AFIRE: fight for the Earth begins✓

24.2 ZURI

The story so far:

---- Aija is a Volunteer at the Pristine School at Innermost. She works along with Zuri and Ze, who are her friends. Aija witnesses a strange event one night – light emanating from Rez's body. The kidnapper is after her soul, next, but he leaves her alive and goes away. Another man finds her, he wants to take her somewhere else - Aija though wary of him agrees. Aija learns of the existence of the aliens – the Ytai. Also, about the R'ies and H'eon, Harvesting and Àvo from Etrie. Etrie tells her that the man, who Harvested Rez (Thieron), will now go after her. He tells her that the spy/kidnapper's name is Luka. Etrie asks her to work along with him. Aija agrees to work along with Etrie on Harvest Stopping Missions.

---- Thieron kidnaps Aija. She finds out that Nala works for Thieron. Ze, who was following her to rescue her, gets captured along with her. Thieron binds Aija to himself.

---- Luka asks Aija not to talk of Zuri to Nala, especially in front of Thieron. She agrees for Zuri's sake. Luka goes to Etemir to scout for souls. He is caught by Etrie but manages to escape. Etrie is furious about Aija and Ze. Thieron is planning the Harvest of the soul that Luka scouted. Aija and Ze try to escape, but Thieron stops them. Thieron and Aija go to the Open. They meet Alton Ivar.

---- Thieron finds Aija is out of the room and when he goes to find her, he sees that Dhor-Wo has found her. He gets her back to the room, furious. When they go to see Var-Inu, the Ytai man asks to see her. And, then, he tells Thieron to take her to get the Avo. They are attacked by a Savage. He manages to stop it. Var-Inu burns it. Aija asks if he is really Ah'n. He tells that he is Ah'n.

---- Xan speaks to Aija. He tells her what happened to him. 

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****24.2 - Zuri****

The most challenging part hadn't been being alone – it had been pretending that she didn't know what had happened.

Especially, navigating the school week alone had been torture.

Zuri was lonely. And, she had to act like she didn't know why both Aija and Ze were absent from school – both of them who had been close to her. The two junior volunteers, Caroline and even Keira, who mostly kept to herself, had been spending time with her, though she preferred to be alone. It was tough answering questions regarding her two, clearly, missing friends. 

For most of the day, she avoided the teachers, she avoided going back to the teacher's room after classes. She stayed on school grounds but as far away as possible from them. The two junior girls eventually found her in their free time no matter where she was.

It had been a week since Aija and Ze had been kidnapped, and there was no news of them. *Kuna was almost always at her place, and she wondered if he was afraid something would happen to her.

*Ahi had visited her mid-week to see how she was doing. Her mother called her every day, and though it was always a video-call and she could see her family, it wasn't as good as really being at home. And, Imani was terrified for her safety. Two of Zuri's friends had been missing.

 Zuri missed Aija and Ze. She hoped they were fine, wherever they were.

****

She went to Aija's Apartment, the door auto-unlocked for her. Aija's things were scattered; the Secures had scourged the place. Not that they would find anything of significance.

Zuri went to the window and took the bigger pinecone that rested there on the inner sill. No one had given it a second glance. She turned it over and reached for the small chip hidden in its crevices. She put the chip into her Scroll, and it asked for permission to play the information in it.