Archer Lumen: Earth's Version of Hell (Unfinshed)[Edited Up to Escape]

Chapter 28 | Spoils of the Bane of the Moon

  Fur, russet fur covered his entire body. He was a monkey? He looked up and met the eyes of NK, who was frowning in shock. Miles worked his tiny tongue in his mouth, remembering how to speak English. “What’d I say? I said that I’d ‘see you soon’. I just didn’t know it’d be a minute later.”

  Before the Keeper could get his guard up, Miles sprang from the air, monkey claws outstretched as he latched himself onto NK’s face. Take this! He scratched the Keeper’s face, tossing the sunglasses onto the ground as he worked. When he was finally thrown off, Miles scampered off, through the legs of the guards, and back into the castle. He ran under the skirts of maids, onto platters of food that were prepared to celebrate his death no doubt, and on top of heads. Finally he reached the throne room, where the door that led to the dungeons was. He wanted to go down badly, but knew that that was the first place the Natural Keeper would look. He eyed the tendrils of golden thread that hung from the tapestries.

  Miles ran over to them, climbing the one with the iPhone easily. He stayed behind it, hidden in the shadows as he rested on a ledge. Tomorrow he’d look for the others, maybe they were in the city. For now though, he slept.

                                                                    ☽

A day after Dar had died, I still hadn’t seen him. I figured that he’d show up eventually, as a ghost or whatever, but no such luck. Ridge stayed silent as we walked. I guess it was easier knowing that I might seem him again as a ghost. Knowing that, with the Void, no one really stayed dead.

  Note-to-Self; it might take a little while until ghosts show up from the Void.

  The Shifters in the group changed form halfway as Wren pulled ahead on her ice sled. I sighed and half-shifted into a Griffin, feeling my muscles grow as I easily caught up to them. We ran like this for a couple hours, not saying a word―when it started.

  It wasn’t like the other times, where I just lost control of my body. No this was worse. The pain came from my gut, where I usually felt the tug when I commanded water. It spread out into the rest of my torso and intensified. I gritted my teeth and tried to keep running.

  But I realized that I couldn’t when my skin began to glow.

  So I fell back, sweat forming on my brow. The others didn’t notice that I wasn’t there, which was probably for the best. Just in case somebody looked back and saw me kneeling on the grey grass, I moved behind a large hill, leaning against the grass as I willed the agony to fade.

  My skin stopped glowing, which I took as a good sign until bands of silver light began to wrap around my entire arm. They burned and traveled up towards my face, the pain growing until I was biting my tongue to prevent myself from wailing.

  My eyes glowed silver and I heard myself say an odd prayer. It sounded like, “Hae talta mert lakept” but in my head I heard, A change needs to come, now. The words pounded in my head and flowed out of my mouth. Somehow I knew that this was a dead language of this new world. One that probably shouldn’t have been spoken again.

  After a little while, the pain faded and I could practically feel another lock of silver form. I rose unsteadily, shifting back into my normal form. The others weren’t even in sight. It kind of ticked me off that no one had noticed that I was gone, but that didn’t matter. I sighed, feeling slightly drained. My eyes closed briefly, flickering open for a quick second before closing completely. My body fell against the hill and I dreamed of nothing.

  When I awoke, it was early afternoon. I could hear my name being called, but no one was in sight. I hadn’t been sleeping, not really. Usually the Moon filled me with energy, but I guessed that I couldn’t count on that. I got up, shifting my eyes into an eagle’s and climbing the hill. In the distance I could see the others among the hills, calling into the sky. They were small dots, and I knew that I couldn’t catch up to them by simply running.