” I shouted to the seemingly deserted house. It was almost seven o’clock, since I had stopped in the Psychic Metropolis and got a handbook how to use Psychic powers. I didn’t feel learning how to use my powers on my own. It was a bit different on Kayla’s account.
Silence. Utter silence. But then there was a shout from one of the rooms nearby, from behind a closed door. “Sarai!” exclaimed Aaron’s voice. “I’m going to open the door, come and see our room!’”
“Ok, Aaron.” I unzipped his jacket that he had given me and followed the sound of his voice.
“Do you see the door beside the picture of the angel with the black wings and a sword in one hand and a rose in the other?” asked Aaron’s voice, nearer this time.
I answered, “Yeah, is that the door to our room?” Stopping in front of the picture, which seemed to in fact be a photo of a man resembling the light version of Silver, except with pitch black wings, which was not correct to me, since Light Silver didn’t seem to admire the color black at all, although his hair was a raven color.
“No, it’s a hallway.” Aaron’s voice replied. “Open it and I’ll tell you which door leads to our room.”
“Why can’t you just come out of our room and help?” I questioned, opening the door.
“I’m lazy… and I’m busy doing something. Are you in the hallway?”
“Yeah,” I answered, hazily.
“You are?”
“Yep, I’m in the hallway. Which door?” I replied, louder.
“Third on the left, the wooden door with a silver doorknob, and a blue wool rug in front of the door. It should be unlocked, if not, there’s a key under the rug.” Aaron explained.
I tried the doorknob. The door came open easily. I saw Aaron sitting in a leather chair, holding the baton in his left hand and a book in his right. All around him, there were stacks of books. “Well, you can read but you can’t help your girlfriend.” I sighed, crossing my arms and smiling thoughtfully.
Aaron looked up and smiled a youthful smile, setting the book down beside him. He outstretched his arms, expecting a hug.
I blew out some air, still smiling slightly, and walked over to him and embraced him. “I like hugs too.” He muttered in my ear, helping me into his lap. I smiled warmly. I loved being loved. I think I have found someone who could love me no matter what… and I’m sure that I won’t be like the people in comic books, video games, narratives, and movies. I won’t care about what the person who loves me does or looks like, I just care about if he’s the man whose personality compliments mine.
“Bookworm?” I asked, as he picked up his book again and began to read. “You don’t look like one.”
He shrugged and handed me the baton so that he would have an easier time reading the heavy book. I looked at the baton, a metallic rod with gems of every color, representing all the temples. “I’m not really, I only read when I have to.” He explained. “I’m reading up on the baton so that I can figure out what I- I mean René, can do with it.”
“You’re going to try to use it too…” I muttered, anticipating another stutter from my boyfriend.
“Well,” he paused, deep in thought about whether he should continue. “If I can.” He quickly began reading again, regretting ever saying anything.
I looked at the book he was reading. It showed how to put the Medallion and Baton together to form a Demonic type of Scepter that wields extremely powerful dark magic, surpassing any other form, and commanding legions of extremely powerful Shadows and other unmentionable demon creatures, which have long been banished.
“So that baton commands all the elements to equal proportions, as powerful as anyone with any of those powers.”
“Right. René is probably seeking for the power to command all forces, and he will definitely start it with the power to wield chaos to the maximum… then he will take the opposite, the treasure of the Elysium Fields, and combine them so that he is the ruler of all. Almost equal to God himself.” Explained Aaron, nodding. “I wonder where this Medallion is…”
I smiled to myself, realizing I hadn’t told him that the Medallion was right in front of him. Should I trust him enough to tell him? Suppose he were to be questioned by René after being captured. I might as well tell him, get the information out, and make him swear not to tell anyone.
“Aaron…” I muttered leaning onto his shoulder. He looked up and kissed my right cheek.
“Yes?” he asked, laying his head on my shoulder.
“You must swear not to tell anyone what I’m about to tell you.”
“Ok.”
“Swear?”
“Swear.”
I sighed and began, “I know where the Medallion is.”
“Really? Where?” he questioned, getting excited and looking up from my shoulder.
I continued, pointing to my tummy. “Right here.”
“You ate it, you’re giving a metaphor, or you’re wearing it?”
“I’m wearing it. It… it… got embedded in my skin. “
“Let me see,” Aaron said, lifting up my shirt slightly, only enough to see the Medallion hanging a good four-and-a-half inches above my belly button. “Ouch. Just wait until it starts to rust, then it’ll be painful.” He motioned towards my neck.
“Lovely. Thanks again for the great prediction.” I rolled my eyes and lowered my shirt again. Aaron withdrew his hand from the Medallion and scratched his head.
“It doesn’t seem to be that hooked. With strong enough magic, you could remove it… hopefully. But, it would have to be the Elysium Fields treasure, for it to be effective. There might be another way… there must be a book on this Medallion.” He threw the book he was holding into a pile and grabbed through one stack until he found a large, black book.
While he was flipping through the pages, I explained to him, softly, “… The Shadows that took it out of my head…”
“It was in your head?” Aaron asked, astonished. “How’d it get in there?”
“René used me as a sacrifice. Anyways, let me continue.” Aaron nodded and let me explain further. “The Shadows that took the Medallion out of my head told that if I were to put the Medallion on, I was to get a great deal of chaos magic, which could be useful against René. Also, with the Medallion on, René could never get it.”
“Unless he killed you.” Aaron corrected. “Besides, why believe the Shadows anyway…? I mean they’re tricky little pricks.”
“Yes, but these have been trained not to be that way.”
“Humph, well that’s like telling me not to have my feelings for you.”
I smiled gently and kissed his pale cheek. “Not the point. I believe these guys. I think they would be helpful to the chosen user of this Medallion.”
“I see! The chosen user… you’re the only one who can make it work?”
“That’s right. Everyone else who tries to use it fails and gets damaged by it badly.”
“You call that a small wound?” Aaron gestured to my stomach.
I shrugged, “I’ve been harmed there before.”
Aaron made a sad face and kissed my stomach. I smirked and chuckled, raising his head and kissing his soft lips, quickly but passionately. “I guess you’re the chosen user of this Baton, since it didn’t harm you in any way.”
“You’re right!” he smirked.
Silence.
“So, Aaron, when you first saw me, was it love at first sight? Since we’ve only known each other for a day we’re already dating…”
“I guess it was, Sarai, I guess it was.” He nodded, looking at me gently. “I hope that… I hope that you’ll love me someday.”
“I… really like you Aaron, but I’m not ready to love yet. I’m too young.”
“I’m young too. Go ahead and say it. You know you want to. Deep down in your mind you know you love me.” It sounded like he was joking at first, but then I knew that he wasn’t bluffing. He was dead serious.
And I admit… deep down somewhere I did love him. Elsewhere, I was incredibly suspicious about his now yellow eyes. Perhaps René possessed him, and René was spying on my friends and I, getting information as Aaron. Perhaps the lighting was still odd. Whatever was happening, Aaron was being very smooth. The least bit like René.
“… Yes, deep down inside of me I do love you.” I mumbled. “But I’m still too young and not quite mentally prepared.”
“I understand. But I still love you, Sarai, I truly do. Aaron Arthur Way absolutely loves Sarai Faulk.” Aaron nuzzled my neck, softly.
“Do you promise to always love me?”
“Of course!” he hugged me tightly. “I’d promise one hundred times. I promise I’ll always love you.”
“Well then…” I couldn’t help but to smile. “When I’m a bit older, I promise to always love you too.” We both embraced each other, almost weeping tears of love.
There was a long silence. Aaron’s warm, inviting arms were tightened against me, his head rested on my right shoulder and my head on his right shoulder. It was all I needed for company. “C’mon, I’m tired…” Aaron finally said, releasing his embrace and helping me up. “I wanna go to bed. You need sleep.” I scrambled out of his arms and ran wherever I could.
“I don’t want to go to sleep!” I called back, Aaron close behind.
“Get over here!” he shouted to me, grabbing me in a hug. “Gotcha! …I’m sorry Ms. Faulk but it’s high time you be getting to the big house.”
“Without dinner?” I pouted, walking with him.
He smirked and replied; “Don’t worry about that! I’ll fix a huge breakfast. Hope you like smoothies. Lots of smoothies.” We both grinned. We walked out of the small library and into an open room with two large windows. This was only part of our section of the house. With our section came a bedroom, a library, a living space, and a bathroom, all to keep us occupied so that Silver and Claire wouldn’t be pestered by us. The bedroom looked cozy. There were two large beds, both with one side to the wall. They came with comfy soft textured covers and blankets, with plump pillows that you could sink into. The mattresses were full of cotton and you could sink into them too.
I walked over and chose my bed, the one with the softest looking covers. I kicked off my shoes, and Aaron tucked me in and kissed me gently on the forehead, then the lips. “I’ll see you in the morning, Miss Medallion.” He noted, with a high, cheerful voice. His eyes weren’t back to normal. But, His disposition seemed the same silly one as usual, and his voice didn’t seem forced or regretful. Could he have been possessed? It wouldn’t hurt to be a bit suspicious. At least I knew that he did love me… then again I also knew that René loved me too. I was too tired to come up with an excuse. Boy, it was going to be a long few months.
I sunk into the bed, ready for sweet dreams as Aaron turned off the light and jumped into his bed. We hadn’t changed out of our casual clothes, but it still seemed right. It was a perfect night, even with the occasional lightning and thunder outside. I fell asleep easily and quickly, right after Aaron whispered, “I love you Sarai…”

