Young Writers Society

Precaution? He wasn't all that excited about going out on his own, if it came to that, but Aegeas needed to know who the last person was. If it was someone he didn't know, so be it. If it was a trap, he'd fight his way out of it. If it was someone he did know, well, he couldn't afford to lose the opportunity. Even a person he didn't like was a better option than people he didn't fully know nor trust (innocent as they looked and acted).

"We're here?" he said, tapping a spot on the map where a cluster of points had gathered. "And this other person is there." He pointed to the eighth point. Stepping back from the map, he nodded. "I'll find them and bring them back here."

Turning around, he hopped down the stairs and ran out of the entrance of the control room. Hopefully he'd remember where he was going.

Bo's eyes followed Aegeas. "Hey! None of us should be wandering around alone. I'm coming with you," he said hurriedly, as he rushed out of the room to keep up and came up beside him.

Lucy and Oliver looked at each other. The expressions on their faces conveyed words they didn't utter; how they didn't want to leave each other, even though they both knew that was what they had to do. Lucy needed to be in the library. She was skilled with technology in general, and they both knew that information here would likely be stored in computer. And Oliver, with his knowledge of the unseen parts of the universe, needed to be out there searching for that eighth person.

"I'll go with you to the library," Lucy said to Boris. "I'm good at analyzing information."

Oliver nodded and walked by her. Their hands momentarily brushed against each other. Both grabbed onto the other's and gave it a tight squeeze. They were worried about leaving the other alone, but what else could they do?

He let go and darted out into the hallway. "I want to help find that eighth person," he said, quickly bridging the gap between himself and the other two.

Well, he wasn't alone. He had to jog to keep up with them at times, and he still didn't particularly trust Oliver, but at least he had company. Should worst come to worst, at least Bo looked like he could fight.

As they traveled through corridors and rooms, a thick silence hovered over the group. It was suffocating enough that Aegeas thought about something to say. After a minute, a question that had been in the back of his head wormed its way out. "Where do you come from?" he asked the others. "And why haven't you seen anyone who looks like me?"

"I live on a planet called Earth," he said. Word it that way, and he wouldn't feel so disgusted with that frustratingly necessary lie. He slipped his hands into his pockets. He would need to apply more band-aids soon; the fractures would undoubtedly start to grow soon. "I've moved around a bit, but I'm currently living in a little town that no one ever seems to know of."

He looked over at Aegeas. "People like you just don't exist on Earth. We have humans and we have otters, but nothing in between...assuming that you're an otter." He took a deep breath, thought for a moment, and then added, "If you're not from Earth, I think that might mean you're an alien."

Aegeas frowned. "I don't know what an 'ailen' is," he said. "It reminds me of someone, but I'm not him. I also haven't heard of Earth before - I'm in a planet called Fayne. And what do you mean by 'nothing in between?' You have humans and otters, and I'm an otter - that's simple enough."

It was so hard not to be skeptical. He'd already seen enough bizarre buildings and people here to accept the idea that he was on another world. However, something about his species not existing elsewhere (or, rather, not in a form he was familiar with) baffled him.

“My answer’s pretty similar,” Bo said. “I’m from earth, though maybe a different time, or version of it. But yeah, we’ve got otters. Just that otters can’t talk where I’m from and stuff.”

"And they're usually not as big as you are," Oliver added. He thought for a moment. Were they? He had never seen one up close. He had seen some pictures, but pictures could be deceiving. A rock that looked small in the background could be a boulder in reality.

Raising an eyebrow, Aegeas walked around a corner before replying. "They can't talk? Doesn't sound like a great place." He looked between Oliver and Bo. "It's just limited to humans, then?"

Bo nodded. "As far as I know, yeah."

"The only exception I can think of is if you believe all of those stories about the supernatural," Oliver added; he wasn't quite sure if he believed in them or not. But it was worth mentioning them if it meant continuing to be a part of the conversation. "So what's Fayne like, then?"

The question stumped him. He wasn't sure how to describe an entire world, especially since he'd spent at least a year exploring much of it. "It's big," he said at last. "Lots of kingdoms, lots of people. Humans, bears, otters, foxes - you name it, it's in Fayne. Not the best place, but I've met some great friends in the weirdest places." He smiled.

“Sounds awesome,” Bo replied with a smile back. “Do they uh, have magic kind of stuff on Faye I guess? Or is that a dumb question?”

"They do!" said Aegeas. "Don't know any of it myself. It doesn't interest me much." He gestured to his swords. "That's how I like to fight."

Raiden had been left in the control room. Lola was there too -- at least he thought she was. She may have left him alone in the control room, sitting in a corner by the computer thing, arms loosely hugging his knees as he wondered how in the hell he got to the 'Lost City of Atlantis.'

"I guess it ain't so bad," he said with a light chuckle, "waking up in the city nobody could find."
Then he remembered something. Something very important. It was a sort of gut feeling that triggered it.

"What happens if we get hungry?"

He stood up and searched the map, eyes scanning for something akin to a kitchen or a storage area in which food might be found.