Breaking the Fourth Wall

Ch. 7 Looks Like Our Crappy Sub's Bad Hair

Iris's POV:

Let me tell you a little about the Jetia Hunters.

Jetia Hunters first existed in a man's imagination. This man's name was Nerezza. Nerezza was a dark, twisted man, who studied dark, twisted magic. He was one if the best Keepers in our world's history. He'd been groomed his whole life to be a Keeper. But at some point, he started to question our system. Why did we keep the worlds of story and reality apart? Why not let them collide together to create a beautiful chaos? Why follow a path set before him, when he could change it, transform it, and mold the worlds to his liking? He was a Keeper, after all. He had access to all the power and information he needed.

And so he began to study. He gained knowledge beyond anything anyone should ever know.

And he made the Jetia. Made of fear, ash, death, and countless forbidden spells, he wrote them into existence and brought them into the "real" world in an attempt to destroy the lines between fiction and reality.

They are evil, monstrous, sharp creatures, bred and trained for thousands of years to break our system, our way of life.

Of course, there was the big battle, Keepers saved the worlds (yayyy), Nerezza was stripped of his Keeper title and powers (yayyyyy), and the worlds went back to their relatively peaceful ways. Right?

Wrong.

Because before Nerezza was killed, he gave the Jetia one new objective: Kill the Keepers.

Friendly reminder-WE ARE THE KEEPERS!

The thing is, no one has seen a Jetia Hunter in maybe 700 years. For all we knew, they were all dead.

Or not.

The fact that Tara even mentioned the Jetia is huge. We learn about them in basic Keeper training, of course, but other than that, the Jetia don't get mentioned much.

If Tara mentioned them in an emergency...What if they're...? No, they can't be back. It's impossible. Then again, so is a girl being able to literally jump into books.

When Bailey and I got to the Lair, we snuck in, walking slowly, silently, through the stacks of books scattered everywhere, listening closely for any sign of an approaching threat.

As we came closer to the center of the room, I heard something. A whispery, kind of grating noise, like metal on metal. I paused and looked back at Bailey.

"Weapons." I mouthed. She nodded quickly and began looking around carefully for something we could use to fight while I kept an eye out for the source of the noise.

A moment later, Bails tapped my shoulder and handed me a Custos Blade (that's Latin for Keeper). I'll explain more about those another time.

Now properly armed, I gestured for her to step closer and follow my lead. Then I peeked carefully around our tower of books to look for the source of the noise. Nothing. We stepped out from behind the books carefully and stalked silently towards the back of the large room.

Minutes of us moving achingly carefully passed, until finally, we peeked around a shelf, the awful grating noise closer than ever, to see a huge, oily, writhing black creature looming over an unconscious Tara and Carson.

Yeah. The Jetia are back.

Bailey's POV:

Tara and Carson. Unconscious. Jetia. Five feet away. Oily. Black. Looks like our crappy sub's bad hair.

I was panicking big time. Thankfully, the Jetia didn't seem to notice Iris and me.

My grip on the dagger I'd inherited from my grandfather, the Torva Messor (Grim Reaper in Latin), tightened. My hands were cold and kind of clammy, and I wanted to throw up. I couldn't tear my eyes away from the creature, but Iris seemed calm and collected.