Reign of Darkness
Jacob Lee
Operation: Survival
-Reign of DarknessChapter 1: The Guard
I walked over the hill with a feeling of deep sadness, and I looked at my surroundings.
For as far as I could see, there were remains of great villages that had been burned to the ground
by our enemies, the Resputoarians. They were currently ruling over the Realm of Despermaine,
the land we were on, and ever since they gained control, it was not kind to the villagers. It was a
time that everyone secretly called ‘the reign of darkness.’ No one would even leave their house
without a weapon. To say the least, it was not a time for a normal teenager.
The Resputoarians hid in the shadows until they saw an opportunity, and when they did,
they would attack without giving it a second thought.
A lot of their victims rebelled against them, so they had come out of the shadows and
killed the president of the Realm, Timothy Goods. They had hacked into his television and
played a video that explained that either all of the people in the High Council would go away and
let the Resputoarians take control of all of the people of Despermaine, or the Resputoarians
would kill all of the people in the High Council, and then do the exact same thing.
I shivered. My only friend that was alive, John West, and I were both people that the
Resputoarians wanted to be killed. As soon as they found us disobeying their laws, we were
immediately on their ‘Wanted’ list.
John stood by my side, probably thinking about the things that I was. “Wow,” he said
absently, “Look at what they’ve done to this place.”
“Yeah, they really have gone too far,” I replied sadly. “I wonder how we’re ever going to
win.”
Ever since the day that the Resputoarians rose to power, John and I had fought side by
side, rebelling against them, like all of the others. The only difference was that we planned to
defeat the antagonists once and for all, then gain control of the Realm of Despermaine. Under
our reign, it would be a peaceful land once again.
I smiled at John. I was so thankful that he was here with me, because without him, I
would never be able to win. It was like a baby and its mother. You couldn’t have just one; you
had to have both.
John scanned the horizon. “How do they always stay hidden from everyone’s sight?” he
wondered. “They just come out of the shadows at random times, and either their victims are
ready or they’re not.”
“Maybe they have secret underground hideouts,” I speculated. “They probably had time
to dig up dirt and put stuff down there.”
“Oh come on, Noah. You know they couldn’t have done that. There are already a bunch
of other houses down there. It would be too obvious.”
“Well, maybe they dug really far!” I shot back. “We don’t even know how long they’ve
been a team before they assassinated the president.”
I counted to twenty and sheepishly looked at John. “Uh…sorry about that, John. It’s just
that…I guess that these times are…stressing me out.”
For a few minutes, John remained silent. The more I thought about it, the more I thought
he was listening.
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Jacob Lee
“What is it?” I insisted. “What do you hear?”
He stayed silent for a couple of seconds, but then he responded, “Nothing. Is it ever like
this? Do you remember it ever being this quiet?”
He had a point. The noises that I often heard then were swords clashing, screams of pain,
and yells of triumph coming from the Resputoarians when they took yet another innocent
villager’s life. But now, there was nothing, no sound at all.
Until there was a growl.
I looked to my left, and what I saw nearly gave me a heart attack. “J-J-J-John…” I
stuttered, trying to get him to look.
“What?”
“L-look…” I tried to be calm, but it was really hard, considering my situation.
John looked to the left, and his green eyes widened in terror. His lips quivered. “What is
that?”
“I don’t…know,” I said slowly. Whatever it was, it wasn’t friendly. The creature was
about eight feet tall, and it reminded me of a dog, but this was like no dog I had ever seen before.
Its eyes were glowing red, and they seemed to resemble pure hatred. His fur was a mixture of
dark gray and black. Obviously, this dog didn’t want to play.
The monster growled again. At the time, I didn’t know much, but I did know that it
wouldn’t be good for me if I got in a fight with that thing. I would have bet a million dollars that
I would not win that fight.
The beast’s ears went back, it bared its teeth, and it snapped at the air, daring us to come
closer. It moved forward, and I slowly took a step back. As the monster approached, I heard a
sound that sounded like metal against wood.
All of a sudden, it leaped into the air and scratched John in the side of the face. He fell to
the ground, screaming in pain. I wanted to help him, but I had to get rid of the beast somehow.
It ran toward me, about to tackle me, but I punched it in its ugly face. It reared and hid in a large
doghouse.
A woman strolled out of a house nearby and rushed to our side. “Oh my word. I’m so
sorry about my canem nigrum mortem. It’s just that in these times, it’s safe to have a monster to
protect against the Res—I mean our enemies. You guys know what I mean, right?” She glanced
at John, and for the first time saw what had happened to his face. “Oh my goodness. Come with
me, and I’ll get you cleaned up. We’d better hurry, too, because the venom that comes from his
claws is highly poisonous, and it causes searing pain.”
“It’s poisonous?!” I gasped. “Is there a cure? Will he die?!”
The woman just looked back at me calmly, as if we were discussing lunch. “Of course!
But we must hurry if you want him to live.”
John lumbered over to the woman and she helped him walk. They slowly went back into
the house, but I was hesitant to go near the canem nigrum mortem.
“Oh, it is okay, he won’t attack again,” The lady assured me. “He was trained
professionally, so you should be fine. Now, come inside, and I’ll see what I can do to help your
friend.”
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Reign of Darkness
Jacob Lee
Chapter 2: The Poison
We walked into the woman’s house and rushed right to a bed that John could lay down
in.
The house was small and cluttered. A china cabinet stood perpendicular to the door,
welcoming us inside. The kitchen was filled with items, but somehow, the woman kept it
organized. The floor was tiled in marble, and it glinted in the light. The guest bedroom was to
the right of the entrance, and that was where the woman took us.
I helped John to get into the bed as the woman ran to get the antidote required to heal
John. I asked him lots of questions to keep his mind flowing, and I helped him stay conscious.
“Are you okay?”
“I’ve been better,” he said weakly.
“How does it feel?” I asked.
John tried to say something, but the pain must have been too great.
Oh my gosh, I thought. I really hope that she hurries. I wanted to yell for her to hustle,
but I was afraid that if I did that, it might make John even more scared.
The lady ran back into the guest room, holding an ice pack and a small, see-through
bottle that contained a thick blue liquid. She poured some of it into a cup for John, and he took
the cup and drank it. He winced, and I stiffened. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
His green eyes were full of dread, but he forced himself to swallow. “It tastes hhorrible,” John managed. “I hope I never have to drink anything like that ever again.”
The lady just shook her head sadly. “Yes, it tastes terrible, but the taste only lasts for
about five minutes. So what are your names?”
“Oh…I’m Noah, and this is John,” I replied absently, my eyes on John.
“Ah, Noah, of course! That is the name of a great leader.” She smiled at me. “It is
perfect for you.”
The woman turned to John. “And you, John... your name symbolizes grace and mercy.
You are a careful thinker and you are great at problem solving.”
I cocked my head. “How did you know all of that?”
“Well, an old woman always has her sources.” She stopped. “I mean, I have a friend that
does baby names for a living. Also, I like to search those sites when I am bored or I have
nothing to do. Alas, that time no longer exists in this twisted world because of our current status
quo.”
John frowned. “What is a status quo?”
The old woman sighed. “It isn't important. Anyway, my name is Mrs. Malum.”
“That’s an interesting last name,” I said.
“Yes, it is Latin for, umm… cheerful.” She looked uncomfortable. “You guys must be
pretty brave to be outside with the enemies running around. Why are you?”
John hesitated. “Well, we are actually going against them. It’s interesting to me that so
many people are doing this. It definitely isn’t safe now. So many people are being taken by
them, you know?”
“Yes, I know what you mean. Did you know that about twenty-five percent of the
villagers are taken or killed every week? It’s crazy. I am definitely not a fan of them.”
I laughed. “The enemies or the villagers?”
“Fair point, but you know what I mean. They don't need fans to cheer them on. They
probably just encourage themselves when they go out and kidnap people.”
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“What's up with that, anyway?”
“Well...I used to think they could just be doing it to boost their self-esteem, but now I'm
starting to believe that there is a reason that they are choosing the people that they are. The
people that the Resputoarians choose are interesting people, if you think about it. More than half
of the time, it's the people that most of the others know barely anything about. A lot of them are
different socially, and they like to be alone in a basement for hours. Do you remember the nineyear-old that they took?”
John spoke up. “Yes, I believe his name was...” he squinted. “Greg Tabaloe, right?”
“Yes, it was Greg Tabaloe. He wasn’t the same as the other children. He refused to do
group projects at school, and he only worked by himself. You have to admit that that’s
interesting. They just happen to take a child that barely anyone knows anything about, and the
people who do know are taken too.”
I tapped my fingers nervously on the table. “Yeah, I always thought that there must be
some kind of reason that they take people that we have so little information about. It’s almost as
if…as if they’re hiding the information from us.”
Mrs. Malum looked nervous, and her eyes darted around, but it passed quickly, so I
probably imagined it. “That’s an interesting theory, Noah. Weird, actually, because it is very
close to the actual truth…” Her voice faltered.
“What? What actual truth?” John and I said at the same time.
“I could tell you, but immediately afterward, I would have to shoot you.”
I laughed, but Mrs. Malum’s expression was dead serious. I shut up, and there was an
awkward silence.
Mrs. Malum turned to John, and she said, “How is your head?”
“Well, it’s bleeding a lot, but, other than that, I guess I’m fine.”
“Good. I’m glad to hear it. You can keep the ice pack, by the way.” Mrs. Malum
checked her watch, then stood up. “Well, I’ve got to go do some…business, so you two should
get going. It won’t be long before they find you if you stay here.”
John nodded to me, signaling that he was okay to go.
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Reign of Darkness
Jacob Lee
Chapter 3: The Hideout
It had only been two days, but John’s face wound was already starting to swell up. It
now was about twice the size of his other cheek, and it was as red as a tomato. He insisted that
he was fine, but I still worried. He often discarded injuries as if they didn’t even matter. On the
outside, he acted tough, but I knew that he had really sensitive skin, and he wasn’t as strong
physically as he was mentally.
I worried about that. Both of us were pretty smart, but neither of us was strong. John
was fast, but I could barely stay alive in battle. The good thing was that we completed each
other. He was strong in areas where I was not, and vice versa.
I scanned my surroundings, making sure there weren’t any other evil guard dogs trying to
kill me. I saw a building that sort of stood out for me among the rest of them. For one thing, this
one was in a way worse condition than many of the other ones.
That could be why, I speculated. It might be the one. I mean, it’s pretty easy to think that
it’s just a normal building.
I pointed at it and said, “What’s that? Do you think that’s where they’re hiding?”
“Probably not,” John replied. “At least, I don’t think so. It looks like it’s just a church.”
We approached the melted door to the building and stepped inside. The chairs were all
scattered and tipped over. There was a giant crater in the floor, and the only thing there that
stood completely unscathed was a single cross. It was almost like a sign that good would prevail
in the end, but I just couldn't believe it. Whenever one mildly good thing happened to anyone,
the very next thing that happened would be a calamity.
I left the sanctuary with a bitter taste in my mouth. I glanced over at John, and he just
looked back at me and said, “Noah…the time has come. We have to leave this place.” His face
was set in a solemn line, but I knew that even he was scared of what was to come. He motioned
for me to come, so that's what I did. We walked for what seemed like hours, but, finally, we
went behind a hill. I peered over it cautiously, making sure it was safe.
“It’s okay,” John assured me, “We're clear.”
We ran down the hill as quietly as we could, but suddenly, he froze. “Wait—I hear
voices. It’s probably them! Run!”
I didn’t wait around to see what happened after that. I sped around a corner and dove into
a nearby garbage can for cover. He stepped inside an abandoned warehouse. I heard the voices
get louder and louder, but I still couldn’t see who they belonged to. I waited for a few more
seconds, and then I saw that it was just a couple, looking defeated and hungry. Just after they
passed, John silently mouthed for me to come into the warehouse. After a moment’s hesitation, I
walked in.
***
John had definitely picked the right place to go. The first floor was a spacious room,
with a very high ceiling, but it was packed with equipment. Everywhere I looked; there were
counterfeit machines, weapon vaults, wires and circuits, and other random objects that I couldn’t
identify. From one look at him, I knew he was thinking the same thing that I was- this
warehouse must be one of their secret hideouts. I looked around to see if anyone else was there,
but it was hard to tell, as it was 9:47pm, and it was really dark outside.
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“What are you doing here?” I heard someone say.
It was a boy that looked about 9, three years younger than me, sitting in the shadow of a
corner. He had black hair and green eyes. He looked…sad. And alone. Very alone.
“Who are you?” I demanded. I just hoped he wasn’t a Resputoarian.
“My name is…Oliver,” he said, but he didn’t look like he was telling the truth.
“Hi, Oliver,” John said.
The boy didn’t respond. He turned around and lay his head against the wall.
“So,” I put out awkwardly. “Are you alone here?”
He still didn’t say anything, and John shook his head, like “Ignore him. Just keep
looking.”
Then I heard a humming sound, and I looked around to find the source. I spotted a weird
object that sat by an old desk. In a trance-like state, I walked over to it. It looked like a coffin,
but it was hard to be sure. A weird green light seemed to come from the cracks in the lid.
“John, come here,” I said. “Check this out. What do you think it is?”
After a few seconds, he answered thoughtfully, “This must be some kind of futuristic
teleportation device. I’m not sure though, but the Resputoarians are very inventive, and they
have to have lots of ways to—”
He was interrupted by loud sounds coming from the second floor of the hideout.
“Run!” Oliver said. “They are here to kill you!”
But it was too late. From the first floor, I heard a man yell a stream of words that weren’t
very nice, and I heard a lot of loud sounds. I looked over at the staircase, and that’s when they
came downstairs armed and loaded.
***
John and I looked around desperately, trying to find a way to escape the Resputoarians
before they killed us. John climbed the support beams until he was in the roofing of the room. I
wasn’t good at climbing, so I had to find another solution. There wasn’t much time to think
about it, so I did the first thing that popped into my head- I climbed into the coffin.
It was empty, thank goodness. But it seemed…different. The green light was glowing
brighter and brighter, and the world turned black.
When I opened my eyes again, I saw a realm of darkness surrounding me, and I muttered,
“Welcome to Sunshine Village.”
It was as if the horrid place was all of your worst nightmares, packed into one. A dark
gray water tower loomed directly above me, threatening to fall and wipe out my lifeline. All the
other buildings were either grey or black. Ominous storm clouds loomed overhead.
After a few seconds of confusion, I realized that I was in the Land of the Resputoarians,
the ‘forbidden lands’ where the villains first rose to power.
When I saw a tiny white wisp start talking to me in a squeaky, high-pitched voice, I knew
very well that I was dreaming.
The wisp said, “No, sir…you are not dreaming. You have just been transported
magically from the Tomb of Immitigable Despondency. I saw you appear in a flash of blue
light. Are you in danger? Must I consult the high council?”
"Umm...I don't understand what you're saying."
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"I meant that you are in danger, and in order to survive, you must--" The wisp let out a
malignant cough and seemed to lose its color. "He has weakened me. He must be here. He is
here to kill us all." The wisp choked again and dropped on the ground.
I was bewildered. "Who is here? Who has come to kill us?!"
But the wisp was already dead.
***
The next thing that happened…well, let’s just say that I definitely didn’t expect it. A
Resputoarian approached, one that I recognized. He stabbed his sword into the ground and
regarded me with his cold gray eyes.
The villian looked at me in the face. “You won't win, you know.”
I barely even registered what the bandit was saying. “You again. Lucas Fenhard. I
swear you must be possessed.”
The villain laughed evilly. “You will find out in the close future, boy. The end is
coming. You and John will not survive.”
He sounded like he barely knew English, so I tried to dumb it down a little.
“Yeah, like you know,” I tried to say it sarcastically, but I was too scared to talk.
“Oh, but I do,” the enemy said seriously. “I know lots of things...”
“Really? Because you don’t know enough to leave me alone!”
“Let’s see how long you keep your sense of humor after I’m done with you.”
I woke in a cold sweat. I peered through a crack in the coffin and saw that John was in
danger. The elusive Resputoarians had spotted him, and were throwing metal disks that were so
sharp they cut right through the brick walls and went out the other side. I hadn’t told him where
I was hiding, but he was obviously trying to get my attention. There were three attackers-two
men and one woman.
In a desperate attempt to save John, I took a golden curved sword off of the table and
flung it at the Resputoarians. The sword went about five feet away from them, but that was
definitely enough to show them how bad I was in battle. I screamed at John to run, and I
sprinted for about a mile before my vision started to turn green. I finally sat down, drenched in
sweat, and John was right behind me. I continued to ask if he was all right, but he just held up a
hand to signal ‘stop.’
When he held up his hand, I saw for the first time that he had been injured in the fight.
His pinky and ring finger were completely cut off, with a singed stump on the end. This probably
happened from the metal discs that the attackers were throwing.
“How did you—” I tried.
“Stop. I don’t want to talk about it.” John said, wincing.
I knew John well, so I knew that if he didn’t want to tell me something if I asked him a
question, he was definitely hiding something. However, I also knew that I would never be able
to weasel it out of him, so I kept quiet. At this point, everything seemed kind of peaceful, but, as
usual, that was about to change.
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Jacob Lee
Chapter 5: The Separation
I actually slept fairly well that night, with dreams of white wisps and Resputoarians in
Sunshine Village, but I awoke to the sound of a horn. At the time, I didn’t know what that
meant, but I was about to find out.
