by Amanda Churi
Confused, I listened, but I didn’t have to sit up to begin picking up on what the two girls meant. My eyes found the sky, my back going rigid as flashbacks struck me like a rain of bullets.
The sky… It didn’t look like a sky at all. There were no clouds. There was no sun. There was no wind. The sky itself was one shade of gray—a dark, sickly gray that looked so filthy it was as though it came straight from a smokestack. It was unnaturally smooth as well—not one ray or obstruction to distinguish one layer of the atmosphere from the other.
“What the…?” I couldn’t finish my sentence, flabbergasted when I realized I could not detect any movement in the air. The hair rose on my arms, and a wave of goosebumps raced over my skin, closing the pores as I finally became aware of the temperature. The air around me grew dense with my crystallized breath, my body shivering instinctively as it tried to warm me through my thin clothes.
I sat up, pausing immediately. The sky was bad enough; the Earth, however, was so horrendous that it could not even begin to compare.
The land was completely empty. I didn’t see one tree, one house, not even one life form besides us. The ground was frozen, small shards of ice sticking up from the parched and frostbitten soil—soil that was hard and rampant with cracks, flushed of all nourishment. What few plants that had tried to live and flourish were quickly destroyed, their frail stems and leaves withered and blackened by the cold, lying lifelessly against the earth.
“This is the future that you were so psyched about getting back to?” Mabel wondered dryly as she pulled her gaze away from the ruined landscape, turning to face me with resentful eyes.
My voice was stuck in my throat, unable to operate as I took in the scene around me. No, this was not how my world looked at all, and no, I was not in a dream. This was real.
“No,” I finally answered, continuing to look around in disbelief. “This isn’t my future.”
Mabel looked at me, her mouth crooked with distaste. I didn’t even want to know what she thought of me considering the fact that I promised her that she would love the future. She took a shaky breath, standing up and extending her hand towards me. Absentmindedly, I took it, dazed as she pulled me to my feet. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I never would have believed something this strange could exist.
Mabel held my hand tightly, refusing to let go as I slowly regained my bearings. I looked towards Laelia and Griffin, both of whom had their backs to me, staring out into the distance. Now standing up, I could see even farther, and there was still nothing to be found. Where I stood seemed like nothing more than a barren landscape—a world struck by a bomb and left for dead.
“Eero… What is this place?” Griffin wondered quietly, looking over his shoulder as he made eye contact with me. His blue eyes were wide and desperate with undisguised fear shining through.
“I don’t know?” I answered unsurely. “This isn’t right.”
Laelia looked my way, turning around swiftly with her arms held at her sides and her hands bunched into tight fists. Her green eyes burned angrily, an annoyed huff escaping her lips. “Why don’t you tell us what happened?” she demanded. “This is supposed to be your time; did you trick us with all of those stories you told?!”
“Absolutely not!” I snapped defensively. “My future is nothing like this! We have to be in the wrong time!”
“Regardless of where we are,” Griffin interrupted, turning around to face me as well, “it’s obvious that something terrible happened prior to us ending up here.”
“We were promised to go back to Eero’s future!” Laelia argued.
“There was no guarantee that we would end up there!” Griffin rounded angrily. “Do you not listen?”
“I wish I hadn’t!” she cried. “I decided to come here heavily based on what Eero told us about his world, but now I see that I shouldn’t have! Either we are somewhere else, or Eero is nothing but a liar! Probably the latter!”
My anger rose, Mabel giving my hand a squeeze to try and keep me under control. Normally, it helped, but not now. I’d always disliked Laelia; between her trying to kill me earlier and now blaming me for wherever we had ended up, I was about done.
“I’m not lying!” I snapped, yanking my hand away from Mabel, mere seconds away from decking the brat in the face. “Wherever we are, it doesn’t matter now, does it? We’re stuck here any way you look at it!”
Laelia’s face reddened, the veins in her hands bulging. “Well, I was fine with staying in Phantome! You were the one who insisted that this place was so much better! If I had my bow, I would shoot you dead!”
