Destined: 2 Be Continued

12. Looky Here

Alex sat in the eating room, as he always did, slowly eating a cinnamon roll. No one else had come to the room, apparently going back to their old ways. The first people, actually coming in after Alex finished his cinnamon roll, were August and Belle. They sat down and ate rolls, as they clearly always did. Penny followed, then Heather and Jeremiah. Jeremiah was carefully eyeing Heather, seeming suspicious. It was strange; Alex didn't see anything wrong with her.

Jeremiah finished his cinnamon roll. He wiped his face with the back of his hand and decided to walk back to his room. Heather stood up after him and asked, "Hey, Jeremiah, may I speak to you for a moment?" Jeremiah slowly turned around. Alex was quite frightened, wondering what Jeremiah was about to say.

"How about 'no,' you deceitful Chaopath!" Jeremiah cried out. His right forearm became engulfed in shadow-like flames, and it turned into some sort of black crystal. Using his new black crystal arm, Jeremiah impaled Heather upon the stomach. Everyone gasped, especially Alex and Penny. What was a Chaopath?

Slowly, the impaled Heather turned into some sort of blank creature, losing all lifelike beauty and replacing it with nothingness. The Thing--Chaopath, was it?-- fell to the ground and slowly unraveled from reality. The others, aside from Jeremiah, stared in shock for a moment.

"What was that?" August asked. Jeremiah snorted. "That was a Chaopath. I remember it because it disguised itself as me two years ago and tried to make a move on Heather. It was weird." Alex looked skeptically at Jeremiah. "You're telling me that there are creatures that can turn into people on the other side?" he asked.

"Yeah," Jeremiah answered calmly. "But on our side, there are guys who can do this." He pointed to his black crystal arm, and it transformed back into a human one. Alex wasn't sure whether or not that was a positive thing. He would have looked at the Chaopath's ruined corpse to avoid further conversation with the deranged psychopath in front of him, but it had already disappeared completely. Convenient.

There was a satisfied silence between the three old Destined for a moment. "Oh, that's right," August remembered. "I actually need to work on my suit for the next encounter with Locust."

"And I need to sharpen my sword-fighting skills," Belle joked. Alex and Penny sighed, but the others grinned at the horrible pun. Jeremiah straightened. "Oh, and Heather's still captured. I need to go find her," he realized, then opened the wall and jumped out. Alex really, really wanted to question why in heaven he did that, but he was spent from all the pther times he questioned these people. Alex gave up and decided to talk about normal people things with Penny.

"What about Jeremiah?" Penny asked.

"Oh, he'll be fine. Even if he finds Locust, he should be able to hold his own long enough until we find him," August reassured. Alex and Penny, knowing what these people had done in the past, just took their word for it.

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Heather was grunting furiously at Locust, but he seemed to busy fiddling with wooden objects to notice her. Periodically, he would give her water, but he didn't feed her anything, and she was starving. She expressed this feeling through furious grunts through the gag that was in her mouth. Finally, Locust threw down his wooden toys and turned towards her. "WHAT IS IT, YOU HEATHEN?" Locust had taken to calling Heather a heathen ever since she made that little crack. It annoyed Heather, but not as much as her piercing hunger.

"Mmph mm mmph!" Heather grunted at her captor. Boy, I sure do get captured a lot, Heather thought to herself as Locust, full of intense exasperation, removed the gag in her mouth. "I'm starving. Why won't you feed me?" she asked.

"A human can live two months without food," Locust answered, as if he intended to have her bound to a pole and gagged for two whole months before he would feed her anything. Heather tried to protest his inane logic, but he stuffed the gag back in her mouth and tied it in a secure knot. She gave him an evil eye to show how much she resented that.

Locust ignored her and went back to his toys, leaving Heather alone with her thoughts. She thought mostly about Jeremiah, who had been trapped unwillingly on an island for two years, and had gotten those nasty scars. They ran along his arms in a repeating pattern of jagged X's, making Heather wonder how those cave lions even gave him scars like that. Then there was the mystery of Silas Fitch, a Destined of storm that was once a Harbinger of chaos. Could he be trusted? Or was he an elaborate plan from TG?

Heather looked down at her trussed-up legs. She tried to move them, but she didn't have much luck. Such was the same for the last few days--she struggled for a bit against her ropes, to no avail. Locust had even put little covers over her hands so she couldn't untie the knots or use her Good Morning Breath. However, thinking of the hand covers made Heather think about trying to remove them. That couldn't be that hard, could it?

Heather stretched out her hands, feeling as if she had loosened the covers just from that. Then, she began to rub her hands together, trying to scrape the covers off. She was able to make her hands so she could sit on the edge of the cover and pull against her hand, but her arms were too tightly bound to do that. Heather went back to rubbing her hands together.

Soon, she felt the cover on her left hand loosen. It wasn't her right hand, obviously, but there was hope. Heather continued to rub the cover until it fell off. She looked at Locust, who was still tinkering, not even paying attention to her antics. Heather, stealthy as a bug, pulled the other cover off. Now she could use her Good Morning Breath!

Just as Heather was silently rejoicing, the door burst open. Jeremiah was standing there, a grin on his face.

"Well, looky here," he giggled, almost creepily. "I've found you both."