Chapter One

    I was sitting in my comfy chair in my bedroom, reading my favorite book when it happened. Everything went black. It wasn’t a power out, I know that for a fact, but I couldn’t see a thing.

    “Mom?” My voice quavered in the dark and sounded nothing like my own.

    Then all of a sudden a low voice boomed out of the blackness, “We have done it! All the mortals are dead, we have conquered!”

    I went pale, not that anyone would be able to tell considering it was pitch black, but I thought my brothers were playing tricks on me. All the mortals dead?, please. Then again, my brothers never believed me when I talked about mortals, demi-gods, witches and wizards, they always made fun of me.

    “Jake? Brady? Is that you?” My voice pierced the darkness.

    There was no response and I was getting truly scared, no answer, even by now my mom would have heard me and made my brothers talk, but there was no noise. A thought went through my mind, what if all the mortals truly were dead? Then maybe this is where you go after life? Unless I’m not a mortal, I thought.

    Then the lights came on, and I breathed a deep sigh of relief. “Thank goodness.” I said to myself, still wondering why no one had responded.

    I got out of my chair and looked around my room, everything was the same as it had been before the blackout. Our house was still eerily silent though, so I made my way out of my room and into the rest of the house. When I reached the kitchen I screamed, and began to cry. Both of my parents were on the floor, in a crumpled position. I knelt down beside them and felt for a pulse, but there was nothing. Another horrible thought struck me, and after a good ten minutes of solid sobbing I finally got up enough courage to see if I was right. Making my way into the family room I had to stifle another shriek and collapsed next to my brothers limp bodies on the floor.

Then the phone rang, the noise sounded so strange in the complete silence, I thought I was hearing things, but when I looked at my phone, it was lit up. I was almost too scared to answer, wondering if whoever had done this to my family was coming for me next.

When I picked up the phone I said, “Hello?” and my own voice sounded foreign and strained.

“Hazel?” A voice asked on the other line.

Tears were still streaming down my cheeks, like a faucet that could never be turned off, but I let out a small sigh of relief at the sound of my best friend’s voice. “Autumn, you’ll never guess what happened here.” I said, barely whispering in case someone was listening in.

“Oh gosh, it’s probably the same thing that happened at my house.” Autumn sounded terrified, as if she were unsure of her own voice, just like me. “The lights went out, and, and when they came back on, everyone was gone. Except you.”

“You mean your family is gone too?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Autumn choked out.

“We, we need to take action, and get to the bottom of this.” I tried to sound strong but believe me I was practically dead inside. “We have to call the police and-”

“I already tried. I got a deadline, no one was there, as far as I know, it’s just us.” Autumn said.

“Well, then we need to try the rest of our friends. You call Ginny and I’ll call Christina, then we can call each other back with what we found out.” I said, trying to remain calm.

“Okay.” Autumn said, just before I hung up I could hear her on the other line telling herself to remain calm and take deep breaths, even though it was a life and death situation, I couldn’t help but silently laugh to myself, then again I was doing the same thing.

After I hung up I immediately dialed Christina, but I had to step out on our front porch so I could no longer smell the death that was lurking with four dead bodies in our house.

“Hey Christina!” I said, trying to be cheery, although I don’t think it worked.

“Hazel?” Christina asked, she did sound like she had been crying but the tears had passed and now her voice was strained.

“I am so glad you’re alive! Is your family…?” I let my voice trail off not wanting to say the words for fear of making my nightmare really come true.

“Yeah.” Christina sounded heartbroken. “But, the weird thing is, when I checked them over, there was no marks on their bodies, not that I could see anyways, I wasn’t about to go taking their clothes off. So, it’s almost as if they’re frozen, not dead, they just didn’t feel cold, I’m holding onto to that hope though.”

“Hmm, I didn’t even think about that.” I said. “I just checked to see if there was a pulse, and there wasn’t.” Then I thought of something. “Hey, did you hear that voice, when the lights went out?” I didn’t hear anything. “Christina?” I asked, hoping she hadn’t suddenly been knocked out.

“Oh, yeah, sorry. I was nodding my head, I guess you can’t see that through the phone.” Christina said.

“No I can’t, thanks for the heart attack by the way. Anyways, so he said all the mortals are dead, so why are we still alive or unfrozen?”

“I don’t know.” Christina said, pondering the thought. “Hey, is Autumn alive, and Ginny?”

“Yeah, Autumn is, she’s calling Ginny now to see if she’s alive. She’s going to call me back when she finds out. So, if she is, then we should all meet somewhere, make sure no one else but us is unfrozen, then figure out what’s going on, who did this, and what they mean by mortals.” I said.

“Agreed.” Christina said. “Okay, I’ll hang up so you can call Autumn back, then let me know where we’re going to meet.”

“Okay.” Christina hung up and I called Autumn back. “Christina’s alive, what about Ginny?”

“Alive, but her family, like ours, not so much.” Autumn said.

“Same with Christina, but she brought up an interesting point, I’ll let her share it though, we need to meet somewhere, where do you think?” I said.

“Um, the park? I don’t feel like hanging around with any of our family members right now.” Autumn said.