“Funny,” I answered bluntly, crossing my arms. “Not only did you have the choice to stay behind, but I’m pretty sure that’s the reason why we’re here in the first place.”
“How was I supposed to know Daisy would go crazy?!” Laelia rounded defensively, throwing her arms out beside her. “She looks like she’s ten!”
Mabel giggled, averting her eyes from Laelia as she tried to suppress her laughter. “A ten-year-old who kicked your butt and made your hair look like a guy.”
Laelia’s eyes narrowed, her pupils taking on a deadly glint. “I would shut it if I were you.”
“Oh, getting feisty, are we?” Mabel mocked, pressing her hands to her hips as she continued to taunt the princess. “On your period, maybe?”
Laelia grunted angrily, aggressively grabbing her short blonde hair as she tried to hold back her enmity. “You all drive me crazy!” she yelled. “Maybe I would have died back in Rome, but it sure as heck beats being here with you all, who will make me commit suicide first!”
“Yup, definitely her time of the month,” I whispered under my breath, Mabel looking at me and snorting in amusement.
“Nice one,” she complimented, raising her hand as I gave her a high-five.
“I will have you know that was last week!” Laelia snapped, turning her back on us and storming over towards our backpacks and satchels that had been arranged in a tower formation; I figured it was Mabel’s doing as a result of her ADHD while she waited for me to wake up.
Laelia bent down, hastily swiping her satchel from the pile and causing it to topple over. She looked to Griffin with crazed eyes, who had been standing there quietly while everything went down, unsure as to what to do. I’m sure that he could tell that what we said was nothing more than us messing with Laelia, but still, had it been Mabel, I would have defended her.
I was still unsure as to if Laelia and Griffin were even an item, honestly. After Laelia kissed him, she had been attempting to get closer to him by saying cute little things, though it could not mask her acidic personality. Whether Griffin was passive or just stupid, I couldn’t tell, but he simply continued to treat Laelia like a friend, and it was blatantly obvious that she didn’t want that title.
“If you want to come with me, Griffin, fine,” she growled, “but I am not staying with those idiots.”
“Laelia,” Griffin said lightly, walking over to her and holding his hand out in front of him with caution, “just calm down. Look, it’s not smart to split up right now, especially when we don’t know anything about where we are. You could get killed!”
“I’ll take my chances,” she answered smugly, throwing her satchel over her waist. She turned her back on Griffin and had hardly taken a step before he reached out to her, grabbing her shoulder tightly and refusing to let go.
“What?!” She snapped her gaze to her shoulder, her hawk-like eyes preying on his hand. Between her current anger and her new haircut, she really did look crazy; Daisy’s magic had gotten so close to her scalp that she now had a haircut similar to mine—short for a girl yet long for a boy, and the force of which her hair had been sliced at made the cut extremely uneven.
I don’t know how, but her startling new appearance did not frighten Griffin, who stared at her with such intensity that her eyes were drawn to look at his. “You’re staying with us,” he ordered as he tightened his grip on her shoulder. “I don’t c
are if you don’t like it. Until we figure out what we are going to do, I’m not letting you out of my sight. Do you understand me?”
Her eyes lost their brutality. “Fine,” she mumbled reluctantly, looking down at the frozen earth as Griffin sighed with relief, releasing her shoulder.
“Thank you,” he said graciously.
Laelia huffed, crossing her arms.
Griffin looked back at us, serious. “And can you guys stop acting so immature? This is no time to get into a fight.”
“I wasn’t acting immature,” Mabel responded simply. “I was just being honest.”
I elbowed her in the side.
“Yeah, well, you don’t have to be so snooty about it,” Griffin huffed. He shook his head, rubbing the nub of his amputated arm. “Moving on,” he continued. “Grab your stuff; we should probably try to find some shelter. I’m pretty sure being out in the open and drawing attention to ourselves is the last thing we want right now. Who knows what’s out here.”
“Nothing, obviously,” Laelia muttered.
