Chapter 50

50 The Chaotic Beginning

Students raced through the arena, climbing trees and obtaining the weapons before anyone else could. Everyone was grabbing their weapons and starting to run. Students were tumbling over one another, trying to grab the wands before anyone else could. I heard someone scream out in pain followed by other shouts of joy as they obtained a wand from the tree it had been sticking out of.

“Follow me!” Tisiah shouted. The four of us started to run. Tisiah was in the lead, with Mari following close behind. Matt was holding on to Tisiah’s hand and I followed close behind Matt while Connor followed me. We ran through the arena, climbing trees and grabbing vines with wands sticking out of them before anyone else could.

Well they did not me.

I lied to them about my power, so it was best I was the one without the wand. It could at least cover for another day.

The place was large, and the tree’s were tall. Running through the leaves, the rocks and the crumbling pillars, it was difficult to know where everyone was running to. We just had to run.

“Alright, let’s get some more wands,” Tisiah said. “It’s probably best to do so.”

“But don’t we all have one?” I asked. “We should find a place to hide.”

“If we snatch most of the wands, many will be left defenseless,” Tisiah said. “Just follow me.”

We followed him through the jungle-looking area, going past caves and crumbling pillars, before we reached a random area. This was just a random, random place.

.....

We then took a break from running and Tisiah held up a wand. “Who’s gonna guard?” he asked. “We need a place to camp.”

“Camp?”

“Yes, camp.”

“I thought this only last for like a few hours,” I asked. Tisiah shook his head. “The limit is one day, but this place is designed to make it seem like a few days passed. It’s already about to become nighttime.”

We looked up at the sky and indeed he was right, the stars were out and it was getting slightly darker.

But Matt didn’t see it. “Why does it matter to us?” he asked Tisiah. “That the sun rises and sets,” I explained. “If it wasn’t for those time differences then we could simply live out at night, find safe refuge. And we’ll run out of rations. We have to find a place to hold up camp.”

“Okay, maybe a tree house or something?” Nikki asked.

“We’d be blown to smithereens,” Mari said, laughing.

“I agree,” Tisiah said. “We’d be blown to smithereens. We’ll need a new idea, okay? Anything that isn’t going to cause immediate death.”

“I say caves,” Nikki spoke confidently, as she had all the confidence in the world. “When it gets dark we can take shelter in the caves with wands poking out. It’ll be safe and warm.”

“I agree.”

“Caves,” I said. “Works for me.”

We walked through the forest, still hearing little voices and brutal hits in the horizion. I felt scared, excited, and anxious, all at once. I didn’t want to be part of this, but at the same time, I was having fun.

We were all in the forest, holding tightly onto the wands. I was looking at the sky, now that it had gotten darker. It was gonna be hard to find a cave, because we didn’t look like we were in the right place to find such things, and everyone probably had a different idea of where a cave might be.

All of sudden, I saw a monstorous mouth, with its tongue black and void, as the pathway ahead looked to where there was no end. “A cave!” Tisiah shouted in relief, clearly having seen the grand sight as brilliant as I had. We all ran towards the cave, grateful to be able to seek shelter in a cave that looked like a tunnel, and a pathway to a hidden treasure.

We were finally able to relax even if it was just a bit.

There was a bit of light from the moon, and Tisiah quickly created a fire, using some rocks to hold the fire in place. “Thank goodness we’re in here,” Matt said, leaning forward. “I was getting tired from running, and I was about to fall into a pit. This was the closest thing to heaven I could think of.”

“Think we can just remain here?” I asked. “Just stay here until someone tries to get us?”

“Well, we’ll need to be on guard for quite some time then,” Tisiah replied. “In any case, one of us will have to make more turns to nab more wands. Until then, this place is the best place we can hope to make a base.”

“Hmm,” I nodded. “Makes sense.”

The heat of the fire really made me feel warm, and I leaned forward, looking into the heat of it. It was relaxing, to have a fire in a cave. It was indeed what we needed.

“Why don’t we try to each take turns getting more wands?” Nikki said. “I’m pretty sure we don’t need to be moving out and in as one whole group just trying to find more wands, right? We need to also be able to guard our base as a team, right? I’m gonna go first, okay?”

“Okay, no problem,” Tisiah said. “I’ll go second.”

“I’ll go last,” I quickly responded, as silence filled the room.

They all looked at me, and I looked back.

“What?” I asked, feeling a little embarrassed.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Nikki said. “I just think it’d be a great idea to go last, totally.”

All of a sudden, we heard footsteps, and we held still. “Jeez, is that the time already?” Matt said, looking at the watch on his hand. “It looks like night is soon becoming day.”

“Why does that matter now?” Nikki asked. “There are people near us, hide!”

The footsteps got closer and closer, and as soon as it seemed someone was near, Mari spoke loudly. “I see you coming!”

“Hidden!”

There was a bunch of rustling and we all hid underground.

“Poor people didn’t realize we were here,” Matt said, laughing. We sunk back into the cave, holding our wands and trying to keep them away from the rocks and walls. “I don’t know if they realized that. Hopefully they’ll think we left,” Mari said.

“This is the best place we could think of, because nobody knows it exists,” I said. “I hope so, because it sure will be hard to get it back.”

Soon enough, morning came upon us. The sun shone directly at the forest, with a light wind carrying the scent of rainfall, and the flowers in the sky seem to blossom each second that passed by.

We got comfortable in the cave, and I looked at the ceiling. It was absolutely breathtaking. I touched it, and it felt cold. The detail in this WAC contest is amazing! “Okay, Nikki, go out and search for wands,” Tisiah ordered.

Nikki nodded, and she left the cave with her wand gripped in her hand.

At the entrance of the cave, there was a moment of awkwardness. We all looked at each other, waiting for people to say anything. For some reason everyone felt like they were going to regret what they were about to say or do for the next two hours. Eventually it got easier, but during that early moment when no one wanted to make a move on their own I could tell our tension was high and nobody really knew what we were doing with each other outside of this one cave.

“So, what do you guys wanna talk about?” Matt asked. I shrugged. “I’m not much of a talker, to be honest.”

All of a sudden, we heard footsteps. We all looked at each other, and we could tell our tension was high.

I was shaking. I was petrified.

No one knew what to say or do next, but we stood there in utter silence for a good minute or two before we heard footsteps on the rocks outside of our hideout again! We clutched our wands tightly against our chests as they got louder and louder while approaching us! Slowly they got closer until they stopped. Silence froze the scene. Terror shook the cave.