* * * * * * * *

There was a yell, something along the lines of a punch and the shatter of glass, a thud and a louder yell. It wasn’t thunder. I turned on my right side to get out of bed, and was a bit surprised to see Aaron snoozing beside me, his jeans rubbing against my leg as he dreamt. His arms were around my waist. I didn’t want to think of what he was dreaming of, with his somewhat perverted mind.
I crawled out of bed, careful not to wake him. My shirt and jeans were wrinkled from tossing and turning in dream. Ignoring my clothing, I decided to try and find the source of the fighting. It seemed to be coming from the floor above.
Sleepily, I found my way out of Aaron and my section of Silver’s house. Travis’s section’s door was open, and I could see Travis asleep in front of the television, which was flashing random colors.
I walked through the lower floor, climbed the wooden steps, and carefully examined the second floor of the house. Myst’s room’s lights were out and all was silent from inside, so I passed her room. Continuing down the hallway, I found Talos’s room was completely lit and Talos sat with a bat in front of him on the bed. The window was broken; there was a trail of black blood leading to it.
“What happened in here?” I asked, stifling a yawn. I approached the window and looked out. There was a huge spot of blood on the grass and cobblestone path below.
“Yes, what happened?” asked a dark voice from behind. Silver stood, arms crossed, staring straight at Talos. Silver was only in his boxers, his hair dangling over his eyes, smoothed and limp. Silver was hiding an explosion of rage, as I could tell by his body language. It was the same body language he had used when we almost missed the portal in front of a well.
Talos looked up, unwilling to explain, but replied quietly, “Oh… a Shadow was in the house, trying to find an exit. He had a Baton in hand… I beat him up and he threw himself out the window and made a run for it, forgetting the Baton.” Talos handed his father the Baton that Aaron had once had in his possession. René had possessed Aaron! He had stolen the Baton, but Talos had gotten it back! Now it was in Silver’s hands. This wouldn’t be good.
Silver studied the Baton for a moment and then growled, lowly, “I knew that Aaron kid was trouble. He brought a Shadow into the house and stole the Baton from the Harmony Temple! Well you know what I ought to do? I should-”
I quickly interrupted, “No! He got the Baton back from René who had stolen it originally. René must have possessed Aaron in the car explosion and gotten back the Baton temporarily, but Talos got him out of the house, and recovered the Baton. Aaron is the true chosen user to the Baton, and it is best kept in his hands.”
“In that case, good job Talos, you let one of the most evil men in the entire Spirit World get away.” Silver tossed the Baton to me. “Give this to Aaron, tell him that he’ll need to see me later, I’m going to chase René and when I get back, you’ve got a lot of explaining to do.” He jumped out the window himself, landing gracefully on the grass below.
I turned to Talos, who had just fallen asleep, baseball bat in hand. “That’s right, rest up, because you’re going to have to fix that window of yours.” I said, mimicking what Silver would have said.
I walked out of the room and continued down the long hallway, down the steps, and decided that I should go and pay Travis a visit to see what’s up with him. Entering his dark room, I sat down beside him on the sofa, where he was asleep. The TV came to life after a few seconds of waiting, and it was now showing pay-per-view shows. Travis stirred in his sleep and looked over to where I was sitting, watching something in Spanish.
“… Sarai?” he yawned, rubbing his eyes. “What are you doing here?”
“Watching a Spanish infomercial. Dig?” I asked, not looking at him. “… No I’m kidding. I’m just here check up on you.”
He sat up and began flipping through channels, running a hand through his hair. “I’m good. I fell asleep after watching a show on Professional Air Hockey Players.”
“Wow. The Spirit World is pretty pathetic.” I replied, watching him nod. A picture of René appeared on the News channel, briefly, but Travis changed the channel. “Hey, switch back to the News channel! I just saw René!”
Travis sighed shallowly and flipped back to News channel. They looked pretty deep into having an interview with that punk rocker, Dark Fire. “Just a re-run. I’ve seen this interview ten times. You were hallucinating.”
I frowned and snatched the remote and began rapidly hitting the channel up button. The TV did the average flickering stuff, but whenever it turned black briefly, you could see René smirking. Clicking faster and faster, I could hear that René was trying to say something about the Medallion.
The light switched on the TV went dark. Silver stood in the doorway, panting. “… He got away.” He muttered. “Now, Sarai, tell me what you know about this Baton, and if you know anything about the other treasures.”
“What treasures?” Travis asked, excited.
“None of your business, Travis. Go play professional air hockey and get lost.” Silver hissed. Travis shrugged and went into the bedroom to catch up on his sleep.
“Well, Silver, I know that the Baton has the equivalent of power as anyone in this world, except it has all of the element’s powers.” I paused. Silver nodded as an answer. “And I know that the Medallion that René also wants is mine.” Silver didn’t nod his head.
“How do you know it’s yours?” he questioned. “… You don’t have the aura of a soul any longer, but your aura reeks of chaos… you’re wearing the Medallion.” He frowned. “Do you want it off so I can put it in a safe area? That’s rhetorical… I’m taking it anyway. With your mindless antics René could easily reach you and steal the Medallion.”
“… Mindless antics? Well now that you have deemed me mindless, I, as any other person would, feel that I have to prove I’m responsible!” I retaliated, crossing my arms. “… But it would be nice if I could take it off, since it’s melted into my skin and all…”
Silver sighed, impatiently. “Ok, whatever. Typical mortal… Fine, we’ll go and search Elysium Fields. If you’re coming, get on some shoes. We’ve got to go before René recovers. I’ll bring Claire, you bring someone to keep you company because I’m not talking to you otherwise.”
“Why are you being so nice to let me come?” I asked, smiling weakly.
“Because if I’m not friendly to you then that Medallion will have my head.” Silver muttered, stomping out of the room. I exited the room also, and entered Aaron and my section. Finding my way into the bedroom, where Aaron was still asleep in my bed, I turned on the light, and began searching for my shoes. Aaron yawned and sat up in bed.
“Hey lollipop,” he said with a smile. “I’m glad you let me sleep in your bed.” I didn’t recall.
“Not a problem.” I returned the smile and sat down beside him on the bed, putting on my shoes. “Get your shoes on we’ve got to go with Silver and Claire somewhere.”
“A lovers convention?” he chuckled and wrapped his arms around me and kissed the back of my neck. “I thought you aren’t ready to love me yet.”
“I think what I’m feeling is love, but I’m still so young… and we’re not going to a convention. We’re going to try to get this Medallion off of me. We’re going to Elysium Fields. Silver said I should bring a friend so I chose you, my boyfriend.”
“Oh sweet! … Where are my shoes?” Aaron jumped from the bed, ran into the library and came back with his shoes on. It was nice to see him excited, but I rather have Kayla rather than him, I haven’t known him forever and I don’t feel comfortable around him. Kayla and I have been best friends since fifth grade, and we joke and all that stuff. “C’mon hurry up!”
He helped me up and held my hand, rushing through the hallways at top speed. We found Silver and Claire coming out of the stairwell and Aaron stopped as well as he could, but I accidentally ran into him anyway.
“Ha-ha! If you don’t read your lover’s reactions, then your relationship is destined to bad luck.” Silver snickered, his average evil smirk plastered on his face. Behind him, Claire rolled her eyes impatiently and put her index finger to her head like a pistol, sticking out her tongue. Silver glanced back to Claire, confused, and Claire was quick to put her index finger down before he could see.
Aaron and I chuckled, and Silver sighed and turned back, his eyes averted. “Ok, we better get going. Claire knows the way to Elysium Fields.”
“Wait, will this be long? I’m hungry.” Aaron yawned and stretched.
“We didn’t have dinner.”
“Well, whose fault is that?” Silver hissed, crossed his arms and turned away.
“Silver,” Claire mentioned. “Don’t be immature.” Silver turned back to her, biting his right hand’s fingernails, and with his left hand he was holding his right arm’s elbow. He didn’t look very patient. He swung his arms around and eventually worded out ‘What?’ in body language. Claire smiled, looked down, and embraced her husband, who grinned ear-to-ear, resting his head on her shoulder.
“Ok people, let’s go. Claire, can we get something for the road?” I interrupted, watching Aaron rub his tummy.
“Yeah, not a problem, fine by me.” Claire nodded, trying her best to head for the door, but Silver had an iron grip around her, hugging her tightly, smiling a huge smile.
I beckoned for Aaron to follow me into the kitchen that was in this downstairs area. Opening the fridge, Aaron and I grabbed a drink and some left over pizza. Silver and Claire were out of the door and standing on the porch by the time we closed the door.
Walking outside, I could see snow flying from the sky. The rainy season had ended. Now winter had already come. Aaron, wearing his regular hat seemed all right with the weather, and was happily munching on the cold pizza. I sipped the Sprite I had grabbed. The sunrise wasn’t much longer from now. “Ok, so we go straight through the forest, circle around the Spirit World, end up somewhere near Harmony Temple and the Light Temple, and that place in between is where Elysium Fields are?” Silver was droning out in the background.
Claire nodded, keeping close to Silver to keep warm in the chilly weather. Silver only smiled and put his arm around her shoulder, his hands turning an orange color, probably from slightly using fire.
“C’mon guys, let’s get moving.” Aaron clapped his hands together and Silver and Claire just sighed and rolled their eyes, now holding hands and walking down the porch steps and through the courtyard.
Aaron held my hand and we began walking down the porch steps ourselves. As soon as all of us were out of the courtyard, we continued through the forest that I had walked through my first day in the Spirit World, and met Kostya and Myst.
The snow got deeper, the night seemed longer, and the sun had disappeared into nothingness all before we reached a log cabin on the outer edge of the forest. My jeans were soaked from the thick snow, Aaron was looking more cold than I was, hugging close to me to keep warm, and Claire was shivering, so Silver had picked her up was now carrying her through the forest.
And that was about the time Aaron exclaimed, “I can’t take it anymore! I seriously need to pee! Move! I’m breaking into the house!” He rocketed towards the log cabin, leaving me confused.
“No need,” Silver dismissed, waving his free hand. “That’s my brother’s cabin. I have a spare key. Besides, he might have some hot chocolate, eh love?” he smirked down at Claire who grinned.
Not getting the inside joke, I ran towards the cabin myself. Silver took his time getting to where we were, but hastily got a rusty key out of his jean pockets and unlocked the door.
The entire cabin was pitch black. I couldn’t see anything except for the floor in front of me, which was illuminated by the dawn. Silver yawned and set Claire down on a chair that he obviously could see, him being this freaky creature, half elf half vampire. He turned on a lamp and we could see the entire modern cabin, which had a fire place, a full kitchen, a small TV, a few chairs, a table, a lot of paintings and photos hanging on walls and sitting on coffee table, and a single three seat couch, where a really cute looking young man was snoring, all in this lobby area. Aaron ran to find the bathroom.
“My brother’s a heavy sleeper, really heavy in fact. He slept through a fire, a lot of screaming, and troops marching through a thick forest, yelling out instructions. He’s an idiot. He always has been, and a real goody-two shoe. Pfft.” Silver muttered, walking over to his brother and yelling in his ear, “SUCK UP!”. Silver was the loudest person I’ve ever met, so when he’s at his loudest, he brings the house down.
Silver’s brother didn’t make any motion, only snored a bit louder and rubbed his nose. Silver rolled his eyes and started towards the kitchen, taking out some hot chocolate mix and a few cookies. Aaron came back, relieved.
Claire sighed and explained, “Silver, he’s not all that bad. He’s actually really honest, caring, and loyal.”
Silver looked offended, “What, am I not all that and more to you?”
“That’s the problem, ‘to me’. Silver, the truth hurts, but you’re really a jerk around everyone else.”
“Ok, tell me, Claire, what’s up.” Silver said firmly, setting down the supplies and sitting in a chair beside Claire’s.
Claire sighed and beckoned for him to listen closer. She leaned in and whispered something in his ear. Silver nodded understandingly, withdrawing. She shook her head and beckoned him back, hastily, but grinning. She whispered something else in his ear, and he smirked, and made a silent chuckle, sort of like a short respiration, so it sounded like he was just breathing out a ‘Ha!’. Claire leaned back in her chair again. “Now that you know, go make that hot chocolate, Sarai and Aaron are staring at us.”
I made one of Silver’s breathing laughing and Silver stood up and began towards the kitchen again. I pulled Aaron and sat down in the sofa near Claire’s chair.
“No, I’m not going to tell you what I told Silver…” Claire began, but I interrupted.
“We don’t want to hear whatever young married couples say to each other, that’s just disgusting. Besides, I want to know what Silver’s brother is like.”
“Oh,” Claire nodded sagely. “Silver’s brother is on Silver’s Dusk Elf side.”
I interrupted again, “So he’s a quarter human, Dusk Elf, and vampire? That’s lame.”
“No, he’s not that perfect.”
“So you’re saying his a quarter perfect, too?”
“I wish. You see, Silver can be a real… uh… well…” she began quietly and continued even quieter, just loud enough so only Aaron and I could hear. “Silver can be what you get when you add together a bass and a tard together.”
I nodded, rolling my eyes. Now who is the Queen of the Obvious Club? “Ya, I understand.”
“So, he’s only half Dusk Elf, half vampire, right?” Aaron inquired.
“Right. Magical species genes’ are die hard, so he couldn’t ever be just human.” Claire answered. “Silver’s brother has an illness, a magical illness, he got it from being in contact with Death for half of his life. He’s a really sweet guy, for the adopted son of Death. He’s the Grim Reaper.”
“Hey, Claire, can we take this to go?” Silver asked from the kitchen section. Claire nodded back at her husband, who nodded back. “Ok, come on guys, we got to get moving. Claire, do you need anything to keep you warm?”
“The hot chocolate will be enough, as long as you keep close.”
“That’s already granted.” Silver grinned and walked over to us, handing out mugs, which were full of milky hot chocolate. Claire and Aaron stood up on a cue, and Silver looked at them suspiciously. Claire glared at Aaron, then shook her head quickly, and then looked at the floor, hugging towards Silver. I stood up beside Aaron and he grabbed my hand tightly, without my permission, and we all began out of the cabin, turning off the lights as we left. Silver’s little brother snored loudly as a good-bye.
We crunched through the thick, deep snow and soon were on the other side of the Spirit World, which wasn’t as snowy. I recognized the ruined temple from earlier. Harmony Temple? René must have taken a different route if this is the temple he was trying to get to. Farther off, looking at this angle, I could see a foggy landscape. The fog was too thick and opaque to see through.
“Is that where Elysium Fields are?” Silver asked pointing towards the fog. “Well… of course it is. What’s with the fog?”
“I’m not sure. It was there when I came earlier, but it isn’t the least bit foggy when you go inside. Maybe it’s used to conceal the position, since the rest of the Spirit World is foggy. But today… it isn’t foggy. So it’s a dead give away. Only pure and innocent at heart can enter Elysium Fields.”
“Oh, that marks me off… I can’t go on. Go without me.” Silver sighed.
“Same here.” Aaron crossed his arms.
“Claire’s probably the only one who can go inside, since she is probably the only one pure at heart, and since she’s already been inside Elysium Fields, just to get out of Heaven to come back here.” Silver explained, grinning weakly down at Claire.
“You’ve been in Elysium Fields before, too, Silver.” Claire hesitated. “Plus once you’ve gone in there you can go back.”
“Shoot!” Silver whispered harshly. “I’m going to complain to those goody-two shoes. I don’t care if I can’t get through, there’s always an alternate way. Plus they owe us big-”
Claire interrupted again, putting her hand to Silver’s lips. “None of us can go inside… unless someone here is younger than fifteen.” Everyone was silent, and I weakly raised my right hand, keeping my tongue tight in my mouth.
“Great. I don’t trust her. Plus she has that Medallion that induces Shadow Magic, so they wouldn’t let her anyway.” Silver’s voice hinted his anger with his unruly bitterness.
“She’s innocent, Silver, she’s a child, it doesn’t matter what a child has, they’re a child.”
Aaron looked at me, uncrossing his arms, as if he was having an epiphany.
“Fine, let her go.” Silver muttered, waving me off. I looked at Aaron and began crossing the snowy patches of land.
The fog grew nearer and nearer, the snow become less dense and less rocky. I could feel grass underneath me as soon as I could look back and see only specs of my friends. Aaron waved. Silver turned away.
“Ouch!” I exclaimed, not paying attention to which way I was going, and hitting something cold. A barrier. I put my hands on the barrier and began shifting right to see where the barrier ended. It brought me out of the fog. I hit the wall with my fists and it only seemed to grow rougher. I know I’m not fifteen yet, I know that I’m somewhat innocent, and I know that this Medallion is the only thing keeping me from going inside. Was this the wrong entrance? I hadn’t seen an entrance.
“Hullo, Ms. Person, nice night for a walk, huh? Especially in this part of the Spirit World, I mean you should see the Fire and Psychic temple. Wow. Lunatics.” Said a voice from behind. What a peculiar accent! It sounded as if his voice was just the wind. I turned around slowly.
Silver’s brother stood, his eyes wide open and his thick, dusty brown hair dangling loosely over his sparkling eyes. He looked young, younger than Silver, almost a year at least. Judging by his sweet face, I sensed that he was all that Claire described, and maybe a bit carefree at that. How could he be Silver’s brother?
“Hi, you must be Silver’s brother.” I held out my hand for him to shake it.
He shook it, a grin playing across his face. “Call me Ethan. What’s your name?”
“Sarai,” I said, turning back to the barrier and beating it with my fists again.
“What exactly are you trying to do…?” asked Ethan, tugging at my wrist.
I turned back to him, sighing gruffly. “Oh, nothing really. Trying to get into Elysium Fields.”
“Oh that’s easy, they give me medicine sometimes. They’ll let me come in, I have a special magical key thing.” Replied Ethan, he grinned wider and grabbed something out of his cloak. A key! He stuck it into the barrier and turned it in mid-air. There was a clicking sound and the dense fog in front of me opened partially to reveal a starry night and a grassy landscape. “You know, Silver could get in easily if exerted any of his light magic, which he refuses not to use, only in certain situations.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, he wouldn’t have any problems, just pass right on through, take a good sniff at the air and skip merrily through the meadow.”
“Silver?” I caught my breath at the thought. Hilarious!
“Yep! The air in Elysium Fields makes you good-natured and generally the best you can be. Go ahead, get on through, I’ll accompany you.” He hesitated. “What exactly are you going to do, Sarai? A human like you can get hurt badly in there, even though you are innocent. Just the nature of the dead worlds, possibly.”
“Oh, I’ve got a medallion melted into my skin and I have to get it off with the treasure from Elysium Fields.”
“Good enough for me. I know a person who might be able to help.”
“Who?”
“You’ll see. Go ahead, go in to the Fields, you’ll be okay… for now.”
Ignoring the last part, I took a deep breath of the cool night air and passed through the opening in the fog.
It was a perfect night. The winter’s winds were completely calm in the fields, which were lush and green. The snow falling from the navy sky melted at the impact to the ground.
“Wow… this place is amazing.” I grinned, looking around. Ethan had been right, the air was sweet tasting, with a hint of honey, and made me feel warm, despite the Spirit World’s blisteringly cold breezes still breaking the thick foggy barrier.
“I know, doesn’t it just make you want to skip merrily?”
“Yeah, you’re right!”
“Then why don’t you?”
“Why don’t you?”
“Think before you speak, mon amie.”
I turned back to where Ethan was supposed to be, only to find the foggy barrier staring back at me. Where had he gone? I spun around to my right side, to see Ethan skipping through the green fields.
“Come on, Sarai!” He called back, showing a wide, playful grin. “If you don’t hurry up, we’ll have to stay here longer, and if we stay here longer, I won’t be energetic enough to fix you something for breakfast, you look like my brother has been starving you! Which he probably has…”
“How do you know that I’m staying with Silver?”” I questioned, hopping behind him, keeping my pace moderate so that his skipping wouldn’t be outshined.
“My nephews were told by Claire, and my nephews told me.”
“Nephews? How many and who?”
Ethan smirked, turning back again. “Oh, just four. Nick is really the only normal one, except he dyed his hair platinum blonde so that he would fit in with his band. He’s the eldest. Then there’s Austin, everyone calls him Rover, and he’s the second eldest and really pretty pathetic, just to be honest. Roy is smart, but under appreciated. He looks a lot like me, but he has glasses, and he just wants attention. He gives off that ‘poor-kid’ vibe. Oh well, he’s nice, so that’s all that matters. Then Talos, you must know him, he’s the hippie of the family, he’s made some bad choices, and some good ones that make up for them. That’s all I’m saying.”
“So, who’s your favorite relative, niece or nephew?”
“Talos told me that you asked a lot of questions. Not that being curious is bad, but that’s what he said. Um, I’d have to say either Roy or Myst. Myst is such a princess, really sort of a diva sometimes, but when she’s not being Little Miss Spoiled Brat, she’s nicer than you would think. Quite on the contrary to her father.” Ethan rolled his eyes. “She’s a split between her parent’s personality, with a bit of pampering on the side, from her peers and fans. And Roy just because he’s the least noticed, infamous or not.”
“Oh, I just remembered something!” I exclaimed, remembering what had happened earlier.
“Lay it on me.”
“Silver seems to dislike Austin… Rover, and I’m wondering why.”
“Um, hmm, well, there’s a lot about Rover to dislike. He’s like Talos, without the hippie, and more of the bad. I can’t say much, I swore to it.”
“Huh?” Swore to not talking about your own family? That’s crazy! But Ethan’s just too nice to be crazy.
“Yes,” Ethan’s voice became a bit shyer. I didn’t know how to react. “I can’t say anything bad about royalty, especially in this holy place. I swore in blood. I signed a contract to being the Grim Reaper, and if I say anything bad about some powerful figure, or relative to a powerful figure, my position will be demolished.”
“That’s stupid.”
“Isn’t it? But, I don’t like saying anything bad to anyone, so it’s not hard.” His voice was carrying gently through the wind, merging with it and I could barely hear him.
“So, what side of the family are you from?”
“Dusk Elf. My mother…” he shook his head, refusing to continue. “I can’t say anything bad about powerful figures.”
“That’s ok, I know what happened.” I sighed. He was such a depressed figure at this point, and had stopped skipping long before. He shuddered, his back turned to me. I halted.
Everything was silent for a second. “Can you…” he began, his voice dry and choked. “I’m sorry if I seem too childish for the Grim Reaper, but it’s the way I am… Can you… possibly… hug me? It’s just… I haven’t been in physical contact with someone in a while, four thousand and sixteen years actually, and… being the same old Ethan everyone knows…” he paused, thinking. “You seem nice, so… I just need to be comforted… It’s just so…” He hesitated again, not sure if he should continue. “…Please?”
I paused, grinning. He seemed so huggable, like a big teddy bear, or a lovable brother figure that would always be there, definitely not someone who would try and take advantage of others. He was truly just a lost child stuck in a beat up, teenager’s body, and the Grim Reaper for that matter. “How? You’re turned around. Turn to me, I’ll hug you, sure, but only if I can hug you face to face.”
Ethan turned back around, his cheeks wet with tears. His eyes were puffy, but his lips were curled into a weak smile. He was a bit taller than me, so it would be like hugging Aaron. I know that it would really break Aaron’s heart if he saw me hugging this cute; teddy bear of a Grim Reaper, but it was probably the fields that were inducing this behavior.
I put my arms around him, and he embraced me tightly. He, unlike most people in this dead world, had a heartbeat. After a few moments, I felt delusional. I could feel Ethan’s illness. I could feel the madness that he was keeping locked away. I could feel every bit of pain in his memories. I knew what was eroding away inside of him. This wasn’t a natural illness. Blinking away the pain, to keep Ethan stable in my embrace, I knew what I had just done. I had breached his thoughts with my new psychic abilities.
Ethan eventually let go, his breathing balanced again. “… Thanks, I needed that…” he bit his lip, then kissed my cheek. I turned pink. “I really need that.” He grinned.
“… It’s hard to imagine people don’t want to hug you…” I muttered, still blushing, my face turning warm.
“I’m not going to comment, except, I can imagine people want to hug you. Well at least that Aaron guy Talos mentioned. You guys are dating, no?” Ethan raised his right eyebrow.
“Yeah, but we’ve only been on one date, and it wasn’t our idea.” I nodded, my heartbeat steady again.
“I see,” Ethan nodded, too. “You’re good at hugging. It’s like a good massage… I think. Something just goes pop in your brain. Just like that. Or that could just be me.” He grinned.
I smiled back at Ethan. “So, where’s civilization? Where’s that guy you were talking about?”
“Oh!” Ethan exclaimed, turning to the horizon. “The sun… Um, the divinities will be arriving soon.”
“I’ve never put this into account, but how come the Spirit World has a sun?”
“First of all, and a bit off subject, this isn’t a part of the Spirit World. It is a dead world, sure, but it is no longer a part of the Spirit World… or should I say, the Spirit World is no longer a part of Elysium Fields. Elysium Fields uses the same sun as Heaven, and this sun is not a part of Earth. This sun, as us mortals call it, is only a force field projected by a powerful fire deity. This deity works as a supreme king of fire, and empowers every one of his fire followers, including Silver, who has been granted independence to use his own magic to empower his own fire. The Spirit World uses the same sun as Earth. The Underworld doesn’t have a sun. The moon is a common world like every dead world, except in this dead world; everything is really just wiped out. There’s nothing there, but sand.”
“Well that about explains everything.” I nodded. Ethan smiled to me.
“You have a lot to learn about these worlds I call home.” He hesitated, looking back to the horizon. “Oh, look, there comes the first divinity, the Divine Ruler of the Day.”
“Corny?”
“Much.”
“Why, hello Ethan! What brings you here?” asked the Divinity of Day, who rode up to us on a golden stallion. In his right hand he held a crossbow, in his other hand he held a sparkling arrow. “Whom is this young lady…? She doesn’t belong here.”
“Then again, neither does Myst.” Ethan shrugged.
“We welcome all relatives of Lord Stone, as long as they even begin to follow our rules.” Replied the Divinity.
“I’m not a relative of Silver… Claire said she couldn’t get in here, because she has already been in here.” I muttered.
“We still accept her, she follows rules precisely, and in fact anyone in here would welcome her. She just chooses never to leave her husband’s arms, well, often at least. And Lord Stone…” the Divinity grunted.
“Silver’s a real idiot when it comes to conforming.” Ethan explained, glancing down at me.
“Yes he really is. Now, can you please tell me who this young lady is? I don’t even want to stray near to her, that chaos surrounding her is eating through her aura allowing her to be here without having convulsions and hallucinations.” The Divinity murmured. I glared at Ethan. He winced
“Ouch, uh, oops! Sorry Sarai, I forgot about that! Man this just is the pits… um, hey, have you seen Alden?” Ethan looked back at the Divinity, who nodded.
“Aye, not too long ago at all. The last I saw of him was in his tree.” The Divinity nodded towards the east, which was still full of darkness.
“Right. The large, old oak tree with the gnarled roots and an owl guarding the entrance.” Ethan muttered.
“That’s the one. Now, if you excuse me, I’ve got to go wake Dawn, she’s being so lazy with the winter.” The Divinity rolled his eyes and put his arrow back in his arrow pouch.
“Not much of a surprise, now is it?” Ethan sighed, looking over at me. At the time, I was deep into paying attention to the divinity, which was a scarred, light being, with the robes draped over him. He had an average face, common around most.
The divinity nodded, grinning, and began riding his golden stallion again. As soon as he was out of earshot, I looked up at Ethan. “Which way to the oak?”

Chapter 12: Desire Comes With Illness

Elysium Fields was a large place, but not as large as the Spirit World, by a long shot. Ethan, still maintaining his shy attitude, didn’t speak much during the time we were in the fields. He grinned at jokes and explained more about the four Dead Worlds, how the moon had been the place where the Dusk Elves’ ancestors lived, why Silver became the heir, what Elysium Fields was made for, and the Underworld’s ‘well-kept’ secrets that Ethan heard while traveling. Ethan was an interesting character and had been places- that Silver had ever been- because of his job.
A long way through the fields, I finally saw a large oak tree with lights attached to it and a torch by the entrance, which was a small wooden door. An owl was perched at the top of one of the branches of the old, dead looking tree.
“Is that Alden’s home?”
“Yeah,” Ethan nodded, approaching it and knocking on the door. “He is the only person I know that has ever seen the treasure. Don’t be alarmed at his age or looks, just so you know.”
“Ok,” I replied. I bet this Alden guy is really old looking.
“He reads a lot, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t answer because he was reading.” So we waited, and waited and waited some more. Ethan finally knocked on the door again, this time louder. There was a crash inside and the door came down. A heaping mess of debris flooded out of the house, landing at our feet. A child sat atop the mess, looking down with anger.
“What do you want?” the child snapped, his neck craning to look at us.
“Oh my! Uh, I want to help you. I’ll clean but you have to get up from this rubbish.” The child sighed, making his way down the pile. Ethan picked up books and began putting them back into the small house inside the tree.
“Alden?”
“Yes?” the child looked at me, crossing his arms. “Why are you here and what do you want?”
This kid was the Alden guy Ethan was asking for? … Odd. Although not quite surprising under the circumstances of being in the Spirit World.
“I need some help with a magical item…”
“As in?”
“Well, see… I’ve got this Medallion and I need to remove it with the treasure of Elysium Fields. Any ideas where the treasure is?”
“You have the Medallion? How did you get it?” Alden’s small eyes widened.
“Nothing you would want to hear. So… where is the Elysium treasure?”
“Long lost. I want to see the Medallion, where is it?” Alden looked at me, expecting me to show him the Medallion.
Ethan came back outside after putting up the books and replied, “It’s melted into her skin.”
“Not completely. It’s sort of under my shirt and stuff…”
“Oh. Well can I just see the chain?”
“Sure.” I turned around and lifted up my hair so that the child could inspect the chain.
“… Pure chaos.” Alden said, fingering the black chain and scratching his chin. “Yes, this will take only the treasure to get off.”
“So do you know anything about the treasure?” Ethan asked, standing near to Alden and I.
“Yes. I do. I was there to see it too.” Alden nodded, uncrossing his arms.
“Can you tell me about it?” I asked, turning to face the child.
“I swore not to, but with this situation I guess it would be in the best mind to tell you. Come inside.” Alden motioned towards the tree house. Ethan entered, I followed, and Alden came in last, shutting and locking the door behind him. “Have a seat.” I sat down in a chair by the fire. The house was warm looking, like the centaur’s house from ‘the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe (™)’. Ethan sat down in another chair, and Alden retrieved a book from his shelves.
“So, what is the treasure like and where is it?” I asked, turning back to the child who sat down in a large, leather chair.
“Patience, girl.” Muttered Alden, taking his eyes off of the book. “I wrote this book in my younger days, so I wouldn’t forget the treasure. I have the dimensions and everything, even the last place and rumors of its hiding spot. They change the position every hundred years, so it isn’t hard to find it if you know the right person. I’m probably the only person who works independently and isn’t invisible.” He handed off the book to me.
The treasure was something of a clarinet. “An instrument?” I asked, running a hand through my hair.
“No,” Alden took the book back. “Can’t you read?”
Ethan took the book from Alden’s small hands. “No, she can’t. She can’t read Purian.”
“How come she can speak it and understand it?” Alden shot an icy glare at me, keeping his face calm.
“I,” I crossed my arms. “Don’t speak Purian. And I’ve never heard of it either. You’re speaking plain English, the both of you.”
“No, you,” Alden crossed his arms in a mock. “Speak Purian. We are all speaking Purian. And you’re understanding it.”
Ethan sighed and dug his hands into his pocket. “Why don’t you quit arguing? It’s getting you nowhere. I bet if you calm down, you can come to a reasonable answer for all this.”
“The Medallion,” Alden was growing less harsh with every word he spoke. “It’s letting you speak and understand Purian without knowing. Probably every dead language is encrypted in your mind now. Latin, Purian, and Desdemona. But the point is, I don’t understand why you can’t read it…”
For once I felt smarter than this Elysium Field chief elder. “It’s because I have only worn it for one night. It probably hasn’t made other changes. And it won’t until I fall asleep again.”
“It’s not worth trying to put you to sleep.”
“Trying? You’re not trying?” I mocked. “You’re making me really drowsy with all your logical sense stuff.”
Alden frowned. “I didn’t deserve that.” He whispered. “But, I’m not going to yell at you. Most people feel the same way you do.” He frowned, leaning back in the chair.
Ethan sighed and looked over at me, disappointed. I turned away. “I’m sorry,” I apologized.
“No,” Alden shook his head. “Anyway, the point is that the treasure takes the form of whatever you wish. At the time, it was in the possession of a musician, as you can very well see. For you,” Alden nodded towards Ethan, a secretive look on his face, as if he meant more. “It may take the form of a scythe.”
“So, what’s so great about this treasure? What makes it so great unless you just wish for a weapon or something.”
“… I’m not exactly sure. It’ll take the form of anything you desire, including love or a friend. So if you deeply desire victory, then you shall get it.”
“… That didn’t answer my question-” I began, but Alden sighed again.
“I’m not sure. I’ve never actually gotten to use it.” Alden answered before I could continue.
There was a long silence before someone finally began talking again.
“Hey, um, Sarai, you aren’t looking all that well.” Ethan finally said.
“What do you mean? I feel fine…” I said, looking over at him.
“You may but… you look like me without my medicine. Maybe your aura…” Ethan glanced at Alden. “… Could it have?”
“… It looks like it could be possible… She’ll be fine.” Alden sounded uncertain, avoiding eye contact, but now biting his lip and looking at the book emptily. “… She’ll be fine…” he repeated, reassuring himself. “Yes, nothing extreme could happen.”
Ethan nodded, avoiding my eyes. “Maybe we should go, we’ll come back later.” He offered.
“But I feel fine…” The air was stale and I could feel my heart beat a mile a minute, but otherwise I felt average.
“Sarai,” Ethan walked over to me and picked me up in his weak arms. I could feel him falter below me. He was too ill to carry anything over ten pounds. He heaved in some air and turned towards the door. “Bye Alden… anyway… Sarai, I really want to get you something to eat. I knew that I should have brought some of those cookies that Claire made for me… Sarai, are you sure you are okay? We can stop somewhere with a few extra beds and I can let you lie down and I’ll go grab some food and medicine, maybe something that can restore your aura… or someone.” He opened his mouth to say something again, but my breathing grew hasty, unintentionally, and I no longer saw the sweet, caring face of Ethan.

