Prologue 
His sister, however, my Great-grandmother was a warrior. She “disappeared” with her father when she were no older than me and she trained in the arts of war. Her beautiful, deadly laser gun could stun our kill without a trace. In close quarters, she used it as a sword, a sword almost purely made of Elven-Diamond, the diamond melted and made harder by all the other metals forged into it. It’s outer covering is made of hard adamantium.  These diamond blades are very rare and are passed down in to family from warrior to warrior. I am to inherit ours next. If I had a sibling, he or she would have had the other one, but no, I neither have a sibling, nor do I have the blade. It was lost years ago by my parents, whom I have never known.

Now, my Great-grandmother led the rebels to seize one of the transmitters and my great granddad set it off. He then activated the code he had created for his sleek laptop which he himself had designed and used his elven magic to make himself invisible. The alarms had gone off though, and he barely escaped with his life. He fled to the rebels, who welcomed him with open arms. 

By then his sister had, with her miniature army, captured and set the transmitter to the stars. My Grand-father entered this new stronghold and worked on the transmitter, carefully condensing it and telling the world our story, the sad story of earth.
The first ones who were reached were the dwarves. They saw Earth and imagined making tunnels through it’s rich soil and mining diamonds and importing rare metals. 

They imagined setting up relations with Earth’s humans by using the humans found on their neighbor planet, Ximau. These humans and the dwarves developed their skills in the languages of humans. They came to us slowly, after many years, yet they nearly doubled our forces when they did grace us with their presence.

Surprisingly, the next to be reached were the elves. All elves lived on the upper half of the cubical planet, Löthé.
Löthé had been a sphere ages ago, and on what would have been the northern half was uninhabited. 

The elves had all lived on the planet Viir in the galaxy of Curian, when their planet was nearly destroyed. Working as fast as they could, they built a fleet of ten spaceships, through which a small part of the population was able to escape. Only about 10 million elves remained, not counting those who had been condemned to float in space for eternity, food supplied from Viir. When Viir died, their suits went into hyperdrive for a minute, allowing them to almost ram against and irreparrably damage one of the space crafts. 

None of the space-crafts could be lost, for it would be then that Viir was lost. So they took them as their companions and they entered Löthé with them. Half of Löthé was inhabited, so the elves, seeking shelter, inhabited the top half. The miscreants came with them.

As it was the nobility and those of culture who had been allowed to leave, the troop of miscreants had been thrown out of their home planet yet again. 

Angry and vengeful, they sought some other place to rests their heads. They knew that there was only one way. Calling upon magical power gained only from their exposure to the space of the new galaxy, they transformed Löthé into a cube, destroying several lives. Here the elves and the humans combined their magic and  preserved the remaining lives, yet not much culture survived. The elves and the humans started concentrating their magic on the miscreants. 

Frightened, the miscreants fled as fast as they could, away from Löthé, to Earth, where their story is as narrated above. (I wish to clarify that I bare only a minimum of the miscreant blood; my great-great-great grandmother was one. Her husband was of the Viir judges. He had died very soon after reaching Curian. My Great-great-grandmother was the elven princess). 

My Great-grandfather’s betrayal shocked the Elves. By joining the rebels, he had given them both inside information and the best technician in the whole of Earth. 

When the elves joined us, they were only slowly accepted. No-one was comfortable around the elves for a long, long time. The story of how the trust was gained is uncertain, yet it has something to do with a human leader being saved by an elven one.

Soon we had the upper hand in strategy, strength and even numbers.

The humans, dwarves and elves fought their way through hordes of miscreants and deflectors, through hordes of betrayals. They faced deceit and betrayal to say the least. Many died, yet at the end of it all the leaders survived. My Great-Grand-mother was appointed queen and an elven-prince king. Now here I stand, the proof that elves and men can unite. My Grandfather, meanwhile, continued his line through his half-dwarf bride.
Three ancient races united, defeated a great evil. Till today, we have survived with no such great evil pursuing us. I thus present my case. We can work together. We HAVE to. It will make us, not break us.

