We joined hands. Alex was holding my right hand and Jamie was on my left, Ezra was across from me. Alex had her eyes closed and was whispering something under her breath so quietly it blew away with the wind. She slowly began to fade, she gripped my hand so tightly I thought it would turn purple. I Saw Ezra, thinking his hand was gonna fall off too but he was barely holding on to Alex as he began to fade, then Jamie was fading, Then me.
I was traveling through the darkness, it was cold. It was empty and I was all alone, I have had this dream before. Floating through a dark empty void, the only sounds were the wind wisping past me and the silent echoes of someone calling my name, I didn't want to remember this nightmare I was living so I closed my eyes I was Free-falling without a parachute or anyone to catch me. When I opened my eyes we were in California next to the Y in HOLLYWOOD.
I looked to my right and left but no one was there, I looked forward and saw Jamie start to reappear, Then Ezra, And finally Alex. She looked unharmed and had a lot of energy, but I could still see that she wasn't relieved she was worried. She blinked her eyes fast, then slow. It was as if her eyelids were too heavy for her so instead she closed them and fell over.
I went by her side and kneeled, I lifted her hand and I felt her pulse. She still had a heartbeat but she felt ice cold. Ezra and Jamie ran over by me and looked at Alex as she was turning pale. Her heartbeat was slowing down, Shadows appeared from the ground and stood around us.
"Don't die on me," I said with a shaky voice "Please."
Alex was dying. I let out a painful scream and a blast of golden light like a force field shot out from my body, the world went still. The only sound was our shaky breaths and a high frequency. The wave shot me back and I landed on my wrist, it felt broken but I managed to get up and feel Alex's pulse again.
Alex's pulse was getting faster and she was feeling less cold, she opened her eyes wide, gasping for life and she sat up. She pulled Jamie, Ezra, and I into a hug, and I didn't mind, I didn't feel uncomfortable, the end of the world was beginning to be everyone's saddest part of their lives, But seeing Alex's small smile of relief was one of the best parts of the mine. I looked around and the shadows disappeared.
"I love you guys." She said tiredly. I could see Ezra feel guilty as he looked at the ground but it was cut short by a loud noise. The dirt behind the second L was beginning to crack open.
We all made our way through the entryway, as soon as we were all in the dirt began to reform behind us.
The room was surprisingly bright I could see the skulls and bones of what seemed to include all sorts of people, snakes ran up the walls, shadowy figures were whispering words like help and turn around.
I could see Alex was nervous, she was shaking her hands and whispering what seemed to be ancient Greek. Jamie was very interested he was walking through in silence but occasionally throwing in words like " Cool." Or "Wow." Ezra's head was hanging low letting out deep sighs. I thought he was homesick so I offered him a way to communicate with his mom.
" Here take these, make an offering with the goddess iris, and say who you want to see." I stuck out my hand and sitting in my palm was a drachma. To my surprise, he shook his head but replied.
"How did you know about drachmas?"
"I might not be the smartest, but when you have nothing to do and no place to stay, you use anything you can find." He stared at me with confusion. I couldn't look him in the eyes so I decided to look at the ceiling, the design was every death scene imaginable, and gold lots of gold.
"My Mom and brother died when I was a kid so I lived on the streets, I was a pickpocket and I found this one weird-looking coin that said drachma, I snuck into a library and searched it up.." I switched my gaze to the ground "I never stayed in one place because I didn't have any friends or family to keep me there, I decided to go to a free school and then I found you guys."
"Don't you have uncles and aunts or your grandparents you could have stayed with?"
"That's the tricky part. My mom moved out when she was 18 she had me at 25 but she never told my family about me and my brother, I can't really just walk up to their door and say I'm their relative. besides-." I got interrupted by severe pain in my wrist.
Everyone turned facing me as I winced in pain.
"What's wrong?" Jamie asked
"Nothing." I scratched the back of my neck with my opposite wrist.
Alex walked over to me, grabbed my numb arm, and started wrapping gauze around it.