“I can agree to that.” I said. “Wanna call Ginny and tell her and I’ll call Christina, then we can meet in the park in half an hour, pack whatever we need from our houses. We might not be coming back, soon anyways.”

“Okay, sounds good.”

Autumn called Ginny while I called Christina and told her the plan, then when I was done I went to my room.

I grabbed a backpack out of my closet and put some extra clothes in it along with a flashlight and some food and a water bottle from our kitchen. I grabbed a lightweight sleeping bag from our hallway closet and headed back to my room where I changed into more appropriate clothes for what we might be doing, then put the last thing I thought I could need into my backpack and zipped it up, my book. I realize it’s not the most practical thing to bring, but I couldn’t help it.

When I got to the park I was five minutes early seeming as how I lived the closest to it. I stood there, waiting, for about thirty seconds before I started to feel like someone was watching me. I immediately did a three-sixty from where I was standing but saw nothing. I decided to climb a tree because it would be harder for someone to attack me up in a tree.

Then I heard a twig snap above me and a voice nearly knocked me out of my tree. “Hey Hazel.”

 

2: Chapter Two

Chapter Two

I screamed and had to grab the branch I had previously been sitting on so I wouldn’t fall to my death.

“Oops, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” The person said grabbing my hand and pulling me back onto my branch.

“Oh shut up, you live to scare people.” I said, then realizing that this person was alive and not frozen, I nearly screamed again, I had to clamp my hand over my mouth in order to stop the sound from coming out. “Caleb! You’re alive!”

“Hazel! You’re alive too!” Caleb shouted, mocking me.

“You’re telling me you didn’t have a blackout and hear, ‘All the mortals are dead’?” I said.

“Oh, that? Yeah, I was here in the park when that happened, I figured some seniors we trying to pull a prank or something, why what actually happened?”

“Hazel!”

“Ginny!” I started to climb down the tree, but Caleb grabbed my hand again.

He was serious now, “What happened during that black out?”

I glanced between Ginny and Caleb and then back again. “I’ll be down in a minute Ginny!” I shouted. “Okay, I’m really sorry.” I said.

“For what?” Caleb asked.

“Okay, here goes nothing.” I said. “After the blackout had cleared when I went out into my house, I found all of my family members unconscious on the floor, I don’t know if they’re dead or alive, or frozen or something. When I talked to Autumn, Christina, and Ginny, the same thing had happened to them too, I think everybody else is gone.”

“What? You mean while I was here, my family was being killed?” Caleb said.

“I don’t know.” I said.

He let go of my hand and I climbed down the rest way, greeted by two of my three friends on the ground. “It’s nice to see you guys.” I said, trying a smile. “It just sucks it’s under these circumstances.”

“Got that right.” Ginny said.

“What happened to your hand?” Autumn exclaimed, pointing to the hand that I had used to grab the tree branch.

“It’s just a little scratch.” I said, shrugging it off. “Now we-”

“It’s not a scratch, it’s a deep cut.” Autumn said, setting her backpack on the ground and pulling out a first aid kit. She grabbed my hand and put some medicine on it, making it sting. I sucked in a breath trying not to scream in pain. Autumn then wrapped a bandage around my hand.

“Thanks.” I said, when she was done. “I hadn’t even thought to bring a first aid kit.”

“No problem.” She said, putting the kit back in her backpack and zipping it up.

“Has anyone seen Christina?” Ginny asked, breaking the silence.

“No, I talked to her on the phone, but that’s it.” I said, looking around to see if she was coming down the street, she wasn’t. “I’m sure she’ll be here soon.” I said. “We can sit and wait until she does.” I continued, gesturing to a picnic table.

“Good idea.” Caleb said, coming up behind me and nearly making me scream again.

“Why do you keep doing that?” I asked, turning on him.

“Because he likes you.” Ginny said, smiling, making both Caleb and I blush.

We made our way over to a picnic table and caught each other up on what had been going on in our lives, not mentioning the weird apocalypse.

“Hey guys!” Christina said, joining us a few minutes later. “Look who I found!” She said excitedly, pulling a scared looking Jordan with her. “He’s alive too!” She said, practically jumping up and down. Then her eyes landed on Caleb, “I see that’s alive too.”

I glared at her. Sure, Caleb can be totally annoying sometimes, but he can always make you smile. Christina didn’t like him though because he had played a prank on her once, a minor little, harmless prank, and now she hates his guts for the rest of her life. I don’t care though, I still like him, he’s still nice.

“Yes, Caleb is alive, it’s great isn’t it?” I said, forcing a smile.

“Fantastic.” Christina said sarcastically.

It was quiet for a while more, all of us staring at one another when Autumn finally broke the silence. “Should we start talking about the problem at hand now?”

We all agreed, and we also agreed we should do it up a big tree, because we all felt as if someone, or something, were watching us.

“So, we’re all going to agree not to assume that our family members are dead right? We’re just going to hope for the best and say they’re frozen?” I said.

“Yeah, I would prefer not to think of all my family members laying dead on the floor of my house, oozing blood and guts and us just sitting here talking about it.” Christina said.

We all stared at her. “Nice.” I muttered.

“So, what do you guys think the voice meant by mortals? I mean, there’s six of us here, all alive or unfrozen or whatever, and I don’t know about you guys, but I tried, and I don’t have any magical abilities, I’m completely mortal.” Ginny said.