 

2: Chapter 1: Sera

CHAPTER 1- Sera, 15th May, 3113
I lean back, tired but satisfied with my case for the history debate “Judging by history, can elves and humans ever work together?” As I was proof of such a union, nothing can be said. I have never known my parents. Will that count as a point for the opposition? I quickly take of that sentence using the “invisiblizer” as it is popularly known. It nullifies the effect of ink on paper, making what I wrote invisible. This is a reversible reaction.

My apologies. You must know what an invisiblizer is. We do live in the 31st century after all. I’m sorry. You might prefer it if i ramble less, and you most probably would like to know my name. My name is Sera Vvildstar(Vvi-ld-star, an old elvish name). 

I have long-ish, sort of spiky and messy black hair, which goes barely below my shoulders. I have dark green eyes and brown skin. Put together, I'm not really pretty or anything. Just average.
Now, I live in the beautiful village of Zare, on Planet Earth. 
Our village is neither large nor small, and absolutely solar-run. All the additional solar energy is stored and later used. 

Now we all live with the elves and the dwarves on planet Earth. The dwarves are the miners. They make wonderful metals and alloys for all purposes. The study of these is absolutely fascinating. They supply us and the elves with fair prices, costs depending on what we need. They all live in tunnels and only a bare minimum of non-dwarf races know the secret entrances and most of them are animals, of those, again, are mostly dogs. 

The elves are often entangled in politics. It has been a law, though, that all races get equal political respect and representation. 

That is a law that is rarely followed.

(Oh no. Rambling again. Forgive me, this will not be a common incident)
Now, our town is a pristine, beautiful place. The roads are either laid with hard black metal mixed with tar, or with white, silvery metals. 

Schools are considered the highest place, as it is where young ones grow. They make friends, learn about the other races. They, WE, learn with the other races. This is supposed to promote unity among us. It worked. Sort of.

Let me tell you about the “three and a half races” as we are collectively 
The dwarves are wonderful people, yet they have an affinity to stone, and to their own. If rocks were intelligent people, then they would be dwarves. The name “dwarf” was given by a giant, which pretty much points out that dwarves aren’t tiny. That is why they are more popularly known as the Rock people, the rockys for short. They are of middling height, never very tall, just about the average height of 5 feet 7 inches. They are clever and strong, and I repeat, have an affinity for their own people. Their own people are, to the, the most important. They have no particular dislike to the elves and are friendly with the humans, yet they consider themselves higher than us. This I find irritating. They want to show the world the beauty of gems in metals. They want to live with everybody, and teach them. They are clever but often are almost foolishly brave.

The elves are wonderful people, graceful with long limbs and pointed ears. They love civilisation and the company of different peoples. They tend to think logically and often over-think a problem. They want peace and we give it to them. They have a dignified disposition and tend to project the emotions which are expected and not the emotions they feel.

The humans, meanwhile, are a good race. They are all sturdy and strong. They enjoy the pleasures of life but often think ahead. Most humans are open and friendly. Yet they grieve for old losses, and give loyalty when deserved. They tend to discriminate people by race though. I often feel that the humans need discriminations to survive. They have had it in the past, before their entire reality got torn apart during that fateful day in the 21st century.

And the half race. That’s us. The half-bloods. Discriminated against and underestimated. Many of us are forced to starve, shunned by our families, our parents brutally murdered. I was shunned. Yet in the poorest part of the city, I foraged for food. My magic kept me safe. It even helped in giving the food. A well-to-do couple, kicked out of their families for supporting the finding and their half-blood niece, found me. From the age of four, they raised me.They gave me a name. I went to a wonderful school. They are my parents in all but name.And then, few days ago, I learnt that they were my aunt and uncle. My parents, Liren and Risa, famous with the name, my name, Vvildstar, I learnt, had really disappeared. I had known about it and grieved. It was big news back then and all half-bloods had respected Liren. The elven family had kept out of the whole affair like they didn’t know anything. That, they say, was their way of coping with the pain. I somehow doubt it. Me, I am still reeling. I knew that I am a half-blood. I now know that I am Sera Vvildstar. A Vvildstar. Yet.... who is Sera Vvildstar? Who AM I?

