Surviving the Digital World

Into the Night

Walking down the mountain- well, hiking down- was a struggle. The digitama was surprisingly heavy, and it was about the size of my head. Several times, I almost dropped it. The whole way down, everyone was silent.

The sun was setting. When we were on top of the mountain, we could see the ocean, glittering with the sun's dying rays. The sky was fading from blue to dark blue to purple, and lines of binary code still flashed throughout the pixelated sky.

When we reached the base of the mountain, I felt numb. My feet and knees felt scraped up, and my arms ached from carrying the digitama. Via and Noah were waiting at the base of the mountain for us, with Gabumon and Patamon sitting behind them, talking in hushed voices. "You're back!" Noah cried. "What happened? Are y-" he broke off when he saw Will. "Will?!"

Will stumbled over to Noah. "I-I'm sorry.." he mumbled. "I didn't think Devimon w-would.."

Noah gently touched Will's forehead. "It's bleeding, but not that much.." he murmured. "You're all scraped up!"

Will shook his head. "Gomamon tried to protect me." he mumbled.

"All the Digimon wanted to protect us." Conner interjected.

Patamon noticed the digitama. "Wait.." he flapped over to me, examining the digitama. "Where's Tentomon?"

Everyone fell silent. Will glanced at Patamon and winced. "Devimon.." I choked out. "Devimon.." I fell to the ground, fresh tears streaming down my face.

Black filled in for me. "Tentomon got killed by Devimon." she said, a bit too matter-of-factly. "All of our Digimon fought, but Tentomon didn't get away in time.

I stood up shakily, unable to string together complex sentences. "Tentomon.. He.." I sniffled, but continued as strongly as I could. "D-Devimon killed him.. B-but.. He'll c-come back.."

Gabumon nodded. "Yeah, he'll just be reborn. If you raise him right, he'll be good ole Tentomon again.

"What do you mean, "raise him right?"" Conner asked, puzzled. "Won't he just turn into Tentomon again?"

Gabumon shook his head. Patamon interjected before Gabumon could continue. "Depending on how you treat Digimon, they evolve into different things!" he said solemnly. "Like, if.. If.. uh.."

Gabumon took this opportunity to continue explaining. "For example, if you had a Punimon. Its first evolution is Tsunomon. Depending on how exactly you treat Tsunomon, you can either get a Gabumon or an Elecmon."

Patamon butted in once again. "Neither option is bad, but it shows how you treat your Digimon!" he finished.

I looked down at the digitama. I want Tentomon back. Not some other Digimon. I want Motimon, Tentomon, Kabuterimon, and whatever comes after that. "I hope I get him back." I mumbled. "Let's start walking. I saw an ocean. We're on an island, so we'll have to-"

"Idiot!" Via spat angrily. I jumped back surprised that she'd be so hostile. "Don't you realize how frail we are right now? If Devimon catches us unaware, we're SCREWED!"

Conner hesitated, but nodded. "I have to agree with Via on this," he said. "If we're, for instance, on a raft, sailing through uncharted waters, Devimon could attack us. We'd be sitting ducks."

"Hey, wait." Gabumon interjected. "Via, maybe we should start leaving this island. It's not safe here."

"It's not safe anywhere!" Via cried. She pointed at the digitama. "Tentomon is dead, you and Patamon haven't even evolved further yet, and we barely know what we're doing here!"