Fall of Igneeria: The Half-ling

by Kaylee Soderburg

  I heard muffled voices around me as I regained consciousness. My head throbbed slightly, and so did my side and my tongue. That explained why I had tasted blood; I must have bitten it. For a second I thought I had returned to my human self when I heard a blast of fire that probably came from Emily.

  “Seth when will she wake up?” a voice said. Then I realized it was Emily.

  “She’s alive and she’ll wake up soon. Stop nagging me,” a different voice said that was obviously Seth’s. He was really close to me because I could feel his breath on my face and his voice was very loud. Which wasn’t helping my throbbing head at all.

  “But when? I don’t like just staying here, when more monsters might come. We can’t do two things at once.” Emily nagged anyway. I could just picture her bouncing up and down on her heels, full of tension.

  I felt rush of hot air near my left side. Seth was probably sighing, “We can’t move her Emily. If we could, we would.”

  I opened my eyes to see Seth face hovering above me. Emily was pacing in the background and Jason was standing off to the side, looking very uninterested in the current situation. Seth smiled at me and I felt myself blush. It was kind of embarrassing to get knocked out when no one else did.

  “Welcome back, zombie hunter girl,” Seth teased.

  “How long was I out?” I asked, blushing brighter. Except I couldn’t pin down the reason why.

  Seth frowned, “I don’t know but it seemed like forever. You scared us, Jazell.”

  “Especially Seth,” Emily piped up behind him. “He was the one going crazy to bandage you and was worrying more than the rest of us.”

  Seth’s face reached a new undiscovered level of red, “I didn’t want to lose a friend.”

  “Right…” Emily trailed off and smirked at him, wiggling her eyebrows. Seth squirmed slightly and avoided her gaze.

  I started to laugh but in morphed into a cough instead. I clutched my midsection to find it was covered in bandages.

  “What exactly happened?” I questioned.

  Seth glanced at Emily and back at me, “I don’t really know. We turned around to see you being mauled by a Thrasher. Before either of us could do anything, some light appeared out of nowhere. When it died down, we found you lying on the ground unconscious. That’s basically it.”

  “We don’t know what the light was.” Emily added. “But whatever it was, it saved your life.”

  “Uh I have a feeling I should thank it, but I don’t know how you thank light.” I muttered.

  “You thank it like you would thank anyone else,” A voice said.

  I almost jumped to the moon in surprise. Out of nowhere someone, or something, appeared beside Jason. I think Jason was more scared because he actually jumped into the air.

  As it came into view, it became obvious that it was a girl. She in a yellow cloak and had dazzling red hair. She smiled warmly at us with her chocolate brown eyes and I realized she had pointed ears. So I basically made the conclusion that she wasn’t human.

  “Uh okay…” I said slowly.

  She giggled, “Wow I never thought I’d scare a bunch of half-lings but I guess I did.”

  “You didn’t scare me,” Jason said quickly.

  “Yeah okay, Jason,” Emily said sarcastically.

  I sat up and leaned on Seth because I would fall if I didn’t, and Emily and Jason were too busy giving each other looks to help me.

  “What and who are you?” I stared at her.

  She rolled her eyes, “A light pixie, duh.”

  I blinked, “A light pixie?”

  “Yes, a light pixie. Are you deaf?” she retorted.

  “Uh, no, I’m not. I don’t know what a light pixie is or why you saved my life, but thank you” I said, trying not to snap back.

  “Well you are a half-ling and we need as many of them as we can get,” She pointed out. “Plus I’m not evil, so why shouldn’t I help you out?”

  “Uh thanks I guess.” This situation was extremely awkward to me.

  She winked and disappeared in a flash. I limped over to my body ignoring Seth’s yells to tell me to sit down. I felt the wind pick up and was whisked back to my normal self. I felt fine except for the fact it hurt to stretch my left side. I would probably be extremely stiff and sore tomorrow morning, but I was used to that feeling. We began to walk back towards the park when Jason stopped us.

  “Hey can Seth and I catch you guys later? We have something to do.” Jason grabbed Seth and they took off.

  Emily raised an eyebrow, “Should we be concerned?”

  “Nah they’re boys, let them do what they have to do,” I said with a quick sigh.

  While we were walking the boys appeared in front of us, holding something behind their backs. They seemed to be fighting giggles which usually meant they were hiding something. Or they were about to do something that fell under their category of “funny”.

  “Hi guys,” Seth said still fighting a smirk.

  “Hi,” I replied cautiously. “What are you guys hiding?”

  Jason’s face twisted up and a snort of laughter fought its way out of his nose. “Nothing.”

  “Right…” Emily gave me a look that said, is this good or bad?

  I didn’t really have an answer for her but I knew that whatever was coming, it wasn’t going to be good. “So Jason, we have a question for you.” I nodded towards Emily.

  Jason’s face grinned in a seriously weird way that screamed, ‘weirdo!’ He shifted his hands and said, “What?”

  Emily stepped forward, “We want to know what you’re…” but she never finished.

  She had triggered it all.

  Jason had been hiding two blue, full, water pistols behind his back and was now shooting them at Emily’s face. She was holding up her hands and letting out some sort of squeal. Seth had been hiding a full two-handed water gun behind his back and the end was pointed at no other than me.

  “You wouldn’t,” I said, my voice dark.

  Seth gave me a maniac’s grin, “You already know the answer to that.” Then he shot me right in the face.

  I blocked most of the spray from my face but water still leaked through my fingers. I felt the cold water seep through my clothes and onto my skin as Seth continued to soak me.

