A/N Hello! Sorry for not updating in awhile, I've been on a huge trip and plus a week long all day sort of summer camp! So I'm not sure when this will be posted. Who knows!
Since it's been so long since last update, I've decided i'm just going to add a quick summary for any who've kind of forgotten what's happened so far. :) If you remember, you don't need to read it! ;)
Zane, Celeste's twin brother was kidnapped by the weird wolf mutants. Celeste, Camille and Thalia set out to find him, Celeste blacks out from to much strain on her mind in space, so Thalia flies them to somewhere in Mexico by an aztec temple. There they meet Darien, (correct me if that's not his name xD) and after tending to Celeste he brings Camille to a pond where they get kidnapped by the beasts. Celeste and Thalia track them to the temple, where Thalia gets injured fighting one of the wolf humans. They break into the temple, free their friends, then they find a group of wolf dudes hovering around a button. Thalia tries to kill them all before they can press it, but one survives long enough to do so, blowing up the temple. Thalia was only saved because Celeste used the last of her strength to save Thalia. Celeste, Zane, Camille, Darien alllll died. Thalia ran away and soon she met Vera and they started talking. Then since things just HAD TO GET WORSE, there are currently wolf dude mutant things attacking both Luna and Earth. In case any of you are wondering why that summary doesn't sound at all professional, that is because those would've been how I'd have directly summarized it in my own voice without a drop of authoryness. ;)
light-and-Shadows-Mist-and-ice: I don't know yet if it will end….. BUT IT MIGHT or you know I'll be nice for once. Hard to say.
Vera's POV
As soon as the girl, Thalia, had calmed down and the sobs no longer regularly returned, Vera pulled the girl's hurt arm over her shoulder and hoisted her up to her feet. There was one thing she hadn't told the girl- how close one of the attack's were at this very moment. Only two hours away. Vera feared for their lives, but she wasn't about to let someone die. Not after her cowardice.
Fire licked the walls of the small, worn house. Smoke filled the air, causing Vera to cough and her eyes water. Her mother ran towards her, pulling her in tight for a hug.
"Ver, you need to go. You need to leave, right now. Run. And…. Don't look back, promise me that! They want you dead, but I'm not going to let them take you. Go north from here, five hours, and you'll find a small abandoned cabin. It has everything you'll need to survive. Go- hurry!" her mother said, worry and fear laced through her voice.
Blinking back tears, Vera hugged her mother tightly before turning to run. A part of the ceiling collapsed behind her, hiding her mother from sight. Picking up one of the few chairs in their house, Vera smashed it through a window on the back end of the house. Through all the smoke and flames, they wouldn't be able to tell she'd escaped. When, or if they did, she would be long gone.
It was horrible- leaving her mother, when she should've tried to save her as well. And all they'd wanted was her.
Vera had been an abandoned shell- her adoptive mother, which she called her mother, had found her not far in the woods in a small cradle, her actual parents nowhere to be seen. Ever since, the police had been searching for them, and when they found her they didn't hesitate to torch their house, hoping she'd burn alive.
At the top of a hill, Vera twisted around to see the house now completely enveloped in flames. The smoke rose at least thirty feet high, sending a grey haze over the sun. Whimpering, she turned and ran.
Vera shook her head, hard, to get rid of the day dream. It had haunted her dreams ever since. She should've turned herself in, took her mother with her. So why didn't she? Her adoptive mother had taught her to be obedient, but they still had so much fun together. Vera's mind hadn't bothered to question a command until her mind had cleared from all the smoke. Now, her mother was dead.
"What's wrong?" Thalia asked, frowning.
"I uh…. Nothing," Vera replied hastily. Thalia scowled but said nothing.
"Come with me. We need to move, quick. It's just over there," Vera exclaimed, pointing to a grove of tightly woven trees.
"I just see trees. You mean beyond them?" Thalia wondered, squinting. Vera's side of her mouth twitched into a smile.
"Those aren't really trees. It's a hologram- one of few ever invented. Only I can pass through it, unless I am touching someone else," Vera explained. She knew she could trust Thalia with this secret. Her other though, she wasn't too sure, although she deserved to know.