* * * * * * * *
It wasn’t much later when I could hear a steady breathing by my ear and feel warm, strong arms around me, and a recliner under me. I grudgingly opened my eyes. I hadn’t gotten any good sleep. I just felt horrible. “You’re awake,” the person beside me whispered. I turned to meet their gaze. Aaron was gazing back, looking concerned, but at the same time content that I was awake. He kissed my cheek. “How do you feel?”
“Horrible,” I answered, truthfully, moving closer into his tight figure. He grinned and let me put my head on his shoulder.
“It’ll be alright now. The others are fixing breakfast and some medicine, especially for you, in Ethan’s kitchen. I’m here to keep you company. Do you want to change seats…? This one might be a little bit too small for the both of us. I’m just so fat…”
“Ha! But seriously Aaron, no you’re not.” I replied, smiling into his neck. “… And yes, it would be better if we would change to the sofa. My stomach hurts.”
“Take into consideration it might not be your stomach. That Medallion is a part of you now. Like an extra heart.” Aaron muttered, picking me up and moving over to the sofa. He lay down first, and then set me down on top of him.
I felt as awkward as that turtle that my friend Jeanne had come up with, oh so awkward. Aaron picked up a blanket from the floor and put it over us both. It covered our entire length and width, which was handy. I put my head on Aaron’s shoulder and he put his left arm around my waist.
“Aaron, I…” Aaron opened one eye and looked over at me. “… Never mind.” I shook my head, closing my eyes tightly.
“I know what you were going to say, why don’t you say it? I know you think it. I know it’s just going to build up inside of you until you are sick of it. And I’ll be with you when that day comes, ready to reassure you.” Aaron muttered calmly. His hand reached for my hand, and when it was in his grasp, he squeezed it tightly. “I feel the same way about you, I’m just not shying out of it… but you take your time, I’m just glad you know you feel the way you do.” I could see his calm face, even though my eyes were shut. For a moment, I felt like I could feel his feelings and think his thoughts, need his needs and want his wants. Then the moment was gone.
“… Thank you…” I kissed his pleasant lips, which curled up into a small smile as he closed his eyes again. I tried to pull away, but he grabbed me closer, and into a deeper kiss.
“Okay enough! Do that on your own time!” a dark voice shouted from behind. Aaron released me, his eyes fixed on the source of the anger. He grinned and a hearty laugh escaped his lips. I hadn’t heard him laugh like that in a while. I turned to where Aaron was staring. Silver… was in an apron. “Yeah, yeah, whatever! It wasn’t my idea! It was Ethan’s. Ethan told me to, not that it matters! I didn’t want to get any of the food over my clothes! Why don’t you take a picture, it’ll last longer, retards. And all that I’ve gone through…”
I burst out laughing, burying my head in Aaron’s chest. Silver acted so sissy sometimes! Aaron was still laughing hard as he grabbed his cell phone out of his pocket and snapped a photo of Silver. Silver looked stunned for a moment then, almost immediately, ripped off the apron and tackled Aaron for the phone. Aaron leapt from under Silver’s iron grip and while being chased, threw me the phone. Silver spun around and ran to meet me in catching the phone. I grabbed it away from him and threw it to Ethan, who was just now coming out of the kitchen. He grabbed the phone and quickly did the smart thing and sent the picture to one of his friends, then threw the phone back to Aaron, who was laughing harder this time as he pocketed the phone.
Silver seethed with anger as he tore threw the room and tackled Aaron to the ground, stealing the phone and breaking it into a million pieces. Aaron was doubled over in laughter, his hand flying up to his mouth to contain the laughter, and look like he was upset. I gasped, still laughing and joined Aaron in trying to look shocked.
“Hey bro,” Ethan muttered, watching his unruly brother stomp into the kitchen, slamming the door behind him. “A word to the wise, um, you could have just used your powers.”
“… Shut up! Who’d you send it to? Tell me now!” Silver shot back.
“Sorry, I can’t, federal rules.” Ethan chuckled stepping in to the kitchen also. Their voices were lost, except for a few sneering remarks and some laughter, both a boy and a girl’s laughter. Someone made a grunting noise, and then Silver stormed out, his hand tight around Claire’s, who was still chuckling at the time, as he stomped into a random room, slamming and locking the door behind him and Claire.
Ethan came back out with three plates in his hands. He set down the two in his right hand in front of me, and then proceeded to sit down in the chair Aaron and I were sitting in earlier, devouring his own plate of food.
“Are these both mine?” I asked, confused, looking down at the plate.
“No, the one that has the pancakes. The other one is Aaron’s.” Ethan replied, briefly halting his intake of the meal.
“Yeah, you hog.” Aaron teased, scrunching up beside me and kissing me, stealing a grape that I had just plopped in my mouth.
“Hey! I was going to eat that!” I snapped, kissing him back, stealing the grape and swallowing it hole. “Take that, pretty boy.” I said, triumphantly. Aaron chuckled and began at his plate. Ethan sighed, rolling his eyes, hiding a look of envy with a joking face
The entire time we ate our meals- pancakes for me, with bacon and grapes on the side, and waffles for him, with a biscuit and bagel on the side- Aaron and I stole each other’s food, taking it back by kissing it each other. When we were done, we swallowed the pills that Ethan had given us, and Aaron and I put up our plates in the sink.
We sat back on the sofa, across from the chair Ethan was sitting at. Aaron put his arm around my shoulder and lounged out, staring at the ceiling. “So, Ethan,” I began, looking over at the cute, nice, dusty brown haired brother of the darkest, palest, jerk in the world. “Silver and Claire have been gone for a while. Silver looked angry. Are they arguing in there? It just doesn’t seem like them to be furious with each other.”
“No, they’re not arguing, probably the exact opposite. Not to creep you out, but that’s my bedroom they went in. And in a bedroom there is a bed, so you know what that means…” Ethan stuck out his tongue, making a disgusted face.
“Oh gross…” Aaron looked down, looking disgusted also. “… Although…” He looked at me and grinned. I bit my lip, blushing.
“Don’t you…!” Ethan scolded, hitting Aaron on the knee.
“Hey, she’s my girl, and I love her, someday we might…”
“Aaron, shut up.” I growled, smirking.
“… Get married and go on a honey moon in Canada…”
“Not Canada!” I groaned, still smirking, leaning into my boyfriend as he continued, smiling wider than ever.
“…I just can’t wait until that day when she finally falls for me and lets me finally…”
“Aaron!” I shouted, hitting him on the shoulder. Ethan at the time had shut his eyes and had his hands clamped over his ears, singing ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb’.
“… And we’ll have a boy named Lucas or a girl named Roxie… The End.” Aaron grinned and kissed me.
“Are you done yet, I thought you’d never stop…” Ethan grunted, unclamping his ears.
“Oh, do you need details?”
“No!” Ethan and I exclaimed at the same time.
“Fine, fine…” Aaron squeezed me closer to him.
“At least my brother gets a room…” Ethan murmured, putting his plate in the sink.
“Ok, we’ll go outside.” Aaron said, without a care in the world. He picked me up in his arms and stood up.
“If that’s okay with you, Ethan…” I called, as Ethan came in.
“That’s fine. But come back in soon, the weather is really bad out there today. There’s a blizzard not far off. The whole ocean is frozen over. This hasn’t happened in a while, but I guess it’s not uncommon. Um, I’ve got some big coats over there somewhere; you might be better off with them.” Ethan pointed to a closet on the other side of the house. “I’ll go and get them, if you’d like…”
“No, we’re fine.” Aaron answered for me. I sighed, rolling my eyes.
“… I guess I’m okay. Bye Ethan! See you in a few.” I smiled and waved good-bye to the pleasant young man.
Ethan waved back, keeping a concerned look on his face.
Outside, cold, dry winds beat against my face. Aaron’s winter hat seemed all the more appealing. “Hey, are you okay?” Aaron asked, looking down at me. He looked up at his hat and smiled. He put the hat on my head, pulling it down to my nose. “There. Do you need anything else, darling?” He kissed my cheek.
“Not for a while. Where are we going?” I asked, pulling the hat above my eyes, so I could see where Aaron was taking me.
“I don’t know.” He muttered. “Anywhere, I guess.”
“What are we going to do when we get anywhere?”
Aaron didn’t answer for a while. “Anything.” He finally murmured; his eyes glazed with emptiness. He shook his head then smiled again, looking down at me.
“I just want to be with you. We could just sit out the house if you would want that. Maybe Elysium Fields…”
“Elysium Fields!” I exclaimed. “Let’s go there, I have to find that treasure so I can get this Medallion loose!” I jumped out of his arms and grabbed his hand. I knew the way to Elysium Fields. I had always known the way to Elysium Fields… I had been there many times… Many times that I could never remember… A past life of mine must have had some contact with all these random memories that let loose at rare times, and have only been let loose at least twice.
“Gosh, you’re fast!” Aaron called from behind, tightening his grip on my hand.
“Thanks!” I shouted back, the rough texture of his gloves reassuring me that he was going to go with me at all costs.
Finally, Elysium Fields came into view. The blizzard we had crossed through was now just a calm scene of gentle snow, floating with the wind.
“I can’t go in there…” Aaron muttered, keeping close to me. “We both can’t. Ethan is the only one who can…”
“I thought you would say that sooner or later.” Someone said. I spun around, turning Aaron around too. Silver’s brother was standing inches away, his hands in his pockets.
“… Ethan, you stalker!” I exclaimed; my heart beat returning to its regular tempo.
“Sorry, I just had a feeling that you guys would either come here… or… do something nasty… either way I would save you, Sarai.” Ethan smiled, triumphant.
“What if she would like it?” Aaron questioned, sounding a bit menacing.
“She’s fourteen. Chances are, she’d just feel awkward.” Ethan explained, glancing at me.
“… Aaron, you are a pervert!” I growled, turning to him.
“Oh you…” Aaron looked away.
Ethan stepped in front of us and unlocked the barrier, then let us pass. “I’m not going back in. I’m going to go try and get Silver and Claire out of the house, and then take a nap on the sofa, since the bed is just sick now. I’ll burn it later…” He waved good-bye again and started off towards the forest.
Aaron pulled me closer, grinning. “Aaron, why are you being so random?”
“… I love you…” Aaron whispered in my ear, stroking my hair with his right hand, and holding my waist with his left hand. “I love you so much…” He hugged me tightly.
I didn’t say anything, but kissed his soft, pale cheek. There was not much talking for a while, but Aaron and I both traded glances at one point, and started to look for Alden’s house to ask where the treasure was. Soon the oak tree came into view, easily since the sun was pretty far up in the sky. The candles were out, and the owl had flown away.
“There it is.” I informed Aaron, who nodded, his left arm around my waist. We both walked over to the door, and I knocked on it, loudly.
“Who is it?” Someone shouted from behind the door.
“Sarai and Aaron!” I called back.
“Who’s Aaron?” The person said, quieter, as I heard the shuffling of feet. The doorknob turned.
“My boyfriend.” I answered, watching the door creak open. A young man stood at the door. His eyes were hollow, his hair already becoming grey, but there was something about him, young charm probably.
“Oh,” the person said. Their voice was like the mature tone of Alden’s voice, ageless yet more refined. “Well, come on in and have a seat. You know where the den is.”
“Who are you?” I asked, entering the oak tree. “Where’s Alden.”
“Um,” Alden looked down at himself. “I’m Alden. Sorry, I had to go to a lecture in the Light Temple regarding… you know who… and I had to change my body age to fit in.”
“A lecture about Silver?” Aaron wondered, looking around the place, amazed, and sitting down at a sofa.
“No the other dark doof.” Alden groaned, sitting down by the fireplace.
“Oh!” I nodded sagely, sitting down at the small wooden sofa, which was where Aaron looking at a dangerous flower. “Sorry, just to drop in on you,” I muttered, looking away from Aaron and to Alden. “But we want to know the supposed coordinates of the treasure, thank you kindly.”
“Okay, let me remind you that they could have very well changed the coordinates in the last one thousand years, and I would have no idea, but it was by chance I saw the ceremony that one time. They bury it when all is dark, and you can see nothing but the stars above. It would be easy for a demon or some creature of the night, like Silver, to see it… but the area I saw the ceremony was right where the horizon was supposed to be the next day, so at the time, that place would be in the darkest, most evil part of Elysium Fields, that has been breached by Shadow Magic, and cannot be repaired. You’ll come face to face with a lot of demons and horrible beasts down there, and once you have the treasure, they will track you down and haunt you all night until you finally give up the treasure, or they can steal it.” Alden muttered. “These demons and creatures cannot be seen by the average eye. Only those with extreme shadow magic can ever see them. For example, any of the shadows; who would not dare steal any of their brethren’s prey, and are friendly to all of them…; and Silver, Claire, Ethan, and… you, Sarai, are the only ones…” Alden nodded. “But it is uncommon for someone to have two treasures. No one could have two, in fact. It would be lucky that you even knew the person to hold this treasure, because it could be anyone in the entire universe…”
“Well, I’m not a candidate. I’ll only be there to keep my lovely safe, and find the treasure so she can unlock her Medallion.” Aaron put his arm around my shoulder. Why does he always do that?
“… I see. Bring all your friends, you’ll need them.” Alden sighed, opening the door so we could exit. “Farewell, if that’s all you need.”
“Yeah, we’ll be on our way. Bye-bye, Alden.” Aaron waved and promptly pulled me off the couch and dragged me out the door.
“So, which way is Silver’s house, do you think?” I asked, as we trudged through the fields at an effortless pace.
“I’m not sure. I’m pretty sure I know where Ethan’s house is, and he should know where the house is.” Aaron glanced at me. “Why do you need to go back to Silver’s house? They’re probably still at Ethan’s house…”
“Either way, we have to pick up Travis and maybe Myst, and then I know the way to the Darkness Temple so we can pick up Kayla too. Do you have any friends you want to bring along?” I wondered, the fields coming to an end below us, and the barrier becoming visible. I rounded back to my boyfriend, who stopped almost immediately. “Don’t you think it’s weird that we haven’t been attacked by what’s-his-face yet?”
“Yeah… pretty weird…” Aaron looked a bit annoyed at first, but when he looked over at me, he shrugged. “We should just keep our guard up.” He strode in front of me and stuck his hand through the foggy barrier, then walked through, his opposite hand grabbing my hand and pulling me through, also.
We continued through the snowy landscape silently for a while. It was a beautiful morning, and when we passed by a frozen pond with geese landing, furiously drilling holes on the top, I couldn’t help but stop Aaron and get him to sit down with me.
“Aaron, can we stop?” I asked, as we almost exited the setting.
“Sure, everyone’s probably still asleep.” He checked his watch. “It’s six. I sure wouldn’t be up.”
“… Sorry about that…” I apologized as he led me to the edge of the pond. We sat down in the soft snow and Aaron eventually pulled me into his lap, the lay down, his arms around me. He began playing with my hair.
“Don’t be sorry about anything, Sarai, whatever has been done has been done, and it wasn’t bad either, baby. I wasn’t in a deep sleep, and besides, I would definitely want to go somewhere with you.” He leaned over and kissed my left cheek. I turned to him and sat up on my knees. My ears perked up. I heard pleas for help, seemingly from a mob of people.
“Something’s happened.” I stood up. The yelling came closer. “René must have done something.”
“… What a coincidence. I thought he’d ran off.” Aaron grumbled, extending his hand. I pulled him up and he looked around for the source.
“Do you have the Baton? René could have taken it while we were gone.” I pointed out, looking around also.
“Don’t worry about it, I have it right here.” Aaron showed me the Baton that was in his jacket pocket. The screams were, at this time, louder than I expected.
No one was in sight. I turned to look too, but stopped in my tracks.
The pond water rippled and I backed up, but Aaron turned to the pond and approached it. The ripple became larger and something bobbed up from the water. A corpse of a woman floated up from the water. It was scalded and its golden brown hair was stringy, its eyes were rolled back into its head. It looked like it had been trying to decompose, but the pond water was too fresh, and kept it looking almost like its former self. My hand slapped my gaping, open mouth. She looked like me. I stumbled backwards and tripped, falling on my back. This was foreshadowing the imminent point of my life when everything will be taken from me and I will utterly perish.
Aaron turned back to me, looking concerned, his mind elsewhere. “Are you okay?” he asked, blankly, offering his hand.
I was still shocked beyond imagination, but after laying on the soft snow for a moment, taking deep breathes and convincing myself that corpse wasn’t me because I am me, I ignored Aaron, contemplating to take his hand, and replying absently, “What are you thinking about, Aaron? You’re not acting normally.” I wondered, not taking his hand, remaining on the cold ground.
“Neither are you…” he sighed, turning his back to me. His voice sounded forced again, as if he wanted to cry or scream at me. “I’ve done many deeds that I can’t tell anyone about. This just reminds me of what I’ve done.” He hesitated then chuckled.
“What are you talking about?” I hissed, agitated. Everyone ever to set foot in this world is moody.
“What am I talking about?” he repeated, sounding unconcerned yet again, but his mind was still in his own little world. Aaron grabbed me up and when I was on my feet, he dove in for a kiss, his lips crashing into mine. I melted into his embrace and kissed him back. He fell forward, and I, with no support, cushioned his fall as he struggled not to break the kiss. Another scream for help erupted off the horizon. Aaron pulled away. He looked like he was ready to complain about the yelling. He paused, and then his head swung to the left. The noise was coming from the direction of the main city. The shrieks of terror roared through the forest, and the echoes reached us quicker. Someone came bolting through the trees, tumbling over me. They hurriedly got up again and speeded off through the forest. There was a falter in the moment and Aaron leapt up and pulled me into a standing position beside him. I gripped his hand tightly.
“I have a bad feeling about this… maybe we should-” Aaron began, only to be interrupted.
The whole forest began to shake with activity and Aaron couldn’t speak over the bellowing. A large group of people, holding their heads and squealing at the top of their lungs, came darting out of the thick mess of trees. One person accidentally knocked over Aaron, and I quickly tried to help him scramble up without being trampled, but another crowd of people were already on our heels, and they parted us. I shoved people out of the way just to get to Aaron, and at one point our hands grasped each other’s, but Aaron was just another person in a field of faces, and we eventually lost contact. Someone grabbed my shoulders and pulled me away.
“Let me go! Aaron! Help!” I yelled. There were too many screams of fright for me to pick out Aaron’s reply. I tried with all my might to keep Aaron’s hand in mine, and even though he was strong in keeping me near him, whoever was pulling me had a better position, and broke our hold.
“Shh! We’re not going to hurt you!” exclaimed a familiar voice over the screams. “Why are you calling for that poser?”
“Travis?” I spun around to meet whoever was holding me. “Oh my gosh! I’m so glad to see you!”
“Hey, Sarai.” Travis released his grasp on my shoulders. “How is your adventure going?”
“I’ll tell you about it later… why are these people running?” I looked around; the crowds just kept on getting larger and more frantic. I couldn’t keep track of Travis at times, I just had to keep focused on his North Face jacket and I’d be fine.
“Something terrible has happened…” Travis explained.
“Yeah, Travis… I’m not stupid!” I yelled over the screams.
“Let me finish. Anyway, there are these creatures, I’m not sure what they are or why they are here, but everyone seems to be afraid of them. They are freaky! I wouldn’t blame people for running from these hideous beasts, but the humans see them as regular people. They see them as regular people!” he repeated, loudly. Then he hesitated, but backed up his explanation, lurching into another raving. “Only I could see how DISGUSTING they were! Jeanne and Kayla, as superstitious are you women are, didn’t see the danger, and almost stayed where the infestation was. In fact, they saw these beasts as supermodel material! So did everyone else… some humans died… but not anyone we know.” Travis took a breath then looked around. “Kayla and Jeanne are over there.” Travis pointed to where two girls were huddled up on a log. Kayla looked as average as ever, but Jeanne looked different from the last time I had saw her. She wore a grey-blue colored tee shirt, and her long dark brown hair flooded over her tan skin and Hershey brown eyes. We made our way through the screaming crowds. It was just futile to try and seek out Aaron, and I was concerned for him, but I would have to wait. It might be safer if he weren’t around me. We would eventually meet each other again, and if not, Silver would show us where he was. Besides, death was no longer any concern. We had the keys to every place in death. Heck, we even knew death.
I ran over to Kayla and Jeanne. “Jeanne! Kayla!” I sat down between them. Travis sat beside Jeanne.
“Hey!” Kayla exclaimed, trying to beat the roar.
“I’m glad you guys are okay!” I replied.
“Yeah, we just have to stay away from supermodels for the rest of our pathetic lives.” Jeanne replied. “Yo, Sarai! Long time no see!” We did our secret handshake.
“Yo Jeanne, how’s life?”
“Good, good… Do you think it’s particularly safe out here?” Jeanne asked.
I looked around, the screaming crowds were only getting worse. I might as well agree. “Yeah, let’s go. Travis! Do you know where Silver’s house is?”
Travis shrugged, considering the moment, and shook his head quickly. “No! And if I did, I wouldn’t go back to be eaten by those morbid… creatures… any day!” he paused again, staring at me. His face lifted. I raised an eyebrow. “I’ve got an idea.”
* * * * * * * *
“No way! That is far too beyond my power!” I retorted, swinging my arms for emphasis. “I should just punch some of those remaining brain cells you’ve got right out your eye sockets, which will be bloody empty when I’m through with you…” Travis held me down in place, looking anxious, almost too petrified to move from the edge of the log to the paper white snow below. I looked over at the two girls, who looked eager with anticipation.
“Please,” Travis begged, turning me to face him. “At least try.” I shook him off and raised my hands as a peace offering.
“Fine, I’ll try, nothing more.” I really wished Aaron were here to attack Travis. I hesitated, lowering my head, ashamed to admit what I was going to say. “I have no idea how to use my psychic powers…”
Kayla sighed, pointing towards the pond, and the water exploded as if someone had dove in. No one resurfaced. No one had jumped in the pond at all, in fact. “I just figured out how to use my powers this morning. Mom asked me to pour some water, so I turned to the water pitcher, and I wanted to see if I could use my powers, so I clenched my fists and concentrated on the water. The water moved out of the pitcher. I was so surprised that I let my concentration go and the water dropped into the pitcher with a painful plop. Mom was surprised too, and angry.” She hugged her knees. “She thinks that I’m weirder than I am. She thinks just because I hang out with you guys, I have acquired some freak powers.”
“That sucks,” Jeanne compensated. “I have no chance of getting powers, though, and if I do, I’ll never be able to use them right.”
“Look, guys, it’s great that you’ve figured out how to use your powers, Kayla, but I have more of a range, no offense, and I need to just muster one bit of my power. I don’t know how to muster one bit! I need Silver here.” I grumbled and picked up my Medallion from my shirt.
“Whoa, what’s that?” Everyone stared at the Medallion. I stroked the ruby.
“My Medallion. This is the Shadow Medallion. Maybe…” I clenched the Medallion until my knuckles went as white as the snow. My mind was dizzy as soon as I flinched as the chain dug into my skin. I released the Medallion quickly. Nothing had changed. Travis stared at me. I had a feeling everyone else was staring at me too. “No. See, this doesn’t work for me yet. I need Silver to help me.”
“Maybe it takes great desire. Do you have great desire to get your powers to work?” Travis inquired, the log shifting and wobbling below him as he nervously rolled his hands over the smooth bark.
“I’m not sure.” I shrugged.
“Exactly.” Kayla explained, nodding when I turned to her. “I had great desire, and I knew it, when I harnessed my power. Maybe Silver has trained himself, or his power, to do anything with little desire whatsoever. Same goes for Claire.”
“Who are Silver and Claire?” Jeanne wondered.
“We’ll explain later.” I replied, and then paused, considering the situation. “No, we’ll explain now. We have to wait for a vehicle to crash or something.”

