Dreams

Endless Desert

All four of the kids jumped at the sudden shout. It didn’t sound far away and it wasn’t long before gunfire was heard. Ignatius and Elias both readied themselves for battle. Elias ran toward a guard closest to them. He rolled and came up behind the guard. With a quick flourish of his dagger, the guard crumpled to the ground, his gun clattering down next to him. Elias smirked proudly, but was soon interrupted by the sound of a bullet just missing his ear. “Whoa, that was a close one!” Elias screamed as he ducked and took off after another guard. Ignatius held off guards from the other side with his fire. Elisa formed a psychic matter whip just in case a guard or two would slip by Ignatius or Elias. Not that it was likely. Ignatius yelled back to them, “Elisa, hurry and get down to the other side! There are too many!” Elisa nodded and turned to focus on creating another disk to get them to the ground. Emi let out a scream of pain and Elisa whipped around immediately. She was holding her arm and it was bleeding heavily. No guards had gotten past Elias or Ignatius. One of the guards shooting from the other side must have finally hit their target. Elisa quickly picked up Emi and all but threw her onto the disk. “Elias! Get over here now!” Elias backed up and jumped on the disk as well. Elisa turned to Ignatius. “Come on, hurry!” She felt a sharp pain explode in her thigh. Elias quickly made sure to keep her standing. He turned to Ignatius and screamed as loud as he could. “Ignatius!” Just as soon as the name left his lips, Ignatius crumpled to the ground. “NO!” Elisa began to move forward, but Elisa held him back as well as she could while only standing on one leg. The guards surrounded Ignatius and Elisa began lowering the disk to the ground as fast she could without all of them falling off. Elias felt his eyes well up with tears. The last sight he saw of Ignatius was him being handcuffed and knocked unconscious. As soon as the disk hit the ground, Elisa collapsed from the pain in her thigh. Elias quickly helped her up and draped her arm over his shoulders. Emi held his other hand as they moved as fast as they could away from the mountainous stone wall behind them. Shots were still being fired in their direction and two more bullets buried themselves into the escapees. Emi got hit in the shoulder and Elias in his hip. All three of them collapsed to the gravelly dirt below their feet. Guards began scaling down the walls. Elias looked at Elisa. “Make a car.” Elisa blinked, trying to sit up. “What?” “Make a car!” Elias screamed. Elisa jumped at the sight of him yelling at her again. She just nodded and forced herself to bear the pain in her thigh as she stood. She held both hands out in front of her and imagined the car her parents used to drive. A Toyota Prius suddenly appeared in front of them. It didn’t look quite so solid though. It was, again, made of psychic matter so its material was a wavering translucent purple. Elias stood along with Elisa and began making his way to the car, wincing at every step he took. Elisa picked up Emi and limped her way to the car. Elisa set Emi down in the back seat and closed the door before moving to the front passenger seat. She glanced behind her and the guards were a little too close for comfort. Quickly she sat down and slammed the door shut. Elias sat in the driver’s seat and he turned the key to start the car. “Do you even know how to drive?” Elisa asked, clutching on to the seat. Elias grinned. “Let’s find out.” He mashed his foot on the gas pedal and the car shot off into the distance of the endless desert before them. The car sort of had a slow start, but gained speed as they went on. Elisa turned around and saw the guards shrink into tiny dots in the distance. She turned and looked back at Elias, whose expression was hard despite the fact he had fresh tears running down his face. Elisa looked at him; her eyes filled with sympathy, but did not say a word. She held Emi in her lap and gently stroked her pale pink hair. The little girl was out cold, and bleeding severely. Elisa waved her hand over Emi’s shoulder and arm. Psychic matter bandages formed over her bullet wounds, not fully stopping the bleeding, but slowing it. Elias cleared his throat and Elisa looked up at him. The tears had stopped and were now dried on his cheeks, leaving trails in the dust on his face. “Do you think there is a road somewhere?” Elisa shook her head. “How could there be? There’s nowhere to go within miles.” Elias turned to her to protest. “But Ignatius said-” Elisa cut him off, “I don’t care what he said! He’s not here now. The most we can do is keep driving until we find something.” Elias turned back to focus on driving just in time to see the boulder rapidly approaching the car. Elias spun the wheel as hard as he could and the car’s traction slipped and the car spun in circles, waking up Emi, just before it slammed full force into the enormous rock.