Star Beings: Dawn

Pocket Watch

We walked until the gloomy forest started to grow light again. The storm refuses to let up. I've come down from my high, and now I feel like an animal in a cage. I feel watched... I feel scared. We all are. The tension in the air is so thick it feels like it's choking me. At some point, we find another cave to hide in. This time, I let go of the string and follow the others inside. Natalie creates a small but
Roaring fire to keep us warm. And it works. I fall asleep almost instantly, exhausted from all of the running. I don't dream for once, and at some point someone shakes me awake.
It's DJ, and she looks horrible. Did she have those bruises when we got here?
"DJ? What... why are you awake?" I grumble, noticing that no one else is. DJ's grave expression doesn't change. She just sighs and takes me by the shoulders.
"Anai, I need you to listen to me. Something bad is about to happen... I can... I can feel it coming. When it does, tell Lane I'm sorry for breaking our promise."
What the hell is she talking about? Am I dreaming?
"Go back to sleep now, Anai. We have a long and rainy day ahead of us."
Still drowsy, I do as DJ says and go back to sleep. Maybe it was just a strange dream, because when I wake up again DJ is acting as if nothing had happened.
Odd.
All of this was very odd.
"We need to start taking the tougher paths." Natalie mumbles to herself, staring out of the cave and at the forest around us.
"What?"
"Corinna and Cain won't follow us if it's difficult. And if they do, they won't be able to do so easily, which means they'll fall behind. We need to start thinking smarter instead of harder," the woman says, turning back to face all of us. Damien nods, as does Lane and Mateo. The rest of us look unsure.
But Natalie is right.
We need to take the road less traveled.
I walk out of the cave, grabbing the string and giving it one last yank. That should slow her down for a bit.
"We need to go up, don't we? Let's start here." I say, motioning to the cave and the mountain it's a part of. It'll be simple. We'll create a path where there wasn't one before, and then we would destroy it and leave no trace of our presence behind.
Simple as that.
With a flick of my wrist, there's a trail up the mountain.
"Well, who's going up first?"

Damien and Caleb stayed near the back, with the elder brother covering the trail and the younger keeping watch. Hade and I walk in the middle of the group. Natalie is at the front, with Lane and DJ directly behind her.
The rain is still coming down, but thankfully it has let up a bit. If it keeps going like this, though, the valley could flood.
Hopefully with Corinna and Cain still in it.
In the distance, I can see some sort of ancient structure and for the first time I consider why Corinna may have chosen this place to hide her troops. It wasn't like the palace wasn't visible or hidden by the trees.
"Well I suppose that place should be easy to hide in." I mumble, motioning towards the odd ruins. The remains of a roof cover a small area, just big enough for the eleven of us to huddle under for a short rest.
"Maybe we should avoid it," says DJ. But she doesn't sound confident or demanding like normal. It's more of a half hearted suggestion, as if she's already caving in and doing something that she has a bad feeling about.
"It's better than standing out in the rain," my partner grunts, speeding up and dragging me along.
DJ steps out of the way, and for a moment she opens her mouth, as if to say something. But she doesn't.
She simply follows after, a dark look in her eyes and a grim frown on her face.

The ruins are immediately off putting. The moment I step across the threshold, I feel as though I'm being watched. Something is...
Something is wrong, very very wrong. We should never have come here. We should have let things be, should have enjoyed our peace while we could. Now everyone but me will die out here, far away from everyone they know and care about. And I'll be alone. I can never show my face again, and the world will be doomed.
Why did I have to be so stubborn? I've damned us all, haven't I?
"Anai? You ok?" Hade whispers, making me jump.
"Uh.... Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." I lie, glancing at DJ. She simply shakes her head and kisses her girlfriend's forehead.
We all sit in a circle under the small amount of shelter the ruins provide. Lane is on DJ's lap. Hade sits next to me, leaning their head on my shoulder.
Karson and Mateo are using each other as pillows.
Another look at DJ's stony face tells me all I need to know.
We're running out of time.
We're on the clock, and right now our race is almost over. Somehow, DJ has the pocket watch. She can see how much time we have left, how many grains of sand are left in our hourglass.
From the look on her face, we have mere minutes before shit hits the fan.
Someone isn't leaving here alive, and DJ, much like death herself, knows exactly who it is. And she can't say a goddamn thing.
She's simply waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I hear a twig snap from behind us, and I watch as DJ's frown grows deeper. I don't need to look to know that the shadow lords are nearby. I watch DJ stand up, materializing her hammer and preparing herself for a fight.
"Times up."