"Your lying." She continued to wrap "Your a super bad liar RamÃrez, you know that?"
"I thought I was doing a solid job but out of curiosity, how did you know?"
She put my arm down and looked at me.
"You always scratch your neck when you lie. I've seen you do that when you say you've done your homework when you clearly haven't, I saw you do it when you said your mom was still alive. I've seen you do it when you said Graham, and you were just 'joking' around after you got a black eye, and I've seen you do it just now. So don't lie, because around me it's a useless cause."
She grabbed a flashlight out of my backpack and turned it on, I followed her footsteps as they blew away behind me. I looked down at my wrist. Did she know I couldn't heal myself and only others? Did she not care and just wanted to help? Did she forget that I could heal? I looked back up and I realized Alex had stopped and I was walking right into her before I could stop, I tripped over my shoelace and she moved over and I fell forward on the ground.
"Twice this week, wow that's gotta be a new record. Maybe tie your shoe next time RamÃrez." Half her hair was out of her ponytail and In front of her face, making it almost impossible to see her freckles, she had taken off her glasses. Her eyes were bloodshot and puffy, and yet she was still her sassy, funny, pretty, and kind self.
I must have been starring because she waved her hand over my face.
"Hello? Earth to Niko, do you need help getting up?"
Being the manly guy I am I tried to get up by myself using the wall but my broken wrist slipped and I landed in the same position as before.
Laughing, She bent down and tied my shoe double knot only before she held out her hand to help me up, I gave up and took it. She clapped me on the back and continued walking. I looked around and Ezra and Jamie were far ahead of us.
I saw Alex marking the map with a sharpie tracking how many paces we've been taking.
66, 67,68. I saw a timer shine on her watch, it was a countdown. 14 day 57 minutes 34 seconds. We were walking for what seemed like an eternity. We passed rivers made of fire, tar, and green stuff I rather not describe. We made a stop at one river in imparticular.
The river Styx.
"Anybody wanna go swimming," Jamie said with sarcasm.
"That's not a bad idea." Alex implied. Our heads snapped towards Alex in concern. "Griffin, you do know you could die right?" I said a little too loudly
"Yeah, yeah but it makes you invincible if you think of the right things. Trust me RamÃrez, I know what I'm doing I think, you have nothing to worry about."
I trusted Alex but that was a pretty big if. But once an idea is in her head there is no turning back. Before I opened my mouth to talk some sense into her she was already in. She was pale, eyes open but grey instead of brown, shaky breaths escaping her.
"Don't die on me, please Griffin." Right as I thought she had died a light glow swirled around her and before we knew it she was on land, sitting against a wall.
" I think we should set up camp for the night," Ezra suggested, all of us nodding in agreement. We all sat against the wall, Ezra made a fire replacing wood with bones and fire from his hands. The warmth spread across our bodies, the flames danced across the nearly burned bones. I opened my backpack and pulled out 4 bottles of water, and 4 granola bars, and offered it to everyone. Ezra and Jamie accepted but Alex shook her head. Within 7 minutes Ezra and Jamie fell asleep.
"I will take the first watch," Alex said to me
"you should really get some sleep, Alex. you haven't slept in what? 4 days. Now that's gotta be a new record." she opened her mouth about to argue but she gave up and went to sleep.
...
After an hour and fidgeting with my fingers and a wishbone from the floor, I got bored.
I said I would take the first watch but the truth was I couldn't sleep.
I saw a figure move, it was coming towards us. I stood up to check it out but then it vanished and Alex Jolted up in terror. I slowly made my way to her. As I sat down she began to calm her breathing.
"Bad dream?" she nodded in response
"I don't know why, but I feel like something's wrong I feel like I need to stop it and-" she started tearing up.
"No, don't cry, I hate it when you cry." I had a feeling that wasn't helping so i tried a different approach.
"it's okay, your going to be okay." she played her head on my shoulder and closed her eyes, after a while, I fell asleep too.