(TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions blood, implies slavery, torture, do not read if you are overly sensitive to that.... Oh yeah slight violence too sorryyy) Blinding light floods my vision. “We’re back!” whispers Liza, gleefully, her voice full of awe somewhere to my left. My eyes adjust, and indeed, we’re back! Right in the same spot too! And, a bit away this time, out of earshot, is Marcus. He is on the ground, again. He has even worse bruises. Even some (a lot) of blood! His hands are tied behind his back, and he has a collar. Like a dog, kinda. He is kneeling in front of . . .someone . . .with a whip! That someone--the spirit I guess--can’t see us, because of a helpful tree. I want to call out to him, to help him. But I can’t. I know I shouldn’t anyway. “CHARGE!” shouts Vally, holding out her locket and running to spirit/person/thing? “What the actual--” I whisper-yell, but then everyone charges, so I shrug and run after them. Marcus hears us, and turns, as much as he can with the ropes, to us. His hands are tied. I run towards him because the other guy is currently dealing with three angry 12-year-olds. Beth has picked up a stick and is whacking the guy, Liza has a pillow, and Vally is just plain out doing some kinda karate. I don’t think she’s taken classes, but she has some pretty good curses, fury, kicks, punches . . .the like. Unfortunately . . .all of it just goes right through the guy, who looks surprised, annoyed, and a bit amused. ...okay I guess I should describe him better. He is sort of all gray. Like, no color. He has chiseled features, and it seems, not super muscled, but not weak either. I can’t really guess what color his skin, eyes, clothes, and hair was, because, like I said, he was all gray. He had a whip, and long, kind of baggy pants on. He had a sweater on, that seemed, like, well, I think it was a leather sweater. Jacket? Sweater-Jacket-leather thing? Anyways back to the story. I continue running towards Marcus, and I skid to a halt next to him. I start untying him, then just take out my army knife and cut his bonds. “You girls-” he starts to say, then I finish for him “-should not be here, it’s too dangerous, You could get hurt, we're too delicate, blah blah blah. I get it. But if you-” He grinned, something that made my heart soar. I haven’t seen that in a while. “Nah, you girls are awesome!” He cries. I laugh, and the spirit turns. Marcus’s grin slides off his face and is replaced with terror. “Leave. Now.” “Marcus--” He pushes me away, panic in his voice. “Quick! Go to Ms. Dealira. She’ll help you with your . . .well, pow--” The spirit brings the whip down ultra hard. And not on Marcus. On my friends. Beth dives one way, Liza the other, but Vally is in the middle and gets it bad. She crumples to the ground. I watch in pure horror as she doesn't get up. I feel my chest tighten and my breathing grow heavy as I glare at the spirit-person-bad guy. “Leave them ALOOOONE!!!” I yell as I stand up, the earth (dirt and rocks and stuffs) building up around me. I feel the same fury I had this morning come coursing through me, so hard I nearly fell. “GET AWAY FROM THEM!!” I scream, pure rage in my voice. Vines, leaves, trees start moving at him, hitting him, again and again. Beth pulls Vally out of the way, and Liza stares in bewilderment. The earth crashes down on him, but it still goes right through him. The spirit locks eyes with me. “This isn’t over, girl.” And then he disappears, the ground starting to shake around us. “What’s happening?!” shouts Vally, as I fall to the floor in exhaustion. Liza drags me next to Vally, who has a super bright red lash on her back. Beth runs to Marcus and grabs his hand, but he fades away. “MARCUS!” Screeches Beth, running to the spot where he was. Tears are streaming down her face. “NOOOOOOOOO! THAT LITTLE S--” but she stops herself before cussing, and saying something reeeeally bad. But I can tell it’s on her tongue. I look up wearily. “JUST BECAUSE MARCUS IS DARK-SKINNED DOESN’T MEAN SLAVERY HASTA START AGAIN!” Shouts Lizzy. I get up, stumbling. “Gotta..save...--” I feel my knees buckle and make me fall, the last thing I hear is my friends calling out to me before I faint, everything going black as my last words die in my mouth. END OF CHAPTER 2 NOTE: I am adding a new cover for each part because why not?