“Same here, one hundred percent mortal.” Autumn said. Everyone agreed that they were mortal and had no idea why they were unfrozen.

Then a thought occurred to Autumn. “Guys, were you reading a book about mortals and superbeings when the power went out by chance?”

“Yeah, I was.” I said. ‘In my room.” I added.

“I was reading on my bed while watching Supernatural.” Christina said. “Epic multi-tasker.”

“I was reading the Heroes of Olympus series in my living room.” Ginny offered.

“I was reading the second Harry Potter because Christina is making me.” Jordan, looking glum.

“Well, you should be reading it.” Autumn said. “I was reading too, so I wonder if it has something to do with that. What about you Caleb, were you reading?”

“Please, me, read? You’ve got to be losing your mind.” Caleb said, not meeting any of their eyes.

“You’re lying, you’re trying too hard to cover up.” I said, staring at him. “What were you reading?”

“Fine. I was reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.” Caleb admitted.

“I knew it! That’s my favorite book!” I exclaimed, nearly falling off of my branch from sheer excitement.

“Okay, so we were all reading, about mortals and superbeings, or something like that. So, maybe we weren’t frozen because we were prepared, we all knew about mortals and superbeings, perhaps we’re the only ones that truly believe in them.” Autumn explained. “It’s the only thing I can come up with for now.” She shrugged.

“That’s not a bad idea.” I said, getting an idea. I rummaged through my backpack and pulled out my book. I blushed a little. “I couldn’t help but bring it.” I said.

“I brought mine too.” Christina, Autumn, and Ginny all said at the same time, making everyone laugh.

We all opened our books at the same time and pieces of paper fell into each of our laps, making all of our mouths drop open. We each picked up our pieces of folded paper and, as if in a trance, unfolded them. Three of ours, mine, Autumn’s, and Ginny’s, contained what looked like random lines, but Christina’s had a riddle.

“What does it say?” Ginny asked, trying to peer over Christina’s shoulder, which is a hard thing to do in a tree.

Christina cleared her throat and read:

 

The object out of a book,

will lead you to what you desire.

Mound and take a look,

for it will lead you to a mire.

Under which you must seek,

for that is the aperture.

Even though it may begin meek,

it will become an adventure.

Saving your kind,

finding justification.

It will require a great mind,

while giving great trepidation.

 

“Huh?” Jordan asked. “I didn’t understand half of those words.”

“Well, what’s the first line? An object out of a book? Well, that parts easy. It’s obviously talking about either the riddle or the weird squiggly lines. They will lead to what we desire. Which is finding out who did this and why and why we aren’t considered mortal.” I said, wishing I could pace back and forth.

“Yeah, that makes sense, but mound and take a look?” Ginny asked.

“Hmmm.” I said, thinking.

“Mound, means kind of like stack or heap, stack and take a look.” Autumn said. This didn’t seem to help anyone, then Autumn snapped her fingers and grabbed the three other pieces of paper. She began putting one on top of the others, trying different orders.

“Autumn! You’re brilliant!” I said, watching her, amazed when she finally pulled away and all the little things on the top of the pages that had previously looked like random lines made out a word. Two words actually.

“Little Chute.” Jordan said, staring at the page. “So, it’s a map of our village, Little Chute, but nothing is labeled, so it’s still basically a bunch of random lines still.”

“Well, we can make out some things.” Christina started. “Like that’s the new windmill they’re starting on.” She said, pointing to what looked like a construction site in downtown Little Chute.

“Well, let’s set this aside for now, and focus on the rest of the riddle, after all, it’s not like the map tells us where to go.” Ginny said, handing the map to Caleb so he could set it aside.

“Okay, next line is, for it will lead you to a mire.” Christina read. “Right, what’s a mire?”

“It’s like a sort of bog or swamp.” Autumn explained.

“Well, there’s no bogs or swamps in Little Chute, at least not that I’m aware of.” Jordan said, looking disappointed.

“Well, it doesn’t have to be a swamp, just something like it.” Autumn said.

“There’s nothing even close to a swamp in Little Chute!” Jordan said.

“Actually, there is.” Caleb interjected, still holding the map. “There’s the retention pond by Buchanan.”

“Yes!” I exclaimed. “That’s right! Good job!” He handed the map back to Ginny and we all looked at it, sure enough there was a blob off to one side of Buchanan Street.

“Okay, so we have it down to the retention pond, but what does the retention pond have to do with this?” Ginny asked, staring at the map.

“The next line in the riddle is, under which you must seek, which I’m afraid to say, I think means that we have to go under the surface of the retention pond.” Christina said.

“You mean we have to go in that thing? I’m pretty sure it’s never been cleaned, and I’ve heard there’s fish in there, dead and alive.” I said, my stomach beginning to churn at the very thought of even taking one step in there.

“I don’t know for sure, the next line talks about some aperture being under there, maybe we don’t need the aperture?” Christina offered. “What is an aperture anyways?”

“It’s like a doorway, or an entrance, like an opening. So, if it’s not something we collect, which it isn’t, we probably do need it.” Autumn said, she was clearly not excited about the idea either.

