Shadowstruck

Chapter 12 Part 4

April saw the expression on Noah's face go from slightly confused to slightly shocked in the span of a second. She didn't know anything well enough to determine the cause or whether her judgments and assumptions were correct, so she turned her attention back to the conversation.

"We are not doing that, no way." Koko crossed her arms.

"It's not like we have a better plan! Noah said it himself, we can't just hide." April saw Noah blink a few times and shake his head, paying attention now. Sean kept going. "We can either stay here or we can go. Staying here does us no good."

"Neither does sprinting straight into danger!"

"One of them is better-"

"Will you just fucking listen to me for two seconds?" Koko yelled. Everyone immediately shut up, now scared of the youngest and most innocent person in the room having just raised her voice and swore. She took a breath. "Sorry. But I'm saying that when - not if, when - we go, we need to have a plan."

Noah stepped in. "Okay, so what do we know?"

April counted off on her fingers. "There's people in the castle that shouldn't be there and are likely the cause of this whole thing; there's a swirly demon cloud thing that can block memories, personalities, and who knows what else; there's, uh...what's his name? Carlos?" Whitney nodded. "Carlos. Okay. And I think he's been blocked, too; and there's also the fact that there's at least one person outside of Jason that knows we're here, or at least has a suspicion." 

Sean thought for a second. "Yep, that sounds like everything. I think we just need to figure out how to get around the guards and into the castle."

Whitney started mumbling to herself. Koko glanced over at her. "Are you okay?"

Whitney looked around at everyone, gaze resting on Noah last. She smiled just a bit, sadly. "I'm sorry." Her eyes closed and she bowed her head, concentrating. Everyone watched a small swirl of black crawl up right side of her face, adorned with small black dots.Her eyes opened and she blinked, looking around and at her hands. Her voice went just a bit deeper, almost as if it had been worn out in just a few seconds. "Oh. Alright. This is new." She looked around at the five other people in the room. "Introductions, aside, I'm sure you're all wonderful people, but we don't have much time. What's my name?"

Koko took a second to reply, astounded. "W-whitney."

"Hmm. Makes sense." She shook her head. "Back to the main point. Noah." She turned to the boy, who somehow looked even more surprised than before. "There's three people in the castle. Their names are Alex, Ryan, and Aki. They're the one's causing this whole thing. Ryan did the death threats a few days ago, Ky and I recognized her voice." She spoke quickly and urgently, leaving no time for anyone to make comments. "We're pretty sure Aki's the one that caused the...what did you call them? Memory blocks? Those. And as of right now, we think there's only one way to break it. Cutting off the source." 

"What?" Noah stuttered. "What is happening?"

"I'll tell you later. There's no time. Just- just be careful, all of you. To my knowledge, Aki can keep his hold over the guards for a lot longer than an ordinary Power or Artifact. I don't know why." She blinked quickly, seeming to fight off sleep. "In the castle, there's me, Ky, mom, dad, Carlos - Carlos is okay by the way - and someone by the name of Chrysie." She saw Noah's eyes widen just a bit. "I don't know where anyone else is. There might be more. But I do know that there's at least those people, and they are all alive." Her eyes closed one final time. "Be careful." The black swirl faded and she swayed a bit before holding out her arms, trying to regain her balance. Her eyes opened. "Well, there's that."

A realization hit Noah. "I knew you seemed familiar!"