  “Crap Jason, shut it off!” Emily hollered but it didn’t work because I heard her yell again as he sprayed her hair.

  I couldn’t see anything because my eyes were half shut and I was afraid Seth would wash my eyes out. “Seth seriously, stop.”

  You can’t command boys to do anything and to prove that, Seth shot my butt.

  Eventually they stopped, only because three water guns can hold only so much water and Emily and me looked like we could kill. We were both completely soaked to the bone and even though in was the middle of summer, we were shivering. The boys looked completely satisfied with how we looked. After Emily and I gave them a look, they tore down the street and disappeared.

  Emily squeezed the bottom of her shirt, “I hate them so much right now.” Water gushed onto the street.

  I wrung my hair out. “I agree and if we didn’t need them, I’d be planning their funeral.”

  Emily smiled, “I’d be helping you. Do you think they would like pink coffins?”

  “Totally,” I laughed and grabbed my dry bag. “Let’s go home. Want to crash at my place?”

  Emily flipped open her phone, her fingers danced on the keys and paused. Then they clicked and she shoved it in her pocket. “Yup I can.”

  “You’re always one step ahead.”

  “Always.”

  “So what do you think we should do?” Emily asked from my bed later on.

  I swallowed the bit of strawberry that had been in my mouth. “I don’t know, ambush them back?”

  “They might see that coming,” she pointed out, “and it’s really obvious.”

  “Well, they think we won’t do that because that is exactly what they would be expecting, so by actually doing
it, we can trick them,” I rambled on and grabbed another strawberry.

  Emily tapped her lip with her pencil and straightened her pink pajamas. “I have no clue what you just said Jazell.”

  I laughed, “What I meant was that we should ambush them. Give them a piece of what they did to us.”

  Emily’s eyes lit up, “You mean use water guns…”

  “And water balloons…” I added.

  “And a trebuchet to launch the balloons!” Emily scribbled furiously on her paper. “I can build one easily.”

  “Sweet, but when do we do it? All four of us hang out every day.”

  “I can solve that problem. We just tell them we want a day to do girl things and they’ll butt right out,” she slid onto the floor and snatched a strawberry.

  I grinned, “This is going to be some fun revenge!”

  “You can say that again.”

  “Okay,” I said, “this is going to be some fun revenge.”

  She wacked me in the head with my pillow, “You’re so weird.”

  “Well that’s the way I am, deal with it,” I wacked her back with my own pillow.

  “No I will not deal with it,” she walloped me in the head one more time. “I need you for team penguin, and I don’t need a smarty pants.”

  “How come you get to name the team?” I asked.

  “Because I was the one who got shot first.”

  Early the next day, which wasn’t that early because we got up around ten o’clock, we gathered my old water gun and some water balloons. Emily brought down the trebuchet she’d spent all night building and we took off on our bikes. Emily led the way to Jason’s where she was pretty sure the boys would be. We hid our bikes in the trees and snuck up to their backyard.

  Jason and Seth appeared to be setting up some airplane that they built from scratch. They were muttering to each other and assembling a table they would use for a launch pad. I grabbed my water gun and Emily took out her trebuchet, with her balloons, and we snuck up on them. I held my hand up to stop Emily, waiting until Jason and Seth were grabbing the airplane out of a box and lowered my hand.

  “Revenge!” I yelled, and ran out from behind the trees, with Emily following.

  The looks on their faces were priceless. They spun around just in time as Emily launched a balloon right at Jason’s face. I aimed at Seth, who I soaked in minutes. Their faces looked like they had seen a dinosaur come back to life. Jason scrambled away from Emily but she nailed him so many times it didn’t matter, he was already soaking wet.

  The last of my water leaked out the back of the gun and we just stood there. Jason smiled but you could see he was hiding the anger in his face. Seth was emotionless; he didn’t give any sign on what he was feeling.

  “So you felt like getting us back?” Jason asked.

  Emily glared at him, “You deserved it because you soaked us too.”

  “So,” he rolled his eyes, “you thought you could just ambush us. Have you learned nothing and that we might want revenge now. Then you will and so on. You’ve started a really long war.”

  “Who says the penguins can’t win a war, huh? We just won right now,” Emily said.

  “The penguins?”

  “Does that really matter?” she hissed. “You’re on.”

  Jason smirked, “Alright then, penguins, if you want a water war, you got one.”

  “You’re on too!”

  This whole time Seth didn’t say a word, which was strange. Usually Seth did all the talking while Jason stood watching but now Jason was doing all the talking and Seth was the one watching. He stood there and seemed unmoved from being soaked by my water gun. His face was blank and he was staring at nothing. It wasn’t the Seth I was friends with.

  While Emily and Jason were bickering I said, “Seth?”

  Seth didn’t answer. He acted like he didn’t hear me.

  “Seth? Hello earth to Seth,” I repeated.

  No answer again.

  “Seth is there something wrong?” I whispered.

  He didn’t answer me again. He continued to stare at the woods as if he expected a flying deer to leap out, wearing pink socks.

  “What the heck Seth, are you deaf now?” I waited for a sign that he heard me to appear on his face, but it remained blank.

  Emily huffed loudly, “Expect something from Jazell and me soon Jason. We’re out of here. See you around.” She grabbed my hand and pulled me away.

  Seth turned to see me leave and the look gave me a dark feeling inside. His face was masked with one emotion, one that made me vow to myself that I would find out what he was hiding, what he was keeping a secret. That emotion was not Seth, not the one I knew. It made me feel the same way and I didn’t know why.

  Fear.

  Chapter 5