“So we have to go through the aperture, under the retention pond, for what again?” Ginny asked.

“So we can find what we desire.” I said, reciting the riddle. “What was the rest of it?”

“It just talks about the journey once we’re there, saying it will be meek at first, but turn into an adventure, and it will require a great mind and cause great trepidation, yahta yahta yahta.” Christina said.

“Okay, so let’s go to the retention pond.” Caleb said, getting ready to climb down the tree.

“Wait, are we actually going?” Christina said.

“Well, yeah, I mean it’s like we’re going to leave our family members and everyone else here like this, are we? While we continue to live our lives?” I said, eyeing her expectantly.

“I guess not.” She mumbled, and we all began making our way down the tree and back to the safety of the ground.

3: Chapter Three

Chapter Three

    As we walked through the village of Little Chute to the retention was were sure inspect the houses and buildings from the outside just to see if there was any moment at all. As far as we could tell, each and every house was dead silent. Finally we made it.

“So, who wants to go first?” Ginny asked. We were all standing around the edge of the retention pond staring at the green, mucky water.

    Everyone looked at one another, nudging the person standing next to them. Until finally, Caleb sighed. “I’ll go.”

    Everyone’s heads turned and swiveled toward him, eyes wide. “You’re volunteering to go into that?” I asked.

    “Well, someone has to, and everybody looks like they’d only do it when a monster was chasing them and it was the only place to hide.” Caleb said. He got a little closer to the water, and then took his shirt off and stuffed it into the backpack he had picked up at his house on the way here. “Wish me luck.” He said, and dived into what everyone assumed was ice cold water.

    They all waited. Waiting for a head to pop to up, or some bubbles or really anything, but they waited for a good ten minutes before anything happened.

    “There.” Ginny said, pointing to a ripple in the water.

    Suddenly, not one, but two heads appeared, breaking the surface of the water.

    The second head turned to Caleb. “You weren’t kidding there really are mortals left here, aren’t there? And you’re one of them.” Caleb nodded. “Please, you must come with us, and you must hurry.” The guy said, turning to the rest of us and gesturing for us to follow him.

    We all reluctantly picked up our stuff, and Jordan grabbed Caleb’s backpack, and we all waded into the water, shivering as we went.

    When we reached the middle of the pond where we met the other man and Caleb, the man looked at us. “Ready?” He asked.

    We all nodded hesitantly, then dove under the surface of the cool water at the same time. We swam forward a bit, and then I realized where we were going, we were headed towards a vent looking thing that was hanging open. We swam through the dark hole and couldn’t see anything through the pitch black for a little bit, until a burst of sunlight lit up new cleaner water.

    We broke through the surface of the foreign water and fresh air caught in my throat. I suddenly realized I had been holding my breath for a long time, all of us had. Once everyone’s heads had popped above the surface, the man spread his arms wide and motioned to the land around them, “Welcome to Ekon!”

    We all looked around in amazement. There were beautiful rolling hills and the sky was a perfect, cloudless, mass of blue. There were men and women everywhere, most of them doing magic. Then my eyes widen in amazement as a centaur came up to the edge of the river which we were in and gave us his hand to help us out. There were small homes and big houses everywhere. Looking straight forward you could see a beautiful mountain off in the distance, dividing two separate kingdoms. On one side, the side that we were standing on, there was an amazing castle, from the top of which you could see the entire land, while on the opposite side of the mountain lay another a castle, a dark one, looming over dead and ash-filled land.

    The centaur watched us for a minute, then spoke. “We welcome you to the land of Ekon, named after our great ruler, but we must not stay here for it would be of great danger to you. I shall lead you and a small army across the land to Ekon’s castle, but that will not happen in today’s time. We all have a lot of explaining to do, so please follow me.”

    “I can show them around, Barnett.” The guy who had come out of the water with Caleb said. “I know you’re busy and I wouldn’t mind getting to know them better.” He said, winking at Ginny, who began blushing profusely.

    “Fine, just get it done.” Barnett said, walking away on his four feet.

    “Sorry, about him.” The guy apologized. “We’re all very stressed right now, about what’s going on between our two lands.” He gestured to the dark side in the distance by the mountain. “My name’s Max by the way, Max Potter.” Max appeared to be our age, tall though. He had a buzz cut of brown hair and his brown eyes sparkled, just like his white teeth. He looked like he could be stern when he wanted, but otherwise a free spirit. Perfect for Ginny.

    “Nice to meet you.” Ginny said. Her eyes locked on his and they stared at each other for a while, Christina breaking the gaze by snapping her fingers in front of Ginny’s face. She blushed some more and now Max’s perfectly tanned face was going red as well.

    “Well, if you will please follow me we need to go to our safe house. It is slightly bigger than these here, that we are passing but it’s only for temporary guests.” Max said, leading us up a hill. When we got to the top we looked down and there was a big mansion below us that resembled the white house, just not quite as big.

    “This way.” Max said, leading us down the hill on a path that wound around it. When we reached the mansion’s front doors Max put his hand against a high tech pad next to the door and it scanned his hand. When it was done a mechanic voice rang out, “You are allowed to enter, Max Potter,” and the door swung open to admit us.

