Young Writers Society

Bo had been silent as he attentively took in the stories of others, not wanting to interrupt or speak too soon. That, and he was still busy eating the three burgers he had gathered for himself. He nodded to Boris's musings, and gave a warm, small smile to Codix and Nadira.

"You're all very brave kids. I admire you all," he said, before looking over at Aegeas and pointing to Boris. "And you guys have my respects too, of course."

"As for my home, well, I'm from earth too. I don't know if it's the same uh, earth some of you know, but uh, it's relatively fine. I grew up in a really rough part of town and was involved in some not-so-lawful things in my youth mostly because I was born into it, but that's not really a reflection of the average person's life." He shrugs. "But my life was never really fated to be average with my dad as an assassin, haha."

''Is he really?'' I asked with a smile. ''Forgive my curiosity, that sounds like an interesting upbringing.''

Shortly after asking that, I was mildly distracted by the honey on the table, and opened it to make sure it was indeed regular, and not the sort one can get in the Neath. The sort with hallucinogenic properties.
Never touch the stuff myself, I swear to god. Honestly.

"Oh, yeah, no, like, I wasn't lying about that. He was one, but he's currently in jail serving time for a few unrelated things."

Well, they'd better make it home, because he didn't want to meet his friends in the afterlife.

Aegeas nodded respectfully in Boris's direction, then looked over at Bo. "I know a few assassins," he said. "Rough line of work, can't say I like it too much. Did you go down your dad's path, or did you find something better?" Aegeas hated assassins, but he was trying his best not to tread on Bo's toes.

"Because of my dad's social circle and me being pretty heavily steeped in that kind of environment I didn't really know much else or how to escape it. So I did learn under my father and was trained by him in, but I always felt very conflicted. I grew to hate that kind of life. So in my early twenties I made arrangements to cut myself out of that life entirely, and at 20 I made a clean split and went off-grid for a long time. I wanted to figure out who I was apart from being an assassin, and who and what I really wanted to be. And to be honest, I don't think I have all of the answers yet, but I've learned that's just a part of life. But I do think I've grown a lot since then." He laughs a little bit. "Or, well, I sure hope I would've after seven years!"

''I wouldn't worry. You seem a right square-cove to me.'' I told him kindly.

Bo snapped his fingers at Boris and pointed at him with finger guns. "Ayyy. I don't know what that means, really, but thanks, man."

Oh. They didn't have that word where Bo came from? He seemed to have understood the sentiment, at least. I returned his hand gesture. ''Anytime, friend.''

Raiden looked up from his food, copied Bo and Boris and spoke.
"I don't know what's going on, but ayyyy lmao."

"Oh my gosh. Did you really just say lmao out loud? Haha," Bo laughed.

Kartiel had spent hours modifying the cells to restore them to their previous conditions; he knew every little flaw and every little trick behind them. The flaws were things he had obviously tried fixing, but their presence ultimately served to benefit him. He used their expedition to the kitchens as the perfect opportunity to escape. In the time that it would have taken them to arrive there, he had already disabled the cell and slipped out into the hallways of Atlantis.

He was frustrated and angry at himself and the unfortunate set of circumstances that had led him to this moment, but he would face the situation with the same cool demeanor he faced all of his problems with. He quickly made his way to the control room. Once there, he began to make the adjustments to the life signs detector so his subjects would no longer be able to discover his location. He would be a ghost in the building - they would know he was undoubtedly lurking in their halls, but they would never be able to suspect his actual location.

He was almost finished with his tampering when he began to notice an odd thing - a small cluster of red dots in one of the farthest towers. Kartiel stared at what he was sure was an anomaly for a good minute. It was impossible for them to be accurate representations of the beings inside Atlantis. There should have been some sort of warning if Wraiths had entered. Even that wasn't his main concern. The shields should have been up. They could have never made their way into Atlantis.

But then he was overcome by a feeling. A feeling that he knew Wraiths had when in the vicinity of another one of their kind, and Kartiel let out the loudest groan he had given in the past twenty-four hours at the realization that there really were Wraiths inside the city he had spent so much time working on.

He uttered a steady stream of swears, sat down in the nearest chair and stared dismally at the life signs detector across from him. A scouting party had entered Atlantis, and there was likely nothing he could do to stop them.

Aegeas spaced out of the conversation as soon as the others started using their weird cultural customs. It wasn't something he understood, and he was much too tired to. Today had been a long day. Resting his hands on the table, Aegeas stared into space and thought of home. The river. The city. Kellach. He smiled ever so slightly.

Then, at the edge of his hearing, he heard a strange noise. Groaning? It sounded too familiar for comfort, as well as from the wrong place.

Rising up suddenly, Aegeas turned his head back to the entrance that led to the prison. "Where's Kartiel?" he said, gritting his teeth. "Because I don't think he's in that cell."

Bo's head shot up, and any amusement from the previous conversation was gone from his face. He knew Aegeas would not be one to exaggerate about Kartiel's whereabouts, especially considering how much Aegeas disliked him.

"If you're sure he's not there, we ought to find him. We could go back to the control room and see if he still shows up on the screen."

I cursed myself for not thinking to guard him.
Kartiel had been left to his own devices for at least an hour, perhaps an hour and a half. That was surely enough time for him to have done a world of harm, if he had indeed gone to the control room.

I sped in that direction, trusting that my companions would follow.

Bo followed swiftly after.