A Final Stand

Chapter 7: Stories of the Past

~Lukas's POV~

Magnus, Ruby, and I are going to find Jesse, and the others will get back to the temple.

I hope we'll find Jesse's prison quickly. After that mental shout, I can only imagine what she's going through.

"Would you rather fight ten zombie-sized chickens or a hundred chicken-sized zombies?" I wonder after we pitch camp and settle down inside. Which one did Jesse pick? Olivia must have posed the question to her at some point.

"Is that a riddle?" Jesse asks. The confusion is clear in her voice.

"No, just something Olivia would ask us," Magnus answers. Then he looks over at me. "The huge chickens."

"That's what I said when she asked me that," I say.

"I'd rather fight the baby zombies," Ruby says, staring into the fire. "Giant chickens, I can live with. Tiny zombies... ugh."

I nod, and we are silent for a time. "Why do you do that? Watch the fire?"

She blinks, once. "It helps me focus. Keeps the memories at bay." She traces the scar on her face.

"Where'd you get that?" Magnus asks.

She takes a deep breath, and expels it. "It's a long story. Somewhat gruesome."

"We have the time. My nightmares won't get any worse." Magnus nods in agreement, and she sighs.

"All right. I'll tell you the story."

The fire seems to dim, but maybe that's just my eyes playing tricks on me.

"We had gotten the powers a while back by then. They were a normal part of life. I was out with my friends, playing a game of Wolf's Den, when the Wolf, Aiden, just... disappeared. Nobody had any idea what happened to him, even though we could all see him."

Aiden... That name has bad memories for me. But how can someone just vanish like that? And when everyone's watching him?

"He was a good, kind person, if a little quiet. There's no reason for anyone to have had a grudge against him, at least not bad enough to do that."

That description is completely contrary to the Aiden I know. So it's not the same person. That's a relief. But the pain in her voice... had they been together, as Elle would say?

"Over the next few days, a lot of people started disappearing. There wasn't any order to it. And at the same time, any injuries we suffered became permanent, or at least slow to heal. Hardly anyone went outside, except to share news and get food.

"Then some group called the Hunters said they were the reason for the kidnappings. Me and a few of my friends decided we would try to find out where these people were located, and get our friends back. Their names were Kai, Monica, Shayna, Adit, William, Alyssa, Cody, and Sammy. We were a good team back then."

Some of these names I've never heard of before. Adit. Pronounced Aw-dit. What sort of a name is that?

"We started playing a game of Wolf's Den, like when Aiden was taken. And once again, the seeker, Shayna, was taken. Now that we were paying attention, we saw that she didn't just vanish; something pulled her up into the treetops really quickly. So we climbed up, and sure enough, someone was running across the trees. They must have had a potion of Swiftness or something, because they were really fast.

"Alyssa was a brewer, and she had some potions with her as well. No Swiftness, but she did have some Leaping and Healing. I took the Leaping, and Kai the Healing, and we started going. We would meet the others when we got to their stronghold."