listen closely

4

{Liam}

Em walks in and sits down.
"Another one?" She nods quietly. "Who?"
"His name was James Moore, he was twenty three, and he didn't have any family left," She says, "He died a few minutes ago." I write his name on the piece of paper next to my computer.
"Guys I-"
"One second," I say, "We're mourning."
"Mourning who?" Shelby sits down next to Em.
"You don't know him," Em says, "My spices is referred to as 'Underground Ears' because we can figure out things that others don't want us to know. Now with this whole thing, more of us are sneaking into dark territory and seeing what we can find, but not many come back out." She sighs, "When someone dies their memories usually go to someone in their family, but when they don't have any family left they go to me."
"Oh..." Shelby says, "That's sounds... hard." Em shrugs.
"It's takes a lot of energy but our society is usually pretty peaceful and crime free," She say, "Most of us have memories going back millions of years."
"So do you know who everyone else is?" Shelby asks, "Like, if you saw someone, would you have at least one memory of them?"
"More recently, yes," Em says, "There are only a few hundred of us left so we all have a lot of memories. A few thousand years ago it wasn't like that. There were so many of us that it was almost impossible for one person to know everyone..." Glowing blue tears trickle down her cheeks. "It was so beautiful... After all this is over I'll take you guys there some day. Excuse me." She disappears. Shelby looks at me.
"New memories are hard on her," I say, "I've been to her home and it is beautiful. Just give her some space." Shelby nods.
"Ok..." She looks around.
"This is nice." She says
"Will and I set everything up ourselves," I say, "And it's bigger on the inside." The alarm starts going off.
"What's that?" Shelby asks
"It goes off whenever a group of people with dark magic crosses into light territory." I get up and walk into the main room. "What's going on?"
"A group Chasers just crossed into Summer Town," Lizzie says, "Where's Em? She knows that place."
"She's busy," I say, "I can go."
"Are you sure?" Lizzie asks
"Yeah, I call in if anything goes wrong."
"I'll go with him." Will says
"Ok," Lizzie says, "If anything starts to go wrong, get out of there and call for help."

Will and I appear on a narrow path that winds down to a large tree.
"This is Em's town." We walk up to the tree and put our hands against it. The bark glows around our hands and our hands fall through it. We get knocked back, a group of cloaked figures run past us into the tree.
"It was a set up." Will holds out his hand, "We need you guys over here now." Em appears followed by everyone else.
"Em!" She runs through the tree, the rest of us go in after her.

"Some people need to get everyone out of the-" Em disappears and appears in front of the group.
"She's gonna get herself killed." Shelby disappears and appears next to Em.
"Ok, Callum and Scott, get everyone out of their houses-"
"Uh-"
"They know your not gonna hurt them, they're mind readers." Lizzie says, "Just do it please."
"Fine." They both disappear. The rest of us appear behind Em.
"I have most of the important memories and I can get out of the rest of them," Em says, "You want to take the past of least resistance? You take me."
"Em no-"
"I can't let anymore of us dying," She says, "And I'm not planning on dying either. It's the best-" One of the cloaked people puts their hand on Em's shoulder and they disappear.
"No!" People appears around us and stare at the spot where Em was standing. Blue flowers grow around us.
"My name is Chase Green," Someone steps forward, "We all know Emily and we can help you get her back."

"I have some memories of Emily," Chase says, "As long as I have a memory of who she is I can find her."
"How soon can you find her?" Lizzie asks
"It depends on how deep she is in dark territory," She says, "I'm guessing they're keeping her pretty far in so I might need to get closer."
"No," I say, "She did this to make sure no one else died in dark territory. You can still find her from here."
"He's right," Lizzie says, "We don't need anyone else getting hurt." Chase sighs.
"I need to be surrounded by flowers and I need a strawberry banana smoothie." She says, "It might take a while."