YouTube: Dream Gamers: Book 2: Mortal Kombat VT

Chapter 4

Jordan looked concerned and worried.

"What do you mean you haven't even seen her?" he shouted.

"She means exactly what she said," Isaac butted in. "We haven't seen her yet, and we don't know where she is!"

Jordan folded his hands in his lap and looked down disconcertingly. He looked pale beneath the dirt and dried blood on his face. Cierra hated seeing Jordan like this, and she wished she could give him better news. She couldn't believe she had forgotten about her own sister! She began to worry and feel guilty for not realizing it earlier. What if Bethany ended up like Jordan, but with no one to help her? What if the psycho-empress, Mileena got to her? Then what?

"We need to go find her," Jordan declared.

"We? Not you, Jordan! You're in too bad of shape!" Cierra fretted. "You'll kill yourself!"

"I don't care!" Jordan shouted in defiance. "What if she dies and we weren't there? What if she's already dead? Even if she is, at least I'll know we at least tried!"

Cierra couldn't argue with him any further. He had a valid point, and they all cared for Bethany the same amount. It wouldn't be fair to force Jordan to stay behind, not knowing what was going on, especially if it was a family member that was a part of the equation.

"All right," Cierra conceded. "I'll ask Sonya when the soonest she'll allow us to leave is. She won't deny us the right to call a search party for her, especially since she was the one who allowed to live long enough to get you proper medical care."

"I'll go ask her," Isaac offered. "I'm tired of sitting around doing nothing."

Cierra nodded, and Isaac stood up and went to find Sonya.

"Just know that I won't let you do anything that would hurt you worse," Cierra informed Jordan.

"Yeah,"

Isaac exited the medical tent and looked around the camp. Mostly, he was looking at the city ruins surrounding the camp. They were definitely in a post-apocalyptic future world, but Isaac had no idea how they got here. It all seemed too real to be an ill dream, yet it seemed so unreal that Isaac thought he was imagining it.

Isaac's thoughts drifted back to the attack. What caused him to kill Reptile? It felt like instinct had taken over, but the adrenaline rush and the rage he'd felt had been blinding. He had lost control of his own actions, and yet, killing Reptile had not only been satisfying, but... right.

Guilt began to take over again. Why did it feel right to kill someone else? Isaac had never had any malicious intent before in his life. He wasn't even the one in immediate danger, so why did he feel threatened? Did he share an even deeper bond with Jordan than he thought?

The bonds they had were already extraordinarily strong; they had most of the same interests, thoughts, and opinions. How could his bond with Jordan, more like the bonds with each of his siblings individually, be even stronger than he'd known?

Isaac shook the thought from his head, as he had more important things to worry about. One of those bonds could be threatened by death, and Isaac needed to make sure that didn't happen. The first step in doing so was finding Sonya, so that he could request a search party to find Bethany.

He found Sonya talking to a man on the other end of the camp, but something seemed... off.

"You've been working yourself too hard, babe. You should take it easy sometime!" the man seemed to be trying to make up with Sonya.

"There's no time for slaking off nowadays, Cage," Sonya scoffed. "And what did I say about calling me 'babe'?"

Now Isaac was beginning to understand. The reason why this guy was trying to make nice with Sonya was because they were ex's! This man must be Cassie's father.

Sonya noticed Isaac, and sighed.

"Hey, Isaac," she called.

"Hi, Sonya," Isaac said with a confused smile. "What's going on here?"

"This is my asshole ex-husband, Johnny Cage," Sonya groaned.

"I kinda guessed," Isaac laughed, scratching the back of his head, nervously.

"Oh," Sonya giggled. "Was it that obvious?"

"Yeah," Isaac laughed, sort of regretting saying anything. Johnny laughed.

"Nothing is ever subtle between the two of us," he added in. "Never has been, never will be!"

"Cage!" Sonya shouted.

Now, Isaac could tell why Sonya called him an asshole.