    The mansion was beautiful. When we first walked in we found ourselves in the entrance hall and on either side of us were two marble staircases. “Up on the right is the girls corridor, the left the boys. There is two bathrooms on each side and a bedroom for each of you.” Max said. “Please select a bedroom and dry yourselves off, we will back down here in, say, an hour? Then we will have dinner and go over a few things, afterwhich you are free to roam as you wish, just stay in or around the mansion for now.” Max said. All of us broke apart and went our separate ways, boys to the left and girls to the right.

    “This place is amazing.” Autumn breathed, looking around at everything as we made our way through the hall. We all silently agreed, nodding our heads.

    “Looks like this is the first bedroom.” Christina said, opening a door. “Who wants it?”

    “You can have it.” Ginny said, as we walked a few steps down the hall and came across another bedroom and a bathroom.

    “Ginny you can have this one.” I said, opening the bedroom door.

    “Okay!” She said, and skipped back into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

    Autumn and I walked down a little further and found two bedrooms across from each other with a bathroom on the other side. We each took a bedroom and went inside.

    Once inside my own room, I set my backpack down on the floor next to a queen sized bed. I then went over to a window and opened it, breathing in the fresh air. That’s when I realized how bad I smelled.

    So I grabbed a change of clothes from my backpack and went into the nearest bathroom. I took a half hour shower which felt really good because I was still really confused, plus it took a long time to get the smell of the retention pond out of my hair, not to mention the pieces of seaweed that had somehow ended up in there.

    When I got out of the shower I put on some yoga pants, a t-shirt, and my sweatshirt. When I came out of my stall, Autumn was standing in front of a mirror trying to comb out her sopping wet hair.

    “Hey Hazel.” She said through gritted teeth, trying to get out a particularly hard knot.

    “Hey.” I said, beginning to comb through my own hair.

    It took me a few minutes and when I was done I threw it into a ponytail. “Do you think we have to dress up for this?” Autumn asked.

    “If we do, I didn’t pack anything special.” I said, pulling on purple fluffy socks that allowed me to glide along the floor.

    “Didn’t you see the stuff we have in our closets?” Autumn asked.

    “No I figured they’d be empty. Why?” I asked.

    “They’re filled with clothes, gowns, simple dresses, everyday clothes, fighting outfits, everything.” Autumn said.

    “Hmm. I’ll have to take a look at it, I guess if they provide us with nice clothes, we should wear nice clothes, but I do know I’m not a wearing a ball gown.” I said.

    “Fine, but you will wear some kind of dress right, just not a ball gown? I’ll wear one if you wear one.” Autumn said.

    “Fine, but not a ball gown.” I said.

 

4: Chapter Four

Chapter Four

    I left the bathroom to go through the clothes in my closet, which did seem to have every kind of outfit in it. I picked out a knee length, long-sleeved light blue dress, with a belt around the waist, it was plain and simple, but I already regretted agreeing to wear it. I went back to the bathroom to blow dry my hair, and Autumn was gone.

    I blow dried my hair and put it back up into a nicer ponytail, then used a curling iron to curl the ends, which is something that’s totally new to me. Then I looked at the clock and realized I needed to be downstairs in five minutes. I went back to my room and put on some shoes, silver sandals and then went downstairs to the entrance hall. Ginny was already there, wearing a light green, long flowing dress that went down to her ankles. Her hair was tied up in a braided bun. She was talking to Max who was wearing a tuxedo so I sat down on the opposite side of the room so I didn’t disturb them.

    When Christina came down the stairs I saw her hair was down around her shoulders and she was wearing a plain black dress that went a little past her knees. Then Jordan came down the boys staircase wearing a dark blue dress shirt and black dress pants. He sat down next to Christina and they started talking.

    “You should really tuck that in.” I heard Christina say, motioning to Jordan’s untucked shirt. He did, but then immediately untucked it again, it looked better that way.

    Then Caleb came down from the boys side and sat down next to me, wearing a purple dress shirt that was tucked into his black dress pants, with his brown hair combed back.

    “Is everyone ready?” Max asked, looking at all of us sitting around talking.

    “Autumn is still coming, I’m sure she’ll be here in a second.” I said, and everyone turned back to their conversations. I could feel Caleb staring at me and my face went bright red. Then Autumn came down the stairs on the girl’s side.

    She was wearing a beautiful knee length dress with lace on top and the bottom half a pink skirt. Her hair was braided off to the side like Katniss would wear and her shoes were pink flats.

    “You look very nice.” I said, and we all headed into one of the many rooms branching off the entrance hall.

    There was a long table set with eight places. Max took a seat on the end and Ginny sat next to him. Next to her was Caleb, and then me. Across from me was Autumn, next to her Jordan, then Christina. The other end seat was empty.

    “Is someone else going to be joining us?” Autumn asked politely.

    “Yes, one of my friends-” Max began.

    Just then a handsome guy, about 17, burst into the room. His brown eyes were hidden beneath long wavy brown hair and Autumn stared at him as he quickly took the seat opposite Max. He was wearing a red dress shirt and a black tie.

    “Sorry, I’m late, very important business.” He said. “Max, you know what I’m talking about.” Then he turned to Autumn. “I’m Matt, and you are?” He said, holding out his hand.