3: Sera Again

Chapter 2- SERA
SCHOOL. FINALLY. I know that you anti-school folks out there are wondering “What the hell is she THINKING?” Let me clear it up. I like school because of my friends. I like the teasing and the fights. I enjoy basketball, an old sport. The older ones play Bakal. I love bakal. I wish I could play it. But no, not for another year. Well, today is finally a step forward in that direction. 

Today is the day that all students of the age of thirteen must discover their powers. The day starts with a compiled exam, then an MQ(Magic Quotient) test. We then have to be placed in a random scenario and have our minds read on what we would do or most like to do in that situation. The next half of the day is secret. Nobody knows what happens, but we come out, either with a new power or one which others have. We develop multiple powers over time and learn to control them. All races do. We all wonder why the old humans have not faced such things. It is suggested that the magic is the cause.

Anyway, I need to walk across town to get to the school. Our beautiful house is out-of-the-way incase my adopted parent’s-MY-relatives track us down and throw us into their prison. I make my way across the town, keeping my windswept hair tied back, or rather as much if it that would be tied, as per the regulations of the school. 

As I enter the large compound, a familiar bunch of voices yell “SERA!!! Over here!!!” I run over to my friends, laughing. Let me introduce each one of them.

Niarè Ree Seebill is a human girl. She goes by the name Nia, preferring it to her own name. Typical long, thick black hair and brown eyes. A friendly personality, but she irritates me now and then with her interest in things like dressing up and absolute concentration on studies. She is one of my very best friends. She has elf blood too.

Ezra Kell is a loudmouthed boy, (yes a boy. We ignore the prejudices of our school) who needs to be censored. Seriously. Irritating and and once an outrageous flirt, he is often beaten up by the other three girls for some horrible act or remark. He is obviously part rocky and part human. He has a messy sort of hair, which is bright red. His eyes are brown. He has an annoying don't-give-a-damn attitude.

Shila Jixars is the opposite of Ezra. They clash without fail, but still remain close friends. Shila tends to hate anything that needs to be censored. ANYTHING. She is a half or a quarter elf. She has brown hair and startling black eyes.

Roriän Ristrab goes by Rory. Rory is another boy, who is the only “pure-blood” in our group. He is descended from a very old human family, as old as my family, the Vvildstars. He is a friendly person, who tends to act like the others. He feels like he cannot blend in. He has dark golden hair and blue eyes.

“Nia, Shila, Rory, Ezra!! Glad to see you are still alive. Your responses to my emails, texts and Instant messages were not very encouraging. I was beginning to worry.” I said.

“Umm... Sera.... I was doing my debate preps for the whole of the weekend” says Nia.

All the others nod along with her. “What the heck takes you guys THIS long? It took me like one failed attempt and a one page speech!!” I say.

“Gimme yours. Now.” says Ezra.

“No way.” I say and take it out on my computer. He grabs for it. “Any help guys?” I ask. They all laugh and attack me for my speech. I run as fast as I can. When they surround me, I skid to a halt and panting, I say, “Fine!!!! I will show you now. IF you promise not to blow a fuse. I only found out the day before yesterday after all.” 

They all looked at me like I am crazy. An achievement, seeing that they are crazier than I am.

