About an hour later, Alister kicked at the front door holding a heap of meat, vegetables and fruit in his skinny arms. Zeke noticed the teenager at the door and he rushed over, stopping his working with Bryan to assist Alister. Alister was the youngest; he was only fifteen years old. Alister was never very well-built, but anyone could tell that Alister was losing weight unhealthy. Alister's small green shirt and black jeans were very baggy and loose on him, and his feet slipped out of his worn checkered shoes with every step that he took. Alister's bones were highly visible in his face, and his brown eyes appeared to be very sunken in their sockets. Alister's deepening violet eyelids conveyed the fact that he hadn't slept for days. Simply put, Alister was on the path to being a complete skeleton- literally. Alister ate much less food than the others, and with each day, his appetite dwindled more and more. It was natural for the entire group to fear for Alister the most, for he had the least time left. For someone so young, he didn't deserve this fate.
Alister plopped his gatherings on the table, his face expressing much apathy as some of the food fell to the grassy floor. Tivona wiped her face as she picked her head up lazily from the table to observe the gatherings. Bryan stopped his sword crafting session to take a look at Alister's harvest from the nearby town of Erimere to the north. Alister breathed out shakily, and then he sat at the nearest open bench seat.
"Thanks for the food Alice." Tivona managed to smile at the youngest member of the household. Alister stared at her unhappily for a moment, and then he turned to his uncle.
"Bad news. The nearby city to the west is beginning to quarantine all afflicted residents they can find. I heard from a shopkeeper that the city possibly may… kill them." Alister paused for a moment, considering four out of the five guests in the house will become mobs. "They think our problem is contagious. They don't know about her." Alister muttered the entire description in a bleak and raspy tone of voice. His voice sounded as if it will give out soon.
Bryan's temper flared. "Contagious? Do they know about her at all? I had in up to here with this stuff!" Bryan's face became bright red in anger. "Did they kill anyone yet? Or is that the rumor?" Bryan's anger refused to subside; he was lashing out at Alister who already was doomed above everyone else.
"Dad," Tivona stood up and moved towards her father. "Relax before you really will explode. I should be the one having a fit like that."
Bryan backed away to peer out the window as he removed his helmet to reveal his grey-streaked hair. His eyes focused solely on the rushing, clear blue river. Breathing out, he replied, "I want to forget that I'll be able to do that."
Zeke looked helplessly at the food, then to the frail Alister. "Something's gotta be done. I'm not going to wait until one of you kill me."
"What possible things can we do?" Alister kept viewing the bathroom door, and from the splashing, he surmised Jade was getting out. She must have fallen asleep in there due to her exhausting day.
"I've been thinking of traveling to the Nether, or at least finding any nearby Nether portals. Eva has to come through one nearby." Zeke shrugged his shoulders, suggesting that he himself didn't enjoy the idea of running around to find Eva.
Tivona shook her head. "I won't go there." Tivona gazed at Zeke with her calculating glowing eyes. "I'd want to solve the mob problem first."
"And how'd you do that?" Alister shifted though the food pile as if he would take something. "I'd say we're done, idiot. The potions are doing their damage." He showed no fear of his towering older relative.
"But this was caused by a potion! Can't this be reversed with another?"
"Try it and see how much further you'd screw things up. Next you'll be an undead Enderman."
"Alice, why would you just want to become nothing but bones? Something's got to be done before you end up burning in the sunlight. You didn't plan on dying like that!"
"I never planned on dying in the first place, Ender-bitch." Alister received some very distraught expressions from Bryan and Zeke after cussing at his cousin.
"What's your problem with Tivona?" Bryan was endangered of becoming flustered again.
"She's losing her brains faster than I am. These Endermen are stupid bastards." Alister showed obvious hatred as he tried to squeeze an apple as a stress reliever. Tivona moved away from Alister, and she looked out the window with her back to the table.