A few seconds later, I saw a full army come over the horizon, but this army wasn’t going
to protect us. I started freaking out, and the first thing I thought was The Resputoarians found
us!!!
I hurriedly tried to wake John up, but he seemed to be passed out. The most terrifying
thing was that John was unable to protect himself. And the Resputoarians were getting closer.
Fast.
***
The Resputoarians appeared on the horizon, more than a hundred of them. I shook John
desperately, trying to get him to come to, but I knew deep down that it was hopeless. I couldn’t
figure out why he had passed out. Maybe all of that running had simply been too much for him.
The Resputoarians were within a hundred yards away from us. Seventy-five yards. Fifty.
Hurriedly, I checked his pulse. There was one, but it was very faint. I opened his eyes, but they
were glazed over.
I tried to pick him up, but he was too heavy. I tried to drag him to safety, but the
Resputoarians were too close. I tried to run and drag him, but it was too late. They were already
there.
I tried a fourth time, but a Resputoarian pointed a gun at my face, shot, and missed. I
panicked and fled.
I ran as fast as I could, and I couldn’t help but think about John as I did. He was
probably still lying back there, unable to get up, while the army attacked him, but I didn’t dare
look back. I had barely gotten to know him over the years we fought the Resputoarians, and now
he was going to die because of them.
I felt really guilty for leaving him there, but I knew that if I had tried to save him and
escape, we both would have ended up dead.
When I was sure that I lost them, I sat on a bench near the church. John had trusted me,
and I had let him down. It’s not like I could say to him, ‘oh…sorry about that. I guess I owe you
one, huh?’ John was killed. And it was my fault. I was so angry at myself that I lost my ability
to think straight. I could have saved him, but I chose to run away instead.
What kind of leader would I ever be able to be if I had let John, my only friend, die?
How would I act with the people of the world? Would I put my life before theirs, too?
No. I needed to learn from my mistakes. I couldn’t let this happen again, regardless of
who it could happen to. I was in charge of John’s life, and I chose to run away and let him die.
I didn’t even try to save him.
Another voice rose up from the depths of my heart – John West’s voice: No. You’re
wrong. You did try. You tried to get me to wake up. You only left me as a last resort, when you
couldn’t think of anything else to do.
I wanted to scream that I was selfish, that I had left him because all I cared about was
myself. But I knew that the voice couldn’t be real. It just couldn’t. John was dead.
My fault. It was my fault.
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I nearly tore my hair out, but eventually, my weariness got the best of me, and I fell
asleep.
When I awoke, I decided to go and find John’s body to see him. I walked back to where
he had been, but as far as I could see, there was no sign of his body. I searched for a few hours
before I gave up.
Maybe someone already buried him. Maybe he’s already in his coffin, in the ground with
the things that were most important to…
Wait…did the Resputoarians take his backpack, too? He kept a lot of things we needed
in there. All of our money was in that little bag. All of the things we needed! But it didn’t
matter. John West’s life was more important than any of that. And I let him die. But no matter
how hard it was, I had to move on. A very smart man named John West told me not to dwell in
the past, or meanwhile, in the present day, I’d be killed!
He always told me that if I dwelled in the past, I would pass away fast. Then, I had
thought it was supposed to be a joke, but looking back on it, I could hear the seriousness in his
voice. That familiar seriousness that I would never see or hear again…
I would never forgive myself for him. He shouldn’t have died. He might have stayed
alive, but I highly doubted it. He had been unconscious. There was no way he could have
fought the Resputoarians by himself.
I wasn’t sure, but he might have even been dead already.
But if he wasn’t, it…it was my fault.
I turned away and let the tears fall at last.
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Jacob Lee
Chapter 6: The Sword Wound
I forged ahead, still melancholy because of what had happened to my friend. I turned a
corner, heading toward a place that I knew that I needed to go. Every few minutes, I heard
voices, so I hid until I was sure it was safe.
The only thing I knew right then was that I had to defeat them, no matter what happened.
I needed to make sure that John hadn’t died in vain. I had to beat the Resputoarians, become the
leader of the Realm of Despermaine, and make things right. If I didn’t, I would never forgive
myself.
I turned the last corner and arrived at my destination. I went into the building, kneeled
down, bowed my head, and closed my eyes.
“Dear God,” I paused.
“I pray that John West will be accepted into your kingdom, and will no longer thirst for
water, but instead drink from your everlasting spirit and receive the gift of eternal life. I pray
that I may eventually be able to subdue the enemy, rule over the Realm of Despermaine, and be a
wise, amicable, selfless leader.
“I pray that all who have been lost in this vile reign of darkness will be healed, and that
they may be with You. I pray that the ones that are left will heal, too, and that they can find food
and shelter, and avoid the Resputoarians.
I pray all of these things in Your holy, glorious name. Amen.”
At that very second after I finished the last word, the entire wall behind me came crashing
down, and in came the army that had killed John.
The Resputoarians charged in the sanctuary, destroying everything in sight. I hid behind
a scorched banner in the front of the room, wishing that I could have more time. I scanned my
surroundings, searching for anything I could use as a makeshift weapon, but I saw nothing. If I
could somehow get past the Resputoarians, I might find something outside of the chapel. But I
couldn’t run – not this time.
I tried to find a way outside, but eventually, the enemy had me completely surrounded. I
took a deep breath. This is for you, John. I jumped up and threw a deadly flying sidekick into
one guard’s gut. He crumpled.
One down, ninety-nine to go, I thought. Another one came at me with a punch, but I
ducked and kicked him in the back of the knee. He cried out, but two more of his buddies came
up to overwhelm me. Somehow, I wasn’t scared, and I knew that adrenaline wasn’t the only
thing that was helping me do so nicely.
They attacked at the same time, and I knew immediately that these guys were more
advanced than the others. I spun in a circle, kicked one in the shin and the other in the middle of
his chest. A third Resputoarian approached, but I instantly raised my hand, moved it toward his
face, and pushed back his chin, hard.
I heard a snap, and he fell. I was bewildered. How did I learn to do that?! The next
guard had a sword.
He thrust it forward, but I sidestepped it, broke his wrist, grabbed the handle, and took the
sword. The guard surrendered.
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I pointed my new sword at the remaining Resputoarians, who were wary and seemed
hesitant to attack. I liked the balance of the sword, so I decided that if I lived through this, I
would keep the sword.
I was doing pretty well (in other words, really well - for me), but I knew that it couldn’t
be enough. There were just too many of them to fight alone. I needed help, but I had no one left.
It wasn’t like I could email John and say, “Oh, I need some help here.” John was no longer able
to help me, and I would never see him again. The only people that could possibly help me
were—
“AARGH!” I cried, and I felt a sudden pain in my gut. I must have zoned out, not even
thinking about what I was doing! I looked down, and saw crimson liquid flowing rapidly out of
my abdomen like lava trickling down from an erupting volcano. That’s when my world started
to spin. I felt really dizzy and queasy, and eventually, I could no longer stand up. I dropped my
sword and fell back against the wall.
Lucas Fenhard pointed his sword a centimeter from my face and laughed.
“You’ll never win now, huh, Noah?”
“Guh…it’s not over yet,” I wheezed.
“No, it’s not, but your time comes soon,” he laughed as he swung his sword two inches
from my face.
I was so weary, I didn’t even flinch. The other Resputoarians laughed at me, but I
couldn’t blame them. I had let John down, again. I was a disgrace to the family. I had promised
John that I would get revenge on the Resputoarians, but they had beaten me. I would never be
able to lead the Realm of Despermaine. I would never—
My stream of thought was interrupted by a piercing screech. An army rushed in, and I
thought, Oh, great. More Resputoarians to come and laugh at me. But then, I noticed
something weird–this army wasn’t wearing armor like the other one. This army was wearing
normal clothes! This had to have been all of the survivors of the reign of darkness, helping me
defeat the Resputoarians!
The newcomers charged the enemies, and they had an advantage, too–the Resputoarians
were so startled that, for a few seconds, they didn’t even fight back! The villagers attacked,
super-powered by adrenaline and another reason I was sure of. The Resputoarians blocked and
countered all attacks, but eventually, even they eventually were overwhelmed. The angered
villagers fought like whirlwinds, kicking, punching, and spinning in the most jaw-dropping
ways. I didn’t know who won, though, because I eventually passed out from losing three pints of
blood.
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Reign of Darkness
Jacob Lee
Chapter 7: The Sacrifice
I woke up in a small house. My sword from the battle was by my side, and a fireplace sat
a few feet to the right of me, keeping me warm, and a fluffy blanket covered me. I tried to sit up,
but felt an extreme burst of pain in my abdomen, and I collapsed. I recognized the place where I
was, but I couldn’t remember…
Regardless of where I was, whoever had taken me here obviously cared enough to keep
me healthy. I kept thinking about how familiar the house was...
I tried again to sit up, and my stomach felt a little bit better this time.
I heard a hair-raising growl, and I thought, oh, great. Another canem nigrum mortem to
try and bite my head off.
I sat up straight. That was it! This was Mrs. Malum's house! In fact, she walked in right
then.
“Hi, Noah. I'm glad to see that you're feeling better. You sure lost a lot of blood there!”
She enthused. “Where’s John?”
I swallowed. “John…John’s dead.”
Her expression dropped. “Oh…”
There was an awkward pause.
I couldn’t stand it anymore. “How did you know that I needed help?”
“Oh, It's no big deal,” Mrs. Malum waved her hand and frowned. “I just took a few hours
out of my free time to train those villagers, and then I led them in to attack those silly
Resputoarians.”
I was too stunned even to warn her to not speak their name aloud.
“What?! You attacked them?!”
Mrs. Malum rolled her eyes. “Yes, Noah, of course I did! I am full of surprises, okay?”
“Like what?”
Mrs. Malum smiled. “That you will have to find out on your own. Secrets can't just be
told by the keeper, they must be revealed by the seeker!”
“That is an interesting way to phrase it. I'd have bet that that would've been quoted in
People Magazine it we weren't in a catastrophic war.”
“Yes, that definitely makes it harder.”
I laughed, but almost immediately stopped. “Wow. That really doesn’t happen anymore,
does it?”
Mrs. Malum knit her eyebrows. “What? What doesn’t happen anymore?”
“Laughing. This time has been so hard on people that they can’t even let themselves
relax enough to crack a joke or smile.”
“Yes, when I trained the villagers, they were so serious that they barely talked at all.”
“But how did you know where I was?”
“My Resputoarian-tracking GPS!” Mrs. Malum cackled.
I looked at her expectantly, but she didn’t answer the question seriously. I was still
confused. “But…I thought you said you had business to do.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “I did! Helping you, Noah! It wasn’t that hard, either. I
used to be a spy, and now I put that knowledge to use.”
My voice became so quiet I could barely hear myself. “You...were a spy?!”
“Of course! There are a lot of things about me that you would be surprised about!”
“Like what?”
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Mrs. Malum dodged the question, which made me nervous. “So how's your wound?”
I winced. Just mentioning the pain made it worse. “It's not as bad as it was before, but it
still hurts a lot.”
“At least it’s healing.” She shrugged. “I have other things to do, so you have to continue
your journey.”
My eyes lit up. “What is the reason now? What’s your next ‘mission’?”
“I’m not allowed to tell you that, Noah.”
I frowned, but I didn't say anything.
“Perhaps I will see you again someday, Noah.”
“If we already met twice, I can almost guarantee that we will.”
Mrs. Malum flashed a crooked smile. “Oh, trust me, we will.”
***
I grabbed my sword and was off once again, starting to feel a little bit better. I couldn’t
believe that Mrs. Malum had done that much for me. First, she had helped John and me settle
into her house after the monster attacked, then she had trained the villagers, defeated the
Resputoarians, and she had taken me to her house to clean up.
I had gotten so distracted when she had talked to me about when she was a spy. Oh, that
was so cool! Even the people you least expect could surprise you without trying!
I wondered how long it would be before I got attacked again. Attacks seemed to come
out of nowhere, just like the Resputoarians.
And when they did come out of nowhere, nothing good ever happened. I felt a wave of
guilt as I thought about John. I wanted to kick myself. How could I be that stupid?
I knew I was being really hard on myself for this, but it didn’t matter, because I had run
when I easily could have stayed and helped John.
But then, I realized an important truth. Life couldn’t truly be experienced unless you
sacrificed. I had sacrificed John West’s life (not on purpose, of course), and now, I was a lot
smarter, and I thought before I did, which was way better than before.
So I decided to do it again. Hmm… I needed to find one of those burning houses I saw
so often in my travels.
I found one of them, and I pulled out the last dollars that I had left. I put them into the
flames, and I recited the same prayer I had said before, but with a new line: “I pray that you will
protect the people that I love.”
I smiled at myself, and I felt better already. Maybe God would pay me back somehow.
Maybe he would send someone to help me.
I turned around slowly, and I locked eyes with the last person that I had expected to see.
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Reign of Darkness
Jacob Lee
Chapter 8: An Old Friend
The boy that stood before me had a large, bulky frame with chiseled features. He wore
cargo pants and a leather jacket with lots of pockets. When he walked, he seemed to let off a
shock wave of confidence and courage. The way he carried himself, it seemed familiar, and then
I remembered why.
I stood with my mouth wide open, barely even able to get the words out. “William
Hendrickson?!”
“Noah Dentroas?!” William whistled. “I sure haven’t seen you for quite a while, eh?”
The last time I had seen William, we had been fighting the Resputoarians in a spacious
mansion. We were winning, by a lot, but there was still one guy left. The last Resputoarian
pulled out a gun, and William and I screamed and ran up the stairs to the second floor. The
mansion was huge, to the point that in twenty minutes, we were completely lost, and neither of
us could find our way back. Fortunately, we found a guest suite that we could sleep in, so we put
our stuff in there. The suite had a beautiful, cozy blue carpet and nice tiles in the kitchen. It had
three comfortable memory foam beds, and in front of the middle one sat a 48-inch screened HD,
three-dimensional television, with three game controllers faithfully at its side. I laid down in the
middle one, and I immediately fell asleep. The next morning, I woke up, and I had smelled
something burning.
“William? Are you cooking something?” I looked around, but he wasn’t in the guest
suite.
I walked into the hallway, and that was when I saw the fire. It was only a few feet away,
the flames jumping up to seven feet tall. It burned through the floor, and I fell through, narrowly
escaping more fire on the first floor. Luckily, I had landed near the door, so I kicked it down and
barely escaped with my life.
Now, I almost fainted. “I haven’t seen you for years! I thought you died in that fire so
many years ago! How did you escape?”
“Oh, it was no big deal. I was in an attic. First, I grabbed a Super Soaker and opened fire
at the flames in my way. Then, I used it to bash open a window so I could jump out of it. Then,
I—”
“Wait, back up. You jumped out of a window?”
“Well, I didn’t jump, per say… I rolled out of the window, on the roof. Then I jumped
off of that.”
“Wow…ok, well, how long were—” I tried.
I was interrupted by loud sounds that I assumed were the Resputoarians. When I turned
around this time, I saw exactly what I expected to see.
“Noah, we’ll have to finish this conversation later. Stand behind me.” William
commanded.
“But I—” I stopped myself. I was going to say that I was good in battle, but I wasn’t
good in battle. William, however, obviously had been working out, and he appeared to be a lot
stronger than when I’d last seen him.
The Resputoarians approached, and William did not seem to be anywhere near afraid of
them.
“I’ve got your back,” I assured him as the Resputoarians surrounded us. They were
forming a circle around us, a technique that had obviously worked before.
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William reached into his back pocket and pulled out a small knife. This kid is full of
surprises, I thought.
The Resputoarians all approached at the same time, which surprised both of us.
I heard an evil laugh. A single enemy emerged from the ranks, and he signaled for his
companions to stop. “Ah, Noah Dentroas. It’s good to see you again. I see your stomach is
healed?”
“Lucas Fenhard.” I said slowly through gritted teeth. Even his name brought back the
pain. “I remember you, you monster. You almost killed me.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Lucas smiled. “You see, I let you live only to see if you
are a worthy adversary. You have proved to be unworthy. I see you have replaced your friend.
John was good while he lasted.”
“D-don’t talk about him,” I sputtered. “He died to your cold hands, and you just want to
do the same thing to me.”
“Oh, but he—” He stopped. “It doesn’t matter. We will fight. Let’s just see how good
your new friend is against me,” Lucas smiled again. “I have sharpened my skills and my blade,
which I am not afraid to use. This time, I will aim straight for your heart.”
I flinched, and apparently, that was exactly the kind of opportunity he was looking for.
“Attack!”
The Resputoarians rushed forward, eager to kill us.
“You got any other weapons with you?” I asked William. “I’m best when I have
something to work with.”
He pulled a sword from a sheath by his side that I hadn’t noticed until then. He threw it
to me, and I caught it. “Ok. Let’s do this.”
***
The attackers swarmed us, and we fought with all that we had. I slashed, sliced, and
poked at every opportunity that I got, but in a few minutes, they overwhelmed me and
approached William. He fended off attackers with one hand, and with the other, he reached into
his pocket and pulled out a grenade.
I watched in amazement as he threw it easily, and when it exploded, it blew back about
fifty of the enemies, who knocked over even more like bowling pins. Within ten yards of us, all
of the Resputoarians were momentarily stunned. While I viciously kicked an attacker in the
shin, William pulled out a stink bomb and threw it far back, getting rid of twenty more of the
Resputoarians.
I was highly impressed with him, but eventually, it turned into anger, then fear. Lucas
Fenhard attacked me, swinging his sword as if it was the easiest thing in the world, but I blocked
and countered every attack. He had defeated me before, and I couldn’t let that happen again. I
was getting tired, but I rolled and dodged like a full-fledged warrior.
I faked Lucas out with a swing to the leg, followed by a jab at the shoulder. He started to
block it but corrected himself, and he blocked the poke. A-ha! I thought triumphantly. I knew
his weakness! As long as I kept attacking, if I faked a move, he would fall for it!
I kept attacking, and after a while, William turned so that we were both facing Lucas. I
looked around, and I saw that he had beaten all of the Resputoarians! But I knew that I couldn’t
get distracted. Last time that that happened… I didn’t want to think about it.
I slashed, but he blocked. William and I were about the same strength as Lucas, but he
was starting to get tired. His blocks were getting slower, and his brow was beaded with sweat.
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I was getting tired, too, but I couldn’t let Lucas see that.
All of a sudden, Lucas jumped up, raised his sword, and was about to impale me with it,
but I quickly slid between his legs to dodge it.
Lucas was confused for a second, and that was all that I needed. I kicked him in the butt,
and he cried out, but he continued his attack.
And that’s when I realized that he was aiming for William! William just had a small
dagger, and he would never be able to deflect against a sword.
Fueled by adrenaline, I vaulted over Lucas, raised my sword, and slammed down his
weapon. It clattered to the ground, and Lucas roared in outrage.
“The time for playing games is over,” Lucas said through gritted teeth. He pulled out a
small handheld gun, and William took a nervous step back. I knew what that meant—William
had no weapon that had a chance against the gun, and we had run out of hope.
“You are at your final decision, Noah,” Lucas smiled. “You can try to fight me, and die
trying, or you can run, like you did before. If you run, however, you will find out the hard way
how good I can handle a gun. Watch this.”
Lucas pointed the gun somewhere behind William, and I spun around to see where it was
pointed. About a football field away stood an elderly woman that was sipping a bowl of soup.
Lucas laughed as he pulled the trigger.
***
Time slowed down as the bullet ripped through the air, and I watched it, shell-shocked. It
approached the woman, and it cut straight through a house that was less than an inch away from
her face. She screamed, dropped her soup, and ran.
Lucas’s face was terrifyingly calm. “You may not believe me, Noah, but I would love
for you to find out.”
I looked him in the eye, and I could tell that he was being honest. There was only one
thing that I could do—delay.
“Wow, Lucas… it seems that you really want us killed.”
He snarled. “Of course I do. You are enemies, and you must be killed.”
William spoke up. “No. You are the enemy. And you will be stopped.”
The Resputoarian just laughed, like this was all good fun. “You couldn’t stop me if I was
tied up, blindfolded, and on fire. I would kill you before you could see me pull the trigger.”
I noted that he said the word ‘would’ instead of ‘will.’ Leaving room for only a small
amount of hope… I figured I might as well try to get some answers out of him while we were
still talking. “Why do we need to be killed? What is so special about us?”
“Oh, Noah…you really think I will tell you the answers you need? Alright, that is it.
Enough stalling.” Lucas raised his gun. “I guarantee that this won’t be like the last time. You
will—”
He stopped suddenly, and he narrowed his eyes. “What are you doing? I sense—”
Something very fast shot down from the sky and hit Lucas. He doubled over, clutching
his chest. He fell to the ground and went limp, and he didn’t move again. An arrow was lodged
in the middle of his back.
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Jacob Lee
Chapter 9: The Team
Standing behind where Lucas had been was a girl carrying a bow, and she had a quiver on
her back.
When I looked her in the face, I caught my breath. She had flowing brown hair that was
tied in a ponytail, and chocolate-colored eyes. Her face was down-right gorgeous. She was the
prettiest girl I had ever seen, but I immediately felt guilty for thinking so. I couldn’t make a fool
of myself in front of this girl. I had to impress her.
She cupped her hand around her mouth and called in the direction of the trees, “It’s safe
now. You guys can come down.”
How lucky can we get? I thought. Maybe we should team up with them.
After a few minutes of stunned silence, I finally succeeded in getting my voice to work.
“Th-thank you,” I stammered.
The girl smiled at me, which seemed to make her even more beautiful. “No problem. Oh,
and by the way, my name is Heather.”
“Oh…I’m Noah,” I said giddily. We shook hands, and I held on for about 10 seconds. I
smelled a whiff of cinnamon. Maybe it was her perfume?
When she looked at me in a weird way, I realized that I had been staring. I quickly looked
away, and I felt my cheeks grow hot.
“And I’m William,” William announced, even though no one asked. I had been trying so
hard not to look like a dork in front of Heather that I had forgotten about him.
“Nice to meet you,” Heather said. She turned back to me. “Come here, Noah. I want to
talk to you.”
I think I said something like “Mrglph.”
Heather took me behind a large rock formation, and she looked me in the eye. Her eyes
looked sad. “What happened to you?”
“What? What do you mean? What did I do?” I asked, puzzled.
She laughed softly. “No, Noah. You didn’t do anything. But… it seems to me that
someone did something to you…Who? And what?”
I hesitated, but I knew in my heart that I could trust this girl. “Well…my lifelong
companion just died, and I guess that it shattered something in my heart. How did you know?”
Heather’s eyes sparkled mysteriously. “I was blessed with the ability to tell peoples
weaknesses and insecurities just by looking at their eyes.”
Whoa…cool! I thought. This girl got more awesome by the minute! But does she know
that I like her?
She smiled at me, like she did know, but that she wasn’t at all bothered by it. I took that
as a good sign. Maybe I had a chance with this girl after all.
“Let’s go, Noah,” Heather said. “I want you to meet the others.”
***
As William and I were introduced to the rest of the newcomers, I was amazed when
Heather told me that they wanted to accomplish the same goal that we did.
On the far left, a pale, scrawny boy examined a black sword. He had piercing green eyes,
feathered black hair, and a small scar below his right eye. When I looked at him expectantly, he
didn’t say or do anything.
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When Heather saw this, she just rolled her eyes. “You don’t have to worry about
Demetrius. He’s just…different. He isn’t like the rest of us.”
I frowned, but Heather didn’t say anything else about him, so I moved on. When I
looked at the second guy, I could tell he was smart. He had chocolate-colored eyes that matched
his clean-cut brown hair. His hair had a hint of gray at the top, like he had bleached it. “Hey,
Noah. I’m Dustin.”
The next girl was dressed in a blue-and-green t-shirt with blue jeans. She had long blond
hair and shining gold eyes that glinted in the light.
“Hi, I am Anastasia, I am pleased to meet you, Noah Dentroas,” the girl said.
From one look at Dustin’s hand wrapped around hers, I could tell that these two had
known each other for a long time, and that they knew each other very well. I knew there wasn’t
a very good chance, but I could hope that the same could happen to me and Heather…
We walked along together, and I still didn’t know where we were going.
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Chapter 10: The Grand Tour
Heather pointed to an abnormally gigantic tree, and she said, “Come, you guys. This is the
closest safe place we can go.”
I frowned as I looked at it. “I thought there were no safe places.”
Heather smiled again. “There always are safe places, Noah. You just have to find them.”
“Anyway, this is the Elder Tree,” Dustin said.
I shook my head. “The Elder what now?”
“The Elder Tree,” Heather explained. “It is known as the biggest tree in all time. It
overlooks all of the other trees and villages. It is our main headquarters. Now, come, we must
get to the top, and I will show you why.”
I hesitated, but Heather, Demetrius, Dustin, and Anastasia were already climbing the tree.
“Wait,” I said. “I can’t climb trees.”
The other girl, Anastasia, said, “Yes, you can, Noah Dentroas. You can do a lot more than
you think you can.” Her golden eyes glowed, but I blinked, and when I focused on her again, her
eyes looked normal…or as normal as gold eyes can be.
I felt a surprising burst of confidence, and I climbed up the tree like a frightened squirrel.
Occasionally, my hands were stabbed by sharp branches, but it was as if the pain simply didn’t
exist.
I reached the top, and I was so overcome by awe and wonder that I almost fell right back out
of the tree.
Standing on the tree was a massive building with grand doors that were about eight feet tall.
It was surrounded by three watchtowers with bridges going across, leading to the castle and the
other towers. The most interesting thing was that when I had looked at the tree before, from the
ground, I hadn’t seen a building at the top…
Heather led me inside the building, and again I was amazed at how spacious it was on the
inside. The main room was enormous, and it had several balconies on the other floors, with
glittering gold railings on the edge, which matched the regal red carpet. I counted six balconies,
which meant six floors, and I thought about how small it had looked compared to how large it
actually was. The domed ceiling had beautiful artwork on it. Stairways loomed in almost every
direction I looked, and, for once in my life, I felt like I truly had a home.
I looked at the others, and I saw that William looked as happy and joyful as I felt. Anastasia
lay relaxed on a grand, cozy-looking sofa, and Dustin lay right by her side, holding her hand as
he gazed up at the domed ceiling with a heavenly expression on his face. Heather ran her hand
along the gold railings, happily singing a song to herself.
I squinted. Who was the other one? Oh, yes… it was Demetrius. I looked around the
mansion, but I couldn’t see him or his glowing black sword anywhere. I was hesitant to look for
him though, thinking of the last mansion I had been in, so I just stayed where I was and asked
Heather if she knew where Demetrius was.
“Demetrius tends to disappear a lot, but he always shows up when needed,” she said.
I was a little disappointed when she told me that, because I wanted to get to know him a little
bit more. At the very least, I wanted to know why he always seemed so far-away and secluded,
as if he was living in two worlds at once.
I also wanted to know about his black sword. It was obviously not a normal sword, as it was
dark and ominous, and it seemed to suck the life right out of the air.
I looked around the mansion again, but there was so sign of Demetrius.
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I was again amazed at how large it was, so this time I asked Heather how it looked small from
the outside but was so spacious in the inside, and her eyes glinted. “Magic,” she said, but she
didn’t seem to be joking.
***
As Heather gave William and me the grand tour of the house, I wondered how big it really
was. It had already been forty-five minutes, and we were still on the first floor, out of six. I
passed room after room, each very well decorated and archaic, but even in all of my amazement,
I was starting to get bored. I kind of just staggered along, zoning in and out, occasionally
listening to Heather talk about the various bathrooms and bedrooms.
“—and this is the seventeenth guest bedroom on the first floor,” she was saying. “A lot of
them, huh, guys? Noah?”
I said something like “Yeah, that’s great, Heather.”
She raised an eyebrow, but I didn’t really care. I was bored out of my mind, so I didn’t care
about my ‘relationship’ with Heather at the moment. The whole ‘tour guide’ thing wasn’t very
hot of her, either.
I envied Anastasia and Dustin. They got to sit in the main room, happily holding hands,
while we had to go on a stupid tour of the house. The place was so massive; it could have had its
own zip code.
Heather led us into a large opening, and it surprised me enough to snap me out of my
reverie.
It was a large room that must have took up two floors, because the roof was about twice as
high up as most of the other rooms. It had a five-foot-tall wall made of small glass cubes that
seemed to give me a feeling of warmth. Like a lot of the other rooms, it had a rich, fluffy red
carpet. Every corner of the room had at least one computer in it. A projector shined a moving
image onto the wall that looked like the surroundings of the mansion.
Heather looked at me, and I obviously had a stupefied expression, because she couldn’t
suppress a laugh. She cupped her hand around her mouth, but she couldn’t stop the giggles.
I gave her a deadly glare, and she looked back at me, but I won the staring contest. She
finally got control of her laughter, and when she explained about this room, she definitely had
my attention.
“This room used to be a library, but because of the circumstances, we have changed it to a
command center,” Heather said. “As you can see, this is the ground directly below us right now.”
“Why are there no people?” I asked.
“Oh, there usually aren’t villagers around these areas. That’s why we built it here.”
After that, though, the rest of the tour was just various bathrooms and bedrooms, so I was
glad when it was over.
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Jacob Lee
Chapter 11: Rising Suspicion
After the tour, Heather approached me and said, “Hey, Noah—I’m going to go sleep in one of
the guest bedrooms. You keep watch in the towers with Anastasia and Dustin, okay?”
“Got it,” I said.
“And if you can, we need new weapons. Too many of ours either broke or were lost.”
“Got it.”
The first few hours were the worst. To be honest, I almost fell asleep.
Not many villagers went near the tree, but the few that did gave no indication that they saw a
giant mansion on the top of an abnormally tall tree called The Elder Tree.
After four straight hours of staring at the ground, I heard voices that didn’t sound like the
villagers. They were inhumanly deep and masculine, like the voice that a chasm might have. I
heard three voices.
“Yes,” one of them said. “The stupid girl with the arrows shot him in the back.”
Another voice said, “Well, Lucas could not be saved, but his brother will kill them in time.”
“We could only hope that he isn’t home at the moment,” said a third. “We need to be alone
when we are taking their things.”
The speakers came into view. I could tell that they were evil, but I didn’t think that they were
Resputoarians. They definitely weren’t human. The first one’s hands were on fire, but they
didn’t seem to burn; his eyes were yellow; and he had golden armor. The second had icy skin
that sparkled; cold blue eyes; and bright white armor. The third had electric pulsing through him
every second; purple-and-blue eyes; and dark grey armor that shot miniature lightning bolts to
other parts of the armor, like a storm cloud.
I remembered Heather saying they needed new weapons, and I recalled that the last
Resputoarian hideout had had a lot of weapons. I didn’t know who these monsters were or what
they were, but I did know that they were headed to Lucas’s house.
Which meant we had to follow them.
***
I hurriedly got the others and woke Heather. I tried to find Demetrius, but Heather told me
that we didn’t have time. We rushed out the door.
“Go, go, go!” Heather yelled. She pulled on a leaf with a wire attached to it, and immediately
a rope ladder seemed to materialize out of thin air, but I had too little time to be amazed.
Dustin shimmied down the ladder like it was on fire, and Anastasia was right behind him.
I tried to go as fast as they did, but it was not smart on my part. I started to fall, six hundred
feet to impact…
I would have died if Demetrius hadn’t come out of nowhere. He appeared on the ground by
the bottom, and he stabbed the ground with his black sword, and mysterious purple light seemed
to come directly from him, forming what looked like a force field. The light shot far out in all
directions, and right when it hit me, I immediately felt like I was floating in midair. Then I
realized that I was floating midair.
The others were already running to keep up with the monsters, but I was floating, and
Demetrius was obviously controlling that, but I didn’t know how or why.
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Demetrius pulled his sword out of the ground and threw it twenty feet up in the air. When he
caught it one-handed, I shot toward the others, going at least ninety miles per hour.
I hit the ground running, and William and Heather were right behind me. Demetrius ran next
to me, and his black sword was smoking and emitting a strange purple light. His eyes glowed in
the same mysterious way.
Eventually, the enemies came back into view. Every once and a while, they would stop, and
we would have to hide, but it was actually a lot more boring than I thought it would be.
I looked back at Demetrius. He had a look of determination, but also a twinkle in his eyes.
Over the many years fighting for my life, I had developed the ability to read people’s expressions
a lot better than most people could. The twinkle in Demetrius’s eyes seemed sad and grief-filled,
like he had suffered through a lot in his past, but I didn't know anything about that. I would ask
later.
Heather looked both diligent and courageous, and her hair flowed down over her back in a
mesmerizing way. She seemed focused, but I could tell that she was thinking about something
else.
William looked the way I felt—confused and overwhelmed from the surprising thought that
we now had four more people on our team. He was obviously still adjusting, like me, but I could
tell he liked being with other people. After all, he had probably been alone for plenty of years
after the—
Oh yeah! I had forgotten that we still had a conversation to finish, from before the battle with
Lucas. We had been talking about how he had escaped the old mansion that had burned to the
ground. I was asking him how long he was on his own after that, and then the bad guys had
come.
Speaking of bad guys...where had the monsters gone? I could no longer see them in front of
us.
The others confirmed my fear. “We lost them,” Dustin said.
Anastasia closed her eyes, and her hand drifted to the dagger in her belt. “You are wrong,
Dustin. We are not alone.”
Right on cue, the monsters we were following rose right out of the ground, and the one with
flaming hands smiled. She had pointed teeth.
You idiots really thought you could outsmart the sanguinem acetabulis? The monster taunted.
The raspy voice seemed to be disembodied. The monster never moved its lips.
I raised my sword. “What are you?”
The monster looked at me like I was five years old. Sanguinem acetabulis. In English, it
translates to 'blood suckers.' You would consider us to be vampires, but we are much better than
they are. After all, we can do this.
The demon raised her flaming hands and shot a line of fire at a nearby house. The flames
reduced the building to ash in milliseconds.
The second demon raised her ice-cold hands and froze another house, and it immediately
shattered.
The third demon raised her lightning hands and shot a gargantuan lightning bolt, which
demolished five houses on impact. After the damage was done, there was nothing left.
Dustin charged the ice demon in rage, but she just pointed at him, and he immediately froze,
immobile in a huge ice block. His expression was one of surprise and terror.
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“DUSTIN!” Anastasia screamed and ran to the side of her beloved boyfriend. But that was
not a good choice. As soon as she touched him, she froze too. Her expression matched Dustin's
almost perfectly.
The demons cackled as they circled the rest of us.
“Save them!” William cried helplessly. Unfortunately, he just drew the demons’ attention to
him.