Opening the laptop slowly, I take them to one of the areas with the silencing field put around it. We have many such areas, to prevent rumours and things like that. My undeveloped elven magic will let me create a force field, but it will only last for a few minutes. I nervously clear my throat and read my speech. On discovering my heritage, my friends stare at me. “Why the hell didn’t you freaking tell us!!” Ezra screams. Only he doesn’t say freaking. “EZRA!!! Stop swearing!!! And Sera.... I’m sorry but WHY the BLOODY HELL didn’t you tell us? We are your friends!! We deserve to know!!!” Shila yells, screaming by the end of the tirade. She is certainly pissed off. She NEVER uses words like bloody hell. Everyone nods at her statement. 

“Guys.... I’m sorry. I am SO damn sorry. I didn’t keep it from you intentionally. You see, I-I only found out like the Day-before-yesterday when I asked my mom. Oh yeah, by the way, Mom is my aunt.”

My friends look at me, confused. “Guys, my mother was a HUMAN. Mom-AUNT is HUMAN. Mo-Aunt’s maiden last name was Restrin. Mother’s maiden last name was RESTRIN!!!! Follow?”

“Yup. But I think I am the only one, though.” says Nia. I laugh
. “Well anyway, forget it. Let us..”
“Sera.” says Rory. 
“Yeah?” I reply.
“How will everybody react? They will call you a liar!”

“Oh, come on. EVERYBODY knows that the Vvildstars were like, the royal elven family!! Everybody knows that there was an unknown disagreement about Liren Vvildstar’s unnamed bride.” scoffs Ezra.

“Yeah, yeah. Very dramatic way of throwing my ideas in the bin, you half-blood Kell.”
We are all shocked into silence. Calling someone by their last name is insulting them in our world. It’s like telling them “Hey! I insulted your family, which means i wanna fight you. Let’s get to the part where I beat you up!”. I sigh. Rory’s family influence is outdoing his and his parent’s liberality. 

This has been one of my greatest fears. Rory and Nia are two of my most steady friends. Rory’s family was against half-bloods. He had ended up being the only child with feelings, the only one with no prejudice against the half-bloods and the other races. 
“Oh god!! What did i say!!I-I just insulted one of my best friends!” he says, the minute he realizes the weight of what he has said and done. 

“Rory...” says Ezra, unnaturally silent.
“Forgive me. Be assured that it will not happen again. Ezra Kell, can you forgive the unintentional yet deep insult to you and your family?”

I look at Nia gravely. She nods. Rory is trying to correct his mistake. Yet will Ezra accept it? “Rory Ristrab, I accept your apologies. Now can you show me your debate paper? I am in a dire need of points!”

Rory smirks and shakes his head. ‘Sorry Ezra. Teachers will raise a gigantic ruckus if it 
even looks like we’ve helped.”
“Who IS your research partner anyway?” asks
“Nlin. I am so damn dead.”
We all wince sympathically. Nlin is an elf and represents the worst of father’s race. He is a bloody git who considers us beneath him. At least if it comes to anything that requires arguing, Ezra can out argue him. Ezra can out argue pretty much EVERYBODY with his mule-like stubbornness. 

Suddenly, as we are talking, a loud bell rings. This noise made us all jump in fright and look around. We all realized what it was, and laughing, we moved to class. Our classes are in a large room. This room is full of students who are all born in the same year. The school extends throughout the weekdays with holidays on the weekends. We have one free week every 2 months, with a week of holidays and 1 day of free school in a month. That day, we come to school, take part in the activities or just hang out.
In the class, our teacher, Ms.Rhea, is waiting. Ms.Rhea is an elf. She is tall and beautiful, with pointed ears and straight golden hair.  She smiles at us as we enter the class. “QUIET!!” She shouts, and all the chatter stops immediately.

“Today, is the last day of this year. Today is the last day of your childhood. When you come to school tomorrow, you will be considered thirteen years old. And thirteen year olds need to know their magiks. They, YOU, will need to find out your strengths. You will find out where you belong. A wand and a weapon will choose you, a life will await you. Your prophecy will be given to you. And your survival will depend on this day. Are you ready?”

The roar is unanimous. “YES!!”