“Alright,” I said, ignoring Laelia and giving Griffin a nod of concurrence as I made my way over to my possessions. I grabbed my backpack, slinging it over my shoulder and handing Mabel her own satchel.
“Check to make sure you have everything before we leave,” Griffin said, rummaging through his backpack. “Not that we can really find something if it’s missing, though…”
The first thing I did was glance down at my waist, smiling with relief when I saw Coruscus hanging by my side. Its aura wasn’t bright, though I didn’t expect it to be considering all that had just happened. I quickly glanced inside of my backpack, seeing that The Book of Lore and my clothes were safely inside. I closed the flap and pressed my hand to my neck, sighing thankfully when I felt Ryze’s necklace in my fingers. “All good,” I said aloud.
“Same,” Mabel answered, Laelia simply grunting instead of voicing her “ok” verbally.
“Now,” Griffin said, turning around. “Where should we go?”
“HOLD IT!”
The voice was cold and demanding. The four of us traced the new sound, looking over our shoulders, surprised to see another living being; it wasn’t exactly a relief, though, because they did not look friendly in the slightest. Mabel became rigid, taking a cautious step towards me and pressing her back into my chest. Instinctively, I wrapped an arm around her, backing into my friends until our group stood as one. There are some people you can just look at and get a bad vibe from, and from him, the strangest and, dare I say, possibly most sinister aura hit me, even with the distance between us.
He stalked towards us through the empty land—a man whose appearance was so crazy that I could hardly tell if what I saw was real. A man in tinted black, glass-like armor rapidly approached us. Vicious strands of white electricity swarmed within the confinements of the man, but his hands that were cast from silver did not have the same restrictions, for on his fingers, free-ranged electricity danced a hungry samba. On his back, he bore a semi-automatic weapon, and around his waist, he wore a chain. A white rapier, almost identical to that of a ghostblade, was attached, along with a black, metal bar.
We remained still. I didn’t know if they were even human; his weaponry looked so advanced that we had to have overshot my time period by at least a few centuries.
“You are in the Lord’s forbidden land!” the man roared as he approached us, coming so close that we only stood a few feet apart.
“The Lord?” Mabel asked sheepishly, looking up at the man, who had to have stood a foot higher than her. “God?”
He snapped his shielded face towards her. “Ignorant, are we?”
“What, no?” she answered quietly, shrinking farther into my chest. “I-I’m serious! What are you talking about?”
He scoffed, his visor parting like a pair of automatic doors to reveal his face—pale white skin and black eyes that were as dark as night. “Even with all we have done, you kids are still dumb,” he grumbled. He extended his arm, opening his metallic hand wide and holding it flat as the white electricity began circulating his hand so quickly that it began to ring like a dog whistle. The four of us immediately took a step back, our ears recognizing a sound similar to a Noble’s laser. I didn’t care if the Nobles were dead; it was a sound that would haunt me for the rest of my life.
From his glowing hand, a beam of dazzling blue light shot out from his palm. The blue light only extended itself approximately a foot into the air before suddenly spreading open like a scroll, a blue, techy hologram appearing in midair. My eyes reflected the hologram with amazement, watching code that contained letters, numbers, and unique symbols fly across the screen in a never-ending stream.
“Identification,” the man demanded gruffly.
The four of us warily looked at one another. Our eyes spoke the same words—should we? In Phantome, we never revealed our identities because it brought nothing but trouble. We could have easily given him fake names, but even as terrifying as his appearance was, maybe he could help us. After all, we didn’t know where we were.
The man quickly became impatient while we contemplated on the right move. He huffed earnestly, reaching down to the metal bar at his side with his free hand. The strands of electricity intensified around his fingers as the man came closer to the unidentified object, and I felt Mabel shake in my arms.
His fingers stopped mere centimeters from the object. The man looked back up at us with cold eyes. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he prompted sharply. “Identification. Now.”
“Mabel!” Mabel quickly squeaked.
The man paused, pulling his hand away from the bar as a silent wave of relief washed over us. “Mabel what?” the man pressed, raising his free hand to the translucent screen. A keyboard appeared, the tips of his silver gloves glittering softly as he awaited her answer.