Chapter Three PoV: Beth Natasia passes out, falling limp next to Valentina. I glance around. Tall pine trees surround us in all directions. The ground is covered in leaves, and twigs that crackle underfoot. We are in a clearing. When we arrived here, both times, we had been a little ways away from the clearing, on a smooth, large circular rock, next to a river. I reckon the river was about shoulder deep. The place where Marcus has been both times is in the middle of the clearing, on an uplifted stone, about the size of a king-sized mattress. I take in my surroundings, trying to be calm. Mar is gone! That alone is enough to set me off. And on top of that, Nati's conked out! I try to breathe calmly but I can't, everything's replaying so fast in my mind! I clench my fists, and try to calculate. Stop thinking about Mar! Nati got us here . . .or, I think she did . . .and now we’re stuck in some odd land, the earth itself just attacked some spirit guy. I think Nati had something to do with it, and maybe it’ll start attacking us next if she wakes up mad. And also, Vally has a whip-burn across her back. She is wearing a shirt that had these interlacing pieces of fabric at the top, leaving most of her back uncovered. The burn is now turning purple. Not a good sign. “YOU LITTLE DANG PINECONE!” shouts Liza. I turn, just in time to see her chucking a branch at the stone platform. Liza, who has kept her cool for an amazing amount of time, finally cracks. She curses--not actual cuss words, just insults--and calls the spirit guy quite a few, er, names. I examine the burn on Vally's back. It needs aloe vera." I say, then Vally says, “I’m gonna kill that guy.” and passes out alongside Nati. “Great. Another passed-out kid.” I grumble. Liza kicks a tree, yowls in pain, then goes back to yelling and name-calling. I decide to let Liza be. I mean, not like I could stop her. At the rate that she’s throwing things, yelling at the top of her lungs, and kicking the air where the spirit guy was, I don’t think I could stop her if I wanted. And anyway, if I did go over there, I know I’d start screaming and yelling too. I want Mar back! Finally, after a few minutes of letting her yell, I decide we needa do something about the two bodies lying on the ground out cold. “Um, Liz . . . LIZA, ABOUT VALLY AND NATI!” I yell. She turns and seems to register that I'm still here. “Vally’s lash-burn thingie is turning purple! We needa treat it, and I don’t know how to get aloe!” I shout. Liza then literally flies into the air and lands right next to me. My eyes widen. “What the . . .” She makes a sort of circular motion, and then this wind comes out of nowhere and picks up Vally, moves her a few yards away to the stream that we arrived next to, and dumps Vally in a stream. “WHAT THE HECK, LIZA! SHE COULD DROWN!” I shout, running over to the stream. I hear a sort of whooshing sound as I get near the river. “You asked me to help treat it, and I think cold stuff would help her swelling go down.” I glare at her and wade in. I glance back. Liza seems to come to her senses, and she claps a hand to her mouth. “Holy what the pinecones! Did I do that!? AGH!” Her hands are flapping about, and then a wind comes up and puts her in a tree. What the . . . I decide to let Liza figure that one out by herself. Vally needs me. I’m a strong swimmer. This’ll be nooooo problem. At first, the river is waist-deep and super cold, but the temperature doesn’t bother me. Temperature never has. And I have a mission. I see Vally. She is sputtering awake and floating downstream fast. Her head goes under. Her head comes back up. Under. Stays . . .My breath catches in my throat, but then she comes back up. I dive after her. Must save. Must save. “I’M COMING VALLY!” I shout, hoping this will encourage her to fight the current. It doesn’t. She’s only half awake, and right now she’s using most of her strength to keep her head above the water. My heart rate is speeding up, the urgency of the situation is catching up to me. I try to calm down, and as I focus on swimming as fast as I can towards Vally, I notice that the current of the water is changing. It's getting faster, and stronger. What in the world? The whooshing sound I noticed earlier has been growing louder, and louder. The sound is almost earsplitting. I glance ahead and see it. The water turns slightly to the right then disappears. A waterfall. End of Part one Previous: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/607838028/ Next:
