The Next Dark Age: book 1 beginning

chapter 4 In the Forest

"Okay," panted Stephanie once they were far enough from the town that no one should of been able to find them, "Why did they decide to attack us again, I mean you saw how organized that was, that took planning, and you don't just decide one day to pan all that out."

Trisha looked at Michael, "Did your mom ever mention anything like this?"

"Okay, did you not hear the part where i said i ignored everything she said because she was INSANE."

Trisha began to develop a stomach ache at the idea of the TGK being able to plan mass attacks at a moment notice. Trisha could not focus long on this idea though, as she heard footsteps coming from the forests. Everyone else must of heard the noise too, because they all stood up and took an offensive stance. The footsteps grew closer, until finally, Tim appeared all giddy like normal.

"Hello Trisha," cried out Tim before adding, "And hello to her dear friends too. You know, Trisha, you always seemed kinda lonely after your family moved away, so I'm glad to see that you were able to meet some new people. Although, if I do say so myself, I thought it would hard for you to make friends since you didn't talk to anyone for, what? Five years."

Trisha started to blush a little bit. She thought it was a bit unnecessary that Tim went and revealed all that, but Tim was never known for his filter, so what should one expect? She looked at the others to see if they were judging her for what Tim said. Luckily instead of hearing all that part about Trisha being a social outcast, the others looked at both of them in awe, most likely due to the fact that Tim was the one responsible for saving all of them, and Trisha was now associated with them (the fact that he also looked like a model could have helped too.)

"Dude, you were awesome back there!" Exclaimed Harris with a gigantic and pure smile on his face, "Trisha, you should of told me about your friend, what is your name anyways?"

"Tim," Tim answered, "Now I was going to do something, but I forgot what I was doing. Do any of you guys know? No why would you guys know, you aren't my personal assistant."

"What's a personal assistant?" Steph whispered to Trisha, who shrugged.

Out of nowhere Tim eagerly shouted "Oh, now I remember! I have a great surprise for you fantastic people!" Tim then headed out of the clearing and into the dense forest. A few seconds later he brought back a tied up body with tape around the mouth. The body was a ruffled up girl who had dirt on her face that was new, but had none of the usual grime that had caked into people skin after it being there for a long time, making her look surprisingly clean. At first everyone just stared at the body with a little bit of fear in their eyes that Tim might of kidnapped some stranger, then the girl woke up and started desperately wiggling around while trying to undo the knots that had tied her, and also started making the "I'm trying to scream, but I can't because I have tape around my mouth," face.

Tim informed the group that "As you can see, she clearly has a tattoo on her right arm, which is the gang sign used to identify members during a mission, so they know who not to massacre. I knocked her out during the chaos and tied her up, I was hoping she could tell us what exactly is going on with all the arson and murdering, as they usually aren't this violent "

"Wait a minute," interrupted Michael while looking very annoyed, "I know that girl, her name is Sapphire."

"Wasn't that like your best friend when you lived in the New York region?" Harris asked very confused, as Michael was incredibly nice,  so him associating with one was very out of character for him.

"Yeah, at first when I moved out from that area we wrote letters to each other a lot. Then she stopped writing one day with no explanation. I had no idea that she was part of some violent gang, she seemed like a nice person in New York."

Harris then, in an effort to ease the tension, remarked, "Why don't we remove the tape, and hear what she says, maybe things aren't as bad as they seem." He went over to Sapphire and removed the tape covering her mouth, and worked on undoing the knots around her wrists and ankles.

"Thanks," murmured Sapphire in a grateful tone with a thick Canadian accent. She started wiping her face away of all the tears and dirt that had formed, and got into the ball position on the floor.

"Kay, we let you, go now speak," demanded Michael in a tone of annoyance and anger that was unfamiliar to see in him. "Why do you have that mark, and do you have anything to do with the string of fires that has been going around lately."

She continued to speak quietly "Listen I have no connection to the fires, I'm actually considered a traitor to the gang, if you look at where the angelic figure should be, you can see a skull over it, that means that I was kicked out." Sure enough a skull had been imprinted right over the figure.  "Originally, if you were kicked out, you just weren't welcome anywhere near them, but recently they have been kidnapping ex members, which is why I was there."

Michael face grew angry, and then he looked like he was about to say something, decided against it, and then responded "But why did you join them? What happened after I left that made you consider burning down towns?"

It was upon hearing this question that Sapphire began to tell her life story, that went a little something like...