The Pilalging Chapter 10

Chapter 10: Flirting; Like A Gelatin Dessert

I could tell that no one was really going to start a conversation again, but instead, frown at their plate, losing their appetite. I continued to munch on a French fry, when the waiter set a bottle of sparkling apple juice in front of me.
“I have an idea…!” I blurted out, nearly choking on the French fry I was swallowing. I grabbed the sparkling apple juice, which had just enough to fill all four of our glasses. I poured some juice in each of our glasses, then corked the bottle again and set it out in the center of the large, circular table.
Kayla seemed to read my mind and exclaimed, “ALL GUYS AND GIRLS WHO WANT TO PLAY SPIN THE BOTTLE GET YOUR LAZY BUTTS OVER HERE!”
Claire and Silver turned to look at us, Claire’s expression was unreadable, but Silver seemed angry and slid his finger under his chin as if a knife was slitting his neck. Not the best idea.
“Uh hey, guys, I don’t think this a good idea.” I whispered, only high enough for Silver to hear. Silver smiled slightly.
Claire closed her eyes and sighed, when Silver looked up and shrugged.
Quickly, before Silver turned back, I grabbed the bottle and spun it around, people crowding around to watch as we made fools of ourselves. The bottle spun and spun, and flew off the table, then landed at the floor, skidded across the ground and stopped at the foot of the tall, large, stripe-suited manager.
The crowd quickly dissipated as the manager walked over and clasped his hands together, frowning deeply. Silver turned back to us, a blank expression on his face, as if he knew that it would happen. Claire quickly handed the bill to Silver, trying to distract him.
“Do think it’s funny to cause trouble?” the manager asked, smoothing his hair and stroking his goatee. “Obviously so. How did you mangy kids get in here anyway? You don’t look rich…. and how are you going to pay for the meal?”
“Oh, we’re millionaires you see. If you haven’t heard of us you must be pretty shabby.” Travis challenged.
“Who are you anyway?” hissed the manager, as his bodyguard pulled a chair up for him. He sat down and raised his right eyebrow, glancing at all of us. “I’ve never heard of anyone famous who looks like you kids.”
“We aren’t kids! We’re over twenty!” Kayla retaliated. I nodded to confirm.
“That’s Gerard Way.” I said, trying to sound astonished, pointing at Aaron who smiled darkly at the manager, trying to imitate his father. “And that’s Avril Lavigne and Billie Joe Armstrong.”
“Right…. who are you then?” the manager smiled evilly. “Madonna?”
“Pfft, yeah right. I’m all of their managers. What do you have to say now?” I asked smiling thickly.
Aaron looked at me proudly. I smiled back. The manager got up, nodded at the bodyguard, who shot off. “Well that seals the deal.” he turned away and started towards his office.
My jaw dropped. “Oh…. my… gosh!” I whispered, excited. “It worked!” I high-5-ed everyone at the table, then looked over to Silver’s table to brag.
Claire shot me a warning glance, and then looked over my head, her hand rising to her mouth to hide a look of shock. Silver read her face and spun around, smiling widely.
I turned around too, following his gaze slowly. Above me stood the large bodyguard, holding a cricket paddle in his hand. I gulped and looked down at my plate.
The bodyguard began softly, “Stand up and get out. You’re no longer welcome here without a fair fight of either money or extreme fame. Now, get.”
I shook my head, hoping Silver would step in to defend us.
Aaron and Travis looked at each other, angrily, as if either of them had made the situation worse.
The bodyguard shrugged and his expression flickered anger. He was still as calm as usual, though, when he muttered, “Fine, have it that way.” He was about to strike the back of my head, but there was a quick exchange of voice and Silver interrupted.
“Alright, I’ve seen enough entertainment today… drop the paddle and back off.” Silver sighed, reluctant. Behind him, Claire smiled at him and kissed the back of his neck, making his frown inch up into a relaxed smile.
The bodyguard dropped the paddle, a look of loss and a trifle of fear written on his face. He backed up into the manager’s office.
I took a slow breath, greatly relieved. “Thank-” I began, but Silver snapped out of his relaxation, and his hand flew to my throat. He heaved me up to his eyes and showed his single fang. The fang was menacingly sharp, and I gulped down my relief and replaced it with fear yet again. Silver was dangerous and scary when he was angry, which was terrible because of his temper.
He dragged me out of the restaurant and dropped me on the street. “I’ll deal with you later,” he hissed. Claire came out of the restaurant behind him and put her hand on his shoulder, calming him. Aaron and the rest of my friends came out also, helping me up with a single try.
A camera flashed somewhere near. Then another, and another, and another. Thousands of photographers and television crews. Several interviewers crowded around us and I blinked as one of the younger photographers snapped a photo of me.
“Crap it, paparazzi, just the time…” Silver mumbled, grabbing Claire’s hand and shoving through the crowd to his car. He opened Claire’s door, let her in, closed the door, and got on the driver’s side, started up the sports car and shot off.
I tried to get through the crowd to see which direction he was going in, so I could get an idea of which way his house was, but he was already far out of sight. The good news was that the crowd seemed to already be smaller.
It was a pity all these people might eventually be attacked by René and his ‘army of zombies’… and cats for that matter. Suddenly, an idea hatched in my mind. The TV crews! I could secretly ride in their vans to the studio; make a news announcement to evacuate the potential victims. Brilliant!
I tapped Kayla on the shoulder. “Hey, do you think this is a good idea? We can secretly ninja ourselves into one of those TV crew’s vans and then warn everyone about René!”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures. Sure. Most of these vans have hinges on their back, we can hold on for dear life and eventually reach their studio and broadcast a new forecast. Sounds good.” Kayla smiled and snuck over to one of the vans and jumped up, holding onto the backdoor’s hinges. It seemed that these could keep at least two people safe.
Aaron seemed to notice the plan and whispered in my ear, “I’ll ride with you. Travis can ride alone if he wants. Of course by he I mean me, and I want him to.” he smiled his normal, evil smile. It seemed his teeth were fangs, but he turned around and ran over to another van. Travis was on his separate convoy, which was already moving. Kayla’s vehicle was chugging off, also. Aaron’s transport’s engine was starting its engine. I rushed over, leaping up just as the vehicle gunned and shot off faster than all the others. Aaron caught my hand and put his free hand around my waist, keeping me close.
“Aaron….?” I stammered, looking up, his bangs whipping at my face.
“The other hinge is loose. It would be silly of you to hold on to it. It creaked open when I tried to heave myself up.” he answered, demolishing my hopes. He looked down at me and smiled gently. “Don’t worry, I won’t drop you.” I relaxed into him and wrapping my arms around his torso, to keep from falling.
We arrived sooner than we expected, but arrived nonetheless. Aaron jumped off and helped me down. When he wasn’t watching, I tested the hinge he was talking about. It wasn’t loose. I was hiding a smile as we paused and waited for the drivers to go into the studio, and then we began towards the studio ourselves. Making our way in, I noticed two familiar looking guards. Kayla and Travis! I ran over to them, Aaron looking around for a studio.
“Hey!” I exclaimed, but they hushed me promptly as a true guard walked by.
“There’s a studio just past this door.” Travis explained, opening the door, letting me advance.
I called Aaron over and he followed me, scowling at Travis as we passed.
As we entered, we figured out the studio was chock full of people, two men on stage reading over scripts. Kayla and Travis had locked the door. Great. Now we’re gonna die.
Aaron beat at the door as I cautiously approached, a prop in my hand. I might as well blend in.
“Hello, I’m new here… I’m an extra for this scene and I’ve lost my script, can you tell me what to do?” I asked the nicer looking man, who looked up and smiled sweetly.
“New? Well, hello, I’m Life. This is my brother Death… As for your role, that’s not a problem, this happens alot…. you can stand over there for this scene, where we are in a prison… you don’t look like a prisoner…” he clapped his hands and two women ran over, towels in their hands. They were dressed in all white, and had some make up on their hands. “Come, do her costume for this scene.”
The two women smiled at me and led me into a bright room, sitting me down at a salon chair. I hated having any makeup on me, except for the occasional heavy mascara. But, there were other concerns more important than make-up. For one, who were Life and Death? I guess anything is possible. But are they really Life and Death personified?
The girls smiled, bearing their pearly white teeth, distracting me by spinning the chair to face the mirror. They were probably twins, about age nineteen. Talk about awkward.
“Hi!” said one, with a gold necklace. “My name is Christie! This is my sister, Emma. So you’re new?”
“Obviously you need makeup for this scene. You don’t look like the type of teenage girl who would look like you’re in a prison. Neither do we!” giggled the other girl, Emma, who had more of an accent. “We’ll just put on some make up to make you seem like you haven’t had any food and have been kicked around.”
“Oh! You’re human! You have much more color than us souls. Well that’s nice of the boss! You’re going to be really easy to make look like you’re beat up. This make up works well on souls, but has extra powers on humans. Isn’t that spectacular?” Christie smiled and got some red make up and made a short brush over my face.
I twitched a bit. There was a bit of a pain, so my hand flew up to my face and I ran my hand lightly over the make up. I checked my finger. The make up didn’t come off. “Wow! That sticks! …. Uh…. not to sound like a kid, but that sorta hurt….” I muttered, as if the end of my statement was another paragraph.
Emma smiled and handed me a mirror. “It’s supposed to. Don’t worry, the make up will be absorbed in… About an hour! Not to worry, after the first brush, the others don’t seem nearly as rough.”
Looking in the mirror, I saw a long scar down from where Christie had brushed me with the makeup. Blood, real blood, dripped from my cheek. I held down a shriek.
Christie sympathetically patted my shoulder. “It’s not that bad. It hurts as much as the masks. You’ll get used to it. Now, for the rest.”
She took out fifteen brushes, and artistically whipped me with them and I blinked down pain. Eventually she took out some makeup that looked like blush and patted me down with it. I looked into the full-scale mirror. I looked like I had lost over one hundred pounds, leaving me at about forty pounds. My skin was a sickly greenish grey color, my eyes bloodshot, my hair stringy, and my face and arms covered in scars. This was all makeup! But my clothes… they still looked casual, and didn’t really go with the rest of me.
“I think she should have gone albino. Silver’s father turned people albino to signal that they were successfully captured, and their powers stolen. For this scene, don’t you think it would be more scary if our actor stole powers and turned people albino?” asked Emma, looking at me, pursing her lips. Silver’s father was a previous threat? Have I heard that before? Of course I have… but…. albino? Why am I not albino? Kostya was already partially albino, I guess, but not fully!
“Ah, well the show is about to go live, so we better just tear up her clothes and get it done with.” Christie waved her hand and my clothes appeared ripped up and worn out.
“What? These are my favorite clothes!” I thought over the previous days. I haven’t changed out of them in two days. The jacket wasn’t even mine. I gulped down my stupidity. “Well, whatever. Probably like all the other makeup, this is only temporary.”
Christie and Emma nodded, grinning. “That’s right! You’re catching on fast! … Now for the last scene you’re going to have to use some other clothes, of course. I’m sure you’ll like them, and if you really do, you can keep them!” Christie smirked and waved me over to her, then escorted me out of the room.
Aaron stood on the opposite side of me, just stepping out of a costume room, clad in armor and a cloak trailing behind him, which looked very much like René’s cloak. Ignoring him, we both stopped by the two main characters, which were reading over their scripts a final time.
“Marvelous! Christie, Emma, you both did spectacularly, now they’ll actually look like prisoners! … And this dead boy… he looks just like René…. It’s great he could fill in for our real actor!”
The other actor smiled a wry smile. “Dead as dust…. nonetheless… I can hypnotize him into knowing the words.”
Dead? Aaron was dead?? I looked at him for an answer, but he just shrugged like he had as much of an idea as I did.
“Ok… well…. let us begin. You’ll know your lines once you get up on stage, and I promise you that you’ll say it right…. and if you don’t, my power must be wearing thin. As for you, lady, you’ll know also. Just watch and you’ll know what to say when you need to say it.” said the dark actor, picking me up with one pale hand and set me on the stage. Almost mechanically, I got to a spot of the set and the cameraman nodded and counted to five before rolling the camera, setting a special effects disk in the hard-drive in his computer by his side.
I saw a screen above him, my eyes trailing off from the camera, as it caught me out of view. I saw two Silvers, the dark actor from before looked just like Silver! Why hadn’t I caught that earlier? They both did! They sounded like him, too! How stupid of me!
They recited their lines perfectly, sounding just as Silver would have. They were believable, very believable. Aaron was hovering above them, smirking down at me. An evil smirk, in fact. He put his index finger to his lip, still smiling widely. That wasn’t Aaron! Aaron was standing off stage, arms crossed, watching the Silvers act out a TV series.
…. René. I was going to warn one of the actors, but I was too late, and René jumped from the ceiling and landed in front of the Silvers. The Dark Silver tried to look tough, and tackled René, sensing his evil.
I ran over to Aaron, who tore off his cape and joined the fight. René held a baton far above his head. There was a huge discharge of dark magic, knocking everyone off of René, but Aaron was amazingly unaffected. I realized why he hadn’t been knocked off. His hand was tightly wrapped around the baton that René had.
René looked over at Aaron, frowning and trying to rip the baton from his grasp. I had to get Silver down here. My new friend was a worthy opponent for this dark king’s even darker father.
No cell phone. My luck. I would have to get Silver by foot. Hopefully he wasn’t too far off.
Before I could set off, René threw Aaron out the window and into a nearby building. The baton traveled with him. René made a desperate huffing sound and jumped through the window. Aaron, by this time had jumped into a car and pressed the ignition. The window was a small window, a few feet above me. I couldn’t reach it; I would have to take the back door. Kayla and Travis stood at the unlocked door, beckoning me over. I ignored them and ran towards the back door as something exploded and a car mirror came flying towards my nose. Travis knocked me out of the way and the mirror shot past me.
My jaw hung low and I ran out the door. The car Aaron had jumped in had exploded! René stood above the remnants, chuckling, “Oi, your fate was dark indeed. Now the ancient artifact I rightfully deserve can be mine.”
Aaron was nowhere in sight. Surely a body was left over. Suddenly, a head popped out from the rubble and Aaron squirmed out, the baton still firm in his hand. He dashed off at lightning speed away from the crime scene, leaving René quite upset. Travis snorted and Kayla sighed shallowly, forcing a small smile. I smirked at the angry Shadow King as he disappeared behind a building to think of a plan to get back the baton.
I rushed to Aaron side, heaving thickly. Travis had gone back with Kayla to check out the damage done to the studio. Aaron looked back at me, smiling a dark smile.
“That was simple.” he chuckled. He pointed straight at the city. “Silver’s house isn’t that far away. I’ll lead the way.” I smiled and hugged his burnt arm, making him squirm a little at the pain from the scorches.
“Oh, sorry!” I exclaimed, pulling away quickly. He shook his head, still smirking, this time a bit more gently. He put his arm closest to me around my shoulder, and his other hand came to my hand, and he gripped my hand tightly as we walked. I tried to ignore the situation and put my arm around his shoulders.
Aaron was right; the house was only a few yards away. Travis and Kayla were chatting a few meters off. Aaron tried the front gate, to find that it was locked, so we went to the backyard where the graveyard and backdoor was.
I knocked on the wooden door and Aaron put his head on my shoulder, his left arm around my waist.
“Sarai,” he muttered, to get my attention, but he had no real intention to say anymore.
I looked over at him, waiting for someone to open the large wooden door and for him to say something else. Instead he just lightly kissed my cheek, making me turn a deep red and bit my lip, suppressing an ear-to-ear grin.
To our surprise, Travis opened the door. “You took the back door? It’s a lot easier to take the front.” He stated, letting us pass, glaring at Aaron. It occurred to me that Travis had never looked Aaron in the eye. No one except me has. And no one has looked René in the eye either… that’s suspicious… Aaron didn’t notice and continued into the house.
“… The front gate was locked for us.” Aaron replied, looking around the house. “Nice place kingie has here.”
I hugged Travis, and he shook uncertainly. “Thanks for saving me back there.” I said in a singsong voice.
He smirked and I released him from my arms and then put my hands in my pocket. “Hey, where’s Kayla, I want to talk to her about stuff.” I asked, checking to see if Aaron was still hanging around. In fact he was looming behind me staring vigorously as Travis who glanced away.
“You can talk to me you know.” Aaron and Travis said in unison. Aaron’s hand deftly flew to my shoulder. I huffed down a few complaints, and then lied, keeping a straight face, “Oh… I don’t think you want to hear about… girl problems.” I emphasized girl, eliminating Travis from the conversation. He made a sickened face and pointed to a room with a strong sense of humidity hovering around it.
Aaron, though, wasn’t as easy to break away. He positioned his head beside my right ear and whispered smoothly into it, “Listen, I want to hear about all your problems, il mio amore.” He kissed my neck and patted my shoulder.
“Okay, I’ll tell Kayla, take a shower, change into some pajamas that Myst will probably lend me, and I will rest a bit, watch some TV, and then I’ll tell you what I’m feeling.” I responded, smiling warmly and then going into the room where Kayla was. Aaron shrugged and headed to where the TV was. Travis had disappeared into one of the many rooms.
When I opened the door, I almost slipped on some water on the cement floor. An indoor pool! Silver and his family were so lucky to have so much riches and spoils. I spotted Kayla sitting on the diving board in her bathing suit.
“Fast change of clothes,” I said, breaking the weak silence. Kayla looked up from the pool water and nodded.
“I always wear my bathing suit under my clothes.” She noted, looking back at the water, staring intently. “What’s up?”
“I’ll tell you what’s up once you tell me why you’re just staring at the water.” I replied, sitting down beside her on the dry diving board.
“Ok, well, not to alarm you or make you jealous in any way,” she began, looking up again. “But when I went to that Water Temple, someone there told me that there were only people with water powers allowed inside the Temple, or if they were someone famous like Claire.”
“So you didn’t get in? That’s dumb.”
“No I got in. They scanned me with a radar and they found out that I did have water powers.”
My jaw dropped wide. “… Lucky duck!” I exclaimed, in awe, a rush of envy flooding to my head. I quickly dismissed those thoughts. “And now you’re trying to, like, train your powers right?”
“Exactly! Hey you know what we should do?” Kayla asked after smirking brightly.
I shot her a questioning look and raised an eyebrow.
“We should look for a Temple that recognizes your powers!” she clapped her hands and was about to stand up, but I stopped her.
“Before we leave I’ve got to tell you something, take a shower, and tell Aaron something.” I muttered, impassively.
Kayla calmly crossed her arms and waited for me to continue.
“Well… I think Aaron likes me… in a very special way.” I hinted with a sigh.
“Of course! It’s obvious!” Kayla hit me on the shoulder.
I sighed again, still stoic. “That’s not all. I think I like him that way too. But I’m not sure yet.”
“I’m not going to comment. Sure he’s super cute but he can be pretty rude and mean sometimes… But I think you should follow your heart.” Kayla explained, smiling slightly, and nodding.
I returned the smile and stood up, almost tripping and falling into the water. Kayla followed.
“Yeah, I guess I’ll wait a while and see if he improves any before I make my decision.” I continued.
“Right. Now do what you’ve got to do. I’ll be watching TV.”
“Aaron’s in there.”
“Don’t worry, he’s not my type.”
We both chuckled and I headed to Myst’s room, to ask for a set of clothes.
Entering the strange, dark room, I saw Myst, the strange, dark teenage girl, laying on her bed, reading a smaller, paperback copy of the book Claire had. At her computer desk sat one of her friends, who were watching the computer screen flash random colors, sending them into a hypnotic state.
“Hey Myst,” I said, walking to Myst’s bedside. Myst looked away from her book.
“Oh, hi Sarai.” She said stifling a thick yawn. “Do you need anything?”
“Yes, since you mentioned it, I was wondering if you had some clothes I could borrow.” I muttered, just loud enough so she could hear me.
Myst got up from her bed and nodded and gestured for me to follow her. I followed her into her restroom, where she opened a wardrobe and handed me a black and white striped shirt, some jeans, and some socks.
“Do you need underwear?” she asked, lowly, so her friend couldn’t hear, and not embarrassing me greatly.
“Yeah, if you have some you’ve never worn… If you could please.” I asked, also quietly. Myst nodded understandingly, and handed me a new pack of underwear.
“You can keep all of those clothes. I don’t mind. They should fit you. I’m naturally very thin for my age.” Myst waved me off, and I exited the room without a word, heading towards the bathroom I knew of.
Upon entrance, and closing of the door, I took my clothes off and put them in the laundry basket with a note taped to it that read, “Do your own laundry if you aren’t Claire.” Silver, obviously. I’d do the laundry so Silver wouldn’t come after me with torch and pitchfork.
I stepped into the large shower and began to run the water. Pure, fresh water, like that of which you would fine in a Deer Park water bottle, flooded from the nozzle, immersing me immediately. I heated the water and then stood under the waterfall, pouring the clear shampoo over my hair. I took a washcloth and washed my face, then started rubbing the shampoo into my scalp. Cleaning off the rest of my body and turning off, feeling immensely clean and soft, I exited the shower and closed the screen.
I took a soft cotton towel and dried off, and dried my hair. I had just put on all of my underwear and the striped shirt, which proved to be too long for me, when the door opened. I had forgotten to lock the door! Silly, stupid me!
The person in the doorway seemed to be intentionally walking in on me, because they didn’t shout an apology, yell a complaint, or just simply run off. I turned to shout at the psychopath, or simply just see that the wind blew the door open.
Aaron stood in the threshold, smirking at me, leaning against the walls, arms crossed. “Hello, il mio amore,” he uncrossed his arms and stood up straight against the door, ready to walk over to me.
“Oh, Aaron, don’t stare at me!” I screamed, quickly grabbing the jeans Myst had given me, and putting them on hastily. I grabbed the socks off of the counter and stuffed them in my pocket.
“As you wish. You shouldn’t hide from me, though…” he smiled and crept up behind me, while I wasn’t looking, and put his hands on my shoulders.
“What do you need, Aaron?” I sighed, finally, leaning back into him and looking up at his pale, smiling face.
He rubbed my shoulder and his arms went around my waist, gently and carefully. “I wanted to hear your problems.”
My feeling and thoughts flooded back to forgetful me, and I automatically smiled a small smile, looking at him in a pensive manner. “… Aaron I… really like you… It’s not love just yet, but I can’t help but feel incredibly ecstatic around you.” I smiled a wide, empty smile to make him believe me.
He smiled warmly, spun me to face him, and his lips gently came to mine, and he lightly pecked me for a short time, trying to French me, but I wouldn’t allow him to go any farther, since him kissing me was already a bit out of my comfort zone.
Finally he forced me into letting him french me, but pushing me against the tile wall. My mouth opened slightly to groan in pain, and he took that as an opportunity.
When he pulled away to give both of us a breath, he smiled warmly, and I noticed that his eyes weren’t the same dull hazel as they were when we were in the studio. They were the same yellow color as René’s eyes. I dismissed the color as the lighting, but couldn’t help to feel suspicious in the back of my mind.
“That’s too bad that you don’t love me yet, Sarai.” He said in a monotone voice. “Because I love you.” Those words he had just spoken were a lot more shocking than he intended. After all, I had only known him for a day!
I didn’t say anything, so he sighed softly and he began kissing me again. I do admit, his kissing was incredibly pleasurable, and my hormones exploded like fizz inside of me. Maybe that crash landing and explosion knocked some crazy sense into his head. Maybe he inhaled too much smoke and was drunk. Maybe that baton he had was influencing him. Maybe he was just a cute guy who loved me at first sight. Maybe this was meant to be. Maybe we would elope in a month. Whatever the situation, I had time to think in the future, at the moment I was going to take what I was getting.
Aaron liked that I was accepting the present and actually kissing him back. He held me close to him and kissed me forcefully and meaningfully. He broke away shortly after, gasping for breath. When all was silent for that short second, we could hear some knocking on the door. Aaron ignored it at first, but when he noticed that I was paying more attention to the door than him, he pushed himself away from me and waited for instructions.
“I’ll answer the door.” I muttered, as quiet as possible. “Go hide.” Aaron nodded, reluctant to do so, but went and hid in the small space between the counter and shower. He was almost invisible; completely invisible if you didn’t know he was hiding.
I opened the door, straightening my hair. Travis stood at the door, keys in his hands. “Hey, Sarai. Sorry if I interrupted you dressing…”
“Nope, not a problem.” I searched for words, and forced a smile. Travis smiled back, gently, and handed me the keys.
“Myst told me to give this to either you or Aaron. They’re keys to the house, and Myst said that she’ll show one of you your room. You’re going to be sharing a room… unfortunately…” In the awkward silence, he hugged me quickly, muttered a ‘Thanks for bringing me here’ and walked off.
I turned back to Aaron, giving him a heads up that Travis wouldn’t look back. Aaron emerged and stood; arms cross and an envious look on his face.
“I’m sorry, Aaron. Travis likes hugs. It doesn’t matter, really, because now we’re sharing a room… but not a bed if you’re wondering.” I forced another smile, turning back to the empty hallway. There was a silence and Aaron came up behind me, put his strong hands on my shoulder and kissed my cheek, wanting another kissing session.
I sighed, “… Aaron… I’ve got to go somewhere. Can you do me a favor and look for our room?” I turned back to him, expecting a disappointed look. His cheerful expression didn’t change and he nodded, and then kissed me deeply.
“Anything for you, babe.” He pulled away and led me out of the room, our hands entwined.
As soon as we were out of the hallway, we both let go of each other hands, so that no one could see.
I put on the socks I had in my pocket, then slipped on my New Balance shoes and sat beside Kayla on the sofa, who was immersed in watching the show that Aaron and I had been in, with René and everything in it, eventually ending with a ‘To be Continued’ screen with bold letters at the bottom stating René was back for real.
“Kayla, get back in the zone!” I exclaimed, poking her shoulder. Aaron had disappeared into another hallway. “We’re going to look for my temple! Remember?”
I shook her and she snapped back into reality yawning, “Alright. Ya, let’s go.” She stood up and started for the front door. I jumped up and jogged to her side.