    “Autumn.” She said, blushing. Matt took her hand and instead of shaking it, kissed it, causing Autumn to go as pink as her dress.

    “It’s a pleasure to meet you.” He said.

    “Well, now that everyone is here, the feast may begin. Matt, would you please do the honors?” Max said.

    Matt smiled at Autumn and waved his hand, causing platters piled high with food to fill the table. All of us began clapping, as we’d never seen magic before, and then dug into our food, no one acting as the lady or gentlemen we were dressed as.

 

    After the feast was over, Max and Matt led us out of the dining room, up a set of stairs, and into a room with a huge screen on the wall. It looked like the same kind of screen used in a movie theater, but the seats were more comfortable and there was a computer below the screen. All of us took a seat in the chairs lined up before the screen and Matt and Max took seats at the computer.

    “These are nicer chairs than what you get at the movies.” Autumn said, practically reading my mind.

    “Except no cupholders.” Matt said, making Autumn smile.

    Then Max pulled a file up on the computer and the same thing happened on the big screen. When he clicked to open the file, six separate documents came up. You could only see the title of each document. Christina Ryder, Ginny Lawrence, Jordan Fauth, Autumn Stormcastor, Caleb Lecar, and Hazel Evans. All of our names.

    “You guys have files on us?” Jordan asked in disbelief.

    “Can you say stalker?” Christina muttered under her breath, making Jordan and I laugh.

    Matt and Max didn’t seem to hear her, they just turned to each other and started talking in hushed whispers. “You mean, this is them? The people from the prophecy? They’re just kids.” Max said.

    “Granted, so are we.” Matt replied.

    “We’re a year older than them.” Max said.

    “That doesn’t make us adults.” Matt argued back.

    “Closer to adults than them.” Max said, jerking his finger behind himself and pointing to us.

    “You guys realize we can hear you, right?” Christina said, a smirk spreading across her face.

    They looked a little embarrassed, but quickly got over it. “Sorry.” Max apologized. “Let us explain.” He took a deep breath.

    “We’re waiting…” Christina sighed.

    Max glared at her. “In our land, there is an old prophecy. It’s so old no one knows exactly what it says, no one but the king anyways. But we all know, it talks about six people, two boys, four girls, that will one day come to our land for an unknown reason, and they will be able to help us reach our goal.”

    Here Matt clicked on the first file, Caleb’s. His name was across the top and a picture of him was below it. He was standing in his front yard, wearing a dorky t-shirt and jeans. His brown hair was wild as if he’d just gotten out of bed even though it was mid afternoon. His brown eyes sparkled in the sunlight and he wore the same big smile he always did. I found myself staring at his file and shook my head as if to clear my mind so I could look at the rest of it. Beneath his picture was paragraph after paragraph of information about him.

    “I personally don’t think he’s that interesting, I could see having one paragraph about him, but that many, no way.” Christina whispered to me. I glared at her.

    Then I saw something that I hadn’t caught before, directly below his name, were the words ‘The Brave’. Before I could ask what that meant, Caleb blurted out what I had been thinking. “‘The Brave’? What is that supposed to mean?”

    “Each of you has their own, nickname, if you will, which tells a bit about their personality, you are brave apparently, so you’re The Brave.” Matt explained, then clicked on the next file, Autumn’s.

    Autumn Stormcastor, was across the top of the document, a picture of her with her blonde hair back in a braid, blue eyes gleaming like the ocean, and a huge smile across her face. Again paragraphs of information, and another nickname, The Wise.

    I looked back at Autumn in the row behind me and I saw her smiling trying to hide how proud she was that she had earned that nickname.

    Next they clicked on Christina’s file. Below her name came up a picture of her wearing a black skirt, which she always said it was easier to fight in a skirt, a black tank top and a jean jacket. Her brown hair was in a Katniss braid and her brown eyes were as wide as her smile. Below her name were the words, The Fearless.

    Next came Ginny’s file and it had a picture of her and her flaming red hair under her name Ginny Lawrence. She was swinging on a swing in the park and her red hair was waving away behind her. You couldn’t see her brown eyes because they were closed, but her smile was calm and peaceful. Paragraphs of information about her were below her picture just like all the others and the name The Adventurous, was below her real name.

    Jordan’s file was opened next, Jordan Fauth in big letters across the top with a picture of him below. He was wearing a t-shirt and his brilliant blue eyes looked serious. He wore a half smile across his face. His nickname seemed to fit his picture, The Understanding.

    Finally came my file. I’m not entirely sure why, but I felt kind of nervous and my hands began trembling. Maybe I was scared someone would read the paragraphs under my name and find out personal information about me, I don’t know. So when the name Hazel Evans popped up on the screen, I could hardly stand to look at my picture. My brown hair was down around my shoulders and my brown eyes shown. I had a huge smile on my face and I had a big book sitting on my lap. Then, nervously I looked under my real name, at my nickname, and my eyes widen. I jumped out of my seat. “The Logical?!” I screamed. “Everyone else gets, The Wise, or The Brave, or The Fearless, and I get The Logical?!”

    I sat back down and felt defeated, then embarrassed at my outburst, but I didn’t really care. That’s how people would describe my personality, as logical?