"Stars, how did you get one of those?!" Thalia exclaimed, her voice full of awe despite the pain.
"I, uh…. Well, you see, I'm…. I'm a uh, sh- shell. And when my adoptive mother found me, in my cradle I had a small orb which generates that hologram," Vera explained cautiously, trying not to stutter. Thalia turned to gape at Vera.
"That's cool! My um…." Thalia ducked her head, sniffling, "my friend… One of the one's I lost…. Her mother was a shell. She's super nice and… Oh, what if she hates me?" Thalia sobbed. Vera stopped walking to give her new friend a hug.
"She will know you tried everything you could," she whispered soothingly. Thalia slowly relaxed in her arms. Vera pulled back, and they started walking again.
"Please don't tell anyone that, though, it's my biggest secret that I have that hologram. A gift from my parents," Vera whispered the last part.
"Your secret will be safe with me," Thalia promised.
The two girls hiked the short distance remaining towards the holographic trees. Vera repressed a smirk as Thalia gawked when she walked right through one of them, revealing a small house tucked in the top of one of the real trees. It was honestly a bit of a shack compared to lots of now a day houses, as Vera had constructed it with fallen logs and vines. She'd draped long leaves from the various weird plants which grew down here over the top which shielded her from the better part of rain storms.
Walking up to it, she slammed one arm against the tree, hard enough to make her wince. A makeshift rope ladder tumbled down, unrolling itself as it fell, coming to a neat stop near the ground.
"Will you be able to climb up with that injured arm?" Vera asked with a worried glance at the bleeding cut on Thalia's arm. She noticed the girl hid her pain well, though it was obvious enough that it had to hurt. Thalia nodded, testing her weight on her arm before hauling herself up the ladder. Vera waited on the ground, to catch the girl in case she fell before following.
The trapdoor swung upwards as Thalia used her weaker arm to push it open ahead of herself before dragging herself up the last few rungs and into the small tree cabin. Vera entered slightly more gracefully, although that was to be expected if you were foolish enough to compare grace levels between someone with a bad injury and someone with none.
"Sit down on the bed- or, I guess to you it might not look to be much of a bed. The group of bamboo sticks tied together, resting on those other logs," Vera ordered, pointing out the structure tucked in the corner of her rather spacious living area.
"Where on earth did you get bamboo sticks? I thought those only grew in the commonwealth…?" Thalia wondered, plopping herself on the makeshift bed with a grunt.
"There's a huge grove a mile north from here. Someone long ago must've planted it, probably in the second era, and left it to grow. It only takes one shoot before you have a small forest," Vera replied with a chuckle.
Turning away from the girl in front of her, Vera started ruffling through her many supplies she'd gathered from the town not to far from here, currently being ravaged by the monsters. Soon enough, she found a roll of bandages and some healing herbs she'd scavenged not to long ago. Vera was always looking for more healing herbs- it was one of her few talents. Healing, calming people, generally speaking being a mom friend, you name it.
Grabbing her clay bowl from where it sat drying in the sun, Vera ripped off a few leaves from her bundle, dumping it in the bowl. It took her only seconds to find her grinding rock, and she began grinding and mashing the herbs to a sticky pulp.
Carefully, she brought the finished product over to Thalia and dipped two fingers in it. She sometimes rubbed some of it all over her skin when she added another type of herb to the mix, producing a nice lotion like substance.
"This…. Might sting a little bit," Vera warned before smearing the paste on her friend's skin. Thalia's face scrunched up in pain, but soon it relaxed when the substance soaked into her angry skin. Vera waited a few minutes before soaking a cloth in a second bowl of cured water and washed all the blood and dried skin away from the wound. She finished by wrapping it tightly in bandages, however not quite tight enough to cut off absolutely all circulation.
"That should hopefully be better," Vera whispered before picking up her stuff and bringing it to her makeshift 'sink' which consisted of two bowls, always full of fresh water, with a few clean cloths for washing.
