Ax

Ax still hadn't opened his eyes. Everything was still quiet around him, and everything was still too hot.

He had slept a little and that had made the memories of his family, friends, the stream and school a little stronger for now, but they was still about to get weaker when other thoughts tried to force themselves into his head. He was relieved that Elfangor seemed to have taken his warning seriously but at the same time the fear about what was going to happen to him began to grow and take over him more and more.

Finally he couldn't keep his eyes closed anymore, he opened one of them to see were he was. He didn't even know if it was a head eye or a stalk eye.

The walls were red and glowing. The room was small. There was hardly room for him, it was low to the ceiling too. The chains were still there and the anti-morphing-necklace too.

The injured leg was aching. The red-hot iron reminded of an oven.

As Ax tried to rise he happened to touch the chain, which immediately burned up big wounds on him. The walls were hot enough to hurt him too.

He couldn't concentrate on remembering anything better anymore. Somewhere in his brain he knew that they wouldn't fry him alive without taking the chains and the necklace off, but at the same time he had a very bad feeling that it was something like that this would end up in.

He remembered those yeerks again. They had presumably tried to infiltrate these creatures and followed them to their planet. The yeerks hadn't known that they would burn to death in only a few minutes. And as the lavalites didn't know that whatever they had got in their heads wouldn't survive the heat, the yeerks hadn't got a chance to find out before it had been too late. Certainly the lavalite controllers had got a happy surprise when they noticed that they suddenly were able to move like they wanted again when this poor yeerks had burned to death.

Ax closed his eye in despair again, he had actually met a species that had made him feel sorry for some yeerks.

He opened his eyes again and gave a tired look to the red-hot iron wall. He hadn't got his sense of time back yet so it could have been a few minutes since he had warned Elfangor and it could have been longer, maybe even years.

As that thought caught him he got even more disconsolate. Years… that word made him feel so small and lonely.

He forced his eyes together again. It had not been several years. He couldn't have survived this temperature for several years… if they hadn't calculated on how high temperature he could take and still both suffer and survive… could they be even more high technological then the andalites… no never… but they had succeed to fool their safety system…

Ax opened his eyes again. It hadn't been several years, he decided and began to think everything through.

Presumably they had given Elfangor a limited time to think over what he wanted to do, that was why they hadn't killed him yet. And this limited time could definitely not be several years… and his time was definitely not over yet

Now he sank into a deep unconsciousness as a result of the temperature. And when he woke up again he was still in the little room. Now all of his body was covered with small sweat drops that had pushed their way out of him. They actually helped to chill him down a bit.

When he had noticed this he also discovered the reason, someone had increased the temperature. He also noticed that it wasn't totally silence anymore. He heard a metallic sound like if someone had pulled a lever and such things.

Then he felt air.

He closed his eyes again, he knew that someone had opened the door. Elfangor must have told them his decision.

He was dragged out in the chains, when he fell to the floor he immediately felt that someone pulled in them. This was to prevent him from reaching anyone with the tail he realized now.

The lavalite who stood closest to him got an eruption and began to throw lava around him now. About one litre of it ended up over Aximili.

Screaming in pain he tried to sweep in away. He had only got more burns.