* * * * * * * *

“Ok so that marks Nature and Earth temples off the list.” I sighed, checking off ‘Nature’ and ‘Earth’ on my clipboard and notebook that I had grabbed in the Light Temple. They were having a free whatever-you-wish-for day. I figured I need a clipboard and notebook at the moment, and also thinking that they would have another free day, got only that. A super virtual reality video game system would have to wait another day.
“What’s left?” asked Kayla, sleepily. It had been about two hours since we left Silver’s house.
I checked the notebook clipped to my clipboard and my face lit up. The Psychic Temple was the only remaining temple on my list. After being plainly rejected by all the other temples, I didn’t want to be rejected by my favorite of them all. “Psychic Temple, where’s that, wherever it is let’s go!”
“You said earlier on in our misadventure that the Darkness temple had some Psychic people working there to help the humans, right?”
I nodded. I certainly knew where the Darkness Temple. In fact, it wasn’t too far out of the forest that we were in. “Yeah! We can ask them to scan me or give us directions! C’mon, this forest leads right to the Darkness Temple, remember?”
“Oh, yeah, I remember!” Kayla smiled, trying not to sound sarcastic. She jogged ahead of me. Rising up to the challenge, I jogged to her side, and soon we were in a race to the Darkness Temple.
The wet leaves whipped my face as I ran full speed through the humid forest, damp from the most recent rain. The trail was becoming more definite, so we both knew we were close to the Temple.
Kayla and I were both fairly fast runners, but she was a good centimeter ahead of me.
‘Lame!’ I thought as the Temple came into view. ‘Now I know why I wasn’t in the Air Temple for speed… I should have ran Cross Country!’
Gathering up as much speed as possible, Kayla and I soon were shoulder to shoulder, and we both entered the Temple at top speed, in a tie race.
Panting, we casually walked up to the receptionist desk. The lady that I had seen earlier, with Aaron, looked up and smiled. “Oh, hello, if it isn’t that girl who asked for the name of that restaurant! How may I help you?”
I leaned onto the counter, still gasping for breath, and twiddling my fingers. “Uh, can you please… scan me… for Psychic powers? If no, you can give me directions to the Psychic Temple…”
“… Hmm if you came all this way I guess that I can at least scan you for powers…” the lady stood up and sat me down at one of the couches in the corner. She sat beside me, eyes closed, hands on my temples.
She quickly stood up and shrugged, “Psychic powers that’s for sure. But these Psychic powers have a seal on them, so it’s going to be hard for you to use them to their full potential. How did you get this seal?”
I paused and then replied, “I’m not sure… it’s like your speaking in gibberish… about the reason Einstein computed that E=MC2.”
The lady paused and pursed her lips in thought. “Well, then, I’ll ask you a few questions. They won’t prove much, and you’ll have to see one of the tame Shadows that hang around here in the Darkness Temple, but they will help you to know more.”
She hesitated to continue and paced back to the main desk, where Kayla was playing ‘Ink Ball’ on the computer. Kayla quickly stood up and got out of the lady’s way. I walked back over to the desk, too, smiling at my powers. I quickly put a smiley by Psychic Temple and handed the clipboard into Kayla’s unsuspecting hands.
“Ok question number one!” the lady began. “Has a Dusk Elf ever loved you? This means ‘Has Lord Stone or his brother ever loved you?’ This is highly unlikely, seeing that Lord Stone only loves his wife and his brother is really to shy to get to know someone that well.”
I shook my head, “I didn’t even know Silver was a Dusk Elf, and like you said, he only loves Claire.”
The lady nodded. “Right then, question number two!” she paused again. “Have you ever come in contact with a powerful shadow? This means simple social matters, a hug, a shove, or just a conversation?”
“… Yes. In fact I was the sacrifice for one…” I muttered.
“There you go! That’s why you have a seal. They took some of your power and used it against you. This happens subconsciously, just part of being a shadow… Wait I thought you said that you were a mortal human…?” The lady looked at me, waiting for an explanation.
“I am. I didn’t die, I don’t think. I still have a heartbeat… This shadow’s power was cut in half when I didn’t die.” I explained, rubbing the back of my neck.
“That explains it, I guess.” The lady nodded. “Well, would you like to go see those shadows?”
“Not me, I’ve heard about them. I don’t trust them. Good luck Sarai, I’m going back to my room while we’re here.”
“Ok, see you later Kayla.” I waved and watched her go up the spiral staircase in the center of the lobby.
“Well then, come with me ‘Sarai’. There should be some Shadows waiting in the coliseum, probably watching a match.”
“A wrestling match?” I wondered, watching the lady stand up and beckon for me to follow her.
“No,” the lady smiled. “We don’t do any form of wrestling the Darkness Temple… That’s for the main city folks to go about. No, we do magic battles. The shadows are particularly interested in this book that recently went on sell in the market of the Shadow Lands.”
“Oh I see, Claire has a book like that. She and Silver are training for maximum lethality.” I nodded sagely; happy to know information others do not. The lady turned back at me.
“How do you know so much about our rulers?” she asked, stopping completely, in front a large ivory door.
“Oh, I’m staying with them… and hey, shouldn’t you know? Since you’re Psychic and all.” I questioned, crossing my arms. I don’t like liars.
“Yes, I should… but your seal isn’t granting access. It’s a powerful seal indeed. Though, Lord and Lady Stone should be able to break through it with ease.” The lady clarified.
I could believe that, for now. There was a long, drawn out silence before the lady opened the large ivory door by typing in a password on the wall and sliding a card through a section.
The door unlocked and the lady swung it open without much difficulty. She let me pass into the large arena. The arena was bursting with activity. There were several creatures hanging around the entrance, in the form which René took before he traded bodies with Kostya. Now I wondered which one of these Shadows was Kostya, if any of them were.
The lady pointed to one of the empty seats, by one of the people watching the match, who wasn’t a Shadow. I walked to where she was pointing and sat down. She walked out of the stadium and closed the door behind her, quickly so no one in the current fight could run to safety.
The entire domed arena was shaking with activity, roaring and cheering, and booing. In the middle of the stadium, where the fight was happening, there was a Shadow shooting of dark magic, or chaos as the Shadows refer to it as, and a Psychic soul firing the chaos back with his mind, enhancing its power. Someone in front of me was cheering as loud as they could, for the Psychic soul.
“… Mind if I sit?” asked someone to my right. I looked up, noticing a tall shadow with his sixteen thorn-like ‘hair’ smoothed down over his golden eyes. He, like all the other shadows, was completely shrouded in a cloak made out of chaos. I wonder if this was really what they looked like, and if they were just like the spirits that Silver spoke of, underneath all of the darkness.
Snapping out of my trance, I nodded shyly. “Of course, as long as you’re not a threat like the Shadows that haven’t been trained to be good.
“No, I’ve been taught well.” He sat down beside me on the long, clay bench. “Whom are you rooting for?”
Another Shadow sat down beside the Shadow I was speaking to. “She’s clearly Psychic, possibly Darkness, but I doubt it. Definitely not a Shadow. She looks pensive, she must be rooting for the Psychic guy mentally.”
“I’m not rooting for anyone.” I said, turning to look at the other Shadow, who flinched. “I’m trying to find someone who can explain this seal and what I can and can’t do with my Psych.”
The Shadow closest to me nodded understandingly. “May I?” he asked, raising his claws to my forehead. “It won’t hurt at all.”
I nodded, ready for anything. The shadow nodded back, closed his eyes and his claw went through my skull, without any difficulty, blood, bone breaking, or pain on my behalf. My skin rippled, reminding me of a portal into the unknown. The shadow pulled away, holding the same medallion that Kostya had.
“Holy cow!” the other shadow yelled, shocked. “That’s the Shadow Medallion! Long lost by our ancestors! How’d that get stuck in your noggin?”
Ignoring his friend, the Shadow closest to me smiled greedily. “This is the object keeping the seal embodied… This is why you had the aura of a soul. It was deep inside your Psychic ability, but was incredibly smooth in coming out. The seal isn’t gone, mind you, merely just exposed, so that your Psychic ability, with the right training, can banish it for a while…” said the Shadow, handing me the medallion, reluctantly. “This medallion has chaos surrounding it, not visible, but every Shadow in this room seems to have sensed it.” Indeed, the entire room had quieted and the Shadow fighting in the arena was looking around for the source of the power. The Shadow beside me continued to explain, “Wear it with honor and respect in the Shadow Lands and you will be greatly appreciated. Wear it anywhere near Elysium Fields or the Light Temple, and you will be slaughtered. Wear it like a curse when you are there. Once you put it on, I promise you that you will never be able to take it off. Power comes with duty. Do you wish to put this on?”
“So I will never be able to take this medallion off?” I asked, shocked. Talk about ironic and lame. “And how come it was in my head? I didn’t feel anything!”
“No, you won’t, unless you are bestowed the Elysium Field’s treasure, which hasn’t been found in ages…” he hesitated. “But René did find Harmony Temple’s lost treasure, so you do have luck… I wouldn’t be surprised if René is looking for all of these treasures… And how it got there? Oh, simple, the owner before must have sealed it in you so that you may have eternal life… this would be a potential threat for René, indeed.”
“But René already has this item,” I noted, glancing at the medallion. Couldn’t I just take off the Medallion? It looked loose, large for me. I could probably slip it off. “I saw.”
“No, rest assured he has never come in possession of this item.” The Shadow replied, smiling a fang full grin. “And if he had, it wouldn’t have left his possession in any situation. His medallion he had… what did it look like?”
“Just like this medallion.”
“Did you feel immensely frightened around it? If not, then it definitely wasn’t this medallion. This medallion can make humans incredibly terrified when it is worn by someone capable of accessing its power, and can damage those who aren’t friendly around the user.”
“Nope, it just looked like any regular medallion.” I answered, picking up the strange gold necklace, with a black chain, a cross, an X, and a blood red ruby with a keyhole in the center. “I’m going to put this on, it seems useful.”
“Wait… you may feel a great deal of pain if this medallion isn’t meant for you.” Warned the other Shadow, looking up from the fight.
“It doesn’t matter.” I muttered, lifting the necklace over my head and dropping it to my shoulder. “There’s no pain.”
The first shadow shrugged. “It’s reading your memories, even the memories from past lives. Just wait, you’ll feel a pinch and then everything will be back to normal… unless you aren’t meant to have the medallion.”
Great. Just great. I hate pain, but it always seems to be rotating around me. Like Will Edmonds. Sure enough, the Shadows were right. The medal pinched the back of my neck and began to ring itself around a small section, like an ear ring, except this was a necklace permanently hooked to the back of my head. There was little pain, but it still hurt. Then there was an absence of the pain. All was at peace.
“I guess I am the chosen user.” I sighed, relieved. My new powers would be in good use against René and his army.