"Yeah, I can't say it feels overly great at this current moment on this miserable planet, but it doesn't feel worse so that's a start," Thalia replied with a grin. Vera let a soft laugh escape.
"There's…. Something else I should warn you about," Vera said with a glance over her shoulder.
"What is it?" Thalia asked, caution laced through her voice.
"There- there's a town near here. I'm not sure what it's called, but…. We may be in danger. The beasts were reported to be ravaging the place at this moment," Vera admitted. The color drained from Thalia's face. Her beautiful face contorted into a frown.
"And…. Are we safe? Here? They can't get past the hologram, right…?" Thalia asked slowly.
"The hologram should hold strong, as long as I am not touching any of them. Then again, I don't know if it could hold against the brutal strength of the wolf mutants. Optimistically yes, we will be safe as long as we stay here. Pessimistically, no we will likely have to defend ourselves. Hopefully they won't come here, though. So we'll just hope for the best and call on our inner optimists," Vera finished with a slight smile. Thalia scowled, then put her head in her hands.
Vera decided she couldn't to anything to calm whatever inner storm Thalia was stranded in, so she left her new friend be and set about washing her clay bowl and the wet, bloodied cloth.
Celeste was secretly pooling down into her mental reserves of energy as the walls quaked, dust showering them. She had a horrible plan- a horrible, horrible plan. It was the only way the world would survive the future, though. Zane beside her had lines creasing his forehead in concentration. Good- he must've read her mind and saw her plan.
They stumbled through the tunnels, shaking with the force of the blow soon to wipe them all out. Ahead, the ceiling crumbled, huge chunks of rock falling across the tunnel path. Thalia screamed with frustration, and the sound tore Celeste's heart to shreds. Her friend would never forgive her for what she was about to do.
An earth shattering boom sounded from behind them, and a dim red glow raced through the tunnels. Celeste needed to time this just right, as did Zane. Tears streamed down her eyes as she looked at beloved Camille for the last time. If she could save her friend, she would. She absolutely would, but it was impossible.
So desperately did she want to take her friend into her arms, hug her tightly and tell her it was ok, and that she was so, so sorry…. But she couldn't. No one could know what she and Zane were going to do, not until the time was right.
The second boom sent rocks flying into the air, and a split second after that, she and Zane threw rock hard shields over themselves with their powers. Though it took almost all of her energy and mental stability to hold her own shield, Celeste looked at Thalia, and sent a small message into her head. It wouldn't lie about what had happened, but Celeste would need Thalia to think she was the only survivor. With the last shred of her power, Celeste manipulated the bioelectricity around them, floating in the air to shove Thalia far from the blast.
It was something they'd learned recently- she and Zane could sense a slightly different type of bioelectricity in the air around everything. Though it took a lot more effort to control it, they could use it to form rock hard shields around things, or shove others away. It was complicated.
Celeste and Zane hid in the nearby trees, barely conscious. She watched as the slumped figure against a tree started twitching slightly, then eyelids fluttered open. Her friend shook her head, then surveyed the scene around them. Before she could forget, Celeste shoved the image of her body and Zane's among the wreckage.
Her heart tore itself to shreds as Thalia collapsed beside her fake body, holding it tightly to her. It was all she could do to not run from the trees, to show Thalia that she was okay. To mourn Camille, who she couldn't save. Celeste knew the guilt for being able to save only one friend would haunt her for the rest of her life. But the only way for Earth and Luna to survive was if Thalia thought they were dead, and was so overcome with rage and grief, so determined to end it all. And if she met someone waiting in the forest, not far off, coming to inspect what the sound was.
Celeste and Zane played an important part, as well. They were essential. She knew that soon, soon she would be reunited with her friend if they survived the coming days. Although her vision refused to tell her if Thalia would look at her after that from betraying her, from making her think they were dead.
With a glance at Zane, Celeste turned around and disappeared into the forest along with her brother.
A/N: Hi guys! So…. I bet you weren't expecting that! I'm still sorry for killing Camille, though. But after double checking the description of this story I realized that Celeste and Zane weren't done, not yet. Anyways, sorry for the huge long wait, and I hope you guys liked it! Peace! :P