The storm demon was about to turn him into dust, but Demetrius stepped forward. If looks
could kill, the demons would have been slashed to pieces by a billion axes and swords.
Demetrius raised his hand, his palm pointed up, and he chanted, “Surgere qui vicit. Vestri
tempore opus iterum. Isti perdat, et in profundis inferni trahi.”
Instantly, crumbled bones rose from the earth, forming skeletons. I counted seventeen of
them. They turned to Demetrius and spoke in unison, “Sequimur tua iussa, magna.”
I didn’t understand what they said, and I was still trying to process it, but meanwhile, the
skeletal warriors drew their swords.
The demons chittered nervously, probably wondering what the skeletons would do.
The skeleton warriors all raised their swords, and I blinked. They were the same swords as
Demetrius’s! I looked at him and did a double take.
Demetrius’s hands each had spherical green light swirling around them, like miniature black
holes. When I looked at them, blurry skeletal faces appeared and disappeared in the light. Then
I heard more hair-raising chanting, and I turned back to the skeletons.
“Nos Nesrahide spiritibus erroris, gladio uti potest expellere daemones sangritonium saecula
saeculorum,” they chanted together. “Sit nostra potestate consumam eos pertinent, et illorum
sanguinem fluentem per eos pariter avellentes separatim. Sedet ad mortem ante sit amet
devorabit omnia in dominum suum.”
“Demetrius,” I called. “What are they say—”
A blast of green light came from the skeletons and consumed the demons. They each took
one whiff of it, and their eyes rolled up in their heads, and the light swirled around them, faster
and faster…and then it stopped. There was nothing left.
The skeletons fell apart and sank back into the earth, and Demetrius turned back to normal.
During the battle, William had been hacking away at the ice to no effect. Demetrius walked over
to Anastasia and Dustin, put his hand on the ice, and it melted instantly.
I eyed Demetrius nervously. “How did you—”
“No time.”
“But how do we—”
“We’re already here.”
Until then, I had not noticed the unoccupied house that was right in front of us.
I walked
up to the house and was about to open the door, but Heather grabbed my arm. “It could have an
alarm!”
Dustin shook his head. “No. We’re good. But something’s not right…Anyway, it’s fine to
open the door.”
No one questioned him or said anything, so I opened the door. No alarms went off. No
whistles or buzzers blared.
The fact that there were no alarms just made us all suspicious.
We went inside.
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Chapter 12: Answers
The inside of the house only deepened my suspicion.
It was very full of expensive-looking items, so it just didn’t seem right that there wasn’t an
alarm. A bearskin rug carpeted the polished wood floor, and the walls were colored with the
most beautiful wall art that I had ever seen. Weapon racks, complicated technology, and
mystifying blueprints occupied the room.
“Let’s only take the things we need,” Anastasia said, still shivering from being temporarily
frozen. “And hurry. We don’t have much time.”
I searched for a while and found a sword with dazzling craftsmanship and perfect balance. I
took it and its hilt and was pleased.
Heather took a computer with an interesting design on the front and a backpack. “So we can
transport supplies easier,” she explained.
Anastasia took a strange, smooth blue stone. I wondered why, and what it was, but I knew
we didn’t have time. I would have to ask her later.
Dustin and William didn’t take anything.
We rushed to the door, and that was when I made my fatal mistake.
I sprinted to the door, still being careful and searching for traps, but it was no use.
I put my hand on the doorknob and felt a jolt of electric energy. If only I had thought more
about that…
I turned the knob and opened the door, and instantly, an alarm went off.
The building exploded.
Shrapnel flew out in all directions, and I was hit by several weapons and random objects.
The bomb appeared to have been directly behind the weapon rack. It was a smart idea; it not
only created chaos, but it also injured the trespassers.
However, we were the trespassers. And, trust me, dodging flying objects is not as fun as it
sounds, even if it doesn’t sound fun at all.
I tried my best to block or dodge the ones that came near me, but I couldn’t stop all of them.
One dagger went right under my guard and got stuck in my sword arm, making me unable to use
it.
The others got just as bad of luck as me, but we all managed to escape. We got back to the
Elder Tree safely, but none of us was in a good enough condition to climb it.
Heather touched my arm, and I was glad to see her at my side. “Just to the top, Noah. Then I
will help cure your wounds.”
Anastasia and Dustin climbed up the tree like they weren’t injured at all. I was lucky enough
to climb up successfully with only one arm. The others came up behind me.
We went into the house and immediately plopped down in whatever chair or sofa we liked
best.
Heather pulled the door closed behind her. “Okay…time to talk.”
***
Anastasia cleared her throat. “You had questions, Noah Dentroas?”
“Yes,” I said.
There were a few seconds of silence, but finally she said, “Well, what are they?”
I hesitated. “How do you do that thing with your eyes? And why are they gold?”
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Anastasia smiled mysteriously. “Let’s just say that I have a gift that helps me a lot in battle. I
prefer for people to find out on their own.”
“Helpful,” I muttered.
I turned to Demetrius. “And you…”
He raised an eyebrow. “What?”
“How did you do all that stuff with your sword? And why does it glow?”
“Well…I channel my power through my sword. It glows because…well, it’s too
complicated.”
“Tell me!” I demanded.
“Fine, I’ll tell you, but this is a long story, so get comfy,” Demetrius ran his hand along his
black sword. “I got this blade from—well, I’m not allowed to say his name out loud, but let’s
just say that it was an interesting guy that helped me when I needed help, so to speak.”
He continued, “Anyway, this guy had many sources, and he knew lots of people. However, I
don’t know what he looks like, because it was dark, and he wore a ski mask.”
“I know very little about him, but I remember his eyes. They were cold and a grayish blue,
like Antarctica on steroids. But what happened next was no joke. He said to me, ‘No matter
what you think, what I will do will help you. You may never be the same, and people will fear
you, but you will be better. You will have powers like no one else has ever had.’”
Demetrius took a deep breath. “He put a rag around my mouth, and everything went black. I
don’t know how long I was out, but when I woke up, I was in a small prison cell with a glowing
black sword. I don’t know how to explain it, but I felt…different. My sight was clearer. I could
think better. Everything about me was improved. But…I started hearing these voices. They
whisper in my head day in and day out, but I cannot get rid of them. They speak in Latin, which,
I suddenly was able to translate to English. I took a look at the sword and picked it up, and
immediately the voices got louder, piercing my skull like a blade dripping with lava.”
“The voice of the person talked to me, but I couldn’t see him. The voice said, ‘Go ahead.
Use your power.’ I felt so angry at him for forcing me into this, but that anger turned into
energy, and that energy powered my sword. It glowed, and black and purple light bleached the
light and the air, leeching the color from the world. I screamed a curse as I powered the sword to
cause a gigantic explosion that rocked the room. I died.”
I freaked out. “What?!”
Demetrius sighed. “Let me finish. I died and was actually in Heaven for several days, but—”
“What’s it like?”
Demetrius now had a faraway, wistful look. “I…I will tell you later. But, as I was saying, I
somehow came back. For three months I didn’t know where I was or even who I was. I still
don’t know what my name was before I died. But I kept the sword, and I renamed myself
Demetrius Edginhard, meaning ‘the Dark Sword.’ I have kept the name ever since.”
“I have but one thing left to say—without my sword, I am hopeless. It is like food to me. If I
do not have it with me, I will be completely drained of power and will die within ten days. That
is why I always have it.”
I was at a loss for words, but somehow Heather was able to speak. “Wow…I never knew
you’ve gone through so much,” she said.
Demetrius’s green eyes darkened. “You have no idea how much I’ve been through.”
“What do you mean?” Dustin asked.
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“I have said enough for one night. Perhaps someday I will tell you what happened on the
night of January seventeenth in the middle of the ocean. But today is not that day. You do not
need to know about this scar”—he pointed to the scar below his right eye—“yet.”
“I can’t wait,” I said, meaning it.
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Chapter 13: The Mission
I had been so focused on Demetrius’ story that I hadn’t even noticed that Heather had
completely gotten the dagger out of my arm and cleansed the wound. The others looked good as
new.
Which meant that it was time to get back to work.
Heather pulled out her new computer. “Okay…I have run background analysis on this
computer, and it turns out that it contains a database of Resputoarian battle strategies and plans.”
I blinked. “Well, open up the database then!”
She hesitated. “Okay…”
Heather clicked a folder on the computer labeled Battle_plan_0036289, and a message
popped up.
“Oh, wait a second…” Heather said, squinting at the screen. “The file’s password protected.
What should I do?”
Dustin frowned. “I dunno. You guys got any ideas?”
No one said anything helpful.
Heather nervously tapped her fingers on the table. “Should I try ‘Resputoarians’?”
“Worth a shot,” I said.
She typed it in, but a red light blinked, and almost all of the files erased themselves, leaving
one remaining. The file was labeled ‘Noah_Dentroas_situation.’ Heather’s eyes widened in
alarm, mirroring how I felt.
“Open it!” I proclaimed.
Dustin was about to click on the file, but Heather grabbed his arm. “Wait! If you click it, it
could erase itself!” she said. “Leave it for now, and I’ll load a special flash drive into it that
should make it possible to access and read the file.”
But that wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “I have to know now!” I clicked the file, and it came
up.
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To:
Lucas Fenhard (ljfenhard@yahoo.com)
From: General Mortikai (resputoariansrule217@yahoo.com)
Subject: The Noah Dentroas Situation
Dear Lucas,
I would like to speak to you about the Noah Dentroas Situation. He has
decided to resort to rebellion, just like Greg Tabaloe. Dentroas quickly chose to go
on the other team, but he still hasn’t figured out his powers. He has the ability to
teleport, communicate telepathically, and summon the power of God.
He has just recently used some of his powers, but I am sure that he does not
know he has acquired them. I have a way to keep him from figuring out his
powers. He doesn’t have enough time for any plans or schemes, anyway. After
all, his friend William is being held hostage in the Cell of Despair in our
hometown. If he even finds out that William is gone, he’ll never be able to make it
in time.
In one day, his precious friend will be held over a fire, helpless as he dies. If
he just doesn’t make it to the great Cell at all, I want you to take him here so he
can see it all happen, while he’s in a cage unable to help.
I have very good news— I have constructed the portal and all I need is the
quiet one. You know just the child I am conversing about—Demetrius. His three
juvenile presents are with me. If he’s lucky, I will give two back to him.
You just saw him, correct? If you will, do me a favor and leave quickly if you
spot him, so I can use him for the plan. Noah will see me in time, and when I
kidnap him, he will never see me coming.
While we lie confused,
Evealirea an Deathe is the Key.
First without me and always without you,
We’ll open the third door.
We’ll find Dui and add him to the mix.
We'll backtrack to the third from the right.
We'll open the ‘fifth’ door,
And pull Dentroas within.
Sincerely,
General Mortikai
Ruler of the Resputoarians
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***
We all stood speechless, reading the email over and over.
Finally, Dustin broke the silence. “What does this last part mean? It seems like a code of
some sort.”
While we lie confused,
Evealirea an Deathe is the Key.
First without me and always without you,
We’ll open the third door.
We’ll find Dui and add him to the mix.
We'll backtrack to the third from the right.
We'll open the ‘fifth’ door,
And pull Dentroas within.
Finally, I thought of something. “Why is the word ‘fifth’ in quotation marks?”
Demetrius responded, “Perhaps it is a code. After all, the bad guys are very secretive,
correct?”
“Maybe…maybe it means every fifth letter,” Heather suggested. “So it would be ‘e e u
v…continuing.”
“But that doesn’t make sense,” I said. “It might be every fifth letter of a certain phrase, too.
Like…let’s try ‘And pull Dentroas within.’”
It took us a minute, but we eventually came up with this:
And pull Dentroas within.
1 2 3 4 512 34 5 12 3 45 1234 51
“Unsi? But that still doesn’t make sense,” Dustin said.
Anastasia smiled. “Then unscramble it. See, look—the first line says ‘while we lie confused.’
In most codes, ‘confused’ means that you unscramble it.”
We tried for a few minutes, but we didn’t come up with anything.
I reread the poem and had an idea. “The third line says ‘without you.’ Think about it.
Doesn’t that seem irrelevant to the rest of the poem?”
Dustin nodded slowly, warming up to the idea. “Yes…and doesn’t the word ‘you’ sound like
the letter u?”
Heather snapped her fingers. “Oh! So we get rid of the ‘u’ in ‘unsi!’”
Anastasia nodded. “Now we unscramble it!”
All I had to do was look at it, and I had my answer. “It’s sin! But what do they mean by
‘sin’?”
“Maybe they mean that they should keep sinning, to achieve their goal, whatever that is,”
Heather said.
“Yeah, but what does that have to do with the rest of the email?” I asked. “We’re missing
something here. Like what does the line ‘Evaelirea an Deathe is the Key’ mean?”
No one offered any answers that helped me understand it.
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“It doesn’t matter, anyway,” Dustin said. “The rest of the email seems much more urgent.
Like…what are your powers?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know I had powers,” I muttered.
Demetrius cocked his head. “You apparently have three powers, and it says here that you’ve
already used some of them. What could they possibly be?”
“I don’t know,” I sighed. “I really wish I did, but I can’t think of anything that I did before
that could possibly be any kind of power. What does power even mean?”
“I have a power,” Demetrius, Anastasia, and Heather murmured together.
The only thing I could think of was when I had fought the Resputoarians after I prayed, when
I had done better than I had ever done before. I guessed that could be considered a ‘power,’ but I
doubted it.
“Wait…something isn’t right here,” Heather said. “Noah, who is your friend that could
possibly be a hostage?”
I looked at the others, and a terrible realization dawned on me. “Where’s William?!”
***
We spent hours searching for William in a huge area around the Elder Tree, but there was no
sign of him.
“Okay…we have to stay calm,” Dustin said. “Let’s read the email again. Does it give any
indication of where he is?”
We rushed back up the tree, went into the mansion, and dashed to the small table that had
Heather’s new computer on it. The redacted document was still on the screen.
“Yes!” Heather cried. “It does! It says ‘in the Cell of Despair in our hometown!’ But where is
their hometown?”
She opened up the Internet and Googled ‘where were the Resputoarians born,’ but nothing
came up. She tried ‘Resputoarian hometown’ and got success…if she was looking for
Hometown Respiratory, which she wasn’t.
“So the Internet won’t help us,” Demetrius said. “But didn’t the Resputoarians start out in the
Forbidden Valley?”
He gasped, obviously thinking about saying their name out loud, but Heather shook her head.
“No, Demetrius, it’s fine,” she said. “Plus, I could just do this.”
She flipped open a tiny secret door in the wall. A red button was behind it.
Heather pushed the button, and the Elder Tree ripped right out of the ground and floated way
up in the air. I looked out the window and saw the ground get even farther below us. I caught
my breath, but we safely floated in midair.
Heather coughed. “So, as you were saying, Demetrius?”
“Yes, the Forbidden Valley…it is supposedly the place where the Resputoarians first became
a group, according to the late Timothy Goods.”
I stared at him. “Who?”
Demetrius turned to me. “Timothy Goods was the president that the Resputoarians shot a
couple of years ago. He ordered that no one should travel there because he believes that that is
where they started out.”
“Oh yeah. But what does that have to do with—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Dustin interrupted briskly. “We only need to deal with the things we need
to know right now. Like—”
“What and where is the Cell of Despair?” Anastasia finished.
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Heather looked up from her laptop. “I’m searching for it now, but the only thing coming up is
some video game T-shirt.”
“It isn’t online,” Anastasia said. “So we have to search for it ourselves.”
Chapter 14: The Nuclear Plant
“No matter how hard it seems, we will find William,” Heather promised. “After all, the letter
says that we will find him, one way or the other. So follow me!”
She led us down the tree a little bit. About fifteen feet down, she stopped and pulled on a
hidden handle that looked like a normal stick. The tree slowly fell out of the air and planted
itself neatly back in the ground, and I heard a deep throbbing sound, like a fast heartbeat
amplified a thousand times.
“What’s that noise?” I asked Heather.
“Don’t worry; it’s not dangerous,” she said, ignoring my question.
I opened my mouth to ask again, but Dustin beat me to it.
“What’s not dangerous?” he said.
Heather flashed a crooked smile. “You’ll see.”
We waited a few minutes, and finally, the answer came.
A giant shadow fell over us, and I looked up. Looming in front of us was an enormous
helicopter that was a slick black with amazing designs on the side in a jaw-dropping gold. The
blades moved so fast I couldn’t see anything at all, not even a blur. The cockpit opened up to
reveal hundreds of complicated controls, heat warmers, cup holders, and even seats with built-in
headphones. It was the most amazing thing I had ever seen.
“This,” Heather said proudly, “Is the Omega.”
Everyone else just stared at the amazing contraption in front of us. Heather climbed in, and
we happily got in after her. She flipped a switch down, and the black glass lowered until it
sealed us in.
“Here we go,” Heather announced. She pushed a large green button, and we shot forward. It
seemed that we were going at the speed of light. I barely registered anything below us, and I
knew we were going very fast.
Anastasia was trying not to throw up, and Dustin looked just as green behind her.
“It’s okay!” Heather yelled over the roaring wind. “We’re only going five hundred miles per
hour!”
“Five HUNDRED?!” Dustin yelled back.
Heather blared something I couldn’t quite hear.
“What?” I screamed.
“Thirty seconds until we land!”