Zeke chimed in after being silent for a while. "Remember what I told you the other day about this stuff Alice…"
A moment of stillness hovered in the room. Alister had been this way towards only Tivona for days, and no one could fathom why. Bryan, staring at Alister, knew there was a reason behind his behavior towards his daughter. Alister never showed this much contempt for one mob before. Alister didn't lose his family to Endermen or anything…
Suddenly, an epiphany occurred rapidly to Bryan. "Eva's predilections are taking over your thoughts," Bryan concluded as he glowered at his nephew. "Her feelings are coming out in you. No wonder why you've been difficult lately."
Jade then emerged from the bathroom with combed, dampened brown hair and a towel. She was now changed into Tivona's old clothes. The top was a simple black and blue striped shirt and the bottom a slim white skirt embroidered with different designs. The clothes appeared a little too large on her, but it had to beat her blood soaked ones from earlier.
Jade saw that Bryan was hunched over the table towards Alister. Tivona was focusing on the recent sunset and Zeke encircled him as Alister concentrated only on his uncle with focused brown eyes. Jade was woken up by their yelling, and she attempted to listen while she was getting dressed. She too knew why Alister didn't get along with Tivona. Bryan had hit the reason why.
The conversation continued and the others were too busy or distracted to notice that Jade exited the washroom. She interrupted the argument among them.
"This is how you spend your remaining days or weeks? Don't waste what time you have left." Jade stated loudly to the turned backs of Bryan, Tivona and Zeke. Jade wasn't here to wait for a miracle. These people still had a chance to reverse things.
"I think all of you should stop your bickering and we should figure something out." Jade parted between Bryan and Zeke. She motioned Tivona to be a little closer to the table. Jade looked at the faces of the four others. Everyone expected her to concoct an idea.
"Eva's the only one who knows what these potions are made of. She'd have to be the one to reverse your problems. Her potions aren't common ones, trust me, I saw some of her 'normal' ones."
"I don't want to see-"Alister crossed his arms in disgust as Bryan cut him off.
"How would you get her to give that information up? She'll probably try to kill us! I'm not going to follow her forever to find her."
"We aren't going to chase her; it's more time wasted. When Zeke and I went to her house I realized that all the ancient books she used to read weren't there. I remembered she had a bookshelf upstairs yesterday…" Jade couldn't believe that so much had happened over the course of one day. It seemed like years since she was eating a meal at Eva's table.
"She took them!" Tivona blurted out. "They are with her in the Nether."
Jade shook her head. "Nothing was on her when she went to the Nether. I knew it."
'Then… what do you plan to do?" Alister said annoyed, for he was unconvinced that Jade had a good idea.
"Someone took them from before. Remember Mike told all of you that he was going to look for her spell books? I wondered why all of Eva's stuff was downstairs when I was there earlier. I think he was there. But then Eva came back to the house, and she probably suspected that we messed the place up searching. Mike has her stuff. He's probably in Semitra. But I can't imagine the condition of the town…"
"Any proof on that?" Zeke mentioned as he and the others began to settle down and take the food in the mound at the table. The sky was darkening outside, and currently the sun had just sat. Bryan assembled some torches in Zeke's abode as he listened to Jade's words.
"It's my mob instinct. Mike has everything we need."
Alister butted in. "I hope you're right. It'd be a shame if we didn't find him." Jade hoped that Alister was himself right now and not being sarcastic.
"I'm not guaranteeing anything. We just need to try something other than fight every chance we get." Jade regretted her sentence, since it then was met with opposition.
"What if we can't find Mike, just like Eva? What will we do next?" Alister's contentious attitude was swelling up once again.
Tivona boldly pointed towards the northeast. Only Jade understood where she was coming from, and the other three gave her confounded expressions. "We go there."
Alister refrained from another insult as he hissed out, "Why there? The town doesn't have any information."
"Not there. Past there."
Alister looked about the room, pondering what Tivona meant. In a minute, he nodded, narrowing his eyes at her. "You got a long walk." He attempted to respond nicely.
Immediately the entire room understood. Their answers would the easiest accessed if taken from the source of the matter. Maybe then their hope wouldn't be snuffed out.
**Woo, I'd never knew that this fanfic would be so fun to write! Thanks for your reviews. Yeah, if you're confused on where they're going... I'll tell you later. Bye, Lynnie.