“Mabel Green,” Mabel finished, sinking back into my chest.
The man quickly typed the name and submitted it, Mabel’s identification turning into a million pixels and entering one of the many strings of endless code that ran across the electrical net. “Next,” he said gruffly.
“Eero,” I answered, standing by Mabel’s decision. “Eero Resem.”
“Laelia Caesar.”
“Griffin de Vaux.”
The man had hardly finished typing Griffin’s first name before he suddenly froze. He looked away from the keyboard, his eyes shifting to Griffin skeptically. “De Vaux?”
Griffin nodded. “Yeah, why?”
The man resembled a phantom. His body suddenly relaxed, his shoulders slightly hunching forward; the hologram buzzed and cracked as the man lost focus, the screen distorting before abruptly vanishing.
We stared at the man in bewilderment as silence descended. The man did not move, his eyes wide as he stared at the ground. Slowly, the man raised his lowered head, his pupils narrowing at Griffin, who took a confused step back. “De Vaux?” he hissed menacingly.
Griffin refused to answer. He swallowed, his frightened eyes shooting about in worriment as he held his arm out beside him, on guard.
“De Vaux,” the man repeated darkly. Suddenly, his pupils went from black to blue, microscopic code identical to the hologram flying across his eyes. His back went erect as he shot back up to his full height, quiet beeps and electronic noises filling the air as the blue in his eyes began to glow. Immediately, he reached for his side, his overshadowed eyes berserk with anger as his metallic hand enclosed the rapier, a large crack of static shooting through the air as white electricity shot out from his fingertips and wrapped around the blade.
The man ripped the rapier from his side, breaking the chain around his waist. Mabel shrieked with fear, Laelia squealing as well as she hurriedly backed away from the man. His eyes were burning in Griffin’s direction as he swung the rapier over his shoulder, prepared to launch the deadly weapon his way.
Instantaneously, I pushed Mabel from my arms, ignoring her cry of shock as I grabbed Coruscus
, hardly giving myself the chance to establish a firm grip before I had already released it with as much force as I could gather.
Coruscus flew forward as a blur of gold and slammed into the man right at the base of his neck. The glass armor shattered upon impact, hands of electricity racing out from his armor and wrapping around the man’s stunned body as his power was turned against him. His hand released the rapier almost immediately, the electricity faltering from both his glove and sword as the rest of his body was taken captive by the horrendous energy. The man groaned painfully, staggering on his feet before he fell to his side, the electricity continuing to encase his frame like a cocoon and electrocute his body. He convulsed painfully on the frozen earth, his moans of pain giving way to sharp wails and shaky screams as his blood ignited.
I stood still, Coruscus magically dislodging itself from the broken glass and flying back into my hand as I stared at the man in horror. It was obvious that he wasn’t good at all, and regardless that I had killed many people now, I had never seen a death like this. My eyes could not break from his frying body, nor from the digital pattern that his eyes betook at the mention of Griffin’s last name. That man couldn’t have been human, but he sure burned like one.
My stunned eyes shifted to the man’s limp hand. That man was obviously part of some group, and that group now had our names.
“Run!” Laelia cried, sprinting across the barren landscape with Griffin following in a blind panic.
“Come on!” Mabel screamed, grabbing my arm. “We’ve got to get out of here!”
She had to pull me away. My eyes could not break from my victim, watching the electricity slowly falter as we put more and more distance between us and his body, which stopped thrashing moments ago.
As soon as I realized that the man was indeed slain, I looked away, facing the vast, decimated landscape that held not an ounce of life within its frozen soil.
I didn’t know where we were. I didn’t know what we were going to do or how we were going to survive. I didn’t understand anything that was going on. We hadn’t even been here an hour, and already, we had killed a man; it wouldn’t be too long before someone found out who did it and placed a bounty on our heads. It was like Phantome all over again—we had already made a name for ourselves, and it was inevitable that we would be hunted down.