New Place to Begin

The Prophecy

"How is this even possible?" Yunjin exclaimed, scrambling to her closet and grabbing her shoes - a pair of worn vans she'd gotten when she was fourteen. She was thankful her feet hadn't grown any more in the past three years. "I thought nothing could get past the barrier?"

"Nothing can." Chaewon replied severely.

Yunjin swallowed, and before they could speak more on it, Chaewon was grabbing Yunjin by the wrist. "We've got to get some weapons."

Yunjin fought back a gasp as they sprinted into the rain, stunned by the shock of the freezing downpour. All around them, campers yelled and sprinted past, organizing cabin defenses and grabbing all the weapons they needed from the armory and training pits.

Yunjin had yet to see what was attacking, but the desperation with which everyone was running was enough to get her to panic.

Chaewon was still dragging her through the camp, wearing the most serious look Yunjin had seen on her face.

"Come on," Chaewon called back, and Yunjin could scarcely hear her over the pouring rain. "Our weapons should still be in the armory."

They pushed past the flood of other campers swamping the armory, making it to the weapons rack and grabbing their supplies.

While Chaewon grabbed her trusty sword, grabbing a small dagger for safe measure, Yunjin picked up her throwing knives holster, running it diagonally along her chest and tying the clasp in the back. She added an additional thigh holster that held a few more knives, just in case. Lastly, she sheathed her own sword, a bronze shortsword.

Yunjin didn't have to wait long to find what exactly was attacking the camp. Almost as soon as she and Chaewon left the armory, screams echoed across the courtyard.

Yunjin nearly fell to the ground as a frighteningly large hellhound lept from the tree line with a snarl. Behind it, two more of the things burst forward, equal in size.

"Holy shit." she couldn't help but mutter under her breath as the first hellhound let out a huge roar.

And then reared its head directly towards her.

"Attack!" came a loud call from her left, and Yunjin immediately recognized Eunbi's voice.

Arrows rained down on the hellhounds, and a swarm of campers approached the beasts.

Chiron galloped into the courtyard, a bow gripped in his hands. He shot his own arrows at the hellhounds, yelling orders to the other campers.

Yunjin swallowed, a sudden, paralyzing fear gripping her chest as she stared down the huge monsters. They swatted at the campers as though they were nothing, sending them flying across the courtyard.

Chaewon was still to her right, talking to her, yelling words over the pouring rain, but Yunjin couldn't hear. Her breath caught as she saw Sakura approaching the front beast, her figure dwarfed by the size of the thing. She raised her greatsword, and Yunjin  snapped out of her trance.

The throwing knife left her fingers in seconds, sailing through the air and easily cutting through the downpour of rain.

The front beast was sufficiently distracted from Sakura as a knife sunk itself into its eye. It roared, and Sakura took the opening, launching herself forward and plunging the blade of her sword into its maw. The roar was abruptly cut off as the blade emerged from the top of its head.

The thing suddenly dissolved, disintegrating into a cloud of golden dust.

One down. Two to go.

"Yunjin!" Chaewon screamed, and this time, Yunjin definitely heard.