The Pillaging Chapter 9

Chapter 9: This Way’s Pass

Amazingly, we weren’t getting tired of walking all this way.
Finally, by the time it was sunset, someone said something.
“Sarai,” Travis whispered. “Look.” He pointed to my left.
There stood a temple in ruins. Like a barrier; no cats could seem to get in. Why? These cats weren’t evil were they? Yes. They must be. How ironic, although René’s essence surrounded them.
We passed the ruins and our human needs caught up with us. Food and water flashed through our head. We were starving. How could the needs just randomly appear? Nonetheless, we still had to get something to drink and something to eat. Our legs ached from walking and our stomachs hurt from hunger.
Soon the cats begin to become less numerous.
Kayla finally sat down. “Ugh… it’s so warm out here… my legs ache, my stomach hurt, and I’m sooo thirsty.”
“No, ugh… wait, who’s that over there?” Travis pointed to a person in a black cloak with the same strange symbols that René’s cloak had.
“That must be him! Quick! Travis do you have your cell phone?” I whispered.
“Yeah, totally!” Travis looked through his jacket.
“Let me see it!” I growled, trying to keep my volume low.
Travis handed me his cell phone and I took a picture of René. Well, not just one, maybe twenty or so.
“Do you know Silver’s number?” I asked, glancing at Travis.
“No, but I know Myst’s…” Travis muttered, rubbing his neck.
“…Why? Wait never mind! What’s her number?” I looked at René again. He had gotten farther off and was now standing near a railroad track.
Travis quickly gave her number to me and I dialed it as fast as I could, constantly glancing up at René, to make sure he wasn’t going to leave.
“Hey Myst, this is urgent, it’s Sarai, I really need you to show these pictures I’m about to send to you to your dad.”
“Uh ok,” Myst muttered.
I sent the pictures and I could hear Myst moving around and then the breathing changed.
Must be Silver.
“Who is this person?” Silver demanded, lowly.
“René, a shadow, vampire king, all that junk, he says he’s your father. You MUST get to where we are and quickly. Now we’re at a-”
Silver hung up.
Great.
Silver appeared in about a millisecond, although he claims he was ten seconds slower than just that.
Well, at least he wasn’t bragging.
He held a sword in his right hand and an animal’s claw, with the same emblem that empowered René earlier, in the other.
Maybe Silver got the bright idea he could lock René away in his own symbol.
“Silver, René is going to get away on the train! He’s that guy in the–”
“I KNOW! HE’S MY FATHER, ISN’T HE? PLUS, IT’S CLEAR TO ME OTHERWISE! HE’S THE ONLY OTHER DEAD PERSON OTHER THAN ME!” Silver boomed, obviously angered by his father’s presence.
René didn’t seem to notice the outburst and turned to his left, noticing a train chugging towards the spot he was standing.
“…What I don’t know is how he got out of this sword… No wonder it’s much lighter… shouldn’t be too hard to kill him again.” Silver reassured himself tightening his grip on the sword’s helm.
“Silver, wait!” I exclaimed, grabbing his arm roughly.
“What do you want?!” He barked, snatching his arm away.
“This René guy could be weaker than you think,” I sighed. “Ya see… There was this guy named Kostya, and he wanted to free his family from being caught between your world and our world… So he sacrificed himself and I to resurrect René–”
“YOU MORON!! IT’S YOUR FAULT THAT HE IS HERE??!!” Silver was about to stab me with that sword of his then he stopped. “You’re not dead… That means he’s not fully powerful. He doesn’t have as much power as he would have…”
Silver lowered his sword then looked back at René, who was watching the train draw closer and closer.
“Is he mad? He’s going to get killed!” Kayla exclaimed surprised.
Silver rolled his eyes and turned back to us, “Unfortunately the Spirit World isn’t that convenient. Judging by the way he is posing, he’s probably going to either jump onto the train or run over to the other side right as the train comes…”
Kayla shrugged. It was a good enough answer.
Silver continued, obviously not caring if we were still listening. “Now how would he like to die today? Blood loss? Electrocution? I wonder if he is fond of his neck… ah! Perfect… man-eating flies! No… That’s too random. He came into this world by a seal and he should die by a seal. He’s going into the claw. Sarai! Are you good at running and climbing?”
I shook my head. No, of course not. I don’t like sports. Not the kind of action I’m into. Stunts all the way! Er… is that the same thing?
“… Travis?” I looked at Travis who was sort of shuffling around behind me.
“Yeah I guess I’m okay. Not good enough to hold on and kill someone– wait I’m not going to kill anyone!” Travis exclaimed, taken back.
“Well good. I’m killing that guy if it’s the last thing I do!!” Silver snapped. “You have to distract the guy. If he jumps to the top of the train, run after the train and climb up the ladder and onto the roof. That train’s not going fast enough to outrun you, I don’t think. Well… not yet. It’ll get faster. That’s when I come in. After you distract him. If he distracted enough, I’ll come from behind and make clones of myself, then eventually kill him. However… if he runs to the other side, you’ll have to run as fast as him and get there before the train comes. Simple. Then distract and I’ll come in for the kill. It’s really easy if he’s distracted.”
Travis didn’t seem to be into the idea. He could die after all.
“Great. Just annoy him shout stuff throw sand in his eyes. Be a kid.”
“But Silver- Lord Stone, sir, I’m not into hurting people…”
“Now you are.”
“Plus I’m fifte-”
“Sure. Sure. You may say that now but after this whole experience, you’ll feel so dumbfounded you may just have to go back to the fifth grade.” Silver chuckled.
“Wow. How much worse can you get? Nice one Silver, you won the Corniest Gag in… er… the Spirit World.” I rolled my eyes. Silver was such a joke.
Silver punched me lightly on the shoulder, which knocked me back.
“Wow. How much worse can you get? Nice one Sarai, you have the be the weakest, most pathetic person in the universe.” Silver mocked. He kneeled down to my level and whispered, “Next time you won’t be that lucky. A slight tap from one, like me, can bring down thousands of dominos, Sarai, dominos. So watch it, okay? You might just see that I’ve got more power than you think. Being a ruler of an entire world has its advantages…”
Silver shoved me down again, and stood up and turned back to René, whose eyes had lit up as the train was only a few hundred feet away.
“You’re lucky this is taking a while. Also, you’re not going insane with tension. If we don’t get this right this might be the last we will see of René. Oh wait look! Eyes on the prize, c’mon people let’s make this happen!” Silver picked up his sword, that he had dropped on the ground near me.
Travis helped me up and held me back while I struggled to break free and knock Silver a good distance.
Amidst my stumbling towards Silver, the train drew inches from René. “Travis, get a move on!”
Travis freed me, but unfortunately I was in the middle of a long stride of tackling Silver. I tripped and fell to the ground, pulling at Silver’s ankles, thus dragging Silver down with me. Silver tried to keep his slip under control, but fell with utmost pride, on his kneecap.
Silver nearly strangled me, but as the train zoomed past René, he was too caught in the moment to even tighten his painful clutch on my neck.
He sighed a sigh of relief as René jumped to the roof of the train. Some people are so obsessed with being right.
Travis rocketed towards the train and grabbed a step of the ladder. He swayed back and forth, repeatedly ramming into the ladder.
“Yowch that must hurt! How fast is that train going? 80? 90?” Kayla exclaimed. With all the excitement I almost forgot about her.
Travis finally climbed up the ladder and onto the train, his hands and knees throbbing in pain. He limped over to René and tapped him on the shoulder.
“Hiya! Is that a smudge on your evil looking cloak?” Travis pointed to a section of René’s cloak.
René grabbed Travis’s wrist and bent it back, just enough to sprain it.
“OW! Man for a chubby old man, you can deal some pain!” Travis rubbed his wrist violently.
Although it wasn’t much of an insult, René was angered greatly. “I’m NOT old or chubby!!!”
As soon as René was about to brutally slaughter Travis, Silver scrambled up and ran over to the train and jumped to the roof. He clawed his way to the roof, almost losing his grip and slipping to the tracks below.
He crept over to René, as silently as possible and readied his sword.
Travis, unnoticing of Silver’s where about, backed off to the farthest corner of the roof of the train. Unfortunately, as the train picked up serious speed, he tripped and fell off. His hand caught a loose pipe.
“Silver! Help Travis! The pipe won’t hold much longer!” I exclaimed.
Silver had second thoughts though. He was watching the laughing René, ready to stab him, waiting for the right moment to drill the blade into his shoulder blade.
“SILVER!” I shouted, trying to beat the roar of the train.
Too late.
Travis tumbled down to the tracks below.
I watched, shocked, as Travis flipped, lifelessly, across the tracks, his eyes as wide as mine were.
Kayla and I scurried to his side, noticing his eyes were tightly shut and his arms were cast across the rusty metal track dividers.
Silver, meanwhile, shook his head. This probably wasn’t that new to him, but nonetheless, he should have helped Travis!
Silver didn’t waste time to get René out of his hair, but before he could successfully accomplish destroying him, René spun around and knocked Silver’s sword out of his hands.
“Tsk, Tsk, my son, you wouldn’t want to anger your dear father, now would you?” René chuckled, kicking the sword off of the train. “Be a good boy and leave your old man to his own business.” He held his hand up, and by some strange force, Silver was violently flung backwards, and slammed to the metal roof.
He caught his breath, and rubbed the damaged back of his neck. “I thought you weren’t as powerful!!”
René chuckled, “Lucky for me, you’re wrong! I’ve got as much power as before, if not more! I owe it all to your little friend, Sarai, sorry if I’m wrong with the name…” he looked down at me, winking, which I turned down by sticking out my tongue and pointing at it. René turned back to Silver and continued, “She has alot of power… for a mortal. More than you would think. Now if you were the one to sacrifice yourself, I would be much, much, much more powerful.”
“Insanely powerful?” Kayla inquired, before I had to shut her up by elbowing her on the shoulder.
“Yeah, insanely powerful. But that’s off the point… now that you’ve fallen into my trap–” René began, only to be interrupted by Silver.
“Sorry, trap or no trap I’m not letting you get away with taking over my world. But for now, sayonara!” Silver leapt from the train, falling into nearby shrubbery.
“Crap it, why do they always do that… Alas! My next stop is Harmony Temple! Once I recover the sacred device used by my ancestors, enslaving this blasted world will be easier than spraining that kid’s wrist!” René shouted, as the train trailed off into the horizon.
Silver crawled out of the bushes, coughing out some dry leaves. He angrily hit the ground with his fist. “Man, I’m such a coward these days. I couldn’t even get the sword within a few inches of him.” He muttered to himself, getting up and walking over to where we were.
“Well? Is he dead? No. Of course not. I can hear his heartbeat from here. His soul is close to slipping away… not that it matters… Ah, well, that’s okay. We’ve got a good hospital in the main city… that’s a while off. I guess I can help you ONCE.” Silver sighed, walking over to where his sword was.
“How are you so calm in a situation like this?” I asked Silver, watching him pick up his sword.
“You’re still so curious. What a spoiled child! … I’ll explain later, although Claire’s a bit better with words… Yeah, how about this, since you actually were good for something and gave me the location of René… Claire and I’ve got a date at a fancy restaurant. I guess once Travis is patched up, you guys can hang around. But don’t get any bright ideas about sitting with us. I’ll pay for all the meals. I’ve got a lot of money to spare. I’ll explain on the way there.” Silver said, and slashed at the air with his sword, ripping the very dense, foggy atmosphere.
“C’mon hurry up, I’m doing you a favor, ya know the tear won’t last much longer.” Silver rushed us in through the rip. “I’m not going to carry Travis!”
“Ugh, I’ll drag him along.” I muttered, grabbing Travis’s hand and pulling him through the tear with us. “Man lose some weight buddy.”
The portal took us to the main city, where Silver found his way into the clinic and requested for some nurses to come out and bring Travis into a room so they could do shock therapy.
“We’ve got some time. How ’bout you go visit your parents, Sarai? And as for you, whoever you are, the Water temple is not that far away.” Silver explained, coming out of the hospital
“… Why are you so nice all of the sudden?” I asked, watching Silver slash at the air again.
“Simple, when I get angry I have alter egos that appear. Since I wasn’t angry long and hit the ground at full speed, one alter ego foreshadowed me for a short time. Eh, after effects stink. Light alter egos… bleh. See, it’s already wearing off.” Silver smirked, throwing a key at me. “I forgot to give this to you. It’s the key to my house. Don’t get used to this kindness. Like I said; this is temporary.”
I caught the key in my hand and gave Silver thumbs up, which he turned down by giving me the finger and disappearing into the darkness.
When he has mood swings, he sure has mood swings.
“Hey wait, Kayla! Where’s the way to the er… Darkness Temple is it?” I paused, seeing a confused look plastered on her face. “The place where our friends and family are.”
“Oh, right, uh… I think it’s near Silver’s place. Go behind his house and you’ll see a graveyard and then go a bit farther off and there should be a huge castle like place, and there is where our parents and friends are… I think. I only remember seeing Silver’s mansion from a window in the lobby-like place.” Kayla explained, shrugging, while heading towards the far-off ocean.
“Thanks,” I muttered, turning towards the left, where I expected the path to Silver’s house is. Unfortunately, a whole lot of buildings lay ahead. This might take a lot longer than I thought.
My stomach ached with hunger. We had used up all of our stored food, and I wasn’t taking it very well.
I stumbled through the huge city, walking across the sidewalk, staring at the almost completely flooded road, where thousands of cars zoomed past me, much like a New York street.
It was still raining, the fog was still low, and as summer was coming to a close, the cold wind froze my ears, hands and face. I rubbed my dry eyes, a drop of rain hammering into my forehead.
Thousands of huge buildings towered over me, and made me feel like an ant as a plane flew only a few hundred feet over me, and a few faces peered through the window, as far as I could see, were pointing at me as I stared up at them, feeling awkward.
Someone sat at the top of the plane, gazing dreamily at the foggy sky, as the aircraft rocketed to the heavens, their hair whipping their lightly tanned forehead.
I snapped out of my staring contest with the travelers in the plane- which was now climbing much farther than I thought it would- when someone’s car caused a massive wave of water to collide with me. “Aw, man! Watch it, loser!” I shouted to the person who skidded off at full speed, snickering.
Even the passengers in the plane chuckled at what had happened, just as they disappeared behind the clouds.
“Ugh,” I muttered, shaking off some of the rainwater that had gotten up my sleeve. I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Ugh, is right. You’re completely drenched! And with this bad weather, you’ll only get worse.” said a voice. They sounded like Travis, but I was sure they weren’t, because their grip on my shoulder was much tighter.
“Gee, thanks, I feel alot better about it now.” I touched the hand on my shoulder, immediately pulling back. I didn’t know this person. Their gloved hands were a bit too thin.
“Hah! You’re the first person to be scared of me in a while. I’m not that scary, trust me, I won’t hurt you. I’m just as human as you are.” chuckled the boy, taking his hand off of my shoulder. “Here, have my jacket,” They took off their jacket and handed it to me.
Putting on the jacket, I turned around to a boy about as tall as I am. His hair was fashioned like Silver’s; raven black, just a bit more droopy. He had moderately high cheekbones, a pale face, and almond shaped hazel eyes that were about as dull as the sky right now. He wore a heavy jacket and a pair of Heelys.
“You look a bit like–”
“Gerard Way? Yeah, I get that alot. I don’t look as much like him as you think. And I certainly can’t sing as well as he can. Dad’s awesome with the vocals. I’m only good at singing ‘ah’,” the boy muttered, still with a happy disposition.
That got me. This guy is Gerard Way’s son. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve never been to ANY of their concerts (well actually I tried to get to go to a few but every time I got brought down by my parents and grounded…). They’re a cool band!! But I’m not totally fanatic about them. Anyway, the point is that I’ve never heard of this boy. All that I’m happy about is that I’m pretty much the same age as him… well… and the fact that he’s a celebrity that people aren’t completely crazy about. Or know about for all I’ve heard. First of all I’m the only crazy one here. I’m raving about a guy I’ve never heard of.
“… Are you still on the line?” asked the boy, shaking me.
I turned to his hand on my right shoulder, and then snapped out of my daze. “Er… right. Sorry, I’ve just been walking for the last few hours. And then my friend fell off a train. He’s in a hospital right now.”
“Ouch. Yeah, he’ll be fine though. Is he human too? Or is he one of these so-called ’souls’ with superhuman strength? Dude, I haven’t seen really any humans in a while. I’m lost. I’ve been staying at these … temples? Yeah I have no idea what speech these people use. Temples, I think, are elemental sanctuaries,” said the boy, rubbing his neck, as we began to walk again.
“Hey, you’re catching on! … Yeah my friend is human. If he weren’t, he wouldn’t be in that hospital… So you’re lost?” I asked, looking at my new droopy hair friend. “I’ve got keys, man, and if you don’t have a place to stay– hey wait a second! Why hasn’t your dad gone looking for you?”
“He’s on tour. My mom and him aren’t married. They stopped dating after I was born. They said I was too big of a responsibility. My mom is dating Frank Iero now.” the boy shrugged. “Frank’s cool. But he’s not teaching me ‘the Way’s way of the vocals’. Frank, at least, will stay with my mum. He doesn’t say curses after every word when he’s drunk…”
The dark side of Gerard I guess. “So you’re staying with…?”
“My mum and Frank. Dad’s busy. When I’m 18, he’ll let me go on tour with him. I’m living in the flood. Mum and Frank move alot. Frank’s on tour, too, so he’s not home much. It’s just like the good days. Mum, pancakes, and school. Thank goodness for the flood! I barely missed that test!” the boy announced, as if I wasn’t the only one there.
This guy is a comedian. I like him already!
“Oh, name’s Sarai Faulk! Nice to meet ya!” I said, shaking his hand.
“Aaron. Aaron Way. Same to you.” ‘Aaron’ said, shaking it back. “Hey, look, there’s one of those repetitive ‘You are here’ signs.” He pointed to a map of the city on one of the walls of a building.
“Goodie!” I ran over to the sign, checking for directions to the Darkness temple. “Ok, we take a right at the next stop sign and then keep on going until we reach a park. Then we go south and we’ll reach a forest. Keep on going south then we reach Silver’s house…”
“Uh, that Lord Stone guy?”
“Yeah, that Lord Loser guy.” I muttered.
“Oh, okay.”
“Well we better get moving. I know how to get to the Darkness Temple from Silver’s house.” I said, looking up from the map.
Aaron talks alot. Now that he seems to feel more secure around me, he’s chatting his mouth off. Periodically, I’d have to tell him that I didn’t know anything about what he was saying. Other than that, we talked like old friends.
“Well, well, well if it isn’t my good friend Aaron…” said a voice from our right as we passed by an alleyway.
Aaron turned to face whoever was addressing him. “… Wolfe.” he muttered, putting his hand in his pocket. “I thought you moved to a different state. A non-flooded state.”
‘Wolfe’ smirked. “Yeah, I sure did. And guess what. I was in a suicide bombing on some subway, so woop-de-doo, I’m dead.”
“You actually bombed a subway??” Aaron asked, shocked. “Yeah for that you DO deserve death.”
“No, you moron.” Wolfe snapped. “I was the victim.” He took off a bandage on his arm, showing a terrible burn.
“Oh.” Aaron nodded, sighing. “Well. Since you’re the only person I’ve seen in a while that I actually know, do you mind telling us how far away the Darkness Temple is? If it’s terribly far we’ll stop and get a snack and come back.” Aaron looked at me then turned back and dug farther into his pocket and took out his wallet, ready to pay for any of this guy’s services.
“Us….” Wolfe looked over Aaron’s shoulder and at me. His big brown eyes quivered with the laughter he was trying to contain. “So, freak boy’s got himself a chick? Nice. I didn’t think you had it in you.”
Aaron frowned. “She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Right. Since you’ve got a nice lookin’ lady there, I’ll let you off free.” Wolfe said, winking at me and raising his sweaty hand, which had smeared numbers that looked like a phone number.
Aaron, a bit surprised, put his wallet back in his pocket. “Okay, so how far will he have to walk?”
“Well, it’s about four minutes away if you take the route behind Lord Stone’s house… if you keep on going north it will be about five minutes and if you go east and north you’ll hit the beach and it will be about fifteen minutes, and then if you keep on going the way you are going it will be about ten minutes. Take anyway you like… I’m not your mom.” Wolfe lowered his hand that he had used to point out the directions.
Aaron muttered a ‘thanks’, grabbed my elbow and dragged me away.
“Who is that guy?” I asked, when we were out of the view of Aaron’s ‘friend’.
“The bully at my school. He left to another state because he got expelled out of every school… either that or he was failing so badly. His parents are… or were… wealthy people. His dad was a founder of an oil company, and his mom was a fashion designer.” Aaron shrugged. “As you now know… he died in a bombing… maybe his parents did too.”
He didn’t seem to notice he still had a light hold on my arm. I didn’t really care.
“Oh,” I looked up. “There’s Silver’s house.”
Aaron released his snatch on my arm and stared in awe at the mansion. “Whoa. This place is worth more than everything I’ve ever owned. I can’t imagine the interior. Probably really Victorian age stuff in there, eh?”
I shook my head, “That’s where you’re wrong… well, partially… I could be wrong. I haven’t seen the entire house, after all. I’ll have to get you a key from Silver.”
Aaron pointed behind the house. Sure enough a small family graveyard stood in above a hill that lead to the Darkness Temple.
The Darkness Temple was huge, about ten times the size of Silver’s mansion. Aaron stared in awe, and exclaimed, “That place is huge!”
I looked at him, a bit confused. “Haven’t you been inside?”
“Well, yes. But I was only in two of the rooms. Then some bratty kid shoved me into a pod like they have in the Star Trek (™)… and I appeared on the street.” Aaron turned back to the main city. “Far, far over there.”
I shrugged and we passed the graveyard behind Silver’s house. I glanced over at the small graveyard, noticing all of the tombstones were all marked ‘Stone’. Silver’s near, and dearly deceased… but they were already dead. What is beyond death? I guess I’ll ask Silver or Claire later.
I spotted Myst kneeling by one grave, chewing and blowing bubbles with some bubblegum. “Oh, hey Aaron, wait here.” I said, walking over to Myst.
Myst looked up and said, “Hey, ’sup?” She didn’t seem very unhappy.
“Nothing… just going to the Darkness Temple. Mourning the dead?” I asked, looking at the tombstone she knelt in front of, labeled ‘Nadia Stone’. “Who’s Nadia?”
Myst shrugged, “Just paying my respects to my dad’s mother. I don’t want bad luck. Spirits can be really haunting,” she said. That explains death after death… “Ya know, father’s dad killed her… ” She looked down again. “Dad doesn’t remember her. She died when he was only a year old.”
“Oh, so René killed Silver’s mother, huh? Talk about a fortunate childhood.” I muttered, thinking about the way Silver was at the moment. A brooding, dark, pale skinned, vampire looking, short tempered, elfin ruler of a powerful land, with probably no fear in the world… other than losing Claire, perhaps.
“Who’s René? I’ve never heard my grandfather’s name, and he was infamous, so he’s not in this graveyard… but I know it’s not René.” Myst replied, looking up again. “Oh! I know who you are talking about… good old grandpa’s dark side. A whole different name and personality… that’s who you’re talking about.” She stood up.
“Well… you should talk to Silver about René. You’re probably of the first targets.” I muttered.
Myst looked confused, “What do you mean?” She asked, blowing a large bubble and it popped all over her freckled, pale face.
“Oh… sorry. Just talk to your father about René… Interesting stuff. Bloody, violent, historical stuff. Ya never know…. History could repeat itself.” I said, slowly, carefully picking my words.
She shrugged. “Whatever. I’m going inside to get lunch. Do you want something?”
“An extra key. Aaron here needs a place to say and I was thinkin’, what the hey? Just let him stay here. Besides… He can even stay in the same room as me. I don’t care. If he gets annoying, I don’t care, he can… er…. what’s your usual punishment for being annoying?”
Myst paused and then said, “Hmm, usually I have to take the stare…”
“The stare?” I asked.
“Yes, the stare. A silent treatment, but it is horribly painful to your mind. My father has this ability. I mean, have you SEEN his eyes? They pierce your mind, they can break in there and tear you up. And as I get stronger, the treatment seems to get more painful. My father has mind-boggling power. And you’re lucky you haven’t been hit by the stare yet… but that’s usually the treatment.” Myst said, lowly.
Aaron winced.
“Anyway, I’ll get a key. Come back later and I’ll give it to you.” Myst continued, going inside the house and slamming the door behind her. I rolled my eyes and turned back to Aaron.
“It’s no big deal, Silver can’t hurt you. It probably only works on dead people.” I said, walking towards him.
“Whatever you say, you know more than I do.” Aaron shrugged and we began down the steep hill to the Darkness Temple.
“Ya know, Aaron, you have good choice in clothes.” I said, patting his jacket that was over my shoulders. I then looked at his shoes. “And Heelys?”
Aaron shook his head. “My mom got me these. I’m no girl.” As we got onto flat land, we noticed someone hacking away at pine trees.
“What are you guys doing?” I asked a man, who held a huge tree over one shoulder, seeming to feel that it was just a book or something light like that.
The person spun around, the tree almost knocking us over. I pretended not to notice, although my ear now had a splinter in it. Aaron’s nose had a scratch and he was looking a bit annoyed.
“Oh, sorry about that…” said the man carrying the large tree. “We’re cutting trees for the holidays… Since we have the largest known forest in the universe… might as well. Even if we do have to share with those filthy, good-good light users.”
“Sure sounds like the Darkness Temple…” Aaron whispered in my ear. I shrugged as a reply.
“Well, have you heard about Rohan?” asked the man, putting the tree on a stack of pine trees, and then wiping his hands off.
“Who?” I asked, raising my eyebrow and looking around for another person he could be directing the question ago. Aaron, tired of waiting, had already walked into the building.
“… You must be a human,” the man answered to my uncertainty. “That’s strange. You don’t have the essence of a mortal. And I know the essence of the mortals. That’s part of my psychic powers.”
“Psychic? This is the Darkness Temple.” But of course I could be wrong.
“Yes, I know. The Darkness, Psychic, and Fire Temples work together sometimes. We’re welcome here, so I thought I could pitch in.” the man shrugged. “Lord Stone’s wife has psychic powers… and Lord Stone uses Psychic powers.”
I rolled my eyes. I don’t need to hear anything more about Silver’s great and mighty powers from his suck-up fans.
“Anyway… you must be going to the section of the Darkness Temple that Lord Stone put together. You’re lucky. He’s not usually that nice to humans. Matter of fact, he’s never let even us souls into his house unless that person has visual proof of being related to his wife or him. And it has to be pretty good evidence. Lord Stone doesn’t believe everything he sees. He’s smart. You’re lucky you conked out at the right moment, when his wife was around. She’s alot nicer than Lord Stone.” he winked. “Lucky duck… Oh and there’s the General Rohan I was just talking about.”
A general with a few metal electrical items attached to his head, just like the objects they use to determine if you are lying, walked over to us and said, “I’m not crazy. An evil spirit that wanted me to convince Lord Stone of something possessed me. Unfortunately, he’s not smart enough to realize that Lord Stone doesn’t believe anybody but his wife. And Claire is never seen in public without him. So he had to take over someone like me, who is seen in public from time to time. I know that I was possessed. I’ve been possessed before. Everything goes dark, but you can feel your body moving.”
“Hmm. odd. That reminds me of something else called ‘being drunk’.” said the man who was carrying the huge tree before.
I nodded, rolling my eyes. “Uh, guys, my friend is waiting for me. See you later.” I spun around, then walking to the Darkness Temple, rather fast, so that I could catch up to Aaron, who was going extra slow so I could follow him. By now, he was at the reception counter.
“Well, glad you could finally make it.” Aaron said, and then turned to the receptionist.
I stood beside him, then said to the receptionist, “Uh, ma’am…” to get her attention.
The receptionist looked up from her computer and yawned, “Sorry… er… how may I be of assistance?”
I continued, “Which floor are the humans, and which rooms are the-”
The receptionist who shook her head interrupted me. “I’m sorry, but all the humans staying here have been escorted by a small squadron of trainee soldiers through the harsh weather, to get some items to make the Spirit World a more familiar environment. May I assist you in any other way?”
“Well, not really, we’ve got to get to lunch at some fancy diner… do you have any idea where Silver and Claire dine on their dates?” I asked, tapping my fingers on the counter. Aaron nodded his head, seconding the notion.
The receptionist smiled and looked down at her desktop, clicking something on her keyboard; she looked up again and clapped her hands together. “Dining fancy are we? A couple of lovers like you would love this restaurant…”
Aaron and I looked at each other. “Uh… we aren’t really dating…” I whispered, rubbing my neck and blushing. “I just met him…”
Ignoring me, the receptionist continued, “But it’s only open to those rich and famous enough to go inside… that and if they have a reservation… hmm, my records say that seventy-five percent of the time they dine at a restaurant called ‘Les Nourritures Les plus fines du Monde d’Esprit’ at noon. Would you like me to transport you two there via teleporters?”
Aaron corrected her by saying, “Transporter.”
The lady shook her head and stood up. “Follow me,” she said, over the clacking of her high heels.
“Does the Darkness Temple usually have receptionists?” Aaron asked, crossing his arms as we followed her down a long hallway to several pods stood.
“No,” the lady answered, darkly. “I’m from the Psychic Temple. I’m helping out here until you humans are back in your cozy abodes, happy and unknowing of what happened before. Also, the decorations here are also temporary. This place is usually crawling with armor and paintings and weapons galore! It’s all dressed up because Lord Stone hired some newly deceased person off the street to assist to all human needs. I’m only here because that person off the street fell into the psychic group. How ever delightful.”
Aaron, regretting asking the question, slowed down on his proud march towards the pods. In fact he stopped in his tracks, taken aback by the sharpness in the woman’s voice. I ended up dragging him behind me, by the shirt collar. Eventually he unhooked my tight grip and waltzed beside me.
Soon we reached the pods and the lady stopped, smiling ever so creepily back at us. These souls sure do have mood swings.
“Why are we stopping?” Aaron asked, slowly. He didn’t want another lecture.
“There’s a group of people about to come out of the chambers. Wait patiently, the teleportation sequence won’t be much longer,” the lady recited.
Aaron and I looked at each other. Reading each other’s glances, we both agreed on the fact that this lady has memorized every line she has used to answer humans.
The pods made a clicking sound and out stepped Travis and Kayla, looking around rather confused.
“Hey Travis, Hey Kayla!” I waved. “So let’s get in the teleporter and that receptionist lady can get crackin’ and we’ll in appear in. A FANCY RESTAURANT!” I clapped my hands and pulled Aaron into the pods.
“Who are those people?” Aaron asked, quietly, as Kayla and Travis pouted a bit before stepping in behind us. “Friends of yours?”
“Yep.” I whispered back, watching the receptionist wave goodbye and type in the coordinates to the restaurant, then pressing enter.
There was a flash of light and the color drained out of the world around me. I flinched and tightened my grip on Aaron’s arm. He slowly patted it and tried to whisper something in my ear, but a gear loudly shifted and the pod backed up. It picked up pace and there was another flash of light, then the pod lurched and I fell to the floor of the pod, bringing Aaron down with me. Another flash of light and I felt the floor gradually change. My hand was on a piece of dry gum.
I looked up and saw a foggy sky. Fancy looking buildings surrounded us.
Aaron struggled to get up, his free hand pushing on the wet cement below us. As he stood, he pulled me up, my not-so gummy hand clutching his.
Travis chuckled, “Uncoordinated, much? Sarai, you’re so clumsy.”
I frowned and rolled my eyes, “You’re just jealous I’ve found a new friend and you haven’t.”
Aaron shrugged in agreement.
“Friend? Yeah right, if he was JUST your friend, you wouldn’t be still holding his hand, now would you?” I blushed and glanced at Aaron, who reassuringly smiled. “All right guys, Flirty McFlirts are in the house.” Travis snapped, turning away.
“Street,” Aaron said, smartly. “Oh yeah, and you’re sure the King of Comebacks.”
I released my hold on Aaron’s soft hand, gently and slowly. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings after all. Then quickly pointed to a fancy restaurant titled, ‘Les Nourritures Les plus fines du Monde d’Esprit’.
“Well, here’s our stop. Who’s ready to have a fancy lunch?” I clapped my hands and turned back to my friends.
Travis looked at me, away from his anger, and said, “Is it free?”
I smiled and nodded, “That’s the best part of the meal. Free, all you can eat buffet!”
We all cheered and Aaron turned to the restaurant. In front of the restaurant a large, burly man in his forties stood, blocking the door from entrance. Aaron frowned and stepped up to the concierge, who was looking at us awkwardly. “Could you move out of the way? We’ve got a free lunch to have.”
“Hmph! You? You want to have a free lunch here? Well you certainly don’t look rich, you aren’t properly attired. I won’t move an inch, unless you have a reservation…” The concierge smirked and shoved Aaron to the ground.
How rude.
Kayla stomped over the concierge, “Yes, of course we have reservations. You can ask the Queen and King themselves, so move out of the way, bub.”
The concierge shook his head and chuckled.
That was the final straw. I’m not going to act innocent anymore. No more! I’m going to beat this fat lunatic up and get in.
“Who do you think you are?! We have reservations, so tough luck and get moving, we have every right to go in there! And why don’t you ask Silver and Claire!”
“Lord and Lady Stone would never leave reservations for idiots like you!” the man shouted. I shoved the concierge, who shoved me back, ten fold. I fell down beside Aaron.
“What do you think you are doing?” said a familiar voice, coming from behind the glass doors, which were now open. Claire stood in the doorway, holding Silver’s car keys. “Didn’t Silver tell you that these people have reservations on our account?”
“Lord Stone…” the concierge frowned and looked at his reservation books. He looked up, a bit dumbly. “Yes, actually there is a reservation for Sarai and her friends… well, no Sarai here.”
“Hmm, fatty, I’M SARAI!” I shouted, standing up, pulling Aaron along with me. “So move! … Oh and thanks Claire, this loser needed some sense talked into him.”
“Oh, it’s not a problem.” Claire smiled and walked towards Silver’s car and opened it, grabbing her book.
“You’re really into that book.” Travis noted, as we all entered the fancy restaurant.
Claire nodded slightly, “Sort of. It’s a good book, and I wouldn’t have gotten it out of the car, but I heard you guys fighting, so I made an excuse to go outside and get some fresh air, because I was full, and Silver was just starting his lunch. He wanted to go outside with me, though, and I talked him out of it, and grabbed his car keys while I was at it, so I could get something out of the car. Silver offered to get it out for me, and I refused to let him come outside, and naturally wanting to please me, he let me go on my own. I hope he wasn’t too hurt…”
“Oh you and your lovey dovey oddities.” I frowned, glancing at Aaron, who bit his lip and looked away.
“Hmph,” Claire went straight face and then looked at Aaron. “So who’s your friend?”
“Aaron Arthur Way at your service.” Aaron bowed, smirking then breaking to a proud sprint to the four seat free table, he sat down and waited for us to sit with him.
We sat down and Claire sat down at a faraway table, where Silver was yearning for her return, staring at his full plate, bored.
He looked up as she sat down and he smiled widely. “Do I need to ask?” he sighed.
Claire put the book on the table then said, “Well… this is what happened. I went outside and saw Sarai and her friends in a fight with the concierge.”
Silver made a face and turned to me, glaring at me briefly before turning back and listening to Claire.
I stopped listening at that, and flipped aimlessly through the menu that a waiter had put down while I wasn’t looking.
Aaron’s mouth hung wide in awe as he read the long menu, “Wow! This place has everything!”
All of the waiters made a nodding gesture, still frowning deeply.
“And everyone,” Travis concluded, pointing at all the people who were dining.
“How do you know?” I asked, setting down my menu, having memorized what I wanted to order.
“I was on this guy’s, Talos, computer and I was on the Internet and I did a Spirit World celebrity search… Silver and Claire, of course, were at the top of the list, but it noted that they were some of the least followed celebrities, because Silver is known to violently torture all who annoy him or Clare. But anyway, all the top celebrities are dining here. Freaky.” Travis continued. “WAITER!!”
A waiter was suddenly at his side. “Hello,” Travis hissed, hiding his surprise.
“You called?” the waiter raised his eyebrow.
Travis nodded slightly then roughly grabbed Aaron and Kayla’s menus from out of their hands. He lightly grabbed mine from the table and then handed all the menus in. The waiter bowed then asked for the orders.
I leaned back in my chair and waited for my turn, which was fortunately last out of us four. Travis quietly ordered some spaghetti, Kayla ordered some sushi, and Aaron ordered some pizza, and I, being most highly regarded of all of these Neanderthals…. got a cheeseburger. GENIUS!
When I got my meal, I picked up a French fry and poked the burger with it.
“Uh, what are you doing??” Kayla looked at me oddly, taking a bite out of a sushi roll.
I set down the French fry and muttered, “Well, I have this theory…. if this world is dead and full of erm… dead people which are semi transparent from time to time…. could the food be semi transparent, too? And will we only eat… air?”
Aaron shook his head, chewing a big bite of pizza. He handed me his pizza, which I looked at disgusted, frowning greatly. He picked up one of my French fries and proceeded to eat it. He chewed it then nodded, satisfied.
“Is it just air?” I asked, looking up from the sickening slice of chewed up pizza.
He shook his head, swallowing. “No, it’s the best French fry I’ve ever had!” He reached for another, but I slapped his hand, smiling widely. “Fine, I’ll take my ‘iffin pizza back.” he grabbed his pizza, returning a smile. The entire time, Travis and Kayla stared at us, looking rather unsteady.
Travis leaned back in his chair, containing his anger pretty well. “Well, Aaron, aren’t you quite the ladies’ man?” Travis and Aaron sat across from each other and had been angrily exchanging glares the entire time.
“What are you staring at?” Aaron snapped, directing his anger to Travis, who only clenched his fist.
Travis looked at his spaghetti, losing his appetite by the moments passing.