Knowing that there was only thirty seconds left just seemed to make it take longer, but
eventually, the plane slowed, we landed, and my sight cleared a little bit.
After it landed and the cockpit opened, I literally stumbled off the helicopter and fell face-first
on the cement. I groaned in pain. I heard an unhealthy sound and looked up.
Anastasia and Dustin both went behind large green barrels to puke.
Demetrius swirled dizzily until he fell on the ground next to me.
Heather just climbed out of the helicopter with a smile on her face, like the bumpy ride hadn’t
bothered her at all. “Okay, guys, we’re here in the Forbidden Valley!”
“How are we already here?” Demetrius murmured sleepily.
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“The Omega is enhanced with some of my magic, but it was never able to travel so fast
before. There has to be some kind of force here that helped it to—”
I zoned out, and my brain automatically switched to sleep mode.
I woke up and saw that all the others (with the exception of Heather) were passed out on the
floor. Heather was painting her nails.
I sat up and looked around. We were in the driveway of a dark, beat-up warehouse. I
couldn’t see the inside, because the black glass windows were impossible to see through.
Hundreds of bright green barrels sat on either side of the building. I looked at the nearest one. It
was labeled ‘Polonium.’ I didn’t know what ‘polonium’ was, but it obviously wasn’t a good
thing. Every minute or so a shiny gray gas billowed out a small hole in the barrel and turned the
air a sickly shade of green. It killed the grass, weeds, and other plants nearby in seconds.
I woke the others, and we cautiously entered the building. There were no alarms, but I knew
that meant nothing.
Immediately after we entered, the large steel door behind us shut. All of us tried to open it
and failed; it was locked.
The inside of the warehouse was scarier than I ever could have imagined.
Like the area around it, the building was filled with what seemed to be thousands of fatal
poisonous plants and liquids—oleander, aconite, arsenic, plutonium, polonium; nightshade,
hemlock, belladonna, henbane, strychnine; even cyanide. On the second floor, a balcony looked
over the various green chemical barrels around us. In the back of the room sat a blockaded door
that was also locked with twelve bolts.
I was still in a stupor, looking around the room, but the others seemed to be over their shock
already.
“Do you think it would be safe to sit down?” Dustin asked, pointing to a gray couch in the
corner of the room.
“I highly doubt it,” Heather said.
“Might as well try,” Demetrius said. He picked up a normal, medium-sized rock and tossed it
onto the couch as a test. As soon as the mineral hit the fabric, the couch erupted in flames and
exploded into a million pieces on impact.
“I guess not,” I muttered.
We cautiously observed the rest of the room for a while, until I heard a beeping sound.
Beep beep. Beep beep.
“What is that?” I wondered aloud.
“Oh…it’s just my watch,” Dustin told me sheepishly. But when he pressed the button on his
watch, the beeping did not stop.
Beep beep. Beep beep.
“Ugh…that’s annoying,” Anastasia announced, which was kind of obvious to the rest of us.
“Just break it or something.”
Dustin pulled off his watch, threw it on the ground, and stepped on it until it was smashed to
tiny pieces. But still the sound lived on.
Beep beep. Beep beep.
He tried again to no effect. “If it’s not my watch, then what the heck is it?”
“Uh…guys?” Anastasia sounded scared.
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An enormous missile crashed through the windows above us, drenching us in shattered black
glass. The missile landed on the balcony, and Demetrius just had time to yell, “Nuke!” before
the world went black and I lost consciousness.
When I opened my eyes and my vision cleared, we were in the same place, but the walls were
no more, except for the one with the barricaded door. There was no going back, because the
floor inside and outside was covered in the various fatal plants and poisons that had been inside
the barrels. The only way to go was forward.
The others were all okay, and they realized, like I did, that we had to keep going. They
surged forward, and I jogged to keep up.
I went ahead of the others, cleared the wreckage in front of the door, and unhooked the locks
that kept it shut. I put my hand on the door handle and realized I was shaking, but I couldn’t
worry about that now.
I pulled on the handle and let the door swing open.
Behind the door was a small twisted corridor with unnerving torches in niches every few feet.
It went in two directions—right and left. I swallowed and turned the right corner.
I barely saw anything because of what happened next, but I registered a giant mechanism with
wires, levers, and pulleys jutting out all over it. In the middle of the device, a glowing blue orb
with a diameter of about ten feet seemed to be powering it. Chains hung from the high ceiling,
and under each one hung a steel cage. Other chains linked from two walls, joining together to
wrap around a single object—William Hendrickson.
As soon as I spotted him, though, a man stepped in front of my view and pulled out a small
cloth.
“Not on my watch, Noah Dentroas!” the man said as he put the cloth on my mouth.
I held my breath and resisted, but I only lasted about two minutes before I gave up and took a
whiff of it. I collapsed.
The last thing I heard was the man whispering in my ear, “Say goodbye to your friend, Noah
Dentroas. His life has been cut short.”
***
When my vision cleared, my friends and I were all being held hostage in the cages that hung
from the ceiling. The floor was far, far below.
Condescending clapping echoed through the room, and the man who I had talked to before
emerged from the shadow of a corner.
Anastasia growled like a cornered animal. “All of this was your game plan, wasn’t it? You
monsters had this whole scheme cooked up like a giant, very evil pot of stew!”
The man laughed. “You have no idea what lies ahead. The worst is yet to come. You may
have made it this far, but your journey means nothing.”
“Says the guy who came from a corner,” I retorted. “Where do you live? Under a rock?”
He fixed his eyes on me. “Bold talk from the leader of a group of pathetic rebels that
purposefully trotted right into a trap, knowing that they would be caught. You”–he pointed a
crooked finger at me—“are worthless. And, guess what? You can’t change that! Do you know
why?”
The man paced the room slowly. “I have decided to not let William die over a fire. Neither
will you. You, Noah Dentroas, have exacerbated the master enough. For that, he ordered me to
let you find out the hard way what I can do!”
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“Wait!” Heather stalled. “Who’s the master?”
He gave her an annoyed look. “You’re really asking that? Do you really think that Mortikai
would want me to tell you his—”
He clapped his hands over his mouth, stopping himself.
Score! I thought.
“Enough! It is time. The master said ‘quickly,’ and that if I didn’t get you out of the way fast
he’d order me to be killed.”
“Not yet!” Heather tried again. “What does that machine do?”
The Resputoarian scowled. “What is this, show-and-tell? Okay, fine, just…just watch. I’ll
make it hit right here.”
He pointed to an X on the floor and pulled a complicated controller out of his pocket, pointed
it at the X, and pressed a button, and the blue orb on the giant machine glowed.
The man laughed evilly as the mechanism shot a line of energy up into the air. It blasted
through the ceiling and went up into the clouds. Then it was over.
“Wha-what is this?” the man bellowed, angrily punching buttons on his controller. “It should
be working! Why isn’t it—?”
He was interrupted by a horrible screeching sound, accompanied by what seemed to be a
thousand bolts of lightning packed into one, rocketing down toward the ground so fast that I only
registered a bright blue blur.
The Resputoarian emitted a high-pitched shriek as he darted out of the way. When the
lightning bolts hit the exact spot he had pointed at, they were so powerful that they drilled into
the earth at least a hundred feet down. How we could ever survive that, I didn’t know.
“Now, then,” the man smiled. “Shall we?”
I looked at the others, but they seemed to be out of ideas. Heather looked at her shoes.
Dustin bit his lip. Anastasia examined the strange blue stone that she got at Lucas’s house.
“All right then. Let’s begin.”
He pressed the button again, although this time the controller was aimed at me.
***
During the next few minutes, the world seemed to move in slow motion. I could no longer
hear.
The energy flash traveled upward, and as it came down it transformed into a huge surge of
lightning, aimed at me. I had seen how accurate it could be. I didn’t underestimate it.
As my fate came to an end, I watched the expressions of horror on the others.
William screamed without sound, thrashing in his chains, trying to get out. His chiseled face
was twisted in agony.
Tears streamed down Heather’s face as she pounded helplessly on the bars of her cage.
Anastasia cried, red-eyed and horror-stricken. She pulled a small pocket knife out of her
pocket and scratched her stone. A glowing, steaming, bright green substance was underneath,
coming more and more into view with each scrape of Anastasia’s knife.
Dustin unsheathed his sword and tried to slice through the bars, to no effect. It wouldn’t have
changed anything, anyway. We were still chained to the ceiling. If he could make it out, he
would fall, and that would be suicide.
Even if he could survive the fall, there wouldn’t have been time to do anything, anyway. The
lightning was too fast. It was only seconds until I died.
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Demetrius furiously summoned skeletons to attack the man with the controller, but he was so
powerful that he was able to disintegrate the skeletons with a simple tap of the finger.
Anastasia was now completely finished scraping off the outer coatings of the stone, and threw
it at the lightning as a last resort. The glowing, steaming mineral was about to make direct
contact with the lightning, but it was already too late.
The lightning touched the cage and burned a hole through the steel. The lightning was now
three feet away.
I’m sorry, John, I thought. I give up.
I closed my eyes as the lightning touched my sternum. I felt a final shock as the lightning
spread through the rest of my body.
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Chapter 15: A Beautiful Place
I woke up sitting on hard ground. I sat up slowly, and I surprisingly didn’t feel any pain. The
scene around me was so beautiful that I actually teared up.
Looming in front of me was the most amazing palace that I had ever seen in my life.
The palace was created with a special material that I was sure didn’t exist on Earth. It was
better than silver. It was better than gold. This substance was an incredible color that I couldn’t
explain. It was like no color I had ever seen before. The ground was made from the same
material.
As far as I could see in every direction, marvelous hills and wondrous valleys overlooked all
other things. The stunning blue sky was more beautiful than I could believe.
There was no pain; no misery, no sadness. It was dazzling.
I checked my watch, but the hour and minute hand were spinning around uncontrollably.
Time didn't exist in this place.
I looked down and caught my breath. I was made mostly of light and dust.
I had no body, no real form. When I moved what should have been my right arm, the dust
around that area swirled like it was interrupted by a strong wind burst that flurried it.
I let myself float closer to the beautiful palace.
I caught my breath as I floated right through the door and inside, but I only felt a warm
sensation in my abdomen (or what was left of it).
The inside of the palace was...well, I didn't really know what it was like, because I was only
there for a few milliseconds. Then, suddenly...I wasn't in the palace anymore.
I was in an infinite black void, only blackness surrounding me.
Wait...where am I? I thought. Am I dead?
But I answered my own question. Of course I was dead. I was delusional and made partially
of dust.
For at least an hour—or, at least, what passed for an hour in this timeless place—I floated
aimlessly, my dusty self swirling in the darkness.
And then there was light.
An enormous figure appeared. He had an incredibly kind and handsome face, with wavy
brown hair that hung from his scalp, trimmed neatly at the shoulders. He was dressed in flowing
white robes that glowed. Every few seconds, hundreds of new small images floated in the air
around him, shining in the blackness—a sun, a horse, a mountain—like miniature holograms.
“You have done well, Noah,” the man said. “You make me proud.”
When he talked his mouth did not move, and his voice seemed to come from all directions,
not just from him.
“Who are you?” I croaked, but I already knew the answer.
“You know who I am,” said God. “After all, I am the one who breathed life into your body
and gave you your talents.”
My dusty stomach did a flip. “You—you know about that? What are they? What are my
powers?”
The creator smiled. “You used one of them to get into this void, and you are using one of
them right now.”
“Talking?”
“No, although you’re very good at that.”
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I laughed. “Turning into dust?”
“No.”
“Can I have another hint?”
He scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Very well. Different paths leading to the discovery of
your powers can be found in the redacted document on Heather’s computer. If you look hard
enough, you will find it, along with secrets of the future of your journey. Your friends need you
to complete it.”
I lurched forward, ready for action, but the Son of Man held up a hand. “No, Noah, not yet.
We have time. After all, I can just mend it so that when you get back, it will be the same time as
when you came here.”
I relaxed a little bit. “Okay. I’m glad to stay here for a while.”
I stared at God’s shoes, but I made myself ask. “Will I marry Heather?”
“Umm…you’ll have to find that out on your own.”
“Aw…crap. Okay, fine…”
“Do you know what your biggest problem is?”
“I think so. His name is…”—I squinted—“Mortikai, right?”
God laughed. “Mortikai is the least of your problems. There is another guy, too…”
I stared at him. “Is he a Resputoarian?”
“Nada.”
“You speak Spanish?”
“Well, obviously.”
“Oh, yeah…” I stared at his knees. “So…who is this guy?”
“That’s another secret you can find in the document,” God said.
“I thought I already found everything in the document.”
“The last part is the key.” God smiled, as if he just made a clever joke. “The key to the
puzzle.”
“But how do I—”
“I am sorry, Noah, but your time with me has come to an end. Your friends need you now. I
bid you farewell.”
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Chapter 16: Demetrius Has A Visitor
I am here to tell you firsthand that bouncing off the walls is nowhere near as fun as the idiom
makes it sound.
I quickly gathered my bearings. I was back in the warehouse. I was still in the cage, and I
saw that the others were in trouble. They were out of the cages, but the man had targeted them
and called hundreds of monsters from who-knew-where to attack my friends. Giant craters were
everywhere, so they had to jump to dodge his attacks. William was completely tied up now. A
gag was wrapped around his mouth.
The man sat back and watched, bored, as he pressed his controller nonstop, blasting holes in
the ground with the machine. Dustin and Anastasia viciously swung their swords at it, but
nothing happened.
One of the lightning bolts accidentally veered off course and burned through the chains that
held my cage to the ceiling.
I flew up and bashed my head against the ceiling, but I was freaking out too much to feel
pain.
The air whirred around me as I fell, dizzy and disoriented. My face hit a sharp ridge
somewhere in the cage, which woke me up enough to see a little bit better.
The others didn’t notice me, but I didn’t blame them. When a thousand lightning bolts are
hurtling towards you at the speed of light, there’s no time for sightseeing.
I fell, losing more and more hope with each passing second.
And that was when a black flash of light (or was it the opposite of light?) blinded me.
Demetrius had found me. As risky as it was, he raised his sword and yelled an epic battle cry
as he created a shock wave of darkness to get rid of all standing enemies.
After that, he jumped up and did a flip, touching the end of his sword to my cage just before it
hit the ground. It froze in midair.
“I’ll protect you,” he said.
I imagined how I could possibly survive this, and that was when it happened.
The world spiraled in like a camera lens until it was pitch black.
Confusing abstract images circled around me as I seemed to float through blackness.
In only a second, the blackness got brighter, turning so bright that it burned my eyes. The
darkness turned hundreds of random colors, but mostly the color I had seen in Heaven.
I heard an ear-splitting whirr, and my surroundings turned bright white, and then I was back
in the warehouse, but I wasn’t in my cage anymore. I was standing behind Demetrius.
“Where the heck did he go?” Demetrius muttered. He circled his sword, like a go on gesture;
and the cage unfroze and clanged to the floor.
He turned around and jumped when he saw me. “How did you—Never mind. No time. We
have to get out of here before it goes off.”
“What goes off?” I asked.
Demetrius pointed to a large time bomb that was right next to the terror-stricken face of
William Hendrickson. “We have to save him.”
“Dustin!” Heather called. She gestured towards William.
“On it,” he said. He ran over, jumped up at least five feet, spun in midair, and landed safely
on top of the bomb. “What do I do?”
“Open it up,” Heather instructed. She tossed him a screwdriver and wire cutter. Why a girl
would carry those in her back pocket, I would never know.
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He unscrewed the top, tossing aside several screws. “Now what?”
“What do you see?”
“Umm...there's a green wire, a red wire, a couple dead crickets...”
Heather held up a hand. “Stop.”
I was confused. “How do you defuse a bomb with crickets?”
She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “Come on, Noah. You know what I mean.”
I frowned. “I do?”
Dustin was watching the timer on the bomb. “Uh...thirty seconds until it blows.”
Heather sighed. “Okay...back to business. You said there was a red wire and a green wire,
right?”
He arched his eyebrows. “Yeah?”
Despite the circumstances, she grinned. “Finally…an easy one. Clip the red wire.”
Dustin pulled out the wire cutter, and his hand inched toward the green wire.
“No,” Heather said sternly. “Not the green. If you clip that, it'll blow up the whole city.”
“Ten seconds.”
“Hurry!” she yelled.
Time slowed. He clipped the wire right as the bomb ticked to 'zero.'
We all held our breath, but amazingly, he had been on time, and the bomb did not explode.
Then, there was a pleasant ding that came from the device. The bomb reset to 15:00, and the
top panel slid back. It now had no screws, but when Dustin pulled on it, it didn’t budge.
“We have to get out of here!” Heather screamed, running for the exit.
The rest of us followed behind her, matching her pace.
Heather threw open the iron door, revealing the smoking outside area.
All the poisons were still in place, completely surrounding us.
“We’re trapped!” William yelled. “How do we get out?”
“Like this,” Demetrius said simply. He pointed his sword at the poison and raised it.
Nothing happened.
Demetrius’s right arm turned purple, and it was obvious he was trying very hard, but it wasn’t
working.
Then, suddenly, his throat constricted like he was being choked. His face turned a sickening
blue-green, and he dropped his sword, clawing at his throat.
His feet left the ground, and a dark purple light surrounded him, the same color as his very
own magic.
I looked up and locked eyes with a large man in otherworldly, golden armor that was standing
on the roof of a building behind us. In his hands he held a gigantic version of Demetrius’s
sword, although the blade was a glowing gold. His eyes were a cold gray-blue, like Antarctica
on steroids.