    Then Caleb leaned in next to me and said, “I would have said The Beautiful.” This made me blush and smile, making me a feel a bit better, but next to me Christina rolled her eyes.

    The Logical? I continued thinking. The Freaking Logical?

    Then Max broke my thoughts, still staring at me as if I’d suddenly shout out again, he said, “Anyways, we think you guys are the six people from the prophecy. I mean, two guys, four girls. Each with a special name, it fits what we know.”

    “Yeah, but, we don’t have any special powers or anything, we’re still mortals, so why aren’t we dead like the others? And who killed the others?” Autumn asked.

    “Well, that would be the group of bad wizards. Kind of like in Harry Potter, where they have the Death Eaters that are Voldemort’s followers, well there’s a group of bad wizards who follow around the evil lord, Diomedes. They’re not just wizards either. They have the same people and creatures as us. Wizards, centaurs, satyrs, anything you can think of.” Matt explained. “As for why you weren’t killed by them, or frozen, we can only assume. We believe it’s because you’re Aralt’s Army.”

    “Huh?” Everyone looked confused and broke out into a bunch of questions all at once. ‘Who’s Aralt?’, ‘What’s Aralt’s Army?’, ‘Why do you think we’re part of whatever-his-face-is’s army?’

    “Calm down! Calm down everyone!” Max shouted, then put his fingers in his mouth to whistle. That got everyone quiet. “Please, we will answer all your questions, starting with the first one I heard. Aralt is the maker/founder of this land. His son, Ekon, took over this land when Aralt died, but before he passed away at age 200 and something, he made his prophecy, the prophecy, the one you’re in, that’s called Aralt’s prophecy. When people heard this prophecy they began calling the mysterious six people in it, Aralt’s Army, because they are the ones who are supposed to defeat the evil lord Diomedes, make our land safe once more, and avenge Aralt.” Max explained.

    “You are Aralt’s Army.” Matt said, thinking he was clearing things up but really making us break out into mass confusion.

5: Chapter Five

Chapter Five

    “Um, I have a question.” I said, raising my hand as if I were in school and making myself heard over the commotion.

    “Yes, that’s clear by your hand waving in the air.” Max said, annoyed.

    I looked back at Ginny and whispered, “I honestly don’t know what you see in him. He acts like a stern teacher and always has his undies in a twist.” Before she could say anything back though, I turned back to Professor Grumpy Pants. “Yes, sir, um I was wondering if I could get out of here? See, it has been a terribly long day and it continues to get longer so I would like to get out of this death trap you call a dress, get into some clothes that don’t feel like torture devices, and crawl in bed. Can I please do that?” I said, batting my eyes all innocent like.

    “Actually, we aren’t done here we still have to-”

    I didn’t let him finish his sentence. “Great! Bye!” I said with a fake cheery tone and got up and left. I went straight back to my room, okay not straight back, I may have stopped in the kitchen off the dining room and grabbed a fresh baked cookie, but after that I was off to my room. I closed the door and immediately switched into the clothes I had put on earlier. Sweatpants, a t-shirt, a sweatshirt, and my fluffy purple socks.

    As I looked around my room in dismay I found myself laughing. My day had been so horrible and long, I had possibly lost my family and every other normal human being besides my five closest friends and, I was sitting here actually disappointed that my temporary room in a foreign land made up of wizards and centaurs was carpeted so I couldn’t glide around on the floors! Notify the press, I have officially lost my marbles!

    Then a knock on the door took me out of my trance. I went to open it expecting to see Autumn or Professor Grumpy Pants standing on the other side but instead it was Caleb. Wait, Caleb?

    “Hey.” He said, shaking his head to the side to get some of his brown hair out of his eyes.

    I cringed. “Don’t do that.” I said.

    “Why?” He asked, truly curious.

    “It makes you look like Justin Bieber, no one likes Justin Beaver.” I said.

    “Did you just say beaver?”

    “Yup. Am I wrong?” I asked.

    He answered that with a smile. “Anyways I came to see if you’d like to take a walk with me?” He asked, still smiling.

    Whoa, hold up! Did Caleb, Caleb Lecar, the guy who has been annoying everyone and scaring the crap out of me since second grade just ask me to take a walk with him?

    “Sure, that sounds like fun.” I said.

    I threw on some shoes and we went out the front doors of the mansion and walked around to the back where they had some nice trees we could sit under.

“Guess it’s not much of a walk, more like a sit.” Caleb joked.

“Yeah.” I said, a smile spreading across my face, then disappearing within seconds at the thought of my family at home on the cold floor. “Can I ask you something? This might sound weird, but was it shocking to see your family unconscious on the floor, even though I told you what would had happened?”

“Yeah, it was still a big shock, I guess a part of me was hoping you were kidding or something even though you’d never kid about something like that. I just didn’t want it to be true.” Caleb sighed.

“Yeah, I can understand that.” I sighed too, reflecting back on the day.

“This whole day has just given me such mixed emotions.” Caleb said. “Sadness of course, but also the want to go find that evil guy Diomedes and just punch him in the face. I mean, he can’t be that far and…” He let his voice trail off.

“You aren’t seriously thinking of doing that, are you?” I asked.

