Young Writers Society

Mal waited for the voice to laugh, say something sarcastic, poke holes at Apophis's story.

But, well, the voice had been pretty good at defying his expectations so far, so Mal wasn't terribly surprised when the voice said, Sure, I'll believe that. I have a hell of a lot of data that says you aren't human. But you didn't tell me sooner, and you still won't tell me what "good with technology" means, so.

The voice finished by blowing a raspberry, then fell silent.

Apophis blinked and looked down at himself.

...What kind of data did they have? It didn't matter that he was naturally an enormous serpent - his body was currently human, and the only thing that should have really identified it as otherwise was his soul. But maybe science had advanced to a point where more than that could be picked up; maybe they were good at telling human from not human.

...That also meant that they probably noticed Pride, but just hadn't decided to comment on a small, nicely dressed child wandering around with a group of strangers in the desert.

He raised his head again.

"...I did explain that one, actually," he said. "It was the only thing I was entirely truthful about. I watch a lot of anime, sometimes on somewhat shady streaming sites - you have to know a thing or two about installing anti-viruses and programs to get around the viruses that some of the sites have."

The voice didn't speak up.

After a minute, Mal groaned, dragging a paw down his face. "What an a**," the lion said. "I guess they got what they wanted." He looked around at the others. "So, what do you want to do now? I'm not really in the mood to go anywhere, especially if these things are just going to follow us."

They all thought it over.

"I think we have to keep walking," Apophis finally said. "Even if they weren't that helpful with getting us back home, they did reveal that people are still around here. I don't think they would be too far away, either - those things have to be fixed somehow when they break, so they couldn't have gone too far."

Liz crossed her arms.

"I think we have something else we need to do," she said. She pointed over her shoulder. "We need to wake up Aegeas and Kellach."

"That would be important," Zion agreed.

Ari mirrored Liz's expression.

"...If we don't want those following us, we can always break them," she pointed out. "Anyone with any kind of magic could probably break them with a spell or burst of magic - I could do it, Zion could do it, Pride could do it, Apophis could do it, Liz could do it, Aquarius could-"

"Any of can do it," Pride interrupted.

She gave a nod. "Yeah."

"...But what if they don't have any more?" Aquarius hesitantly pointed out. "Even if they weren't nice to us, it doesn't mean everyone is like them. What if we're going to make things worse for them?"

Mal sagged his shoulders. "Really?" he said, waving his paws in front of him. "You want to keep walking? It's the middle of the night, I'm tired as s***, Lunis is still unconscious, Aegeas gets cranky if you wake him up, I'm pretty sure the voice said that everyone's underground, and there's probably a lot more of these things." He took a deep breath. "So destroying them wouldn't even help us. Also, for all we know, they're not the only things watching us. Which isn't creepy at all."

The others collectively froze at the first of the comments - each one of them had forgotten that it was technically the middle of the night, and that they technically should have all been sleeping. Apophis, Pride and Zion didn't really need the sleep, and Ari, Liz and Aquarius all had iffy relationships with sleep at best - Ari was used to an unusual sleep pattern thanks to looking for all kinds of monsters, and Liz and Aquarius lived in the palace. There was always some kind of chaos going on in the palace in the middle of the night.

"...There has to be an entrance above ground," Apophis awkwardly pointed out. There was a pause again, quickly followed by, "But we can sleep for now, and keep walking in the morning."

The other five offenders each gave nods, all with a variety of quickness when it came to responding.

Ugh - Mal was the only one with a normal sleep schedule, wasn't he?

"That's more like it," the lion said, grabbing one of Lunis's arms and tugging on it. "Now, can someone help me drag Lunis back over the hill?"

Before anyone else could volunteer, Apophis walked over and scooped Lunis into his arms. It might have been hard for anyone that was actually human, but he had the extra strength that came as a result of being a god. It wasn't long before he had carried Lunis all the way back to where they were earlier.

Ugh - Mal had been kinda hoping Apophis would drag Lunis across the ground.

In any case, the lion was a little too tired to make some kind of snippy comment, especially when the panther couldn't hear it. Mal pointed at the ground near the pair of otters. "Go lay him down over there," Mal said. "He'll probably be awake in the morning, or I'll be a little p***ed off at that voice."

Apophis did as requested, gently putting him down beside Kellach and Aegeas.

Then he returned to his spot from before everything with the voice, Pride joining him a few feet away.

"Night again, everyone," Ari said - even if she had been indifferent to sleeping again earlier, a yawn escaped her lips as she plopped down on the ground. Zion - somehow giving off the feeling of a smile, despite not having any lips to give one - allowed themself to be used as a pillow as Ari drifted off to sleep.

It wasn't long before Aquarius and Liz, who had returned to their first spot, too, were asleep and intertwined in each other's limps; Apophis wasn't sure who was hugging who.

Slowly sitting down beside the panther, Mal rested his head against Lunis's side. He was pretty sure he could feel the gentle rise and fall of Lunis's chest, maybe even hear a heartbeat, but it was way too easy to tell himself that his body was tricking him. He'd seen Lunis passed out before, but something like electricity wasn't supposed to knock Lunis out for this long. Lunis wasn't really a deep sleeper.

"Do you know if he's alright?" Mal mumbled, not sure if anyone was still awake to hear. Maybe the resident god had something to say.

Apophis didn't have to sleep, but he had been on the verge of sleeping when he heard Mal mutter something about Lunis from nearby. He turned and looked over at the two of them, gaze traveling from Mal's face to Lunis' unconscious body.

"I don't know," he quietly admitted, "but he looks okay for now."

Mal groaned. "I'm used to him being annoying, so it's so wrong when he's quiet," the lion said. "Especially since it's because he got shocked so bad he passed out."

He let out a little laugh.

"I know someone like that," he said. "I think we're closer than you two are, but he's usually talking and causing trouble."

"Hmph," Mal said, crossing his arms. "We're close - we just hate each other, is all. It's a comfortable amount of hate."