When Demetrius saw the warrior in gold armor, his eyes bugged out even more, like he knew
who he was.
The man barked out a deep laugh. “Ah, Demetrius…it must be so hard. Smashed to pieces by
the very magic that brought you together!”
Demetrius gagged, and I charged forward in rage.
Not a good choice.
There are some points in my life that I am stronger than ever before…and some points that I
suck more than a Dyson vacuum.
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The man simply held up a hand, and a sinister purple light wrapped around me. He raised it,
and I floated up in the air, completely helpless.
The man closed his hand into a tight fist, and I felt like someone was squeezing my heart.
“Let. Them. Go!” Anastasia yelled, but the man just laughed.
Demetrius, choking, held out his hand, and his black sword started to shake. It wretched, and
purple and black lightning zapped the air around it. Demetrius gagged, and it flew in the air
towards him. His form brightened when he closed his hand around it.
Demetrius used his powers to break free from the same force, coming from the other guy. It
distracted him enough to let me go and focus on him.
But what Demetrius was doing was like fighting fire with fire. Just because it sounds cool
doesn’t mean it’s gonna help. You would just end up with more fire than you started with.
Demetrius pointed his sword at the man, who pointed his back at him. “Not this time,
Mortikai. The plan will not be completed. You die today.”
“By my own powers?” the man bellowed. “You, Demetrius, are pathetic.”
Demetrius gritted his teeth and his sword leeched the life out of the air. “Indignus Mortikai
virtute divina. Ossa de Nesrahide contere eos.”
The spirits of Nesrahide had come once again. Their bones rose from the ground and they
turned into skeletons. “Sequimur tua iussa, magna.”
Mortikai growled. “Vos didici, Demetrius. Vos can perceptum. Venit tempus,
appropinquavit.”
Anastasia leaned over to my ear and whispered, “He said, ‘You can learn, Demetrius. You
can learn. But the time has come.’”
Demetrius and Mortikai were still arguing.
“Tace, Mortikai,” Demetrius said. “Non ego melior, quantum potes.”
Anastasia translated, “Demetrius said, ‘Shut up, Mortikai. You can't imagine how much I've
improved.’”
Mortikai bellowed in challenge, raised his sword, and shot a line of purple fire right at
Demetrius’s skull. Demetrius was so surprised that he didn’t try to block it. The fire made direct
contact, and Demetrius screamed in pain. His form flickered, like a bad television signal, and he
fell to the ground.
Mortikai made an incredible jump down from his roof. He landed in front of Demetrius, and
he clucked his tongue unappreciatively, like he was scolding a small child.
Demetrius now lay paralyzed, shaking and jolting violently.
“Oh, Demetrius,” Mortikai sighed as he rubbed the boy’s head. “Are the voices getting
louder?”
Demetrius’s veins were popping out, and his eyes watered as his body jerked and convulsed
violently. His skin was green in some places and a disgusting purple in others.
Mortikai kicked his body hard against the steel door that went into the warehouse. “It must be
so hard,” he said, “to have to go through so much, to be given powers when you were only nine
years old.”
“Leave him alone!” Heather cried.
Mortikai turned to her. “Oh, look,” he said. “He has a little girl that looks after him! That’s so
cute.”
He picked her up and smashed her against the brick wall, like a rag doll. She collapsed but
looked down in horror at the blood that was now pooling on the floor.
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Mortikai grabbed her collar and slammed her into the wall again. I was horrified to see that it
left a mark.
She fell again, no longer moving. She was either unconscious or dead.
I now felt like my heart was ripped to pieces, sewn together, and torn apart again, but I was
too weak to fight, and Mortikai was much, much stronger than me, or any of us, really.
Anastasia whispered in my ear again, “Don’t worry. I got this.”
She yelled, “Hey, Mortikai!”
He turned to her, and she closed her gold eyes. When she opened them again, they glowed.
Suddenly, Mortikai flinched and then stood up straight. He started doing the Harlem Shake,
then started punching himself in the face. Anastasia’s eyes continued to glow while this
happened.
“What?!” William gasped. “She’s…controlling him?!”
Dustin smiled, proud of his girlfriend. “Yep…that’s the Anastasia we all know and love.”
Mortikai returned to normal, and so did Anastasia. At least…until she passed out.
“Is she okay?” I asked Dustin.
He nodded. “You know…using your powers is actually very tiring. Or, at least, that’s what
she tells me. I don’t have any powers…” His voice faltered, and he stared off into the distance.
He surprised me. “Are you kidding me? You have the best power you can get—you’re the
most loyal, loving friend I ever had. Other than another friend I once had. His name was J—”
“Noah!” William said. “There’s no time to talk about this. I’ve been keeping track, and the
bomb should be about to—”
The bomb exploded.
***
We were knocked out for hours, maybe even days. I was the last one to wake up. All the
others looked like they were doing okay, with the exception of Heather, who was still knocked
out cold, laying in a pool of her own blood. The others formed a circle around an unconscious
Mortikai, arguing over what to do with him. Eventually, making an executive decision, we
chose to leave him there.
We escaped the warehouse, each of us helping to bring Heather. Her helicopter, The Omega,
was still parked in the parking lot, with only a few scratches on it. We had to ride it to get back
to the Elder Tree, but Heather was the only one that knew how to control it.
We climbed in and decided that Anastasia was the best equipped to drive it, because she knew
almost as much about tech as Heather did.
“Okay, get in,” Anastasia said. “This can’t be too hard; it looks just like the video games!
Except that there is no zombie catapult.”
I didn’t know much about the technological things, but if Anastasia was talking about a
zombie catapult, I really didn’t trust her.
One very shaky helicopter ride later, we were back in the Elder Tree, and this time they had
questions for me.
I told them about dying and going to Heaven, and how my conversation with God went,
leaving out the part where I asked if Heather was going to marry me. It was just too
embarrassing.
“So now we look at the document again. God said the last part was the key, so let’s look at
the code.”
While we lie confused,
Evaelirea an Deathe is the Key.
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First without me and always without you,
We’ll open the third door.
We’ll find Dui and add him to the mix.
We’ll backtrack to the third door from the right.
We’ll open the ‘fifth’ door,
And pull Dentroas within.
“Okay, so last time we found the ‘sin’ part, right?” Dustin said. “So now we…what?”
“Well, we have to try to decode the ‘door’ parts,” Demetrius said. “Should be easy, because
we already figured it out before.”
“So, let’s try every third letter of ‘Evaelirea an Deathe,’” I said.
We came up with this—
Evaelirea an Deathe
1 2 312312 3 1 2 3 1 2 31 2
“Now what?” Dustin asked.
“Well…remember how we got rid of the ‘u’ last time?” I said.
“Yeah?”
“The third line says ‘first without me,’ and what are synonyms of ‘me?’”
“Myself, and I.”
“Yeah, so we get rid of the ‘i.’”
“Now, it’s ‘aadt,’” Demetrius said.
Anastasia smiled. “Now we unscramble!”
We had a few solutions, but we picked the most logical.
AADT DAAT
TAAD TADA
DATA
“Okay…new piece of the puzzle found,” I said. “We just don’t know what it means.”
“Next one!” Dustin said.
I already knew what to do—I started to work, then realized something. “We just did do every
three. Now what?”
“Just skip to the next one,” Anastasia said.
“Okay,” I responded. “Wait…oh! The second line! God said the last part was the key, and
look at what the line says!”
“So…Evaelirea an Deathe,” Anastasia said, reading the line. “That isn’t English.”
I read the poem again. “Now… what does the “Dui” part mean?”
“Well,” Dustin started. “As we did before, we get rid of the ‘u’ and the ‘i’, and then…”
“We add them to the mix,” Anastasia finished. “Just like it says. Add them to the phrase
‘Evaelirea an Deathe.”
I frowned. “Okay…now what?”
“Well, what did you say before?” Demetrius asked Anastasia.
“Unscramble it!” We all said together.
It took us a while, but we came up with this—
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The Dead Are Alive
We thought it might have something to do with Demetrius, because he controls skeletons, but
we didn’t know for sure, and he was sensitive about his powers.
No matter what it meant, it was time to decode the code we skipped.
“I think…” Anastasia started. “I think ‘from the right’ means we start at the right and go
backwards.”
“Well, that would make sense.”
I got back to work and found the answer.
“It’s…the same thing,” I said, staring at the paper in my hands. “The answer’s ‘data’…again.
Why would they bother to put in a code twice if it’s the same thing?”
William scratched his chin thoughtfully. “I don’t know, Noah. Maybe…there are two things
that they’re talking about?”
Anastasia was also looking at the paper in my hands. “It may also mean that the current data
is the same as before.”
I snapped my fingers. “Brilliant! It all makes sense now!”
William, Demetrius, Dustin, and Anastasia were all looking at me with the same confused
expressions.
I stared back at them. “What? You don’t get it?”
They shook their heads.
“At the beginning of the document, it says ‘he has decided to resort to rebellion, just like ____
_______.’ So what is happening now is in some way like whatever happened before, with
whomever Mortikai is talking about.”
I didn’t know why I was so sure that I was right, but I somehow knew that I was.
The others started to nod, catching up.
Anastasia stood. “Now. We must find the data.”
***
When we closed the document on Heather’s computer, another message popped up. This one,
however, was written in a bold, all-caps red, and it informed us that there was a security breach.
The flashing lights and beeping alarm were enough of a commotion to get Heather to finally
wake up. She jumped to her feet and rushed to the computer, which now had red code streaming
down the screen.
“Who could possibly…?”
Heather rapidly typed on the computer, saying that there wasn’t enough time, and that
whoever was doing this was a very good hacker.
“But not as good as me,” she said, still typing.
“Just unplug it!” I yelled over the loud hum of the computer.
“I can't!” she yelled back, still typing. "It'll crash!"
She hit enter, and a green light flashed, telling her to ‘please wait,’ and saying ‘26% Loaded.’
“Umm...what's going on?” Dustin asked, but he probably knew that he wouldn't get an
answer.
“Not...cooperating...” Heather murmured as she kept typing.
The red code was still flashing in the background, obviously because of whoever was hacking
the computer.
Whatever Heather was trying to do was only at 59%. 60. 61.
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It was loading way too slowly, and then, a new message popped up. It read,
Access Granted.
Welcome, Mortikai.
“No, no, no!” Heather screamed as the hacker, apparently Mortikai, got through the system
and searched through all of the files on the computer.
Her firewall that she was putting up was now 100% loaded, but Mortikai got through it, no
problem. He found the redacted document with the code and deleted it.
There were other top-secret Resputoarian documents on the computer, too…we just hadn’t
looked at them yet. Mortikai erased them all, then deleted them from the Recycle Bin.
“No!” we all yelled together, but they were already gone.
Our hacker finished his work. More red code ran down the screen, and the computer started
shaking violently, until the screen went black, and it started to smoke.
We waited until the smoke stopped, and then Heather cautiously checked to see if it was fried.
Unfortunately, it was.
“Great—now we don’t have a computer, either,” William muttered.
“Not true,” Heather replied. “Don’t lose hope, William. Never lose hope.”
She walked over to the back of the main room, where a bookcase was. She grabbed a book
that was entitled “The Book Thief,” and flipped to page 27, and I saw that some of the book was
hollowed out! A button was inside.
Heather pressed the button, and a trapdoor opened below us. Caught off guard, we tumbled
into darkness.
***
As it turned out, we were falling into the tree, which seemed to be hollow. Inside the top of it
was a huge room filled with supplies. It reminded me of the area where they stockpile all of their
items in the back of Walmart. Cardboard boxes towered above us, nearly touching the ceiling. It
was organized in groups—electronics, clothing, weaponry, information, and normal things you
would have at a house, like toiletries, cleaning supplies, toolboxes, and extra food.
It’s like a secret basement, I thought.
“This isn’t the basement,” Heather said. She seemed to have read my mind. “The basement is
far below us.”
“Oh…well, that’s good to know,” I said, scanning the room.
“Wait here,” she ordered.
Heather disappeared in the maze of boxes, and we waited for a few minutes.
Only a few seconds after she left, a small mouse scurried out from a hole in the wall.
It was kind of entertaining to watch Anastasia squeal like a little girl. It’s funny how a girl
that can easily win in a fight against 100 soldiers could be frightened by such a small rodent.
The mouse darted back into its hole, and Heather came back holding a brand-new computer
that looked a lot like the one that was Lucas'.
“Wow…nice,” Dustin looked genuinely impressed.
“Yeah, and I’ve got great news!” Heather said. “Before Mortikai hacked the computer, I
loaded all of the secret documents onto a safe flash drive! So we still have all of them!”
We all cheered and plugged it in.
We searched through fourteen of the Resputoarian documents before I started to see a pattern.
“This is hopeless,” I grumbled. “No codes or anything!”
“It’s still good to have them,” William pointed out. “Just in case, you know?”
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“Do they at least tell us where Mortikai is?” I asked, ignoring William. “I wanna interrogate
him. We need to find out what the ‘data’ in the code is.”
“He’s probably where we left him,” Dustin said.
That was good enough for me.
“Pack your bags, guys,” I smiled. “We’re going to the Cell of Despair!”
Never before had anyone said ‘Cell of Despair’ so cheerfully.
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Chapter 17: Blackout
We hadn't slept in days, so we decided it would be best for us to rest for the night, in
preparation of the mission. I picked a sweet master bedroom on the fifth floor. The bed was
memory foam and had at least six fluffy pillows to keep my head comfortable. Seriously...it was
like the king's bedroom in a palace. Although, depending on how you looked at it, the mansion
could be considered a palace, with its many floors, beautiful artwork hanging off walls, and
gleaming gold railings climbing up the walls.
I got under the covers and put my head on the pillows, and as soon as I closed my eyes, I fell
asleep.
***
Of course, the best sleep in years had to be interrupted by something. Well, it wasn't
interrupted, exactly, but someone seemed to want to get into my head and torture me through
dreams.
The dream took place in an enormous room that had such a high ceiling that I couldn’t see the
roof…or, really, not much of anything. The dim red light barely helped to light the room, and I
couldn’t see where it came from. It seemed to be some kind of laboratory. White tables were all
over the place, littered with various beakers and test tubes that were filled to the brim with
suspicious liquids. The walls and floor were made only of rock, which made me suspect that I
was in a cave.
I walked around the tavern warily. Somewhere along the way, I bumped into one of the
tables, and a large beaker containing orange liquid fell off. The glass shattered, and the liquid
spread across the floor. The rocks seemed to soak some of it in, like a sponge. Then, the rocks
in that area broke into about a million pieces. Normal dirt was underneath, and the extra liquid
sank down into that, too. The earth swelled up until it was a half sphere that was about four feet
tall. Then, like an annoying pimple, it popped, and disgusting, thick purple liquid sprayed all
over the room, squirting for a few seconds, until I was drenched in it. I didn’t know what just
happened, but I knew one thing—I didn’t want to know what that puss-like stuff would do to a
human being.
I quick looked around the room until I found a fountain. I rushed over to it, slipping several
times in the purple puss. Before letting the water touch my skin, I made sure it actually poured
water instead of some harmful chemical. It did.
I started to see smoke and looked down. The chemical had dissolved into all of my clothing,
and it caught fire. It was burning my skin. I tried to pat it down, but the flame did not give up.
Quickly, I threw off all my clothes, to protect my skin. Unfortunately, my skin was also burning,
and it was turning black.
Because I could think of nothing else to do, I jumped into the fountain. I was glad that my
mother wasn’t there, because if she saw me bathing in a fountain, I’m pretty sure she wouldn’t
be happy. She would yell at me, ground me, and probably set me up for adoption. She’s what
you would call strict. Or, she was what you call strict.
Thinking about my mother reminded me. It reminded me of what had happened to them so
long ago. It was the main reason I had started my journey in the first place. But I’ll save that
story for last time, because the present-time one was much more important.
When my skin touched the water, it didn’t put out the fire. What it did put out was any
thoughts about my mother or anything other than what was going on right now. Now, I was
thinking more about how the heck I was going to survive this.
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I tried everything I could think of, but I couldn’t get rid of the fire.
I was getting desperate, not to mention that I was running out of options, fast.
Suddenly, a feminine laugh sliced through the air, and I quickly tried to hide. It doesn't
matter if you're in a dream or are in real life—it is not a good thing if someone catches you
laying in their fountain without clothing.
Unfortunately, she still found me. My face already was as hot as lava, and she hadn't even
seen me yet, but I couldn’t put my clothing back on, because it was still soaked in that chemical.
I dunked my head silently so she wouldn’t see me, but it wouldn’t have mattered. She walked
right past.
I got my head back out of the water and was so thrilled of this miracle that I breathed a sigh of
relief.
Not a good choice.
The woman turned around. I sprang back in the water when I saw her face.
“Soon, boy,” she said, and she smiled evilly. “Greg Tabaloe’s time will come.”
I squeezed my eyes shut.
Surprisingly, it actually worked. I was awake again, sweating like crazy, and all the others
were all looking down at me, their expressions of worry and fear.
But the image of the woman was still burned into my brain. She was an older lady, but you
could tell that she was still very fast and smart. She had gray-white hair that matched her intense
gray eyes that made me want to crawl into a corner and hide. She was dressed all in black,
which made her all the more intimidating. She had two guns in her belt, one on each side. She
carried a large sword in her hands.