The Pillaging Chapter 8

Chapter 8: Silver’s Demonic Ways

I woke up at five o’ clock in the morning the next day. I got up from bed and sleepily walked to the kitchen. Silver and Claire had fallen asleep on the couch, and Travis seemed like he had already woken up, because the basement door was filtering out light. Myst was at a friend’s house and Talos was snoring at the other end of the hallway.
I opened the fridge and got some milk out then found a cereal that seemed to be good. As I was pouring the cereal and milk into a glass bowl, I heard a creaking noise then a loud thud.
The front door had just closed. Standing at the door with her suitcase was Myst, who was still in a daze. She plodded to her bedroom and slammed the door, leaving her suitcase at the door.
I was a bit more awake from the experience and then walked outside to eat my cereal, avoiding anymore ‘Daily Activities of the Stones’.
Leaning back on a column, I devoured the cereal and placed the bowl beside me, watching the sunrise into the partially cloudy skies.
Every so often a few kids would stop at the gateway to Silver’s palace, shudder, and make a run for it. Although they didn’t seem to notice me, they were still frightened.
Travis emerged from the house with a ping-pong paddle in his left hand and said, “Hey, g’morning Sarai. Check out their basement! They’ve got, like, everything down there.”
“I, like, totally didn’t know.” I mocked, yawning. “Kidding, kidding, but seriously; do they have a super basement?”
“It’s a bird, it’s a plane, YES, it’s Super Basement!” Travis announced, sitting beside me. “Yeah, they sure do.”
It was at that time when I noticed someone peeking through the window.
“Hey, Silver, are you spying on us?” I asked, remotely annoyed.
“No,” Silver whispered. “Shut up, I’m going to scare those human kids away. I can see they’re going to try and get into the house. So shut up so they won’t notice me, or, Sarai, you’re gonna be wishing you didn’t still breath. Oh and maybe you should hide.”
I gulped and looked for the children. When I spotted them, I ducked behind a column and Travis fell in the bushes below. The kids had already passed through the gate and were heading to the door.
Silver appeared out of nowhere in front of the kids and shouted, “HELLO!”
The kids fell backwards in shock. “Uh… uh… are you Lord Stone?”
“That’s right! And where you trying to break into my house?” Silver asked, probably expecting them to say ‘no’ so they won’t get in trouble.
“No, n-no sir,” they said, backing up.
“Oh,” Silver acted surprised. “Then in that case I welcome you inside.” Silver turned to me and muttered, “Get everyone out of the house and hurry.”
I jumped up and leaped through the window into the house. I woke Myst up and Talos was already trying to get out the back door. They both found there way out without going through the front door and ran to see the show. Claire already seemed to know the drill and sleepily walked out the back door behind Myst.
I followed them and watched Silver zap the doorknob somehow and the house shook. He passed through the door and the kids followed him in.
I peered in through the window and watched the hole place set on fire and the floor begin to deteriorate. Snakes crawled out of the holes and spiders fell from the ceiling and began to cocoon the kids, while Silver watched and laughed. He raised his hand and called off the entire show and then handed them blackish lollipops.
“NUH-UH WE AREN’T GOING TO TAKE YOUR BLACK PLAUGUED LOLLIPOPS!” one of the kids shouted, backing up towards the door.
Silver couldn’t help to laugh, but muffled it with one hand. He waved the lollipops in front of their faces and said, “Licorice flavor… you like licorice, don’t you? Of course you do, now take the lollipops and enjoy.”
Myst muttered something about ‘pain’ then chuckled.
Talos had already gotten through the gateway, and sped off towards the main city.
The children took the ‘licorice flavored lollipops’ and began to eat them.
“Good, huh?” Silver asked.
The children nodded.
“Not for long,” Silver chuckled and walked out of the house.
The children began to walk out behind him and were about to say thank you when they realized they couldn’t take the pop out of their mouth. They tried as hard as they could, and eventually a black liquid leaked from their mouth, and dripped to their feet. The liquid burnt through their shoes and it seemed to be so searing that they ran off, rubbing their toes between steps.
Myst burst out laughing at their pain. “Good one, dad!” She hugged her father and Silver looked a bit sick, then turned to Claire.
“What, no hug? I did what I said would do, scare them off, and uh, yeah I did.” Silver said pushing Myst off and walking towards Claire.
Claire was silent but wrapped her arms around him and relaxed into his body.
Silver’s knees went weak and his face turned pink with serious blushing.
“Ugh, what these people call cute, I call… ew gross…” Travis muttered, crawling out of the bushes.
“Shut it, Travis.” Silver growled.
Travis stuck out his tongue and got up, then walked down to the gate. I decided to follow him.
“Where are you going?” I asked, walking behind him towards the main city.
Travis shrugged, “Where do you want to go? I was going to check on the other actual humans, but I’m not sure, they can live without me.”
“No, no, that’s alright,” I said, picking up speed and was soon directly on his right. “We can go to see our human er… brethren and sisters…”
“Alright, suit yourself.”
There were cats. There were feline pests dead or dying in the street and sewers. How could a place like this afford more deaths and be inhumane to the living creatures? Oh that’s right, it’s run by Silver.
Great.
As we got farther into the city, the amounts of living, unharmed cats grew greater.
“They weren’t here yesterday. They said on the news that the cats appeared around the time you got back to Silver’s place. Weird. I see a horrible death by cats for you, missy.” Travis joked.
“No kidding, seriously? The time I got home?” I asked, looking at him as if he just told me the world is about to blow up. “Oh no… it must be René!”
“Who?” Travis questioned, “Who’s René?”
“Uh… let me tell you what really happened while I was gone…” I said.
So I told him. He was amazed I actually lived through the procedure. He constantly looked at my stab wound and back up my eyes.
“Well, I don’t want to hear anymore misadventures. We’ve got to find this person! He’s gonna mess up the entire Spirit World!” Travis exclaimed. I shrugged.
“Why should we care? We’re leaving this place in a few days. Silver can fix it on his own. Plus you can’t kill someone who is dead…” I muttered, looking away. One cat clawed at my leg.
“Well, we should care a little bit and tell Silver at least. And I beg to differ! Kostya died and he was already dead!” Travis shouted, dramatically building tension.
“Yeah, yeah, whatever. I’m not going to argue with you. Ok, fine, we’ll tell Silver that his father, René, got loose and end of discussion. If Silver locked him away before, then he can definitely can do it again.” I finished, turning around and heading back to Silver’s house.
“But first,” Travis interrupted my trek. “What’s with these cats?”
“He’s probably a bachelor…” I chuckled, pulling a cat off my ankle.
“Ya, well, still, that doesn’t explain the cats. Did he say anything else…? Anything about like a feline god or goddess worshipped by a select few?”
“No…”
“Then, I’ve got nothing.” Travis sighed.
“Wait is that who I think that is?” I pointed to a girl walking on the sidewalk to a theater.
“I’m not sure, who do you think she is?” Travis squinted. His eyesight wasn’t that great.
“Kayla?” I ran from Travis’s side and bounded up to the strawberry blonde girl with a sky blue scarf. It’s true; the Spirit World is freezing cold.
“Huh? Who said my name?” asked the girl, ‘Kayla’ looking around. “Sarai?”
“Hey, it IS you!” I exclaimed. “What’s up?”
“Nothin’! Where’ve you been? Geez! I’ve looked all over the place for you. You are n-o-w-h-e-r-e!”
“Ok, what’s with the spelling thing??” I asked, annoyed. Plus, I always thought that it was spelled nowwhere. Hehe…
“Never mind, inside joke, or something along those lines. So… where’ve you been? I found your iPod inside your house! You wouldn’t leave without your iPod… would you?”
“Mmhmm… Whatever. I’ve been staying in Silver’s house.” I shrugged.
“You mean Lord Stone? Whoa. Hey is that Travis?” Kayla seriously needs to pay attention. Anyway, Travis and Kayla went to fourth grade together. With me of course!
“‘Sup Kayla,” Travis greeted.
“Nothin’, hey which room are you staying in?” Kayla asked, shaking Travis’s hand.
“Uh, Talos’s room.”
I could just imagine a huge question mark appear above Kayla’s head. “Talos?”
“Oh uh, at Silv- Lord Stone’s house… yes.” Travis muttered, looking around, bored.
“You’re staying at Lord Stone’s house too?” Kayla inquired, rubbing her neck, feeling left out. “That mansion?”
“We can ask if you can stay, too, but he probably will turn down the idea… ya know him…” I offered, putting in a fact of the matter.
“No,” Kayla scowled at the thought of him. “But I’ve seen him on TV. He’s a jerk, and he’s violent. Talk about bully.”
“Totally,” I shrugged, and rolled my eyes. Silver IS a jerk.
“Hey, what’s up with these cats?” I asked Kayla. Maybe she knew something about this.
“Dunno,”
‘Doh.
Kayla shrugged and looked up at a building. “Hey, look, they have the news up there, maybe they know something.” She pointed at the building.
We turned around to watch, and I noticed the same British news lady from earlier.
“An oddity. A mere oddity has stricken the Spirit World. Cats, millions of cats have drowned in the sewers and died on the streets in an inexplicable way. Last night at a conference with the king of the Spirit World, Lord Silver Stone answered in the only way he could have.” The news lady clicked a button and a video popped up on screen.
In the video, Silver was messing with an orb of fire and muttering something about not knowing why but that eventually they would have to send a clean crew to drench the stench. He also said that he could sense that there was a strange dark aura around the area, but there was absolutely NO need to send a troop out, claiming it was a waste of time, money, blood, and sweat. The camera turned to a very angry looking general, probably the Rohan guy that Silver had spoken of earlier.
“Hmm, so no one knows.” Travis sighed. “Oh well…. anyway… What’s with that René guy? He has something to do with it right? Why don’t they ask him about it?”
“You don’t get it, Travis, no one has any idea where he is…” I muttered. “Wait…!”
An idea sparked in my head. “Why don’t we follow the trail of cats? The livelier the cats are, the closer we are to René! C’mon guy lets get crackin’!” I sped off, leaving Travis and Kayla in the dust.
The kittens went on forever. The dying rate was faster so I was sure that René was running… but from what? Soon the entire sidewalk was flooded with cats that meowed between seconds. René was near.
Soon the sidewalk disappeared and we were walking on dry grass. We must have gone pretty far, because the city was not in sight. We got to a dirt road, then to a stone road. Wilting flowers perked up as we passed.

The Pillaging Chapter 7

Chapter 7: Talos is Truly Immature and Stupid

The first greeting I got was from Silver, who was emerging from the basement. It was short and had nothing to do with me so I came out from behind Myst and walked to the sofa in front of the TV.
“Myst,” Silver welcomed, giving her a noogie and handing her a black cloak. “Hurry up and put this on, we’re going to the darkness temple for a hearing… lecture… whatever… General Rohan just wanted to assemble an army, totally out of nowhere, and go check out that site I was telling you about. Ya know, the place I almost died at…”
Myst seemed to know he was talking about and asked, “So is mum coming with us?”
“What do you think? Of course she is! I’m not letting her out of my sight for more than an hour.” Silver explained, looking over to me. “Oh, ’sup Sarai… Didn’t think you would be gone for uh… thirteen hours. Yeah, whatever… Rule number one. Never go into a dark forest in the Spirit World! You have almost a 95% chance to die. Luckily you are part of the 5% who only got injured… common mortal… Good thing Myst found you, you’d probably be attacked again… yeah, anyway, Myst, I hope you learned something about controlling the weather and nature.”
“Yes sir,” Myst nodded, slipping the cloak over her dark clothes.
“… Oh and Sarai, Travis is in Talos’s room; you’ll know it when you see it. Talos is at a nightclub, although he claims he’s going to a friend’s house. You can stay in Myst’s room. Fortunately she doesn’t lie to her betters… She actually is going over to a friend’s house after this lecture.” Silver said, taking a sword from a case, putting it in a sheath and hiding it behind his cloak.
Claire emerged from the bedroom in her cloak, her book in her hand. “Sarai, there’s some pizza in the fridge if you ever get hungry. Silver, babe, after this can you drive me to the music store, my pick broke in half, unfortunately.”
“Anything for you, love.” Silver delivered a small peck onto Claire’s forehead and then grabbed the car keys and dashed out the door.
Since they were in a hurry, I couldn’t get the message that René had been freed out. Although I knew that Silver and Claire could probably read my mind, coming back to the hurrying stuff, they were probably so rushed that they didn’t have the time.
They left in almost a blink of an eye and I found my way into an unorganized room. Travis sat at a computer, talking to one of his other friends on the computer.
“Hey, Travis, what’s up?”
Travis looked up from the keyboard and said, “Hey Sarai, where’ve you been for the last thirteen hours?”
“Not really anywhere… but you must know your way around this huge house, right?” I asked, sitting down on the bed.
“Only the first floor…. I think. There are a lot of rooms. It’s hard to find my way around. I know where the bathroom, the kitchen, the den, the lounge, the computer room, the master bed, and two bedrooms are and that’s it. Trust me, there are many, many other rooms in this castle-like house.” Travis quickly told his online buddy he had to leave, and then shut down the computer. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, uh, I tripped and there was this sharp rock and I started bleeding so do you know where I can get a bandage and some disinfectant?” I lied, rubbing my stomach wound.
“Ugh, that’s a bad injury… Yeah, I know where, there is some medicine in the bathroom. I’ll show you where the bathroom is.” Travis stuck out his tongue, sickened by the blood leakage.

Travis got up from the seat he was at and walked out of the room. I followed behind. Travis led me to the bathroom and opened a cabinet stuffed full of medicines, other liquids, and plentiful amounts of bandages.
I helped my stuff to the medications, and eventually my entire wound was invisible under all of the linen.
My stomach growled and I found my way into the kitchen. I heated some pizza and snacked on it with some Sprite alongside, then joined Travis in Talos’s room.
Talos’s room was messy. The bed wasn’t made, some lights had shattered, the window wouldn’t open very far, and the TV’s volume couldn’t be turned down. Travis, meanwhile, was chatting with one of our friends from school.
As the clock ticked midnight, we noticed that it had been four hours of just lounging around a place that doesn’t even belong to us, while the owners were in the middle of a lecture of some sort.
That’s when we heard a faint knocking on the window of Talos’s room.
Travis looked over his shoulder and I got off of the beanie bag chair stationed in front of the TV. At the window there was Talos. Talos had a guitar strapped to his back and couldn’t slip through the window without it breaking into a million pieces.
“Hey, you guys there, open my window! I have to get in before mom and dad come home!” Talos whispered, harshly, waiting for Travis to slide the window open farther.
“I don’t think this thing opens any farther… why don’t you come through the front door?” I asked, kneeling down to Talos’s eye level, since he was dangling from a ledge.
“Uh, do you actually think my dad trusts me with a key now days? No! He’s afraid I’d let too many of my ‘junkie’ friends into the house!” Talos barked.
“Who’s he calling junkie? He’s just as stereotypical, or whatever, as they are!” I shouted, remotely annoyed.
“I know!” Talos exclaimed, then looked down and gulped, “Look, please hurry and open this window, I’m losing my grip.”
“It doesn’t open any farther!” Travis explained, shutting down the computer.
“Nuh-uh, it opens, I’ve let billions of friends in that way.”
“How long ago was this party?” I asked, looking at the ceiling.
“Uh… a few months ago…” Talos looked confused. “I don’t have time for your dumb questions! OPEN THE WINDOW!”
“You forgot to oil the hinges after that party. It’s not going to open. Look, this is a simple problem to fix. I’ll just unlock the front door from here. It’s EASY. And not dumb.” I said, rolling my eyes and walking to the front door.
The door was bolted shut. There was no way to open it without a key.
I walked back into Talos’s room. Talos seemed to have slipped a bit farther down.
“So,” Talos said. “Did you unlock the door?”
“No, we need a key either way. You must know where a spare key is, right?” I looked at Talos, expecting an answer.
“… Maybe the keys are in my dad’s wallet if he didn’t take it. His wallet should be in the first drawer of his wardrobe… and hurry!”
I scurried into the master bedroom and found the wardrobe and opened it. Inside the first drawer, exactly as Talos had said, there was a black wallet with chains on it. Seemed to fit Silver’s er… pessimistic attitude towards the world.
I got the spare key out and unlocked the front door, then dashed back to Talos’s room. Talos was about to fall off of the ledge.
“Did you unlock the door?!” Talos exclaimed, trying to claw his way back up.

“Yeah! You’re home free!” I answered, walking over to the window.
“Yipee!” Talos fell to the ground below, got up unharmed, along with his guitar being unbroken, and ran to the front door where he entered and found his way into his bedroom. It left me wondering why he didn’t try that in the first place.
“Thanks, I needed help that time.” Talos said, rubbing his neck. He removed his guitar from his back and set it by his bedside. “Oh, that reminds me… You guys need to get to sleep. Uh, Sarai, or whatever your name is, to my sister’s room! As for you Travis, you can stay in the guest bed downstairs.”
“There’s a guest bed downstairs?” Travis inquired.
“Yeah, didn’t my dad say?”
“No,” Travis muttered, removing himself from the room and going downstairs to find the guest bedroom.
I, on the other hand, got into Myst’s room and fell asleep instantly in the velvet covers.

