VenatIO (Book I Of The IO Series)

XXXVIII

DAY TEN

0519 HOURS

LOCATION- EARTH, BERMUDA TRIANGLE

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The water around me began to drain into the ground. I felt goose bumps rise on my arms as the wound on my forehead began hurting more. We said nothing, preferring to understand our surroundings by ourselves. Ty walked forward and I followed him, we had come a good distance when the rest of them began to follow us. Eli the last, but as soon as he reached close to us, a rumble filled the earth.

I cursed and looked to where Eli had stepped, to check if there were some sort of booby trap. There was nothing. The rumbling increased and we all stood still. I grabbed Jaz's hand, ready to run with her at any sign of harm. The ground around us cracked and we all herded up in the centre.

"Fuck," Michael cursed and jumped away from us as walls erupted form the ground, all around us.

Concrete walls extended all around us, caging us. And then from the top, it extended in a right angle forming a box. We were shut inside it.

"Black," I muttered looking upward. The ceiling seemed to be bubbling, forming slight bumps of concrete. As he looked up, one of the bubbles popped and a grain of sand dropped down. We watched it fall, Michael moved out of its way and it fell beside his feet. Another bubble popped, then another one and before long grains of sand were raining down on us like rain. It didn't hurt in the beginning but then the bubbles began to spit the sand. And then it began hurting. A lot.

My arms went up to protect my wound as the grains stung my skin. I couldn't speak, I could hardly see any more. It was like a swirling storm of sand. The sand disappeared into thin air as it touched the ground,

"Eli," Michela bit out and then choked on the sand that entered his mouth, "You have to stop it."

I peeked through my fingers as I felt sand no longer hitting me as harshly. Eli's body loomed over my crouched body. I had curled my body up, telling them to do the same. Less surface area, it would hurt less.

"Black," I hissed through my teeth, "stop being an idiot and taking my pain, go and stop the bloody sand."

He didn't move.

"Sapph," Jaz worriedly said, pointing to where I was. I look to the floor. It was cracking. Deep lines cut into the ground and I could feel it shake at my weight.

"Black, hurry up,'' I said. He was deep in concentration; his eyes were tightly shut but nothing was being controlled except the few grains of sand in front of him.

"Ty," I yelled out loud, not caring how much sand I ate while doing so. The ground under him had almost completely broken. But he hadn't noticed as both his eyes were shut. I ran at him, moving away from Eli and ramming his body into the wall, just as the ground that was beneath him fell.

'Are you an idiot?' I asked. 'Do you want to kill yourself?'

'I'm good, Sapph, chill,' he smiled into my head, reassuring me. His eyes opened for a fraction of a second but closed again.

'If I didn't help you, you'd be dead,' I said craning my neck to look at the hole in the ground.

"Eli," Michael said, his voice deflected by all the sand, "under you."

Eli heard and moved away, keeping his eyes closed. I couldn't speak at this point. The sand was biting into me. The ground beneath us cracked even further and I lifted my head to warn them when I saw Eli's body falter. He was losing consciousness.