The Dark Entity

Chapter 8: Orion

"- and then there's something called transgender! It's where a person is born in the wrong body, and they transition to be either male or female- whichever one they've mentally felt and been all their life," Clover explained to Sterling, as they set up the inside of the tent.

Mizu and Ariston were outside of the tent, looking through their bags for something they could eat that night. Meanwhile, Iggy and Astrid were further out and looking for dry sticks to help with the fire they were going to light- using Ignacia's powers, of course.

"Oh, okay. I think I get it," Sterling replied, sitting next to Clover. "I hate how my parents hid me from this stuff."

"Yeah, but hey- at least you have us now, right?" she asked, causing him to slowly nod his head. "Speaking of your parents- do they know that you've left?"

Sterling stayed silent for a moment, coming up with an answer, "Well, they know that I go out into the woods sometimes- I don't think they'll come looking for me though. Sometimes I leave for days at a time, and they never ask me about it," he told her, nervously playing with his thumbs and looking down at his lap.

"Guys, come and eat!" the two heard Ariston shout from outside.

Clover shot Sterling an apologetic look, "I'm so sorry... We'd come looking for you if you left," she said, rubbing his back soothingly. "Now come on, let's go eat."

• • •

"- and then I said, "oh so there's my shoe!"" Ariston told them, making everyone laugh at some level- Mizu being the least amused out of the six of them.

"Oh, come on, lion boy! There is no way that happened," Iggy responded, snorting at his story.

"T'was a real story, ma'am. Maybe you should hang 'round me more- I am quite the delight to be around," he said, placing his empty dish- that had once been filled up with soup- on the ground.

"Oh please- more time with you? I'd rather die," she replied, dramatically.

"I think I'm hearing wedding bells!" Astrid piped up, making the two of them pause.

"Gross- I'm a lesbian," Ignacia said, scrunching up her face in mock disgust, causing everyone to laugh again.

"My mistake! I'm hearing, uh..." Astrid began, thinking of something that had to do with bells.

"I'm hearing cow bells- moooo," Ariston finished, making cow noises and putting his hands up to his head, cupping them to make ears.

"Dude, that doesn't even make sense," Sterling said, chuckling at his lame joke.

The group continued to make random jokes and share funny stories until it was almost the middle of the night. At that time, they all decided to go to bed.

Astrid had been sleeping for a couple of hours, until they were awaken by a noise they heard from outside. They couldn't decipher what it was, so they decided to go find out for themself. Astrid sat up slowly, noticing that the others were still sleeping. They held back a laugh when they saw that Ariston was sleeping in a very awkward position, with his leg on top of Mizu, his hair sticking up everywhere, and his arm flung out behind him. Astrid quietly stood up and walked to the flap of the tent, unzipping it. They walked outside, looking for where the source of the noise might be. They felt an energy in their arms- one that they only felt when their powers were active- and saw the tips of their fingers had begun to glow. Astrid was confused, they hadn't intended to use their powers in this moment, which meant something else was causing this to happen.

They then noticed that there was some sort of creature in the area ahead of them. It was a lanky, purple, horse-like animal. It's beautiful mane was faintly glowing, illuminating the space around it. Astrid cautiously walked over to the creature, grabbing its attention. It gracefully turned around to look at them.