Young Writers Society

Well they hadn't walked very far north before they heard a crash from behind them. As it echoed through the marsh, Bo turned his head just in time to see the top of a tree flying above the others, as if being thrown, or swung. Eyes wide, and brows furrowed, he hesitated.

Valon had said that he and India would handle the beast. But that didn't sound good and someone could be hurt or dead - thus, within a few seconds, he'd reached his resolve.

"I'm going to help them!" He yelled, as he headed their way in a sprint.

India pulled out her dagger and flung it at the cyclops, knowing it wouldn’t have much effect. Her fingers sparked with electricity. “Get away, you monster!” she yelled at it.

He bit his lip, glancing over at Nanashi and Maia as he did so. The people that they had left behind were in trouble. Bo had just gone to help. That left him with the two of them, and he was torn between staying and assisting in the battle. His essence was itching to unleash its magic. He gave them one last look.

"I have to help them," he said.

And then he was rushing towards the monster, his guise shifting from that of a man to one of a peregrine falcon. He barely managed to beat Bo to the cyclops. Tumbling to the ground - unused to changing guises so suddenly - his guise returned to the one he had previously been using.

He jumped to his feet. Eyeing the cyclops, he unleashed a Detonation. Green flames jumped up from around the monster's feet, the ground exploding in its nearby vicinity. He gave a loud shout to draw its attention to him. Tapping into his full potential felt wonderful; he had been restricted to human means of fighting for far too long.

Bo, running up just in time to see Maahes fighting the monster, watched as the cyclops stumbled on its feet and let out a loud roar that echoed through the skies.

Bo stopped a few yards off and, rooting his feet in the ground, took in a quick deep breath before shooting a sparkling bolt of blue lightning from his mouth, hitting the cyclops right in the middle back.

Without hesitating, he ran up to the stunned cyclops with fists ablaze with sparks of lightning and a blue glow shining through his veins. Using a tree as leverage, he leapt up onto the monster's back, giving a small wave to Maahes before the cyclops spun around quickly, almost tossing Bo to the ground - though fortunately, he hung on by the flap of skin around the monster's neck.

Valon readied his sword, teeth ground together. With his eyes glossed over in Heat Sense, he could predict--by a minuscule margin--which muscles received blood before they were moved, and the Cyclops was attacking in patterns, as though he had to do this whenever others drew near.

Did that mean there were others he protected?

With sword poised and boots parted, the fire mage incinerated the nape of the beast's neck with a searing blast from his left palm. It roared, it hobbled; he even tripped over a wave of lightning let loose by Bo.

They all had released restraint to bring this thing down because Valon couldn't stay true to his promise to handle it, and for that he would owe them a debt.

The cyclops turned to him and roared again, and Valon plunged his flaming sword into the meat of the beast's eye. He twisted the blade, it came out the end of the monster's skull with gray matter and blood; and the two of them toppled back into the marsh, the giant dead and still.

It didn't take long for them to clean up, as they found the cyclops' cave to be hiding a spring with trickling fresh water. There were no others in the den, and they all took rest in the nooks while they discussed their plans of action. That is, until a...guest...interrupted them.

Standing in the cavern's mouth in a tuxedo, suave black hair and skin that was either incredibly pale or touched blue by moonlight, was a man who spoke in a smooth, deep voice the color of cobalt.

"I must admit," he began, extending his hands, "I never would have supposed that the Fates would bring Him such capable adventurers."

Valon, sensing the danger about this man, tried to reach for his sword before acknowledging his paralysis.

"I am your only friend here, Basil. And you all have been elected as candidates to procure the single thing your heart most desires: the return of your souls to your bodies in your realities. Some of you," he glanced to Maahes, "were more difficult to wrangle from your plane of existence, but I'm certain that once you get your heads into the game, you'll learn quite a bit about yourselves. You have One Hundred and Sixty hours remaining to win this game." He smiled and folded his arms behind his back. "To retrieve your memories, your strength, and your. very. souls." A shake of his head. "For every monster of His you defeat, a certain number of hours will be returned to your hourglass. For every battle you lose, time will be removed. And should you die," he shook his head, "you simply continue to play the game until you win...with new challenges, of course."

Valon fell to the ground, head pounding. Looking up, the man was gone. No trace, no heat. It was over. Or beginning, rather.

Bo stared in stunned silence as the fellow disappeared from existence just as quickly as he came. The silence lasted all but a few seconds, though. Despite there being a dozen relevant things he could've said in response to the ominous and disturbing message the man had given them, he found himself asking this:

"...Who's Basil?"

"I'm guessing Valon," Maahes halfheartedly answered, his focus more on the mysterious man who had disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared. "He did look at him when he said that..."

After a moment of hesitation, he approached the area where the man had been standing. No buttons, and no evidence of foreign technology. He rubbed his eyes. He hadn't seen the beam of light that was supposedly associated with Asgardian beaming technology, either. That meant two things. He was either dealing with unfamiliar technology, or that man had magic. Magic like him.

(Although he couldn't pull something like that off.)

Bo's mind began racing, immediately leaping to the implications of what the man said.

