The Hidden Three (Book 1 of the Hidden Trilogy)

Chapter Six: In Darkness

Eliana

The silence was complete and the darkness was consuming my every molecule. The cold enveloped me in a cruel embrace and I could barely see past my own foggy breath. I stood behind a large rock, I was crouching and I could feel my knees begin to ache. That's when I sensed someone behind me. I slowly turn only to see three figures behind me. I try to lift my sword in defense, however, my own body disobeys. Instead, I speak.

"Across the chasm and between the meteors; that's where they set up their camp," I don't even understand my own words, but I couldn't seem to do anything about it.

"You want us to take prisoners? Or kill them all," I unwillingly turn to the person who spoke. However, I could barely make out a man's face for it was covered by a thought helmet with a golden sun emblem in it. The rest of his armor was dark as the night that shrouded us.

" I hate the idea of killing anyone of them, but I have my orders. We are to take five prisoners. Get rid of the rest," the pain in my words surprises even myself, yet what I actually say surprises me more. My hand raises and I make a motion for the others to follow me. I creep around the rock and see what lays before me. A large field that stretches for not too long before disappearing into a forest, however, it is not grass that covers the ground but some silver glowing substance.

My footsteps onto the field and within seconds my followers and I are dashing into the darkness of the forest. The forest had a canopy of glowing leaves and the ground had sprouted these glowing rocks. Was it even rocks? The green glow of them cast a sickly shadow upon my face, and I was starting to question my sanity. Before I could consider this prospect any further, I was moving again. Weaving between the glowing stones until I came to a chasm.

I tiptoe to the edge of the cliff and my body looks down. I can't even see the bottom of the chasm, all I see is mist dancing between the two rocks.

"Troop 5-9 is flanking the sides, 13-21 is taking the back approach and 26-34 is attacking the front, we are going in quietly and finding our prisoners, but make sure we get the right ones, no mistakes can be made," I say to what I assume is my troop. I did seem like their leader.

That's when things started to get weird. My foot stepped over the empty space of the chasm, immediately I tense up with terror. I was going to die, I was going to fall into the pit of darkness and that would be the end of me. Against my will, my other foot left the edge of the cliff. Instead of plummeting to my death like I expected, I was held up. I looked down to see tiny orbs of light sailing around my feet. It seemed as though they were the wind that was carrying me away. I slowly took another step across. The chasm was quite wide, maybe twenty meters, but somehow, the tiny orbs seemed to push me along; I was halfway there before I knew it.

It took only a short while longer until my foot found a spot on the opposite cliff. A sense of pride embedded itself in my chest. I turned to see my troop still on the other side and my pride withered away, I still had a lot more work to do. That's when my three members to a step themselves over the chasm. I noticed only moments later that my hands were out, as though casting the tiny orbs themselves. My troop took slow steps, then I started to feel faint. I noticed one of my troop members wavered when they took a step.

I looked to my second group member, the one that was closest to the cliff and noticed a couple of the lights flickering underneath his feet. I was so tired, I needed a break.

" Don't stop Eliana, you can't stop, we are almost there, keep going," I felt a slight ache in my chest when my troop member said that, it hurt that I was letting them down. My head started to pound, my comrades took quicker steps, the lights were flickering more and more, I could sense the panic rising in my troop. They starting shouting encouragement at me but I could barely hear it over my own heavy breathing. That's when they started to descend.