New Place to Begin

The motel

"What do you think the gas station attendant saw?" Yunjin wondered aloud as they made their way to the only motel in town, a worn-down, dirty looking building about a mile down the road from the gas station. They'd managed to purchase bus tickets to Chicago, but the bus wouldn't arrive until tomorrow morning.

"Probably an insane fistfight," Kazuha replied with a snort.

"A fistfight where someone threw a van across the parking lot?" Eunbi asked skeptically.

"Maybe he thought it was a fistfight between two superheroes?" Jimin offered.

"It doesn't matter what he saw," Sakura said, shaking her head. "It just matters that we get out of here as soon as possible. It won't take long for Hades to find some new creature to send after Yunjin."

A tense silence fell over the group.

"Maybe he thought it was a gang war?" Chaewon broke the silence with a shrug.

Sakura groaned as the rest of them enthusiastically traded theories back and forth about how the mist may have twisted their battle.

It was going to be a long night.

They only had enough money for two rooms, each with two beds, so everyone had to share a bed, and one bed had to be filled with three people.

It didn't take long for the girls to partner up, calling dibs on each other before Yunjin even registered the fact that she'd have to share a bed with someone else.

And Yunjin nearly fainted when she realized the only one left without a partner as they began towards their rooms.

"So," Chaewon asked, giving her a playful nudge. "Do you prefer the left or the right side?"

Yunjin might combust before she made it through the night.

Later that night, as Yunjin lay motionless next to a sleeping Chaewon, she was barely able to even shut her eyes, her mind still racing from the events of the day. Next to them, Jimin's snores filtered through her ears, a white noise that filled the empty hotel room. On the same bed, Yeji shifted for what felt like the hundredth time, though she knew no one else was counting. The others fell asleep in minutes, exhausted from the long drive and the events at the gas station.

Still, despite how tired Yunjin also was, she couldn't bring herself to fall asleep.

She mulled over the prophecy in her head, repeating the words over and over. Each time, she tried to find some new meaning, a different end, but it always stayed the same.

Friend will turn against friend.

What did it mean? It seemed clear enough, but Yunjin couldn't fathom the idea of any of these girls betraying them. And how? Why?

It just didn't make sense, but she knew the Oracle was never wrong about these things. After all, her other prophecies had been nothing but accurate, seeing how she was the only known child of the Big Three in decades. How was she supposed to put a stop to this war? She could barely even hold a sword most days, and she knew practically nothing about any of this stuff.

Yunjin glanced over at Chaewon, sighing to herself before carefully easing herself out from under the covers. As quietly as she could, she made her way towards the door and entered the motel hallway, closing the door and releasing a breath she didn't know she'd been holding.

Lingering in the hallway for only a few beats, she ran a hand through her hair before making her way out of the building and towards the back of the motel.

She'd only been sitting by the poolside for about fifteen minutes when the silence was interrupted by the screeching of the pool gates. Gods, someone needed to oil those hinges.