Young Writers Society

"The world would be a lot less interesting without people like them," Apophis agreed.

Kellach nodded.

Staring up, Kellach admired the stars that began to appear in the black and blue sky. Not constellations he recognized, but he'd been expecting that.

"Do you want to go to sleep?" he said, not pulling his eyes away from the pinpricks of light that littered the sky over his head, or the single, huge moon that had started to rise. When the last of the sunlight had slipped past the horizon, he'd had a hard time seeing anything in front of his face, so at least the moon was there to help out.

Apophis looked around the group.

Ari was curled up against her shadow, hugging Zion close to her. He knew close to nothing on how sentient shadows worked - and if they even needed sleep - but, regardless, they seemed content with it. Liz and Aquarius were in a similar position a short distance away. Even Pride seemed asleep. Apophis couldn't remember if homunculi like him could sleep or not, but he was certainly doing a good job of faking it if he wasn't able to.

"Sleep sounds like a good idea," he agreed.

Yawning and stretching, paw still gripping onto Aegeas's, Kellach closed his eyes.

"Night, Apophis," he said.

Apophis gave a yawn of his own.

"Night, Kellach," he replied.

And then he fell asleep.

"Mal?"

The lion blinked a couple times, mumbling and shifting his head to the right. He felt something on his shoulders, but he wasn't nearly awake to make anything of it.

"Mal?"

Ugh, he had to be imagining that. Maybe his ears weren't working right - he could hear a faint ringing in the background. He just wanted to go back to sleep.

"Mal."

That voice was a little too close for comfort. "What?" the lion growled, opening his eyes. With the moon almost over his head, combined with the enormous number of stars that littered the sky, it didn't take him too long to focus on the panther who had set his paws on Mal's shoulders.

"Mal, something's wrong," Lunis whispered. The panther sounded genuinely scared; his paws were even shaking a little bit.

Taking the hint, Mal dropped his voice down. "What?" Mal whispered.

Lunis pulled Mal into a sitting position and gestured around. The lion quickly spotted the beams of blue light, not far from the rest of the group. The lights swayed back and forth over the rocky ground, making a quiet buzzing sound.

"What are those?" Mal hissed.

"I don't know!" Lunis whispered, voice becoming a little more frantic. "I woke up and I saw those things, so I went to check. It's almost like they're looking for something? And I'm not sure what, but they're getting closer."

Mal groaned. "Ugh, alright," he said, looking over at Apophis. "I don't want everyone to wake up and freak out - that'll definitely give us away. Apophis seems like he's pretty used to being in a desert, and his magic's worked well so far, so go wake him up and let's see if we can't get a little closer to those things."

The panther obliged, crawling over to Apophis and nudging him.

He opened his eyes.

Gods didn't need to sleep, technically, but he liked doing it. Maybe it was because his body knew it was supposed to be mimicking something mortal - whether it be a snake or a human. But the one thing it didn't mimic was the drowsiness; he was wide awake when it came time to open his eyes.

"What's wrong?" he quietly asked, sensing the anxiousness of the other two awake.

Or the two he thought were the only ones awake.

A second after the question was asked, two more revealed that they hadn't been as asleep as they had appeared to be: Pride sat up and looked at Apophis and Lunis, and Zion slipped out of Ari's grasp to appear beside Mal.

So much for not waking everyone up.

Stifling a scream over the shadow who popped up next to him, Mal took a couple deep breaths before looking at the rest of the group. "There's something weird things flying around here," the lion whispered, gesturing to the lights behind him. "I want to sneak up to them and get a good look at what they are. Anyone got a problem with that?"

"I don't," Pride said.

"I don't either," Zion agreed. They glanced back at the others with them - Ari was still asleep, though she was bound to realize that Zion was gone the moment she noticed - awake or asleep - that she wasn't cuddling anything. A short distance away, Liz was cuddling with Aquarius close to her; something told them the two would be able to sleep through the conversation if no one woke them up. "Should we wake them up?"

"It's your call, since I can't really stop you, but I think it's going to be a lot harder for everyone to sneak up on them," Mal said.

"We shouldn't wake them up," Pride said.

"I agree," Apophis added, glancing over at the homunculus. "We can't risk being discovered, and even the current size of our group might be too much."

A handful of moments passed.

"I'll stay behind," Zion offered. "I can't leave Ari, and I'm sure the others would like an explanation if they wake up and see that you're gone."

The lion shrugged. "Works for me," Mal said, nodding in Apophis's direction. "As long as we've got someone who can work with darkness, we should be good to go."

"And I can keep an eye on the smart guy," said the panther, coming up from behind and scooping up Mal. The lion wanted to growl out a complaint, but chances were it'd be a bit too loud, and Mal didn't exactly mind being close to someone who could fight his way out of trouble.

"Sure," said Mal, looking away from the group and trying to ignore how much his cheeks burned at being carried like a toy. "Let's go find some rocks to hide behind."

Pride and Apophis nodded. Apophis was tempted to pick up Pride like he had done earlier, but there was no need to rush in a situation like this - if anything, they needed to take things slowly and carefully.

It didn't take too long for them to pick out what was making those lights - crouching down towards the top of a small hill, Mal and Lasan spotted several metal spheres floating in the air. Bright blue lights criss-crossed the ground, focusing on what Mal recognized were a couple of the panther's pawprints (they didn't look human, and they were bigger than Mal's). The backs of the spheres hummed, glowing a faint orange and venting something out as the spheres rose and fell. Every now and then, a sphere would get right up to a pawprint, and Mal could see what looked like a tiny stick extend from the sphere. The humming would get a little louder for a few seconds, and then it'd rise back up.

"What are they doing?" Lunis hissed.

"I don't know," Mal whispered back. "If I had to guess, I'd say they're not looking for us. They're way too slow, and they didn't even notice that we're nearby."

"Then why are they so interested in my pawprints?" whispered Lunis.

"That's what we're here to find out, isn't it?" Mal whispered.

"Whatever they are," Pride whispered, "I don't think they're good."

Apophis studied them from behind his rock.

"Maybe they were sent out to study this area," he suggested. "They almost remind me of something from my world - humans send devices to other planets and our moon to understand them better, since it's easier to do that than send an entire crew."