“Well, I don’t know. I seriously want to, maybe when we go to defeat that guy I will. It just seems like he’s so close it would be so easy.” Caleb said and all I could do was nod my agreement.

“Hey, I have an idea that should take our minds off things, let’s go.” I said, and a sly grin slid across my face. I took his hand pulled him to his feet, leading him back to the mansion.

When we got back into the entrance hall I stopped, grinning evilly to the floor, the shiny, hardwood floor. “I don’t suppose you brought fluffy socks with you, huh?” I asked.

    “Never leave home without them.” He said, his smile growing as he took off his shoes to reveal multi-colored fluffy socks.

    “Not bad.” I said. Then I took a step forward further out into the hall and started slipping around on the floor, nearly falling on my face five times within the first two seconds. I couldn’t help myself but laugh, and soon enough we were joined by Christina, Autumn, Ginny, and Jordan too. Strangely enough all of us had put ‘fluffy socks’ high on our packing list, and of course Jordan had his ipod, which made for some killer beats as we ‘danced’ our way around the hall.

    All I can say is two things. 1.) It felt good to laugh and smile and forget the worries of the day. 2.) It’s a darn good thing we’re the only people staying in this place, because I think if we had neighbors, well, we wouldn’t have neighbors.

    Anyways we ended up ‘dancing’ around the halls of the place until about one o’clock in the morning. Even Professor Grumpy Pants had loosened up a bit and started dancing with Ginny, which made her so happy, and Autumn probably had the night of her life dancing around with Mr. Handsome a.k.a Matt. But when we did turn in I couldn’t help but feel a bit relieved, I realized as I was trying to fall asleep that this night was one of the best nights ever, I think the only thing that would have made it better would be knowing my family was alive and well. That’s when I decided to let it all go and just cry. And let me tell you, it felt fantastic.

    

 

    I was woke up in the middle night to someone shaking my shoulder, I looked up and saw Ginny’s worried eyes staring down at me.

    I was sweating like crazy and had momentarily forgotten the horrible nightmare I had just had.

    “What the heck?” Ginny asked. “I heard you screaming and came running.”

    “Nightmare.” I replied simply, my voice shaking. “About that guy, Diomedes, he killed my family, and all of you guys too. Except instead of doing it in a blackout, like he did in real life, he tied you up and killed you with a sword, making me watch.” I panted, out of breath.

    “Okay, just try to go back to sleep okay? None of that happened.” Ginny said, trying to comfort me, I just nodded and rolled back over on my side, as soon as she heard my breathing go back to normal, she let herself out and went back to her own room.

    

 

    The next morning I woke up and nearly forgotten about my nightmare, but someone was pounding on my door. When I looked at the clock on the wall I groaned, 6:30. I sleepily got out of bed to go open the door, seriously hating whoever it was.

    When I pulled open the door Ginny was standing on the other side. “Hi!” She said, cheerily, practically bouncing off the walls.

    “You do understand it’s 6:30 in the morning, right?” I asked, wiping the sleep out of my eyes.

    “Yeah, I know! I was just going around telling everyone that we have to eat breakfast and then start training and stuff, and then there’s a few more things Max and Matt want to tell us.” Ginny said.

    “Okay, thanks. I’ll be down in a bit.” I said, and watched her skip across the hall to Autumn’s room. She must really like Max, I haven’t seen her that happy in a while. I closed the door and walked over to my closet, the good thing about training, is that I don’t have to worry about wearing a dress. Although, I’m not exactly sure of what you wear when you train.

    I ended up settling for pretty much the same thing Katniss wears in the Hunger Games, when she’s not in the arena that is. I pulled on jeggings, a black t-shirt, and a leather jacket, then put my hair in a side braid, might as well complete the Katniss look, right?

    Then I went downstairs to the dining room and took a seat at the table. Max was sitting in the same spot as the previous night, Ginny sitting to his right, talking. On the other side of the table Christina and Jordan were in deep conversation about music and their favorite bands.

    Next came in Autumn and Matt and Matt pulled out Autumn’s seat for her before taking his place at the end of the table.

    “Okay, now we’re just waiting for Caleb, right?” Max asked, looking at all of them.

    “Actually, when I went to tell Caleb that we would be eating breakfast soon, he wasn’t in his room, I figured you had already told him.” Matt said.

    “No, it was your job to tell the boys.” Max said.

    “I know, and I told Jordan, but Caleb wasn’t there, that’s why I thought you had already told him.” Matt said.

    “So, he’s gone?” I asked, a sick feeling churning in my stomach.

    “Actually, I told Caleb breakfast was ready, I wasn’t sure if you wanted me just telling the girls or everyone, so I told the boys too.” Ginny said.

    “And he was in his room when you told him?” Matt asked.

    “Yeah, we had a small conversation and he said he’d be down in a bit.” Ginny said.

    “But he’s not, and he’s not in his room either.” I said.

    “That’s not good.” Max said, and I shot him glare.

    “Thanks Captain Obvious.”

    “We should split up, make a search party, he couldn’t be far if he was in his room this morning, for all we know he went outside to get some fresh air.” Ginny said, trying to keep calm.

    “I agree.” Autumn said.

    Then a thought hit me. “He didn’t go outside to get some fresh air.” I said. “He went to find Diomedes.”