“The day will start with the debate, the last debate you shall do in the children’s debating format. I give you five minutes to present your arguments. Good luck!!”

One of the Rockies presses her"QB", her question button. It alerts the teacher.“Yes Hiri?” asks Ms.Rhea. ‘“Ma’am, can we choose our own partners?” 

Ezra and Nlin, who are glaring daggers at each other, nod emphatically. Ms.Rhea sighs. “No. That will be too liberal.” The whole class goes “Awwwww.” at the same time. Ms.Rhea groans. “Fine! The partners will be changed!”

“Yaaay!!!” Shouts the whole class. Ezra, especially had let out a wild yell.
“SILENCE!!!” Shouts Ms.Rhea. “I WILL BE CHOOSING THE PARTNERS!!!”
The class is indifferent . If anything, they are thankful that they did not need to be paired with all their arch enemies. 

She starts sorting everyone. When she reaches me, she sighs. “Sera, I need to talk to you. Meet me after school in the class.”
Surprised, I nod. “And today I shall be pairing you with.... Um... Well, just divide yourselves. Since Xim left, you are only five, so let any sixth person ask the remaining one." I nod again, grinning as i remember Xim Socow. 

An old rival-sort of friend, he was loud and annoyed the living hell out of Niaré and me sometimes. Last year, he left for the town of Forell. 

We set about to dividing each other. Sheila and Ezra, close friends that they are, work together. A boy who had this HUGE crush on Nia, Jem Harris, asks Nia, which leaves Rory and me.

"Well, Sera. We seem to be working together." I grin a bit. Rory and his sense of humor and we both sit down. Rory works on merging out documents and dividing them into points. He decides to leave my speech and soon says we are ready. As the others are preparing, we fall into lighthearted conversation. "So Sera, shall we go kick some serious ass up there?"My eyes follow his to the podium. The podium is activated by a button. So are the simulations we use for combat.

 We all know peace is momentarily, what with there being no heir to the throne. Except for me. A wild tomboy with barely enough patience to comb my hair.... I wish I had a sibling. We do NOT want democracy. That will be chaos. An heir to the throne, approved or disapproved of, by the people. Corrupt people kicked out. Everything, is in the people's hands. 

I suppose that I must tell you about our school. It is the only school in Zare. It consists of a huge building, in the centre of which is a courtyard. The building is systematically divided into 18 sections. The first three are for the children born in they years 3011, 3010 and 3009. Their ages range from two to four years. To make it easier, I will deal in ages. 

The next five are for the children whose ages range from five to nine years.

The next three sections are for the ten year olds, the eleven year olds and the twelve year olds. 
These nine sections are for the students to grow. They call it a place for them to learn the basics. After a lot of work by my mo-aunt and da-uncle the half-bloods can live there. They are given decent lodgings, better than mine at four. At three I had learnt to fight and scourge. That is what, I think, has made me good at combat. 

After the age of twelve, we are ready for magic. We are prepared for a whole year for the last day of the eleventh year of our schooling. We get half a day of the normal activities. A debate is compulsory every year. After lunch,our fields are discovered. Wands and weapons choose us. They are necessary for our survival. I am ready. I hope. Back to the topic of classes, in a nutshell, ages thirteen to nineteen have the remaining seven sections.

I am pulled out of my wandering state by a sharp tug on my arm. “Sera.” Rory hisses. “We are up next. You need to speak. And point out what is wrong with their points. So now you have to pay attention.”

I nod and the first speaker of the opposing team comes up. It is none other than my dearest enemy, Nlin. 

The elf cocks and eyebrow. 
“Good morning. I, Nlin am now going to tell you exactly why, judging by history, elves and humans can never work together. I wish to start by pointing out that the elves, the dark ones, held the humans as slaves for a long time. This points out that our superior strength can make them jealous. And jealousy will lead to them killing us. And we will crush them like gnats.”
I am irritated. I raise my hand. Nlin says. “Yes, Sera, any problem?”

