Young Writers Society

In the afternoon when the blistering sun comes out, my headache returns with renewed vigor. I try to stave it off by drinking plenty of water from a nearby clean spring and staying in the shade of trees, but it persists, and nothing I try will stop it.

Aiey and Wold continue to conference, making plans for our next encounter with Sebler, but I doubt they'll be able to come up with much more. We can attempt to plan as much as we want, but the plain truth is that plans against a wizard as flexible and diverse as Sebler, our planning is practically useless. We have no idea how he will react because there are so many possibilities.

As the intensity of the sun lessens, so does he intensity of my headache by evening it's all but gone, and I am glad. Headaches are pesky things.

I assist Wold and Aiey as they prepare for dinner. While they cut the meat I stand aside, but when they put it on the spit is turn it slowly for the first ten or fifteen minutes. I'm surprised that Sebler hasn't so much as touched us for the rest of the day. It doesn't seem logical for him to let us to just sit around. Giving us this much time to plan and rest won't work in his favor, when the time comes. Perhaps he is hoping we will become lax and let down our guard, but so far we have always mad sure we are not caught of guard by Sebler or his men.

"It never rained, did it," I comment. I forgot about Wold mentioning that.

"No," Wold replies, "it didn't the winds must have shifted sometime in the night. Now the weather is quite pleasant."

"Yes. It's nice when the wind isn't blowing upon us at full speed all the time."

"I think it's partly because we are on this island, and there are just so many trees."

"Yeah. The ones I haven't pulled down." She laughs. " the wind has been colder than in the past week, however. It's quite a pleasant change, for once."

It's funny. Just a few hours earlier I was battling for the lives of my friends so they wouldn't die, but her I am talking with Wold about how there has been a pleasant change in the weather. What's am I thinking? It seems so simple and trivial of me, but at the same time, it's one of the many things I'm fighting to preserve for my friends and future generations.

The world is rarely a simple place. Sebler, though he is trying to destroy us and take over the world, claims that he is working for a noble cause and we are too foolish and stubborn to see it, but he has caused or tried to cause many bad things. Yet in order to Save the rest of the world, we are bringing about the death of many soldiers. Both of us have caused a good deal of destruction, and we both claim to be fighting for a noble cause, but one of us is actually fighting for a terrible cause. I'm certain I'm in the right, but I still feel sad for all the destruction I've caused.

"What do you think is up with Sebler leaving us alone for nearly the entire day?" RP asks Cros. "It isn't quite like him. Yesterday it seemed like he would never let us alone, but today he's just left us to our own devices I'm not entirely sure what he has up his sleeve."

"The first day was when he wanted to wear us out. Now he's letting all of this get to our heads." I perk up and listen with interest. "I think he's trying to make us think we can't beat him, or something. All I can say without a doubt is that he won't leave us alone forever. I'm almost positive he intends to attack our camp tonight. I don't know him very well, but since he seems to pop up at random times, I'm sure he will strike us in the middle of the night. He'll either strike an hour or two into the night and try to wear us out in a prolonged fight, or he will try to catch us off guard in the wee hours of the night when we are in our deepest sleep. They are both dangerous. I'm not sure which I would rather face."

"I would personally rather weather the storm," I say. "It's much easier to stay away awake, but once I'm asleep I won't wake up easily."

"But at least," RP responds, "you will get some sleep if he attacks in the wee hours of the night. If he strikes early on in the night and tries to wear us out we won't be able to get much of any good rest before he pounces."

"Regardless," Cros interjects, "no matter what happens, we won't be on our top game. We can only hope that Sebler and his army, assuming they will be involved, are worn out as well. I suggest that we rest up during the evening as much as we can, that way we'll be more prepared if Sebler strikes."

We all nod our heads in agreement. I resign myself to the task I'll have to do. I've already worn myself out a good deal, but I can't let up yet. My friends need me. Hopefully this concept of disguising my telekinesis will actually work out on the first try. I have a feeling that once we try a tactic like this on Sebler and he catches onto what we're doing, it won't work again because he will be leery of it. He might even disappear altogether until he comes up with a good place to counteract it.

His disappearance might allow us time to make other plans, like getting help from the outside somehow. I have no idea where, but the prospect of procuring help from the outside is comforting. I don't want to do this all on my own. I know I have the help of Cros and RP, but I am the key link in the chain. Without me, this mission would be a complete failure. With me, it's a dismal fight for survival, but if this new idea of coupling my powers with RP's doesn't work, we might as well call it quits and hope Sebler is too frightened by us to continue with his plan.

"Hey Racen!" Aiey calls. "Are you going to take over for me? I think it's about time for me to have a break."

"Sure," I reply, "as long as this isn't the side where Wold was turning it with her mouth." Wold glares at me, but I put on an innocent face. What did I do? I didn't say anything mean, I just don't want to pick up an germs.

The gentle breeze picks up slightly, and the wake up and begin hooting. Soon the cicadas and crickets joins them. They sound like similar to a constant rattling of sticks interrupted intermittently by hiccuping, while the owls sounds like a mocking ghost or a maniac psycho killer.

I stand up to stretch my legs after five minutes because my knees begin to hurt if I crouch down low for too long. The world has a totally different look and feel by just going up or down a couple feat down close to the ground there are roots and an innumerable number of dead leaves. Ants, worms and many other small creatures are going this way and that. Above there are bees buzzing around and much open space. It must be interesting to live down low at a level like this constantly. I suppose the novelty, would wear off after a little while, but it would certainly be different.

I can't help but wonder what it would be like to live down low at this level. The world would be a totally different world down there. Instead of conflicts between nations that rock your world you would be more concerned with holding your own turf and hoping no one steps on you or digs up your hole in the ground. Being an ant with humans walking around must be like living in a world where trees as tall as the sky walk around ever so often. Then again, magicians like Cros and I are practically just as dangerous by comparison.

The minutes pass by slowly as Wold, Aiey, and and myself prepare the meal. I'm beginning to tire of eating meat over and over again. I almost feel bad for the animal. He had to suffer so that we could survive? Or is it a she? It doesn't matter. Would I be happy if the Author just decided to kill me and eat me for dinner one night. It's an interesting concept to comprehend. For the moment I have bigger things to mull over in my brain. Eating a little meat isn't a crime when I wouldn't survive without it, right?

"It looks like the is meat is almost cooked," Aiey declares, shaking me out of my reverie. "What do the two of you say?"

"Looks fine to me," I reply. "I'm not the one to judge. I don't make it a point to study halo one should cook meat."

Wold stands up with a slight grunting noise and ambles over toward us the fire. She sticks her nose forward and sniffs the meat. Stepping back, she declares it needs to go another few minutes.

"Eating something like that isn't terrible as a wolf, but for you it mint be a bit too pink. You'd probably fine, but I'd still let it cook for another couple minutes, just to err on the safe side. Your call."