It was Mrs. Malum.
***
I didn’t say anything about it to the others, because what was the point? We had a new
mission to complete.
Before the next journey, though, we had to prepare.
The backpack that Heather had salvaged from Lucas’s house was very helpful. We filled it
with clothing, weapons, food, and other gear until it was literally overflowing.
Dustin and I were eventually able to persuade William to take out his tuxedo, to which he said
“Come on, guys. I look good in it.”
Eventually, he agreed that a suit was, of course, not required for a high-stakes mission into a
stronghold crawling with bloodthirsty killers that hated our guts. This was a situation in which
looks just didn’t matter.
“Let’s see…” I ran down my mental checklist. I was fairly sure we had everything that we
needed. “I think we have everything.”
“Good,” Demetrius said. “’Cuz we’ve got a Resputoarian to find.”
***
After a short break, we were already out again. Trust me, being in the field this often is very,
very tiring. As dangerous as it is, it still is hard to stay awake, even if you just slept for a full ten
hours, but I was too distracted about the dream.
It, of course, meant that I would see Mrs. Malum again, soon, and it might not be a good thing
when I did.
We climbed back down some of the tree again, which is quite an annoying task. After all, it
was at least a thousand feet tall, and we had to climb it several times a week.
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Heather pulled on that strange mechanical stick again, and the Omega came into view.
Demetrius, William, Dustin, Anastasia, and I definitely did not want to climb into that death trap
again, especially after Anastasia “drove” us back to the tree.
We strapped in, and I braced for impact.
Without any kind of verbal warning, Heather started the helicopter at full speed. The feeling
of being smashed against my seat was almost familiar by now...but that doesn't mean I didn't
want to throw up. Anastasia tells me that I should keep my eyes on a fixed point, like the
horizon, to get over the airsickness, but I still couldn't help but look at the blurry lines spread out
in front of me. It was looking at the world's biggest game board...without glasses to make it
clearer.
Suddenly, the helicopter lurched to the side (even more than usual). I now had to try very
hard to keep last night's spaghetti in my stomach.
“What's...happening?” William screamed over the sudden blare of the aircraft's alarm.
“I don't know!” Heather yelled back.
I looked at my friends.
William was curled up in a fetal position, rocking back and forth. “Puppies and kittens,
puppies and kittens, puppies and kittens,” he said continuously.
Anastasia had her hands over her ears, and she was telling everyone not to panic. Dustin's
head was hiding under his hood, and it didn't look like he was coming out of his turtle shell
anytime soon. Demetrius was...whoa, where was Demetrius? He wasn't anywhere in the
helicopter. I faced front and squeezed my eyes shut.
I couldn't comprehend what happened next. I must have been hallucinating, because
hundreds of random colors swirled around me crazily, and they gradually became brighter and
brighter, until BANG!
The light that probably wasn't even there flashed, and suddenly, my eyes fluttered open.
I wasn't in the helicopter.
I wasn't in Heaven.
I was in some kind of desert; my friends nowhere in sight. Good thing I had a backpack,
because that meant food and water. (Thank you, Heather!)
I took out one of my three sandwiches and scarfed it down. Yes, I know you're going to tell
me that that wasn't smart, but I hadn't had breakfast or lunch, and I was starving. I unfortunately
had no experience in the desert, so I didn't know right away that eating too much wasn't a good
thing if you didn't have a lot of food.
You know those cowboy movies that take place in a desert, and they have at least one cactus
in every scene? Well, I am here to tell you that they don't show up anywhere near that often. All
I saw was miles and miles of hot sand.
All I heard was the strong wind whipping me like I kicked it in the shin.
I walked for what seemed like an eternity: alone, hungry, and tired. Every few minutes I saw
a desert oasis, and each time I did, I ran over to it, only to find that there wasn't really an oasis,
and I imagined it.
With each passing second, I was less and less sure that I could survive this.
Suddenly, I heard a huge WHOOM, and I screamed, “Whoa!!” as I hit the deck (hit the
sand?).
As I did, I looked up and watched as a huge bullet—or was it a missile—fly over my head,
only missing me by a few inches. I didn't have any idea where it could've come from, because I
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was in the middle of the desert, no civilization in sight. But if a missile almost hit me in the back
of the head, someone had to aim and fire.
Struck with fear, I started running full-speed across the plains. I couldn't let whoever was
doing this (possibly Mortikai) get away with it. No matter what, I couldn't die alone. Not now.
For days following that time, I walked, without any food or water remaining.
Somewhere along the way, I passed out. Not just from tiredness and starvation, but also from
desperation, or so I thought.
I don't know how long I was out, but when I woke up I was very, very dizzy. I tried to get up,
but then my sight distorted even more, and I collapsed.
Ugh, I thought. Someone, please help me.
I laid down for another hour or so until I heard...a bird.
My help is some stupid bird?
Wait...what was a bird doing in the desert?
It tweeted again, and I followed the noise. I came over the hill and was astonished to see a
real desert oasis! I was in such shock that I had to touch the water to test if it was actually there.
It was.
I joyously drank from the beautiful thing, and I praised the Lord.
And that wasn't all, either, because guess who came to save the day?
You got it—Heather, Anastasia, Dustin, William, and Demetrius.
Our helicopter, the Omega, landed in front of me.
“Noah!” Anastasia yelled from the helicopter. “Get your butt up here right now!”
I missed you, too, I thought, but I didn't say that. You only learn once—never cross General
Anastasia. The consequences are not desirable, trust me.
I ran to the helicopter as fast as my skinny legs could carry me. I reached the Omega and
climbed in.
“Welcome back,” Heather said, and I noticed that her eyes were red.
I smiled at her, and I was very surprised when she came over and actually kissed me on the
cheek.
I didn't know if I was dreaming, or what, but I played it cool, of course.
“Yeah...I was out there for days.”
Then Heather agreed to marry me, I won the lottery, and I became America's youngest, (and
as Heather said, cutest) President.
Okay, fine, none of that last stuff actually happened, but wouldn't it have been cool?
I didn't say the other thing, either. What really happened was when Heather kissed me, I, uh,
kind of passed out. But, when Heather finally got me to wake up, we got ready to re-embark on
the mission to find Mortikai.
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Chapter 18: The Fall of the Dark Sword
“How long were you out there, Noah?” Dustin asked me.
“Uh...I think it was a few days,” I said.
Dustin frowned, and for a few seconds, he didn't respond. Then he said, “Noah...it was more
than a few days. You disappeared about a month ago.”
I stared at him in alarm. Was it really that long? It sure didn't seem like it. And plus, I only
had three sandwiches and one canteen of water for food and drink. How could I have survived
for a whole month?
“How?” I finally managed to say.
“We don't know,” Heather said.
For a long while, there was silence. Then, I heard myself say, “How did you know where I
was?”
“We heard your call,” Anastasia said.
“...what call?”
“There's something very important that we need to discuss,” Demetrius said.
“What?” I asked.
“No time,” William said.
“We must be going,” Dustin said, looking out the window at the desert. “It isn't safe here.”
Heather started the helicopter, and the rest of the ride was silent, except for the howling of the
wind in our ears.
Ten minutes later, we were back at the Cell of Despair. Even Demetrius was worried. I could
tell because his black sword was changing into other creepy colors—sickly green, eerie, dark
red, and the color of the dark purple magic that he and his sword produced.
I looked at Heather, and she immediately said, “He isn't worried about this
mission...it's...something else.”
“What?”
She focused her gorgeous brown eyes on me, but she didn't say anything else.
Heather turned back to her controls, flipped a switch, and the doors opened again. We
cautiously got out.
The secret hideout had been repaired, and not just the walls were fixed.
The Resputoarians had installed security.
When we went inside, the interior was so full of laser beams that I could barely see the floor.
Security cameras were everywhere. Several trapdoors were on the floor.
Let me tell you, the others were all in.
Demetrius raised his sword and blasted each security camera with his purple bolts of lightning,
and immediately after each one was destroyed, it was Dustin's turn.
He climbed up the wall and did a perfect back flip, landing right in one of the few spots where
there were no lasers.
He looked at me. “Come on, Noah!”
I jumped into action. Actually, it was more stumbled than it was jump.
A few times my feet touched the lasers, and I had to dodge the flames that licked at my head
each time they did.
Thankfully, though, I made it to the other side, unharmed. As embarrassing as it was, I was
the last one to do so.
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Heather looked at me warily. “Are you ready?”
I felt myself blush, but I said, “Yeah.”
She opened the door.
The hallway was still there. Last time, I turned right. This time, we went down the left
hallway.
It was pitch-black. No torches, no lights.
We continued to walk, ever so carefully. It seemed like something was watching us...
My feet creaked on the floor, and the darkness seemed to get even darker.
Then, suddenly, there was a loud thud behind us, and then the patter of running feet.
Tap tap tap tap tap...
“Go!” Dustin yelled.
I ran as fast as I could, but the footsteps ran faster still.
TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP...
We ran even faster, but whoever (or whatever) was following us matched our pace.
THUMP THUMP THUMP THUMP.
Then, suddenly, we were trapped in the middle between a wall, and…whatever was behind
us. It approached ever so slowly, like a lion in a meadow…
To tell you the truth, I was scared to death of whatever the heck this thing was. It had green
reptilian scales, red-and-black eyes, and teeth the size of William. It was huge; at least nine feet
tall. Its head nearly touched the ceiling.
Thankfully, I wasn’t the only one that felt like I was gonna wet my pants—William looked
way more scared than I probably did. He looked like he was gonna bolt…but there was
nowhere to go.
Dustin was backed up against the wall as far as he could go.
Heather was searching in her pockets and backpack for anything, anything at all that could
somehow help with this monster.
Anastasia tried to control it with her glowing eyes, but the beast anticipated it and punched
her out before she could do anything.
Demetrius cast line after line of his purple fire and lightning, and he even summoned his
unbeatable skeletons, the spirits of Nesrahide, several times, but it seemed that something
different was happening this time…
Demetrius raised his sword, his form flickering. His green eyes, dark hair, and even his scar
started to glow. Immediately, the ground started to shake. “Nesrahide spiritus, hoc monstrum
occidat. Mortikai's ludis praesunt.”
The spirits of Nesrahide rose from the earth, and the monster started to tremble, making a
deep thrumming sound. I realized he was laughing. I didn’t know why, because everyone knew
that the Spirits could not be defeated. Or, so we thought.
The bones came again and clanked together into skeletons, and they turned to Demetrius
and said, “Sequimur tua iussa, magna.”
But they looked at the monster and started to shake, decaying very, very fast. They
screamed, “Et adiuva me, domine mi, Quia plus habet potestatem dedit nobis.”
It was Dustin’s turn to translate. His eyes were filled with fear. “They…they said, ‘Help me,
master! He has more power than He has bestowed on us.’”
The monster raised his scaly hands and did the ‘enough’ gesture, and the Spirits screamed,
“Et adiuva me!!”
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Their bones exploded all over the room, and those decayed bones sank into the ground.
“WHAT THE—” William cursed, but the monster interrupted him with a scratchy, eerie voice.
When it spoke, it didn’t move its mouth.
I am the specter of Greg Tabaloe, the monster shrieked. My power matches that of Mortikai
and of the other one. The spirits of Nesrahide are nothing to me.
“Who the heck is Greg Tabaloe?” Heather managed.
Demetrius’s eyes widened in true terror, and his form flickered again. “I…I know that name,”
he almost whispered.
I knew who it was, too. It was the one nine-year-old that the Resputoarians took. He was an
outsider, he hated being alone, and he was different from all of the other kids. Almost no one
knew anything about him, because he almost never talked. He was alone for all of his known
life, spending days in a basement doing who-knew what. The Resputoarians stole him from the
world, and he was never seen or heard of again. At least…not until now.
John and I had talked about him with Mrs. Malum so long ago.
There had to be some kind of connection here.
The monster spoke up again, talking to Demetrius. Your father wants to speak with you.
“My…” Demetrius’s voice trailed off, then his eyes widened even more. “No. NO!”
Yes, the monster said. It is past time.
Demetrius was so terrified and shocked that he actually let the scaly monster grab him by
the collar and drag him down another hallway that I hadn’t noticed before. Actually, it was
more like the monster made it appear.
I tried to run forward to help save Demetrius, but my legs didn’t work. It was like I was
paralyzed. I could move nothing except my head. Once again, I was of no help to my friends.
Any last words? The monster smirked.
Demetrius swallowed. “Can I go say something to my friend?”
No.
Demetrius glared at the reptile.
Fine, it said.
Demetrius walked over to me, a strange expression on his face. “Noah Felix Dentroas…thank
you for being a good friend. Can I shake your hand?”
I was about to say no, because I couldn’t move, when I was suddenly able to move my right
arm. I nodded and shook hands with him, and he put a small object in my hand while no one
was looking. I looked at it quickly, and I recognized it.
I casually put it in my pocket while he was still talking to the others.
“…so I guess this is goodbye, friends. I will see you from above.”
I didn’t want to think about what that meant.
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Chapter 19: Desperate Measures
After Demetrius was no longer in sight, there was a deep rumbling, and the whole room
started to shake.
Rocks were falling.
Time was running out.
“It’s gonna cave in on us!”
“There’s no way out!”
“What do we do?”
“I don’t know!”
I couldn’t tell who was saying what, but the gears of my mind slowly started to turn.
“Everyone join hands,” I heard myself say.
“What?!” Heather looked at me like I was crazy. “Why?!
“Just do it!”
I didn’t know how, but I knew what I had to do. This was it.
Everyone held hands, and I closed my eyes…
BAM!
My vision warped, and I was back in my creepy multiple-colors thing, only this time,
everyone else was with me...except Demetrius.
The colors swirled around us.
“Noah…where are we?” Heather said. She sounded scared.
“Don’t worry. It passes quickly.”
“What passes quick—?” She started to say.
There was a flash, and we were back at the mansion.
Dustin looked at me, and his eyes widened. “That’s…that’s one of your powers, Noah!”
I was shocked. “What I just did?”
“Yeah! It looks to me like you can teleport! Wish I could teleport.”
“But…” I started. “What happened with Demetrius?”
“I dunno,” Heather said.
“Me neither,” sprouted Dustin.
“Beats me,” Anastasia added.
“I’m clueless,” William frowned.
“And who’s his father?” I asked helplessly.
No one said anything.
“Okay,” I pulled out the thing from my pocket. “Demetrius gave me this when he shook my
hand.”
William squinted. “What is it?”
Anastasia snorted. “It’s a flash drive, stupid.”
Heather got out her computer. “Just put it in.”
She plugged it in, and at least twenty things popped up. We leafed through some of it, but it
was mostly stuff that we didn’t understand at the time.
Then my eyes brushed over a file called ‘The Story of My Scar,’ and I said, “Stop!”
I remembered something from Demetrius’s last story: at the end, he said something about
January seventeenth in the middle of the ocean, and it having to do with his scar.
I clicked on the file.
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It happened on the seventeenth of January. 10:06 pm. I don’t know the year.
It was a cold night for the winter: -26°F. It was too dark to see well. I was alone,
as I always was, and I was sitting in a corner of an abandoned warehouse. My
mother was dead, and my father was…well, you probably know. The rest of the
family was dead. It was a long childhood for me. No one liked me. No one cared for
me. No one wanted me.
It was right after the other two people had left.
I was drawing a picture of a boy with no friends, no talents, no life—I was
drawing myself.
Then they came. The Resputoarians. They took my drawing and burned it, and
one of them said, “Don’t say a word to anyone. Do you hear me?!”
I nod, and they take me by the collar. They drag me to the second floor, to an
elevator. I tried to resist, but they just threw me against the back wall. While I
was stunned, they took all that I had, like my watch, my phone, my Universe
Portal,
or anything else that could serve as a weapon.
They quickly got in the elevator and shut the steel doors. There were way more
floors than on a lot of other elevators—all the way down to B27.
While one of the guards held me by the neck, the other pressed the B24 button,
and we went down for at least five minutes.
The elevator dinged, and I was looking at some kind of super-secret
underground laboratory, with white tables everywhere, covered with potions,
poisons, and who knew what else. I could barely see anything, because the red light
was very dim. The walls and floor were made of rock.
The Resputoarians took me over to a large, empty table, and they laid me down
on it.
“You will not move. Understand?”
I say yes, because even though my will to live was small, it was still there. But it
wouldn’t have mattered what I said. One of the Resputoarians tied me up from my
shoulders down, while the other one went to “go get the tools.” I wondered what
they would do to me, when the one Resputoarian walked back, holding a very small
but very sharp knife.
“Good luck, Oliver,” he said sarcastically. I had no idea how he knew the fake
name I had told those two guys. Well, it wasn’t completely false, as it was my
middle name.
He laughed evilly, and his hand holding the knife slowly creeped toward my
right eye, and I blacked out.
All I can remember from that night was that I was screaming.
Screaming from extremely horrific pain that was so bad that you can’t believe
how bad it was.
I woke up, blood all over the table and floor, and I was being untied.
“Go and see,” said the man with a knife that was now covered in red liquid.
The other one dragged me over to a streaked mirror, and what I saw was a lot
worse than the scar I have now.
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There was a hole below my right eye, and sitting in it was some kind of device
that was hooked up to my brain. How or why, I don’t know, but I knew that it hurt
very, very badly.
I gave a murderous look to the guy who did the operation. “What the hell did you
do to me?!”
Yes, I know…I apologize for my language, but I was really mad.