I say “Nlin, you say that the humans will get “jealous” and kill. Then why has it not happened?And why WILL they get jealous? They have the height, speed, longevity and everything of the elves. The runes are not enough, are they?”

Nlin laughs. “Anything is enough, Sera. Are your mommy and daddy not proof? Some poor elf family joined in with a humans. They ran away. And that is due to lack of money. Is there a name to your family?”

I stand up angrily. He waves his hand. “No, do not answer that.” 
The whole class, who hd been muttering in agreement to what I say, all booed supportively. Nlin’s speech resolved itself to make a pompous, stupid speech, but with a solid argument. It was my turn. 

I walk up to the podium and I start by saying. “Good morning. I am the speaker for the agreement team (2 sides are agreement and disagreement.) I want you to know that what I tell you now is true. I Sera Vvildstar, present my argument.”
As I say my last name, someone screams “VVILDSTAR??? SERA YOU ARE A VVILDSTAR HALF-BLOOD?”

“QUIET!” says the teacher, looking slightly worried.
I wonder why she is worried as I calmly continue my speech. As I finish, I am given cheers and applause. I bow, as courtesy demands. I then step down. 

Speeches blur past me. I wonder if I have done the right thing. The blurring doesn’t stop as we enter the cafeteria for our lunch. The winners are announced, mine and Rory's names among them.

What seemed to be a simple distraction gave way to total discomfort. Head aching, I head into the cafeteria. I eat in silence, not noticing as my friends too join me in this uncharacteristic quiet. 
Then the screams start. 

4: Amion

Chapter 3- Amion, 1st May, 3113
Greetings, those who are reading this. My name is Amion Nox and I am a half-elf. I will describe myself to you now, so you know who you are reading about. I am tall, with straight black hair and very dark blue eyes. My skin is pale brown. My ears are pointed. I have an often sarcastic sense of humour and am pretty studious, but not completely. And no one would call me active in the class, but I certainly keep the class entertained.  Please don’t think that I spend all my time staring into a mirror. I am looking into a mirror as I write, so you know how I look. Why do I write, you ask? Typing isn’t safe anymore. Here, in Forel, they control everything. No one knows it yet, that’s all. Now I hope you do not mind if I use a few short forms and modern terminologies. It is taxing on the hand to write like this. Just that IF we get through the plan and Sirrin finds his sister, then you will be reading this as a work of fiction, back in the 21st century. And maybe it will be fictional. Maybe the elves would not dare to strike when you know something about them. But that would be a paradox, which is why... Excuse my rambling. It will not happen again.

Now I know that this mysterious prelude must’ve raised a bunch of questions. Who are they, one of you may be asking. And who is Sirrin, that may also be a question. As I can’t answer the first one yet- the answer would be too dangerous if it fell into  their hands, the second one is totally mine to answer. I will now be narrating as our soon-to-be-adventure, which still resembles the made-up adventure of kids, in present tense. The way things are happening and how it feels to be in the midst of them all.
This is merely an introduction, a prologue if you will. 
Now, to Sirrin. 

Sirrin Talis Vvildstar is descended from the extremely old family of Vvildstars, who claim human and elven blood, with magic running through their veins. The Vvildtars are the ones who saved the planet (Sirrin's Great-Grandparemts, in fact). He is descended from the Lady Of Our Freedom Struggle, Vina Vvildstar. She had, for peace, taken an elven husband. Maybe not just peace. She was quiet the warrior queen. I’ll come to her later, though.

Sirrin has lived his life with his grandparents. Not the children of Vina and Aurelian, no. His human grandparents. They still loved his mother, but they wanted him to do plastic surgery to hide his elfishness the day he turned 18. He hates that. Luckily, he is still thirteen. So despite being a Vvildstar, Sirrin is just an ordinary guy. 

He is sort of good looking, I guess. He has brown skin and dark green eyes. His hair is messy, but will stay down after a few minutes of rigorous brushing. 

