The War

Alice Enchanted

Alice was sure she was hallucinating. Opal had not been kidnapped and taken to the realm of no return. She was right beside her other witch, running from the manevolent kingdom Miles had warned Alice and her nemesis, Jessica, of. They were safe. They had to be. Alice was no fool, but all the wisdom in the world would have never prepared her for this. This time Alice was certain she cursed.

It was the only way to explain her weird personsality which made her incapable of becoming the maiden her parents had dreamed of having. The only way to explain her lost loves.

These thoughts swirled through her head, as Brian led them away from the horrors that had recently unfolded. So many from their party had vanished. Now they were down to the telepath, the leprechauns, the speedster, and the werewolf.

After a timeless period that could've been hours or minutes, Brian stopped them. He said "This isn't gonna work. They're gonna catch us if we just keep running on foot like this." He wasn't wrong. "We need to try something else."

"Well what do you suggest, Brian." Eric said, becoming frantic, "Should we swim? Fly? We don't have a car or the time to make one and we don't have some secret cave to hide in."

Alice pondered this for a minute. Maybe after all this fear and exhaustion, she thought, We haven't been thinking clearly. Maybe the answer is so simple. "Why not stay here?" Alice asked. Even Lily looked at her like she was mad. "We are not helpless. That deaf imp they call a general even said that we were a very powerful group. There's got to be a way we can survive..."

"Well when you have an actual idea I'd love to hear it, but since you seem to determined to waste what little time we have, I think you ought t-"

Alice slapped Eric across the cheek. "We've heard enough from you, thank you very much. Let's be productive now. Does anyone think that their power might be useful here?"

After a moment of silence, Liam gasped, "Of course, you idiot. You're literally standing on the very thing you went to school for." And then the ground dropped out from under them.

When the world righted itself, Alice began to feel cold. Like a draft was blowing past her. Spirits must have been playing tricks on her mind. It was dark, but not like the dark of a starry night, but pitch black, like a forbidden cave. Before her eyes could adjust to this new world, someone lit a match and set a nearby stick on fire. The light spread illuminating the cavern.

In the dim light Alice could make out Liam as he hardened the layers of rock that now encompassed them. He had built a small room and the six were standing in it's center. "Liam, you're a genius." Eric said, now apparently satisfied that they were safe from harm.

"Oh please," Lily countered, "Alice is the true genius here. While you idiots sat around debating our chances of being kidnapped, she actually used her head."

Liam scoffed, "If we're deciding things like that, than Brian is obviously the smartest here. He's the one who first realized that running wouldn't work."

"Yeah and he also led us through the forest blindly for like two hours."

"It's barely been 45 minutes."

"I beg to differ." she scoffed. "As if-"

"Would you guys quit it!" Josh screaming, breaking the shell of silence that had surrounded him until now, "Our roommates have been kidnapped, we have more important things to do than to sit around arguing about nothing!"

"Sorry." Lily whispered, her eyes becoming faucets. "Josh- he- he's right. Our friends are being tortured, it doesn't matter. Nothing matters without them here with us."

Alice replied, "Don't cry Lily. We'll save them. We have to."

"So what's the plan." Liam said, "We've lost most of our strongest players. Josh and Brian are our only superiors. That placed is guarded tightly. Everything underground is bedrock or infused tortinsium. It won't be easy to break in and it definitely won't be easy to break out with eight other people likely in no condition to fight."

Eric said, "I don't know much about any of that, but we've got four days." Alice looked over at the biomorph. He sat in the corner reading from a paper, while rummaging through Carlos' backpack.

"Is that what Carlos told you?" Brian said.

"He wrote it down." Eric showed them the paper, "See it says, 'If I'm having an allergic reaction or something like that, I keep my med supplies in the pocket. If I've been taken captive come find me in four days. They'll suspect if you come sooner. And stay out of my stuff. Unless I'm dead, than Eric can have them.'"

"Why did he leave instructions." Lily wondered.

"Because he probably put something in here he doesn't want anyone find." Eric said, "He leaves notes everywhere. He's very particular."

"I would call it particular, but sure. He's left a couple notes lying around before." Liam said.

"Why are you guys so caught up on this? We have the information, now let's use it." Josh said.

"Yeesh, you're so uptight. You need to relax some, we have four days." Lily said.

"We need to use our time wisely. If they have to suffer for four days, then we need to be ready in four days."

"Okay , but-"

"There are no buts! There is nothing! Nothing. We have to get this right. We have to."

"Josh, calm down." Eric said, "I know to you it seems like nobody cares about recusing the others. But we all have someone to save. I'm sure Carlos probably planned it that way or-"

"He didn't actually." Brian interrupted, "He choose us because he thought the others would survive better and we'd have the best chance of saving them. Everything else is just a coincidence."

"Eric said, "Wait you saw what he was thinking when he choose everyone."

"Yeah. Lily and Liam for an escape plan. Alice for construction. Josh, of course, for his speed. Me for intel and cause I can control minds, sometimes. And you because your the only person he knew for sure was medically certified."

"You just remembered all this."

"Near perfect memory. A blessing and a curse."

Alice who had been deep in thought for sometime now, finally decided to share her wonderings with the team, "Guys, I think... I have a plan."