A/N: Hey people… third chapter updated so quickly! Ha! Don't get used to it…I'm always very slow…but I type when inspiration strikes and obviously a good story needs inspiration. Anyway. On with the story!!!
Yuki's POV
"Come on, Yuki!" Ariana's voice interrupted my nervous-making dream. Dark shapes closing in…lights swallowing us…something glowing in the corner of my eye. And it was getting closer now…
"YUKI!!!" Ariana whisper-yelled at me. "WAKE UP!"
"Should we just carry her?" Akako's voice sounded far away, somewhere on my left. But to my left was my window. They should have been on the right…in their sleeping bags…
"No, she's too heavy! She's taller than all of us. And how would she do on the fall? Not to well…" Kaede was whispering. She sounded like she was near Akako. What the…
"The fall? Who cares about the fall? How will we go un-noticed?" Ariana had made "unnoticed" into two separate words, like she sometimes did with other words. "Being caught is not very bubbly…"
I shot up. Ow. So much for not being too close. My head whacked Ariana's head, whose falling body smashed into Kaede. Kaede fell onto Akako, who nearly fell out the window she was perched on. "Ouch!" I squealed, but quietly. "What fall? Why can't we be caught?"Ariana looked at me. "Yuki, we're leaving."
Drive' til the gas runs out and then walk so far
that we can't
see
this place anymore.
I noticed they all had backpacks on. There was one at the end of my bed. I grabbed it and put it on, thinking maybe it was one of those new Smart Matter backpacks that could later expand into blankets or, even better, a tent. Or, hopefully, a parachute. Yes, I hoped it was a parachute because I had no desire to splat on the ground.
If I lighten up a little bit,
then I will be
over it.
"It's midnight right now," Kaede was saying, "And if we don't go now, we're going to be caught. Like Ariana said, being caught is NOT bubbly."
"So we go now, or never. If we don't leave now, we'll be stuck in Dullsville forever, or we'll be dead."
I shuddered. "Okay, then it's now." We grabbed hands, perched precariously on the edge of my window, and jumped into the darkness below.
000000
Ariana's POV
We landed softly, the hoverlifters quietly humming as they bounced us to our new home. That is, the woods in Yuki's backyard that went on forever. When the hoverlifters set us down, we checked for damage. Kaede pulled out a matter hacker and made our parachutes back into backpacks. We got up and ran into the dark night, hoping to God no one, or nothing, found us.
Take a day off.
Give it a rest.
So I can forget about this mess.
000000
Yuki panted. "Ariana, please tell me you have hoverboards in there. We can't run forever, you know."
"No, we can't. But we can't open the hoverboards yet. The lights are a total give-away."
Kaede stopped running. So did everyone else. "Look," she said, pointing.
There was a soft glow, separate from the rising sun, on the horizon. "See that?" Kaede asked. "That's where we're going."
Yuki gasped. A soft glow in the corner of her eye, slowly getting closer… She sighed, remembering her dream. Stop scaring yourself, Yuki, she thought to herself. She looked back, unable to believe she might never go home again. Her eyes stung. She would have cried, but she never had before. Ever. She wouldn't start now. Stop scaring yourself.
"Oh, Yuki, stop scaring yourself!" Akako blurted.
"What?" Yuki looked up.
"You looked terrified for a moment!" Akako said back, giggling.
"It's true," observed Kaede.
"Absolutely," I said, nodding.
How could you know
that behind my eyes a sad girl cried?
And how could you know
that I hurt so much inside?
"Well, let's go," Yuki said, mostly to fill in the awkward silence that followed. She squirmed under the weight of the backpack. "Ari, can you make the Smart Matter in my backpack non-heavy?"
"Sure…" I pulled out her matter hacker and put it to Yuki's backpack. "Ta-da."
"Thanks. Now, we should keep going…"
"No," I said simply.
"What? Why not?" Kaede said, sounding irritated. She shifted her weight from one foot to another.
If I lighten up a little bit
then I will be
over it.
I looked up, and stared at my three best friends. Everyone who'd never lied to me was here. Everyone else had betrayed me. And I'd just kept running from the truth. Running for thirteen years now, and I was just starting to realize I was tired of it.
"Because, like Yuki said, we can't keep running forever…"
Give it a rest.
I need to forget about this mess.
A/N: haha aren't I evil? Cliffy after cliffy…well, it keeps you people reading, doesn't it?! I'll start on chappy four now, I promise, and maybe it'll be up soon too. Wow, three chappy-s in one day! Aren't I so weirdly hyper? HA! You should see how fast I'm typing right now…