The Resputoarian smiled sinisterly. “I simply installed several things into your
brain. Oh, it must be sad to have to do this at nine years old, isn’t it, Oliver?”
I gritted my teeth. “Shut up. Why am I even here?”
“To be…upgraded.”
“Upgraded?! What am I?! Some stupid robot for your stupid science project?!”
“In a way, yes.”
“Oh, yeah?” I retorted. “Well you can tell my father to turn you idiots into
robots!”
“He already has, with some of us.”
I said nothing.
“And it looks like someone needs to be disciplined,” he said. He pulled a small
remote out of his pocket and pushed a button. “I think you’ll enjoy this.”
Suddenly, I felt a huge power surge go through my entire body, from the bottom
up, eating me from the inside out. I screamed and slammed to the ground, trying to
escape, but the energy and general torture only got worse. The Resputoarian’s
wrath had just begun.
The virus was now eating at the knee area, from the inside. I felt like my body
was exploding, and that wasn’t all.
“You don’t look like you’re having enough fun,” the Resputoarian said smugly.
He pushed the button again, and the searing pain got about ten thousand times
worse. It was so bad that I’d rather burn to death than go through this, by a lot.
“Please,” I croaked out, my voice barely louder than a whisper. “Don’t…do
this…to me.”
The man just laughed, and he pushed the button a third time.
Now, of course, it was even worse. I could actually see the electric energy
running through my body. My veins popped out. My skin was turning purpleblack. It was so bad that I could no longer think. All I could do was feel the pain.
Do you know the expression “no pain, no gain?” Well, that definitely was not
true in this situation. I was in more pain than a human body should be able to
withstand, and all I was doing was losing. Losing weight, losing physical strength,
losing mental strength, and most likely losing my life in the process.
I used all of my remaining energy to look up at the man, but he just walked
away. Leaving me there for another two hours to go as close as I could to dying, and
probably a little bit more.
“Don’t worry,” he said as he waited for the elevator. “You’re now indestructible.
But that doesn’t mean it won’t hurt.”
The elevator dinged, but before he walked in, he pushed the button again. I was
now in so much pain that I could no longer cry out or even move.
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***
I stopped reading Demetrius’s story for a second, to talk to the others about it. They all looked
scared half to death.
“Well…at least we know he survives,” Dustin pointed out. “Somehow.”
“But he was nine years old,” Heather said. “How could an average nine-year-old survive
that?”
“He wasn’t average,” I said. “Or normal.”
“Wait, guys,” Anastasia said. “I can’t figure out the whole “Oliver” thing. Is that his actual
middle name?”
“No. It’s not his middle name now,” Dustin clarified. “Remember the first story? That
happened after this. So he was still…whatever his name was before.”
“But something with that doesn’t make sense,” I stressed. “In the first story, he said he can’t
remember what his name was before he got his sword. Did he lie?”
I watched the confusion spread across the other’s faces like a wildfire.
“I don’t know,” Dustin replied.
“Okay, then,” I said. I turned back to the story.
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After two full hours, the Resputoarian came back to me. I couldn’t look up, but I
heard him coming…barely.
He pressed a different button on the controller, and the pain started to go away.
Then, it was finally over.
But the torture wasn’t.
My harasser dragged my limp body over to a door with a hatch, and he said, “Do
you wanna go for a swim?”
“Go for a what?”
He smiled. “A swim.”
He opened the door and threw me out, right into the very bottom of the Pacific
Ocean.
I stayed out there for about a minute, not floating to the top, until I started to
see a pattern.
I was going to die.
I desperately tried to swim to the top, but my shirt got cot on a coral reef, and
the mineral dug deep into my skin. I cried out, but the blood was already pouring
out, dying the water red. The only reason that I could see at all was because of the
light coming from the laboratory.
The sharks were coming.
I saw them moving swiftly through the water towards me not ten seconds after it
happened, and I looked back, desperate for any kind of escape, but there was none.
I could see him.
The Resputoarian. He was sitting at a thick window in the underwater cave,
and he laughed with delight when he saw the sharks circle around to eat their next
meal.
They closed in ever so slowly, and I was now completely out of ideas.
And then it came, and the lights from the laboratory switched off immediately.
It was a submarine.
The driver got out and rushed over to me. For a few seconds, I thought I was
saved.
Then he pulled out a gun.
I looked back and forth between the sharks and the gun, and I picked the gun.
Fortunately, he didn’t aim it at me. He blew those sharks out of the water faster
than you could believe.
Unfortunately, that meant that there was blood.
Which meant more sharks.
The scuba diver saw them coming and hurried me into his submarine, and we
escaped…barely.
When we got inside, he pulled off his mask. He had feathered brown hair and
big green eyes.
“Why were you down there?” he asked me.
“The Resputoarians want me dead.”
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“Why?”
“Because I started rebelling against them.”
“Aren’t we all.” he muttered.
“So…you’re all alone?”
“I have been for a few days,” he said. “My friend is assumed to be dead. I woke
up only a few miles from here, and I don’t remember much from before that. I just
know that they were about to attack again, but somehow I survived while knocked
out, or whatever I was.”
“Oh, wow,” I managed sympathetically.
There was a pause.
“What’s your name?” he asked me.
I hesitated, but I told him the truth. “My name is Greg Tabaloe.”
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***
I was so shocked that I had to process what I just read. “Demetrius…he’s Greg Tabaloe…”
“Who?” the others asked.
“The…the child that they kidnapped…He was a complete loner, alone all of his life…and
they took him. This is one of the things that they do to the people they kidnap again! And now
he’s kidnapped…again! We have to help!”
“Wait,” Heather ordered. “We have to completely inspect the flash drive! Plus, the whole
place collapsed, remember? We won’t be able to get in!”
I clenched my fists but didn’t protest. I just kept on reading.
“Greg Tabaloe, huh?” the submarine driver said. “I recently spoke with someone,
and that name came up. Do you think that there’s another person that has your
name that was kidnapped by the Resputoarians? It can't be you, because you're
right here.”
I swallowed. “No. I was kidnapped..”
“Oh…”
For a few minutes, there was silence. Then, I asked him, “What’s your name?”
“Oh. My name? My name is…”—he paused for a very long time—my name is
John West.”
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Chapter 20: Forgotten Mysteries
John was alive.
John…was alive.
John was alive.
I couldn’t believe it. “How could…? Why did…? Where is…?” I couldn’t form the
questions.
The others caught on quickly.
“You know him?” Heather asked. “You know John West? Who is he?”
William spoke up. He was there when John was with me. He told Heather who John was,
and I told her he was the one who “left me.”
“No…I know who John is,” Heather said.
“How?” I asked.
“You I will tell later,” she said. “The rest of you don’t need to know.”
“But…” William started. “We have to find him!”
“We don’t have a guarantee that he’s still alive; we know he was alive after he supposedly
died,” I said. “But I need to know—is he still alive?”
“We can get back to this story later,” Dustin said. “There might be something about him
somewhere else on the flash drive. We better search for something on him.”
“Got it,” Heather chimed.
Naturally, she started typing and searching. I looked through the file names.
The Story of my Sword
The Story of Lucas Fenhard
The Spirits of Nesrahide
The Spells of the Sagritonians
The Story of the Scepter of Malikai
The Story of John West
“Stop!” I said.
She clicked on the file, but instead of that, something else came up. It was a picture of a
small puppy.
“I didn’t know Demetrius had a dog,” Heather said.
“He doesn’t,” Dustin replied. “He never did. I don’t know whose
dog this is.”
“Have you guys ever heard of steganography?” I asked.
“Stephanie did what now?” William asked.
“It’s a kind of code that Herodotus used, way back in 440 BC,”
stated Heather, our human Wikipedia. “What they did was they
embedded secret codes and messages inside pictures in a way that
no one would suspect. So, Noah, you think that’s what Demetrius
did?”
“Yeah,” I said. “He seems to be good at codes, so you can kind of
assume—”
“I know, I know, I didn’t mean to question you, I was just trying
to catch up to you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked her.
“Well, you’re really smart and everything, and I’m not, so…”
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Now she was really confusing me. “You’re the smartest one
here, Heather. Are you trying to say that I’m smarter?”
She blushed. “Well, yeah. You’re really awesome that way. I
think that—”
Everyone else was staring at us.
“What?” Heather and I blared defiantly.
“You guys can continue your little love conversation later,”
Dustin said. “Not to be rude, but I think there are more important
things to talk about than your relationship.”
Heather was now blushing so much, her face looked like a
tomato.
“So, um, anyway,” I feel my face flush. “Heather, give me the
computer. We can decode this easily.”
She hands over the computer, and I opened Google. I typed in
‘steganography decrypting software.’ Right away, it popped up, and
I clicked on it. I uploaded the picture onto the site, and the secret
message popped up.
I am doomed to die this day,
But you can fix my life’s dismay.
One coded word was all I got;
A newfound hope was what I sought.
A hidden word within the text
Unearthed the gifts I now possess.
These powers thrive within my bones,
Destroying hope like death in stone.
My time has come, I must depart.
My brain was gone, and now my heart.
A foolish life of mine I rendered.
Spent my time without a splendor.
The poem was not all I lost;
My time, a waste, at such a cost.
The Spirits are now lost as well,
Their powers gone right when they fell.
I tried my best, but then I failed.
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The secret still must be unveiled.
Its unseen powers stand untold,
To find these truths, you must be bold.
“Very specific,” Anastasia muttered.
“We have to stay focused,” Heather said, ignoring her. “Let’s read it over again and see if
we have any ideas.”
We all read it a second time, and this time, I got an idea. “Guys, look at the part in the
beginning. In the sixth line, Demetrius mentions ‘the gifts he now possess.’ Do you think these
‘gifts’ are his powers?”
“Probably,” Dustin said. “So he’s trying to tell us something about his powers?”
William spoke up. “Demetrius told us once that he hasn’t revealed to us all of the powers
he’s been given, which would explain why ‘gifts’ is plural. He said that they involved more
personal things, things he wouldn’t tell us. But that’s not the point. The point is, he has more
than one power, and, according to this poem, a ‘hidden word within the text’ is what gave him
those powers. What text is he talking about? The text in this poem?”
“I guess,” Anastasia said. “It might make sense, because near the end, he mentions a
poem. But he says it wasn’t all he lost. So, how could he lose a poem that he’s writing? That’s
the part that really doesn’t make sense to me.”
“Then Demetrius has to be talking about another poem,” Dustin added thoughtfully.
“There is only one other poem that he is sure that we know about.”
He waited for the rest of us to catch on. I was the first one to do so.
“He’s talking about…” I snapped my fingers. “The poem in the redacted document!”
“Exactly. But why would Demetrius be referring to that? We already found out all the
important stuff in it, right?”
God’s voice spoke directly in my mind: No, you didn’t.
“No,” I said sternly, to their surprise. “We didn’t. Do you guys remember when I died
and went to Heaven?”
“Yes,” they replied.
“Well, God told me that the document would be relevant throughout our journey. Do you
remember how we were when we actually found out the stuff from the document? We were
smarter. We were more confident. We were better. Do you know why? Because we knew what
we were doing! Some of that stuff in the document told us where to go, told us what was
happening, and told us what we needed to do to save William. It looks to me like this poem from
Demetrius is simply a stepping stone to something new in the document. We didn’t find
everything in the document. We didn’t find half of it.”
“So…” Heather said. “The poem in the document must have more hidden in it. That’s
what he was talking about. Okay. I got it now. But what are we even looking for in it?”
“That’s easy,” Anastasia said. “We’re looking for a ‘hidden word within the text.’”
Heather pulled up the document again, and we looked at the poem for at least five
minutes.
“Anastasia?” I called.
“Yeah?”
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“This isn’t easy.”
“I know. I meant the answer to that question was easy. This is far from it.”
After about fifteen minutes, Dustin broke the silence. “What if, by ‘hidden,’ he meant it
was a code?”
Once again, Dustin proved himself to be a genius.
“Brilliant!” I praised him. “So there are more codes hidden somewhere in the poem!”
“Yes,” Anastasia said, a strange expression on her face. “But not…not now. It’s…it’s in
the other part. The…the…middle.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head wildly, like she was…trying to get rid of
something.
Immediately, Dustin’s eyes were wide with worry for her. “Are you okay?”
Anastasia collapsed on the tile floor, and her boyfriend rushed over to help her.
He checked her pulse and checked her eyes. He gasped, and quick gestured for us to see.
Anastasia’s eyes were pure white.
She opened her mouth, and strange purple smoke came from her mouth, seeping into the
air. It changed colors while it did: red, black, purple, green, and yellow. But mostly purple and
green.
Then came the laughter. It was quiet at first, then getting louder and louder, until
finally…
“IT STARTS NOW!!”
The horrible, shrieking voice came from Anastasia’s mouth, but I knew she didn’t say it.
Someone—or something—was controlling her.
The same as her very own powers.
Anastasia’s body jerked and convulsed, and she yelled in her own strangled voice, “Don’t
make me do this!”
The horrible voice responded, also coming from her mouth: “YOU MUST OBEY. THE
SPIRITS ORDERED THAT YOU OBEY.”
Anastasia’s voice screamed again: “No…PLEASE!”
There was a terrifyingly loud sound like nails on a chalkboard, and Anastasia dropped to
the ground, no longer moving.
“Anastasia!” Dustin wailed. He raced to her side.
“DON’T TOUCH HER!” the voice yelled, now coming from somewhere above, maybe in
the rafters, but when I looked up, there was nothing there.
There was an ear-shattering crash, and something huge came smashing to the ground. It
was some kind of sinister monster. It looked like a wraith crossed with a skeleton of death—
dark ripped cloak, thick cracked skull, broken skeletal hands.
“THE TIME HAS COME!” it shrieked. We started to run, anywhere, but the demonic
creature raised its scythe and chanted “Tempus est ad mortem. Mors est. Tempus, ut vita,
peritura!” A blast of sickly green light blasted from its lifeless eyes, and everything froze. I
couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t blink. I could only watch.
The wraith threw its cape over its shoulder, and everything turned black. Then, in
another world, the wraith threw its cloak back over, and I felt a tremendous jolt go through my
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body. It was like ten thousand pounds were placed on my chest. Before I could even feel it, I
already saw the blood pouring out.
Then, with a sickening cough, I could see again—barely. I was in the cave that had been
in my dream. The cave that Demetrius had been tortured in. The others were there, too, but not
Anastasia. The wraith was nowhere in sight—for now.
We tried our best to limp around the place, but it was hard. I saw all the stuff from my
dream—the tables, the potions, and even the elevator from Demetrius’s story. But that elevator
was boarded shut, permanently. Rocks had collapsed from the ceiling onto it, completely sealing
it off. There was no exit.
I found another table, but this one didn’t have anything on it. It matched the description
Demetrius had given in his story, with another table next to it, littered with wires, knives, guns,
even a small flamethrower.
Laughter once again filled the room, and my beat-up friends and I tried to hide, but we
were too injured to raise an arm, let alone dive behind a rock.
The laughter got louder and louder, until we were looking at the triumphant face of
Mortikai.
“Guess what, friends?” he said smugly. “I have a little gift for you, from your old pal.”
As he smirked at us, he pulled something from behind his back and threw it on the rock
floor. It clattered when it hit the ground.
It was a broken, dented, smoking black sword. Not only that, either—the blade was
soaked in thick blood.
Lots of it.
***
“What the hell did you do to him?!?!” Heather screamed at the Resputoarian.
He just smiled. “I gave him an upgrade.”
“Upgrade this!” she yelled back, and she kicked him, hard, right in the…well, let’s just
say a place that you don’t want to be kicked in.
Unfortunately, it somehow didn’t affect him at all—he didn’t even flinch.
“Nice try, Heather, although I’m afraid you will never be able to defeat me.”
She cursed at him again, but he didn’t hesitate to call her something much worse.
That conversation didn’t last much longer, and I only took one thing from it: Heather
was really good at cussing.
Now, I don’t like it when people swear, but when she did it, I could only think of one
way to describe it—so sexy.
But, like Dustin said before, our ‘love status’ was not important. Survival was.
“Everyone, come here. Let me use my power again to get us out of here.”
They gathered in a circle, but Mortikai barked, “Around me, Noah, your powers are
worthless.”
He simply held out his hand, and electric energy jolted from the chest up, going directly
into my brain. I couldn’t even scream. I now knew how Demetrius felt when he was tortured.
I knew the feeling of true pain.
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I didn’t know what else happened, because I blacked out, but when I came to, I was
laying on a table, the face of a Resputoarian looking down at me, holding a very small but very
sharp knife.
And he was about to insert it into my right eye.
I could only think of one thing to do—I jerked left to avoid the knife and slammed my
head into Mortikai’s as hard as I could.
And then I ran.
I eventually found the others, and together we ran. We ran as fast as we could, and we
didn’t care. We just needed to get out. Maybe we could find the exit that Demetrius took: the
door to the bottom of the Pacific.
I turned a corner and ran into a person that I definitely recognized.
It was a person that I had met many times before on my journey. Someone that I thought
was dead.
It was…Lucas Fenhard. His chest had a huge bandage on it, from where Heather had
shot him with her bow and arrow.
“Noah. You again. You’re not supposed to be here.”
And then I saw his sword fly up out of the case at his side. It flew up, and I could trace
its path.
The sword was perfectly aimed at one target, and I knew that Lucas was good enough
that he would not miss it. It was aimed at my neck.
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