Son Of Steve (Descendants of Heroes #2) [Canceled Series]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ #8

     "Wake up!" Zander herd DJ yell to everyone from outside the tent. His mind suddenly raced to the memories of being chased and caught. He remembered his mom and dad. He remembered everything as he jumped out of bed and began running around. He didn't know where he was going but he knew he had to run. He ran out the tent and towards the forest. "Zander where are you going?!" DJ yelled from behind him. Zander suddenly stopped and realized the trouble he feared was no where near. He looked around him to make sure there weren't any entities and then turned to look at DJ. 

     "I, don't know." Zander said, shaking his head out of the terrified daze he was in. He had just gotten up and started running by instinct. Faye caught up to his friend and jumped onto his head where he would sometimes sit. 

     "It looked like you were running from a wild fire." DJ chuckled. "What scared you?" 

     "Just a dream.." Zander lied. 

     "Really, what was it about? I'm gunna guess it wasn't about spiders." DJ smiled as he looked at little Faye. 

     "Uumm... Zombies?..." Zander said, trying to come up with something to pretend to be terrified of. 

     "Makes sense." DJ replied. He then walked back into camp to wake everyone else up. The sun was just rising and the fire in the center of camp had just been lit by one of the leaders. Slowly, everyone walked out of their tents and sat around the fire, still yawning. Well, some of them were full of energy, but most of them were still tired. 

     "Breakfast!!" A leaded held some raw chicken up in the air. It looked like he had just come back from an early morning hunt. Other leaders passed some raw chickens to the kids and helped them in cooking it themselves. Zander was handed a chicken and a stick and a leader helped him put it over the fire to cook. Soon everyone had their own chicken roasting over the fire. Some of them had steak or bacon instead. When all the kids had their food cooking the leaders started cooking their own breakfast. 

   "Home, home on the range.. Where the deer, and the antilope play.." The kids started singing. Zander didn't even know what "antilope" were, or "deer" either, and he could tell even the ones singing didn't really know. 

     "What are an-ti-lope?" Zander asked the kids, interrupting the song. 

     "...I heard it's some kind of animal in the physical world." One of the kids around the fire answered. 

     "The physical world?!" Another kid scoffed. "That place is just a bunch of baloney! Everyone knows it's just a story!" 

     "The physical world is real! My mom sais she met someone who came from there!" A young girl said, 100% believing every word she said. 

     "Face it kid! That place is fake! No one has been able to prove it even exists!" An older kid shouted over the fire. Everyone then began mumbling, telling eachother rumors about this unknown world. Zander just sunk into the back of the crowd and started eating his now cooked chicken. He didn't know his question would turn into a heated debate about the mystical realm called the: 'Physical World.' 

     "Hey Zander!" One of the leaders called over to him cooly. "I heard you needed help contacting your parents. Come over here." Zander obeyed the man and followed him into a tent where he was surprised to see that DJ and a couple other leaders were in there too. DJ was standing next to an odd block while the others were sitting on some stairs, which are as close to chairs as you can get inside Minecraft. 

     "What's that?" Zander asked, eyeing the odd block in the center of the small tent. 

     "Good question." DJ said, looking down at the block as well. "It's called a command block. We use it to contact people from far away. They could be in the Nether and still receive the message." Zander began to tense up for some reason. He didn't know why but there was something in him that didn't want to contact them. He thought about why he wouldn't want to talk to them, and then he remembered his dad pushing him out the door and telling him to run. He remembered hearing his mother's scream among the sound of shattering glass. 

     "You okay..?" DJ asked a little confused, noticing Zander's pale face. Suddenly, full of just about every emotion at once, Zander's eyes began to tear up as he stared at the odd block in front of him. 

     "What's wrong?" The leader who had called him in asked. Zander's tears only streamed down his face quicker and he started having a hard time breathing as he was almost petrified with sorrow. He started sniffling and trying to keep himself from crying but was having a hard time trying to keep it all in. He didn't feel comfortable crying around the strangers but wasn't able to move himself. He just stood still, crying quietly as everyone tried to figure out what was wrong. They kept on asking if he was okay and what was wrong but Zander felt as if he had been frozen in place, unable to move a pixel. Finally, one of the leaders picked Zander up and carried him to the tent where he had slept and laid him down on his bed. Zander just covered his face the whole time hoping no one noticed he was crying. 

     "What's wrong?" Hazel asked as she hopped to see Zander on his bed. 

     "I don't know... He just started, crying." The leader answered before motioning for her to leave. Hazel looked at Zander one last time before walking out with the leader close behind her. Now Zander was alone, but his crying didn't quieten. In fact, it grew, because now he wasn't trying to hold it in as much. He cried for what seemed to him  like hours, though he had exaggerated the time a bit. He finally stopped when he had no more tears to shed, but the feeling that someone had just stabbed him in the chest didn't go away. It just seemed more intense now that he was quiet. Zander just laid there, sad, for another seeming hour or so.

     Zander finally sat up in bed right as DJ walked in. DJ's face looked solemn and understanding as he looked at Zander with equally hurt eyes.

     "You lost them, didn't you?" He asked quietly. Zander only nodded. "I'm sorry.. I'm sure they were wonderful people." Zander sniffled and a few new tears appeared in his eyes, but they didn't fall. "You can stay with us as long as you like... Now come on. Lunch has already been served." Then DJ walked out the tent, leaving Zander alone again. He took a few minutes to dry his face up and walk out himself.

     When he stepped out of the tent he felt an uncomfortable amount of eyes gazing at him. He pushed away the temptation to hide and walked through the crowd of kids outside the tent, most of them still eating. Zander walked over by the fire and sat down. All the kids dispersed. Some of them sat around the fire as well. One of the leaders handed Zander a cooked fish and a loaf of bread. No one looked him in the eyes, they could tell Zander just wanted to be left alone. Zander just sat eating his food, only looking up every now and then to see kids looking away from him and at something else quickly. He knew they were all curious, but he didn't feel like talking.