And yeah, Sirrin is my best friend.

The other day, I was over to his house and he was in seventh heaven, which was why he had called me over. He informed me that he had just found his parents stuff and I was nearly as excited as he was.

Liren Vvildstar is the hero of a half-blood. He fought for unity, fought that we deserved a place in this world. His influence, his name... They all meant a lot to the world. Vina and Aurelian were alive then. They had accepted his movements, pointing out to the world that Liren was right. His own parents, however, despite being half-bloods, were furious. 
They had this weird thought that as  Vvildstars, they deserved respect.

Who could blame them? Brought up like celebrities, treated with too much respect, given too much power... Which is why Liren was a shock. The old freedom fighters were dying. They made Liren and his then-girlfriend, whose name, as I found out, was Risa, their heirs. This came as a shock. The media lapped it up, and soon enough, they had more scoop- Liren and Risa got married. 

That was all I knew as I rushed over to Sirrin's place. His grandparents looked at me disapprovingly. They thought that if we grew too close then Sirrin would have a harder time getting into his human life. A life he was desperately against.
So I ran into his house, from the front teleportation pad, where he was waiting with a big smile on his face. After being greeted with the typical serious  glare from his grandfather and declining the offer of cookies, which might have been poisoned from the expression on his Grandmother's face, we went up in a dignified way to his room. His grandparents would've hated is- no me, for helping in the exploiting another possible enemy of his normality.

I know I make them out to be nasty people, but they are just.. Humanitarians, I guess. I think that they are still scared, after living out a lot of the freedom struggle. Now if a nice, pure-blood was to go to them, they would be thinking along the lines of "What a sweet old couple!! So friendly and nice and grandparental!" As I must've said, prejudices ran wild. 

So them Sirrin and I are now looking at the chest. It says "Property of Risa Vvildstar" I'm block letters, huge  and bold. Below it were the words "Can only be handled with the key. And, desperate times call for desperate measures, by my blood." there was a even smaller note attached "Sera or Sirrin, if you are reading this and I am not here, look for the key.if you do not find it.... Blood tells all." 

Sirrin looks at me nervously. "There was no key...."    

A sinking feeling in my chest. "She must have left a clue... Let's go through it thoroughly...." I mutter. "A clue? A goddamn clue? I can't solve a riddle worth anything!! I HATE riddles! And so do you! Maybe this Sera person can solve it but not ME! Or YOU!" I look up from my musings. "Shut up, Sirrin, and face the facts. We can solve an easy riddle.. Let's just try it." 
I read it again. "Can only be handled by the key. And desperate times call for desperate measures, by my blood."  
Her blood lies in an unknown location.... Maybe she meant family?  I thought.

Then, "Sera or Siren, if you are reading this and I am not here, look for the key. If you do not find it.... Then blood tells all."
I HAD to find the key. This belong to the wife of Liren Vvildstar, blood activist....wait a minute. "Blood activist.." I muttered. 

Sirrin removes his head from his hand and looks up. "What?" he says, hope shining in his dark green eyes.

"Sirrin, your parents were Blood Activists. They did not make differences based on blood. But this message contains the words "my blood. So it is something to do with using blood..." 
Sirrin looked horrified. "Pal, are you sure you've got it right?"
"So far, yeah. But we still aren't at the solution.", I reply.

"Blood?? Well... She says that if she isn't there, her blood helps.... Sensible right? Find the blood of a missing person." he grumbles.

"That's it!! Blood of a person. A synonym for..." I nearly scream. 

"Woah mate..... You lost me the-" his eyes widened and I nod and grin. "Blood..." he gasps. "You sir, are a genius." 

I laugh. "I know, my friend. Believe me, I know."

"Shut up." he says and brings the sharp edge to his hand. "so I have to cut it? It BETTER be worth it." "there's no harm in trying." is my reply. 