The Pillaging Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Enter René

I felt as if I could open the curtain of darkness that had fallen over my eyes when Kostya stabbed me with that shadow knife. As the curtain flew open, I saw a light and a flash of colors, then a candlelight flickering in front of my starless hazel eyes.
Kostya sat at another corner of the room, lifeless and cold, his eyelids still partly opened, and a knife through his chest.
Kostya had dirty blonde hair, and as far as I could see, deep brown eyes. His face was similar to that of Silver, and his skin was paler than paper. Despite the similarities between he and Silver, I was sure that they weren’t related in the least bit, because he didn’t refer to Silver as his real name, but instead as ‘the lord of these lands’.
There was a hole in my stomach, and still wet blood stained my turtleneck. I got up, and my entire torso ached terribly. I stepped over the symbol that Kostya had drawn in the center of the room and tried to make my way through the wall that had been blown up.
To my surprise, the symbol suddenly lit up. It let off an eerie green glow that surrounded me. A figure formed on my left side.
I slowly turned to see who it was. Two completely yellow eyes stared back at me. I held my breath, ready for the creature to either violently injure me or… violently kill me… either way, they both weren’t good choices.
They stared at me for a long while, and after I noticed that they weren’t going to move, I began to back up. I turned away and blinked a few times. Maybe it was all an illusion. I mean, that shadow knife was pretty unearthly and I could just be seeing things after my…. er… encounter.
I turned back to see if the creature was still there and to my surprise, they actually weren’t. I expected them to still be frozen on the symbol. But something still wasn’t right in the area. Kostya’s body was no longer sitting by a column in the far side of the room.
I turned back, and the pair of yellow eyes appeared again. An evil smirk widened and a baritone voice boomed in my ear, “BOO!”
I fell backwards in fright, smearing the symbol that was now coated in blood instead of dust.
The creature approached me, taking on a human state, a cross between Kostya and some type of shadow creature. He wore a black cloak, embroided with strange symbols colored with blood. He wore a medallion and rings the same as Kostya’s. On his right hand he had a glowing symbol, the same symbol that I had just fallen over.
“… Two bodies lain before a great emblem… bringing back a great king… granting two final wishes… for the final departure of these two freshly killed souls… massacred with a knife of shadows… brought by one of the dead bodies… the great king shall rule again upon the final frontier… hehe… That’s me!” The creature shouted, looking around the cave.
“My name is René… That means reborn in French, I believe… hmm… Your name is Sarai, you came here because of a flood, isn’t that right? This Kostya person came by fire… Perfect… Perfect… Plague and misfortunate brought about by each… yes… YES!”
René spun around, the lights dimming and eventually fading to nothing. I was left in darkness. René, on the other hand, seemed to see perfectly, perhaps even better than in the light.
“I can now harness not only darkness but fire and water… René, the shadow, the vampire king is back, baby! After than mishap with my son… the killing and all and releasing me from my body… I’m freer than ever. And whom do I have to thank? You! … And this Kostya person… Not exactly what I planned, since you aren’t a soul… but it worked! I’m back from the dead…! Time to reap this broken down, slack jaw collection of dummies, run by my dear son, into shape! When I’m done here you may just deserve another thank you and a place in my army of zombies.”
René disappeared in a cloud of smoke and I was finally alone again.
‘I have to tell Silver…!’ I thought, getting up from the spot I had fell on, and feeling around for the exit.
I finally found a hole in the wall and dashed down the hallway that Kostya and I had come through before.
By now, the forest was dark, very, very dark. Not only was it night, but also René must have passed through here, taking the light with him.
I eventually got out of the dark tunnel and into the forest. I took a breath and sat down by the campfire, which by some kind of miracle, was still going. Someone’s backpack sat at the other end of the log I had sat on.
Since no one was around, I decided to take a look through the bag. I unzipped it and found a few large books, some green, odorless liquids, and a flashlight.
“Limeade?” I thought out loud, taking out a bottle of the liquid and uncorking it. I raised the bottle up to my lips, expecting to quench my thirst, but a shrill scream echoed through the woods. It seemed to come from my far left.
“DON’T DRINK THAT!” some girl shouted, rushing over to me and taking the bottle out of my hand and corking it again. “You don’t just go through someone’s stuff and find a green fluid then try and drink it!”
“I do,” I explained, leaning back. “What a nice welcome from such a sweet little girl.”
“I’m not little. I’ve got a driver’s license. I should be the one calling you ‘little girl’. How old are you? Eleven?”
“No,” I remarked lowly. “I’m only a few years younger than you. I don’t even remember being eleven…”
“Pfft, typical human.”
“Who are you the one to talk? You’re human too! You don’t have some weird power like the souls here, and as a matter of fact, you don’t even seem to know your way around!” I barked.
“Look, it’s too late to be arguing… but just so you know, I’m not the least bit human like my stupid brothers. AND, I know my way around. I was born here and I’ve lived here for the last sixteen years. My father rules this place, don’t-cha-know? Plus, I’m not the one who walks into a strange cavern with someone I don’t know, and coming out with a hole in my stomach and blood on my clothes…” the girl said, putting the bottle back in her backpack, zipping it up and putting out the fire by kicking some dirt into it.
“You’re Silver’s last child aren’t you? … You do sort of look like him.”
“Thank you… er… sorry I’m bad at conversation starting. Although I’m a sort of a celebrity here, I’m probably one of the shyest. Name’s Myst, Myst Vice Stone, nice to meet you… Sarai.”
Again with the names! How do they know my name out of nowhere? This place is the definition of insanity!
Ignoring that, I said, “Well… are you Silver’s only daughter?”
“That’s right, I’m the only child that my mother’s and father’s magical and intelligent genes, my brothers are completely human, and stupid for that matter. No powers, and no smarts… except for my oldest brother. He’s a straight A student and has a vague interest in potions.” Myst said, heading out of the forest.

“Look, I’m going home, you should too…” Myst explained, briefly turning around to look back at me.
“Uh, when I woke up this morning, I was in your house…” I said.
“Oh, wait… this morning? How long have we been out here? … Anyway, go on…” Myst interrupted.
“So I think I’m supposed to stay at your place… with my friend Travis.” I continued.
“Hmph, well, since you seem nice for a human, I GUESS I can let you stay in my room for tonight, ONLY BECAUSE I’m going over to a friend’s house. Then I’ll have to get my dad to build you a room. Don’t worry, he works fast…” Myst explained. “Just follow me, home’s not too far away from here.”
“That’s good…”

The Pillaging Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Into the Jungle

I found my way out of the house of monstrous proportions, and walked down the steep hill, opened the gate and came to a fork in the road. The left road led to the huge city, and the right one lead to a shady forest with a faint campfire lit far off.
I decided to check out the right forest, and I made my way through the thick shrubbery.
Farther east there was a nice fire burning by the bottom of a cliff. The cliff had a few indentions on the surface.
I walked towards it and traced the indentions to a central point, which was something of a demented keyhole, in the shape of a claw.
Suddenly, there was a noise from the bushes. I spun around and surveyed the area. I saw a pair of dark eyes from the northeast corner of the forest.
“Travis? Silver? Whoever you are this isn’t funny…!” I warned. “I know my fair share of offensive strategies!”
The dark eyes disappeared behind the leaves of the bushes, which heightened the danger of the situation… this person could be anywhere…
Someone swung their arm around my neck and held a knife up to my eyes.
“Follow me or you die,” they said in a rather husky voice, tightening their grip on my neck.
“Wh- who are you??” I asked, gulping. The blade grazed my skin, leaving a white mark. “I didn’t do anything… Look, if you want my money, here…” I reached for my wallet in my right pocket, which just so happened to be where my pocketknife was.
“Don’t even think about it.” The person roughly searched my right pocket, tossed my wallet to the ground and took the pocketknife out of my possession. “I’ll be keeping this for now… you can have it back when you learn your lesson… You’re coming with me…” The person pulled my arms over my head, and then shoved me against the wall.
They edged towards the odd indention and thrust their hand into the cavity. The door slid open and they forced me through the small cave.
I could feel my heartbeat decrease, slowly, and everything was relaxed. It was a dark corridor, but as violent as this person seemed, I felt secure in their arms as we crept through the cave.
Then it hit me, this must all be part of their plan! Trying to lull me into the false sense that they would protect me. I couldn’t let this fiend find their way into my head, I have to do something about this situation! I crossly tried to claw myself out of their grasp and managed to dig my canine teeth into their bare hand.
The person briefly paused, uttering a small, low gasp for air. My teeth must have gotten in pretty far, because their skin was broken. I chuckled and slipped out from under their arm, expecting to get my great escape.
“Tsk, Tsk, Sarai… Did you actually EXPECT that you would get away from me?” said a hoarse voice, as a hand reached out from the darkness and grabbed my shoulder. Their sharp claws drilled into my skin and the secure atmosphere faded into the velvety black shadows.
“…How do you know my name?” I asked, ignoring the pain they had just caused me. “For the last time! Who are you and what do you want out of me?!”
I could see a toothy grin emerged from the dimness of the chamber. “My name is Kostya. For all that I have to endure for a final reward– the reward ALMOST seems unreasonable… My reasons for capturing will remain unknown until the last moment of your pathetic days here…”
I could feel the cold blade against my skin yet again, and a small trickle of blood ran down my neck.
“There is more where that came from…” Kostya muttered, tightening his grip on my arm. “That is… if you do not cooperate…”
I turned back to the dimming light of the forest that I had been forced out of by Kostya. Was this the last I would see of the outside world?
We trailed on into the passage for what seemed like forever. As for the outside world’s gleam, it died out a long while back through the cave.
I followed along beside Kostya, who was pacing himself it seemed. He stopped sometimes to check and see if I was still following behind him. I, of course, would never think of trying to get out of his grasp again… that is, until I have more methods of getting my way.
We proceeded on, only to find there was a dead end waiting for us at the end of the hallway. Kostya seemed the least bit fazed and when I tried to make my exit, after finding there was no way of getting through this wall, Kostya grabbed my arm and pulled a keg of dynamite from out of his jacket’s pocket, and placed it in front of wall that stood in front of us.
“The Lord of these lands sealed this not too long ago, after defeating his Father’s dark side and killing his brother… Some say that the only reason he locked it was because his father’s dark side was far too powerful, and his spirit still lingers…if this enhanced dynamite doesn’t destroy the lock… hmm… you shouldn’t worry that much. This dynamite breaks even the toughest seals… I’ve been reading up on shadow magic… hehe…”
Kostya light a match and set the dynamite on fire, then pulled me down with him to dampen the damage that the explosion would cause us.
As soon as he heard a boom, following by the crumbling of a wall, he jumped up and continued into a new room, revealed by the wall that had disappeared into nothingness.
Kostya noticed I wasn’t following, but instead frozen in shock on the floor, and picked me up in his arms. “If you refuse to come along with me on your free will, I will just have to make you come on my own…”
I didn’t struggle to break free, because yet again, the whole atmosphere felt warm, as if his attitude wasn’t quite right, or was once, not too long ago, a lot more loving of humanity.
There was something, for sure, that wasn’t right. This man, Kostya, had no heartbeat whatsoever.
And also, amidst the speedy and violent motions, a dark pathway, and many more misadventures, I hadn’t seen Kostya’s face. What I did know is that he wore a leather jacket and grayish jeans, and there was a medallion of some sort hanging from his neck. On his left hand, there was a ring, which was encrusted with a very small dragon figurine.
Kostya lit several candles, then picked up a burnt stick, covered in dust, and traced a symbol of an X, a cross, and a circle that had already been drawn about twenty or so years ago, judging by the fact that the area was coated with grime.
“And now, for the role you play… a sacrifice… just like me…” Kostya held up the knife again.
I jumped out of his arms, the least bit motionless, and backed up in the farthest wall. “W-Why have you chosen me? W-Why do you have to sacrifice me– and yourself?”
Kostya’s smirk turned dark, “… Two bodies lain before a great emblem… bringing back a great king… granting two final wishes… for the final departure of these two freshly killed souls… massacred with a knife of shadows… brought by one of the dead bodies…” he paused. “That’s all I could read before the words became faded, so I could no longer make out the manuscript. You see… I must kill you and myself with this knife I got from the shadow… and I can have my final wish! I can finally bring back my family…”
“What happened to your family?” I asked, consumed by his solemn story.
“They died in a great fire… I did too… but they got lost on the way to this world. I tried to talk with the Lord of the lands, but he says he can bring no lost souls back… that they will remain lost… forever. So I read up at the library and found this. As for you, you have a strange aura around you, almost as if you’re not a soul… it’s fascinating, and this great kind would be fond of having someone like you as a sacrifice. And this knife… a friend owed me a favor… so he gave me this knife he found one day at the Black Market… there’s only one…. he checked…”
He paused many times, as if he didn’t really want to go on telling me this kind of stuff.
“Please, I want my family back…! You’ve got to help me. I promise, if we are ever reincarnated, I owe you big time!”
This was a hard decision. Why choose my life over many others? It seems almost too easy for one to get this. There must be a catch… and this is a huge risk. I guess this is my time to die…
My mind has been made up… if Kostya answers my one question.
“Kostya, if your family is going to come back… you are going to die, you know, and you will never see them. Is that what you want?”
“I have thought that over many times. My answer is: As long as they are alive, I will be happy, even if I am dead…” Kostya seemed tender to these sentimental questions about life and death.
Now it was for sure. I was going to let Kostya get this over with. I mean, if I don’t die here, I’m probably going to drown anyway. Plus, I get bonus. Staying in the Spirit World couldn’t get that bad, could it?
“I’ll let you take my life… for the sake of your family.”
Kostya sort of smiled, and then partially hugged me and his lips grazed my cheeks as if he was trying to kiss them.
“Trust me, we will get our wishes… and you won’t feel the least bit of pain. I put some potion on the blade… it won’t hurt at all.”
Kostya readied his blade, looked away murmuring, “See you in heaven, darling…”
And he was right. There was no pain, but the entire world became black and white and eventually all my surroundings faded away, leaving me with the pitch black of a void of nothingness– death.

The Pillaging Chapter 3-4

Chapter 3: Blood and SweatWe drove for hours, briefly stopping for gas and oil. Finally we reached what seemed like California, which had separated into an entirely different island off the new coast of Arizona and Nevada. There was a long, steel bridge connecting California to the border of both the states nowadays, and the annoying clanks lulled me into a subconscious state.We drove through a gloomy forest, that probably no one had ever noticed before. The rain kept on pouring over the roof of the car and Travis’s iPod blasted with loud chords.We entered an old-fashioned town, and the rain seemed to be pounding harder as Silver accelerated and we hit a bump. I hit my head hard on the window and Travis’s hat flew off and out of his reach. I could see Silver through the mirror and he was smiling his sinister smile of dismay and glum.We were nearing a stone well at top speed, and I shouted out in fright, “Are you CRAZY?! We’re going to hit the well!”Silver threw Travis some duct tape from the glove compartment, and remarked gravely, “Do me a favor and tape her mouth shut…”"Are you kidding?” Travis asked, looking at the tape and back up at Silver.Silver looked back at Travis, then back at the road. “Do I look like I’m kidding?”Travis looked at me and smirked, tightly grasping the duct tape in his hand before breaking off a portion.Just as we were about to hit the well, I broke off the tape and screamed, “Watch out, you’re going to hit it!”Silver boomed, “FOR THE LAST TIME, JUST SHUT UP!!!”Claire looked up from her book briefly before hitting a big, flashing red button.Then everything was peaceful again. Travis and I were frozen with shock, and Silver was frozen with anger. Claire looked down at her book again, calmly and silently.Silver quietly unlocked the door, got out and looked at the front of the car. He looked at the sky and watched the rain drip from the clouds, put his hands in his pockets and got into the car again. He slammed the door, took a CD out of the glove compartment, and violently shoved it into the car’s CD player. He turned the volume up to full.The car boomed with Fall Out Boy, and Silver sunk deep into the car seat, panting with anger. The rainwater rolled down his forehead, dripping off his pale nose. His raven black and blood red hair hung over his scarlet eyes. At the moment the only thing you could hear was the music.Travis handed the tape back with a trembling hand.Silver snatched the tape back and threw it at my forehead.”Gah! Why’d you do that?” I shouted, attempting to nurse my injured head back to health.Silver turned back to me, and I could tell that the peaceful atmosphere wasn’t going to last much longer.Silver was grinding his sharp teeth together, thinking of retaliation. “YOU’RE SO ANNOYING! I THOUGHT I TOLD YOU TO SHUT UP!! WE ALMOST MISSED THE PORTAL!”"What por- never mind. We didn’t miss it though, did we?” I growled, turning back to the window and gazing out of it to the foggy metropolis.”Well, you’re right about something… for once. I let you off with a warning; I have a short and explosive temper… get me anger and it might be the last thing you think about…” Silver snapped, turning back to the steering wheel and starting up the car again.”I would have never known…” I growled.”Shut up…” Silver growled, picking up speed.For the remainder of the night that I was awake, I watched bright lights dance around the car, orbs shooting past us and people lifting incredibly heavy looking boxes with a single movement of their index finger.Travis had slipped into a deep slumber, listening to his iPod.I decided to listen Silver and Claire’s conversation. When Silver wasn’t commenting on how beautiful Claire was, he was watching her patiently while she read her book.”You’re so consumed in that book, love, what’s it about?” Silver leaned over to see what she was reading.Claire looked at him and smiled, then eased the book over to his hands.Silver put the car on another gear that seemed like Auto Drive and flipped through the pages. “Hmm, you’re reading up on spell casting…. You know you could always ask me…” He looked up and gave Claire a kiss on the cheek and handed the book back.”I know, but… this is really new stuff… only known by a small group of shadows…”Silver raised his left eyebrow and asked for the book back. Claire handed it to him again and Silver flipped to the front page. “This thing says it was made purely for ultimate power…” He flipped through some more pages. “This says this spell can fatally harm anyone with one hit… and that it can break a spell that has already been cast… I doubt it. You’re going to have to cast it on me sometime.”Claire looked at him a bit shocked, and Silver smiled and kissed her lips. “I know what you’re thinking and don’t worry… nothing can harm me… Yet…”Claire shrugged and muttered, “… I want to practice my powers … With you…”Silver ran his hand through her hair and kissed her cheek. “You’re tired. Forget about the book for now and rest…”Claire put the book on her lap and lay her head on Silver’s shoulder. Silver put his arm around her neck and leaned back into the seat.I fell asleep with one thought in my mind; ‘I wish I could meet someone like Silver… someone who would love me no matter what happens…’Chapter 4: Dreary PlainsI woke up in a daze. I could almost see imaginary rain trickling over my face. It was nice to finally to see a ceiling of a building. I looked around the room I was in. It had a very homey look to it, amongst the high-tech devices and swords posted on the wall. The room was dark, and there was a dim fire in the fireplace. A candle’s flame flickered. I felt around for a remote to the TV in front of me.A bit farther off, Travis was still asleep on a chair, though his iPod had turned off a long time ago.The sofa was made of cold leather, and I pulled a velvet blanket over my nose, freezing.I finally found a remote lodged between two sofa cushions, and flipped the TV on.The first thing I saw was a pair of bright blue eyes staring deep into my soul. I flipped the station, frozen in my seat, and it turned to the news.”Hello! Thank you for joining us for the Spirit World early morning news!” said a lady in a formal dress, with a strictly British accent.Spirit World? That must be the world Silver and Claire are from. I turned down the volume, hearing a door opening.Silver came in, in his PJs, sleepily rubbing his eyes and yawning. He took a left into what seemed to be a kitchen, and got some cereal and came back in and sat beside me.” ‘Sup, Silver?” I asked, still watching the news. They were playing a clip about some punk rock star in the Spirit World, named Dark Fire or something along those lines.”I thought I told you to call me Lord Stone.” Silver said through crunches. “Pfft, ah well, who cares. You’ll just become another one of those suck-ups. Go ahead, call me Silver, knock yourself out… literally…”There was a silence and the news lady began to speak to one of the pedestrians.”Hello, this is the Spirit World news, can I ask you a few questions?”The person nodded and smiled, then waved, to the camera.”Great! Tell me, what do you think about our king allowing these living humans to stay in the Darkness temple?”"I said Light Temple!” spat Silver, picking up a pillow and throwing it at the plasma.”Well, personally, I think it’s great that Lord Stone is warming up to those mortals… I mean… yeah. Others say he’s gone soft. I don’t think so, I think he’s still really… really threatening… dangerous guy.”"Got that right. I’m not a softie…” Silver changed the station and in bold, bright letters it read, “WELCOME TO THE SPIRIT WORLD HUMANS!”Silver pointed his spoon at the TV and said, “I really have no idea why this place is called the Spirit World. Which is kinda stupid of me because I’m the ruler here… There isn’t any spirits here… only souls…”I looked at him confused. “Shouldn’t it be called– forget it. I’m not going to argue. Anyway, what’s the difference between souls and spirits?”Silver shrugged, “There’s alot. Spirits don’t have hands or feet. They float around like the ghosts you dress up oh-so-foolishly as…”"I don’t dress up! Most people don’t!”"Who cares, the point is that they look different. Plus, souls retain their former earthly looks, weight, height, and all that junk. Same brain, no difference really… It’s just that they can have powers unlike most of you humans… and they’re considered ‘immortal’.”"Wow, didn’t know that…” I sighed, curling up under the velvet blankets.Silver looked up at the TV briefly and then back down, and then said, “You should really pay attention to this stuff.”"Nah, I’ll find my way around.” I yawned.Silver shrugged, “Suit yourself.”Silence.”So this is your house, right?”Silver nodded, staring at the cereal bowl while crunching and murmuring, “Mmm hmm.”"It’s comfortable.””Don’t get used to it, this flood isn’t going to last much longer and your brain’s not going to comprehend any of this…. zippo, dudette, zippo.” Silver muttered, swallowing.”So it’s just Claire and you, right? You’re the only people who live here, huh? Must get lonely.” I continued, stretching.Silver shook his head, after taking a huge bite of cereal again.”Who else lives here? I mean other than Travis and I.” I asked, straightening up and turning back to the TV.”For your information, you don’t live here and you never will. Other than Claire and I, some of our kids live here. Meet Talos, my fourth son…”Silver pointed to a kid who was just exiting the bathroom in dark blue pajamas.”Really? You guys have kids? You look a bit young to have kids… I mean, wow! This kid looks old enough to be your older brother!”"Talos is 18, he wants to get into a college but wherever he seems to go he gets either expelled or we take him out before that does happen. Yeah and uh, he couldn’t be my brother. I’m over two thousand years old. I feel like I’m trapped in a seventeen year old teenagers body.” Silver continued to eat his cereal.”T-Two Thousand years old??!!” I exclaimed.I must have almost woken Travis up because he stirred in his sleep and changed positions.”Shh, crap it, you’re going to wake Claire up.” Silver snapped, changing the stations again.”You’re really two thousand years old?” I asked.”Nah,”I sighed with relief when he muttered that.”I’m older than that. At least a hundred… I’m not sure. I just say I’m twenty four.” Silver growled, standing up and putting the empty cereal bowl in the dishwasher, then turning it on. He sat back down in another chair, sipping some coffee. He had another full, piping hot mug on the counter.”Oh, hey, dad, the coffee is mine, right?” ‘Talos’ asked, almost picking up the mug, clearly oblivious to my presence.”Touch it and you die.” Silver barked, almost breaking his own mug. “That’s for your mother…”"Oh… well OK. Hey, who are the humans and why are they staying here?”"Believe it or not, you’re a human too! You were born alive! No shut up and move along. I’m tired of both your and Sarai’s annoying questioning, now… Sarai, leave… and as for you… get out of the house, hang out with some of your junkie friends, go to the movies, WHATEVER. You probably were going to do that anyway, just wanted to remind you of your pointless life…” Silver growled.”No one understands me!” Talos whimpered, then bursting out the door.”Yeah, yeah, that’s what I used to think… get over it, kid… sometimes I swear you’re almost as bad as Rover…”"Who’s Rover?” I asked, ignoring the fact that he had mentioned he was tired of both Talos’s and my annoying questioning.”Ask me when I’m in a better mood, moron. Leave me alone, OK?!”With that I decided to get up and explore the Spirit World.