STARS 💫

CHAPTER III Part 2

I first met Lee in freshman year of High School at Mason Prep Academy. We sat next to each other.
"Mr. Kumon needs to get that stick out of his ass" He murmured under his breath next to me. I couldn't help it but laugh. Mr. Kumon taught us Engineering Theory, he would never blink, wear only grey, and walk with his toes facing outward.
"Aryan! Stand up" Mr. Kumon shouted. "What's so funny?"
"Sorry Mr. Kumon"
"Sit down. If you are going to disrupt the class you can stay outside the classroom" I took my seat. I used my power to make a small sculpture of Mr. Kumon with a distorted blob fish face. Lee and I couldn't hold in our laughter. We got detention together that day and had our desks taken away in all our classes for the rest of the week. It almost felt like I had Zay around; Lee even wore the same glasses as him.

Jericho and I managed to escape and ended up on top of one of the domes of the palace.
"We have to retreat!" He yelled at me. The guards are close behind. We nod heads and slide down to the edge of the dome. Our teleport machines were already programmed to send us directly to one of the fireplaces in The Atlantis Castle. We had to use it as soon as possible.
"Jump!" I yell holding water ropes in my hands to catch our fall. We jump and do exactly so. I suddenly hear Jericho scream and my head jolts in his direction. A guard had shot a spear at him; and didn't miss. Jericho had tried blocking it with a wall of rock he summoned but it still pierced through. Before his body could even fall fully to the ground he crystalized; he must've been able to activate his teleport. I take a deep breath and begin to run only to be met by an explosion under my feet. My ears feel like they are bleeding. The whole perimeter of the palace must be trapped with landmines. I'm able to still shield myself with what energy I still have. I can barely open my eyes with the dust flying around. It didn't take too long to see my teleport was broken from the blast, my only option was to run.

There used to be another town in Startra called Manonin. Manonin is a small town located on the same plain as southern florida near Miami. The only reason some people know about it is because its not far from the old castle. Around 300 years ago the Royal Mason family moved from the old castle to the current one in Berith. About ten years ago rumours began to spread that there was some type of toxicity spreading in the air in the Manonin area causing an unknown virus to spread. Many people slowly began moving out of Manonin; the poor however couldn't afford to move. Now, if you know anything about history or how societies work, when there are no rich people then comes a new group of rich people and a new group of even poorer people. Many continued to die until eventually other cities began to notice and question what was in the air? The residents that moved out of Manonin were not contagious; it was something only in the area of the town. Jericho was part of that group of the poorest poor; his parents and elder sister passed away, all he had left was one of his uncles. The two of them trekked on foot to get out of the toxic area, while trekking they came across something a large man carved whole in the ground that ran so deep they couldn't see the bottom. A building, a sort of factory stuck out from inside bumping something and letting out an orange-pink coloured gas. There were no people around, the factory seemed to have been running all on its own. Whatever was happening, the Mason family knows what it is, knows that it is the factory's gas that is infecting the air around Manonin. How could someone stay silent after knowing this? The two of them advocated against this, tried to get the word out that this is happening for the sake of the family they had lost and the people who continued to die in Manonin.  Someone, the factory and the whole were covered up and there was no proof; many of the people of Manonin who had joined the protests were silenced one way or another; Jericho's uncle wasn't so fortunate, his body was found one day after a supposed overdose.

We still don't know what the deal was with that factory; no one is left in Manonin. I swear to you Jericho, I'll uncover what that factory was, for you, for your family, and for everyone who died or lost someone because of it.

I've found myself outside of Berith in Startra; I rest against a large rock deep inside the woods. I look at my teleport and rip it off my leg. The blood oozes out, too much blood, enough to cause serious concern. I have to make a tourniquet. My eyes still seem blurry, I reach my fingers to my face. Wonderful. My eye had swollen to the side of a baseball.  I have to act fast, staying in one place will be too risky. I rip the sleeve off of my jacket and tie it around my calves. I need something, a pen or sturdy stick. A scream comes out of me as soon as I twist to look for a stick.
"Shit" I whisper.  I hear the distant sound of metal and horses getting less distant. I grunt and force myself to move forward, not even ten metres away and I find myself at the edge of a cliff. With the amount of blood I'm losing I can't use water to my advantage.
"Over there!" A man yells in the distance. They've seen me. I take a leap. The blood from my leg seeps through the jacket floating in front of me.