Hey guys, sorry I haven't posted, this is just new to me, so…yeah. Umm…this chapter should be a little shorter, so tell me if you like longer or shorter chapters and where you want the story to go, new characters, plot twists, etcetera, yeah, yeah, blah, blah. Here we go then…I'm hungry.

We trotted down the gravel road, the night sky peaceful and serene. It didn't suit me. I preferred the rain. The mist. Clouds. As I thought about home, Ty and Adam started talking about a new trade system between the Mindcrack hub and their own hub. I thought about my parents, my mother's musty, ancient storybooks. My father's old bow. They were those things you couldn't rid your memory of. My parent's laughs, their loves, their lives. You couldn't just go and forget it. They stayed with you.

I was so into my philosophical thinking/reflecting/whatever that I hadn't noticed that the other teens had stopped. I slowed to a halt and the three boys trotted up behind me. Adam was the first to speak. "Avalene, do you like minecarts?" He grinned. I was confused by the question. It must have shown on my face, because Adam laughed. He pointed to a cave, surrounded by vines and jungle trees. It was probably from lack of sleep that I didn't notice that we hadn't even left the jungle, even though we had rode for hours. Whatever. All this thinking was hurting my head. I actually had been on a couple of rails in my life, mostly short distances, mostly mining trips. I nodded. The others and I trotted down into the caves, Adam in front, me being right behind him.

After about twenty minutes, the horses started to whinny and rear. Jason calmed them down and tied them to an old mineshaft fencepost. I looked at him questioningly, and he smiled. "You'll see." I rolled my eyes and we kept walking. Then Adam stopped, nearly making us all trip over ourselves. He looked around, as if for spies, and pulled out a button from his bag. He felt against the wall, looking for Notch knows what, when he jammed the button into a seemingly innocent crack in the wall and pushed the button. A section of the wall slid open, revealing a lit tunnel with a rail going on for what seemed like forever down the tunnel. My mouth dropped to the floor. I quickly shut it when I realized this and felt myself grow warm. I had already embarrassed myself tonight, and I wasn't going to do it again. Adam looked at the tunnel, then at me, and explained.

"Since the army is so big, we needed a way to travel secretly, without other armies knowing. Teams of operatives restored and hid tracks over a period of months, giving us a way to trade and recruit and such. We even have tracks leading into other armies' bases, but they don't know of course. Only our insiders know. So this is a much faster way to travel, considering all the obstacles and dangers of alternate means." Once again, my jaw hung. Almost nothing would surprise me now. (Though you readers might still be surprised, hopefully! I'll leave you to reading now.) Adam grabbed some minecarts from a chest in a nook in the wall and handed us one each. We all placed them down and climbed in. "What about the horses, though? You tied them up." I asked Jason. We started to move down the track, gaining speed. He explained some complicated redstone that would teleport them to base after a short period of time. I understood only one name- Sethbling. So he was with us to? Maybe I would still be surprised. I drifted off, the minecarts rumbles and the dim light pulled me from the conscious world.

The nightmares returned. I was in a stone room, a block of obsidian in the center. My parents stood around it, along with Hero. I wanted to cry. I missed them so much, but I kept watching. They looked as if in a trance, chanting with a determined look on their faces. I expected to wake up then, as the dream usually stopped here, but it continued. Suddenly on the obsidian block an Eye of Ender appeared, glowing. Images were projected in it. A birch tree burned in front of a graveyard. I saw myself, chained, pale, and grimy, crying for Ty. I saw a small girl, talking to Jason and Adam, looking frantic but determined. I saw Hero, sitting in a room of bedrock, like a cell, meditating and whispering to himself. I saw the plains, the forest, the jungle, and the desert, being burned and destroyed. Tears came. I realized I was shouting at the Eye, pleading with it to stop, asking it why, why, why would it torture me with these images? What did I do? Then it stopped. The images disappeared and the Eye was gone. Then my mother collapsed. I had forgotten she was there, along with Hero and my father. My dad picked her up, and gave her something to eat, I couldn't see what. She got up and said something to Hero. He nodded gravely and pulled out a book. He flipped to a page and chanted something. Suddenly he disappeared, book and all. I woke up.

Jason was shaking me, a worried expression on his face. We were still on the tracks, rolling along. "Avalene! Are you okay? You were muttering in your sleep…" I noticed that Adam and Ty were looking at me too. "I just had another nightmare, it's fine…" They weren't convinced. I sighed. "All right, it was the same nightmare, but there was an Eye…" I explained the dream, and Ty paled. He looked so scared. "That tree…it sounds like the one in Rydia."

"Where is that?"

"You'll see."

Jason was annoying me with that phrase. I was so confused, and scared, and worried, and sad, how did I survive with all those emotions? Hope, I guess. It was all that I had from my past. But a memory remained. A song. One my mother would sing to me:

"This is the end,

This is the finish line,

This is the end,

We are out of time.

But this love,

This love will not fail,

This love,

This love will prevail.

Through wind and rain,

Through all the pain,

We will remain,

We will remain."

I loved that song. It was my favorite. It was a little morose, yes, but behind that it had a steady, everlasting message-hope. When hope is gone, all else is too. God, this trip is really bringing some memories back. Adam turned to us and said, "We're here. Avalene, welcome to SOPA."

A blinding light appeared before me. The daylight was streaming through the windows of the station, and the noise was deafening. I was, once again, astounded. It was a huge train station, with quartz floors and gold gateways for every rail. There were hundreds of tunnels, people riding in and out of them, carrying goods and weapons. Shops lined the side of the walls, and people traded and chatted peacefully. Ty saw me and laughed. "We're in the side of a mountain, and this is only the middle floor." He explained that there were three floors, the first was farms and the watchtowers, the second the trade hub and station, and the third was recreation, mess hall, training, and dorms. I stood stock-still, drinking the scene in. People stared and some waved shyly, as if they sensed I was new and surprised. I finally found my voice. "So…you live here, and I can too? This isn't a dream? You didn't give me something? This is awesome!" And I lapsed into silent awe.

I would definitely be looking forward to living here.

(Remember how I said this would be short? I lied…Review it, like it, follow me/it, and eat lots of waffles! Bye!)