"So this means... either we'll need to seek out monsters to buy more time, or they'll find us," he thought aloud as he stepped forward to meet Maahes, who was inspecting the spot where the man had disappeared. "I wonder what kind of magic that guy has," he hummed. It wasn't quite like anything he'd seen before - which made it more curious and worrisome that someone with this much power existed, never mind the fact that they used their power to bring all of them here for some sick game with seemingly no purpose except to test their abilities and fortitude. His lips twisted into a frown, and looked back at the others to see how they were faring.

Valon crossed his arms and stood up, twisting his ankle to a loud POP that echoed in the cave. "It looks like we have an hourglass to beat if we ever want to get to our homes..." He gazed at Bo and Maahes. "I'm going to offer leadership of this party, and if there's any denial, I'll just go it alone. I've yet to lose my way in the world of questing, and my training as a soldier has me well-groomed for combating this wilderness, as well as whomever this Basil is.

Standing at the entrance of the cave, then, he looked over his shoulder. "No resting tonight. We need to find our next target and eliminate them." He drew his sword and lit it ablaze as a torch in the darkness. "In other words, come with me if you want to live."

Sticking together really was their only change at getting out of this alive. And if that meant Valon was the leader, Bo was fine with that.

"Well, sounds good to me."

He stood up, ready to follow after Valon and hold up the back of the group.

Maahes hesitated. Valon certainly seemed like a capable fighter, but there was something disconcerting about a person taking leadership in a situation and expecting everyone else to start following them. He knew that they didn't have much time - only a little more than six days - but it just didn't sit well with him. He was even more uncomfortable with the situation when he thought of how eager Valon had been to fight everything. Fight him, fight Nanashi and fight the cyclops. Two out of three times, he had been wrong. Was it just a statistical error, or did it reflect what it would be like if he was their leader?

But, then again, who could possibly lead them? He knew the others as little as he knew Valon. They seemed like decent people, but how could he tell for certain? The only person he knew well was himself. He hadn't led anyone since...well...he thought it was Ra, but it must have been more recently. Only a couple hundred years ago, at most. He had thought his essence was at fault for his unclear memories, but he vaguely remembered the mysterious man saying that they could get their memories back if they completed this challenge.

He looked at the other members of the group, and then back at Valon and Bo.

Why does this decision have to be so hard?

And then, it hit him - even if Valon was their leader, he didn't have to follow everything he commanded. He could supply his own opinions on the situation if he thought Valon wasn't doing things right. And, if worse came to worst, he would just have to brave this strange place on his own. It wasn't the best option, but it wasn't like he had any other ones.

He took a deep breath. "Valon? I don't think it's a good idea to ignore sleep just to beat the clock. I don't need to sleep, but I'm guessing some of the other people here do. We have more than six days before our time runs out. I don't think we're going to be able to do much if more than half of us are sleep deprived." He glanced back at Nanashi, India and Maia. "I mean, if they're okay with it, go ahead! But that's not the sort of decision that should be made without seeing what other people think."

Valon slowly stopped, turning on his boots' heels and holding the ignited sword high in the cave. Some did look rather worn, and damn if his own ankle hadn't been hurt in the fight. Maahes made sense.

"Then let's rest...just until the sun rises. At that point, our footwork will have to make up for our respites, as it always will." His sword went out, and he sheathed it before dropping it and his survival belt to the granite floor. He laid against the wall and propped his throbbing foot up on the piled satchel.

He admitted to himself that he was weary; he confessed internally that he had been too eager; and at last, he realized how cold he felt without his wife with him.

Six bloody days. He could do it with their help. With their liability.

He would see her again, whoever she was.

"Ah... yeah, right."

Maahes's words hit his head with cold reason. With the ticking clock counting down in his head and the anxiety in merely considering the possibility of failure, he'd been much too hasty. He'd forgotten that it had only been, what... a few hours? Since he'd woken up there. He hadn't given himself a moment to think about the weight of it all, and he didn't really want to - but they needed to rest.

He needed to rest. He couldn't remember what time of day it had been yesterday, before he arrived here. He couldn't even remember what home was like. Where was home, again? It was somewhere. Somewhere with... blurry faces of friends he couldn't recall.

He slowly sat down in the cave, looking out at the space where the mysterious man had disappeared.

"So uh, do you really not need sleep Maahes? If we're resting and all and we fall asleep, someone ought to keep watch."

He gave Bo a reassuring smile, joining him by the wall and sitting down beside him. "I don't. I mean, I can't, really - I'm not sure if it's the same for the rest of my kind, but it's impossible for me to sleep. The most I can do is daydream."

He looked over at Valon, who was only a few feet away at most. He waited for a response. When none came, he said, "I can guard everyone tonight."

In the morning, Valon sat with Maahes at the mouth of the cave, sipping down spring water that had trickled from inside the cave overnight, boiled for safety by Valon. "I'd like you to know something," Valon spoke under his breath.

Maahes seemed to be listening, so he continued.

"My red eyes saw six clusters of great energy on this island, and each seemed in the same location, merely adjusted around the area..." He glanced at the man beside him. Spirit beside him? "I may seem foolhardy at rushing in, but you must know that I have apprehensions about this game we're playing. Something just doesn't feel right."