Before cutting his hand and possibly opening the chest, Sirrin looks serious for a minute. A look not often seen on his face. "The others should be with us", he said. So we go teleporting to all our friends houses and then teleported to the restaurant so it looked like we were getting out for some food. To them. We apologise to the restaurant people for the wrong teleportation and we head back. 

We are a small group of six, unofficially led by me, Amion Praelius Nox.

We have Sirrin Tailis Vvildstar, tall-ish, good-looking and fairly popular.

Then there is Darian Raess Loi,  a Rocky. (Rockies are the popular nickname for the race of dwarves who aren't really short). He has Blonde hair and dark blue eyes, typical "nice" Rocky attitude and a sense of humour which clouds out everything else. 

Xim Socow is the latest member of our gang. A part-Rockie with black hair and brown eyes, his sense of humour is often sarcastic and funny. It also causes a lot of irritation to the person at the receiving end, which is mostly Irya. Loud and not-very-polite, Xim moved in from Zare, a rather famous and independent town.

The remaining two are girls. 

Merle Naé Llew is the most gorgeous girl in the school. She has golden hair, which is wavy-curly and beautiful, mysterious purple eyes. She doesn't look like she's made of porcelain, though. Her eyelashes are long, her lips are perfect, et cetera, et cetera. I had a crush on her when I was eleven, but now she is like a sister to me. All these features and more, have been forced upon me by the boys in my class. 

Any one who is rude to her gets a warning from me. And that is not pretty. She is a three-quarter elf, daughter of an elf and a half-elf. She calls herself an elf for simplicity's sake.
Then there is Irya. Irya Sandra Rose Kale, the craziest girl in our class. Poker-straight black hair, bright, creepy smile, brown eyes, often wearing makeup. And did I mention the crazy attitude? When she gets irritated, she punches. Hard, damn her. She gets along with the others, but not me. She irritates me, so we are sort of frenemies, enemy-like friends. 

So now that you know how we all look and act, we got around to walking to Sirrin's place. His grandmother smiled at the pure-blooded Darian. She offered him and Sirrin a plate of perfectly baked cookies, which had me drooling, Darian, noticing my expression, grinned, then frowned, then declined. but did not eat it. She brought us a plate of her "poisoned cookies" and we all declined, Irya hiding slightly horrified grimaces. 

We then went up in our "good influences" manner, which we had figured out years ago. Walk up the stairs talking like friends, but not causing any unnecessary noise. Tough for Irya and Xim. They are two of the loudest people ever.

We went up and I explained everything as slowly, Xim saw the note and got a shocked expression on his face. "Sera.... No way! This is creepy! guys, remember I said Sirrin reminded me if someone? Well?" We all nodded. "I remember now!! It was Sera!" 

Everyone looked confused. "You knew the girl's whose name is on the chest, the one who is most probably Sirrin's sister" rationalised Merlé.

"I don't know about the sister part, but Sera has shortish, messy, spikily styled black hair and brown skin. And.." just then Xim's phone gave an alert. He looked down on his wrist and removed the band, waiting as it reformed into a full phone. "What the bloody hell.... Guys, you need to see this." 

We crowded around. Xim had about 10 messages. One of them was given by a girl named Sera Vvildstar, which drew gasps from everyone. He opened it and the hologram started. A girl stood in front of us. Rather pretty, with messy, spiky black hair and dark green eyes,even darker that Sirrin's. Her skin was precisely same shade as Sirrin's.

 "Xim. I just found out that I am a Vvildstar child. My dad was Liren Vvildstar. Can you imagine?! Yeah and don't tell the others, they can't know since the last day of school. Don't know why. Twelve days to make an excuse!! Then 12 days for my birthday.... Hope I can celebrate your birthday with you, it's the next week after all." The girl faded from view and Merlé was the first to recover her voice, five minutes later. "Looks like you have a sister, Sirrin." she grinned. We were all still too shocked to speak.