"I have to say, Jo, I'm impressed." Scott was leaning against the concrete wall of a dilapidated building as the jock sifted through the rubble. "Leaving the others behind took serious kiwis, even I'm not that ruthless."
"I'm not listening.." Jo growled as she pulled out a rusty kitchen knife. "Ha! Victory!"
"Ooooh, a knife. Now we're saved." Scott rolled his eyes. "Believe me sister, this place is just toying with us, and it'll take more than a knife to cut our way out."
"Then what do you propose we do?" A small smile crept to her face as she found a metal pole that was probably once part of a broom. If she could find some string or tape, she could tie her finds together and make a decent spear.
"Propose? I'm not proposing anything. I had my fun being tricky back at the island, now I'm just along for the ride." He shrugged. "You, on the other hand... How does it feel leaving Bricky-boy and the others to their fates?"
"Shut up!" Jo turned on Scott and tightened her grip on her weapons. "You act like it was so easy, like I'm so heartless. Even though it's saving some of the group versus everyone dying here, it wasn't easy to go through with it. I don't want any of those losers to die, but if we have to leave some behind in order to have any survivors, it's the right choice."
"Hey," Scott grinned, "Whatever helps you sleep at night. Or, you know, not sleep at whatever time this is."
Jo did her best to ignore Scott as she continued her search, but his words stung. I'm saving everyone I can, it's all I can do! She repeated in her head like a mantra.
"There's the ocean!" Dawn chirped excitedly as she pointed ahead. The rest of the group soon saw it too. It was a fairly normal looking ocean considering the odd quality of the rest of the Otherworld. There were no out of place objects on the rocky beach, and the sand was a normal whitish-tan.
"Yeah, are you sure we didn't just invent the way out?" Staci said, looking around. "This place looks like it could be from our world."
"I don't know.." Zoey said apprehensively, "Dawn, can you tell?" But the aura whisperer was otherwise occupied.
"We have somehow crossed into the realm of a troubled entity." She said, staring at a crop of rocks near the beach, "Be careful. Part of her is elsewhere, but part remains."
"Could you clarify?" Cameron asked warily.
"I'm sorry, but no." Dawn said. "I myself am not sure what this place is. I do know we are still in the other world though."
"What was that!" Brick said suddenly from his spot on one of B's shoulders. "You guys, I think I saw something move." He pointed towards the large rock formation with his good arm.
Zoey immediately notched an arrow to her bow. "I'll check it out." She volunteered, creeping towards the rocks.
"Be careful!" Dawn warned. "From what I can sense of its aura, it's not malevolent, but it could be dangerous."
Zoey nodded as she stepped closer. As she turned the corner, she gasped.
A small but chubby Siamese cat was hiding in the crack between two rocks, arching its back and looking terrified.
"You!" Zoey cried, "You were the cat we saw when Mike disappeared!" She pointed her arrow at the cat. "What did he call you? Sarah? Well Sarah, give him back or I'll shoot!"
The cat tilted her head to the side, looking confused.
"Zoey! Wait!" Dawn had caught up to the pigtailed archer. "This cat has a different aura from the one we saw earlier. The other one didn't even seem like a cat, but this one does, a little."
"What do we do then?" Zoey asked, lowering her bow.
"Could it be the thing that healed Scott?" Cameron asked as he and Staci caught up.
"Yeah, I doubt it." Staci said. "My gr- I mean, Scott, mentioned that the thing was human-ish."
Hsssssssh!
The cat had arched her back further, and hissed.
"You know Scott?" Dawn asked the cat. "You don't like him, do you?"
"Yeah, or maybe Scott lied." Staci offered. "I mean, he practically invented lying, and he isn't even related to me."
"It's worth a shot." Dawn said before pointing to B and Brick. "Um, do you see our friend over there little one? Can you heal him?"
The cat slowly made her way out of the crevice. She stalked over to B, keeping her body close to the ground. B gently set Brick on the ground, taking care to not put weight on his shoulder.
"Um, nice kitty?" Brick offered as the cat crept up to him. She put one dark paw on his shoulder and-
An eleven year old Elena walked down the familiar halls of the hospital with her schoolbook-and-DVD-stuffed red backpack on her back. She knew these twists and turns now to her destination. Although her first encounter a month ago with this part of the hospital was terrifying, this place was comforting now. She had friends here, friends she could visit when she had to go with her mom to work. She checked the "Visitor" badge pinned on her chest before entering the children's psychiatric ward.
"Elena!" Several excited voices flew towards the door as a small group of boys stopped their board game and looked up at their visitor. There were five of them at the game, one nurse overseeing them while reading a book, a silent boy with dark red hair in a wheelchair near the window, and a girl with short orange hair sitting on the side of a bed, writing furiously in a journal with a dull pencil.
"Hi everyone!" Her smile grew. "I'm going to go say hello to Shawn real quickly." She said, setting down her backpack and walking towards the boy in the wheelchair.
One of the boys at the board game, a scrawny dark-skinned boy with flat-laying black hair, walked over to the girl on the bed.
"This is Elena, the girl that we said got mistaken for you." He clarified. "She visits here a bunch now."
"Shut up!" The girl said, glaring at him.
"Gerta, we don't use that kind of language here." The nurse called from her book.
"I'm not Gerta!" She screamed. "I'm Elena! That's Gerta over there!"
Elena stopped as the orange-haired girl pointed at her.
"I'm sorry? I was mistaken for you and brought here a month ago, but.."
"NO!" She wailed. "You're the crazy one!"
"Gerta, it's alright." The dark-skinned boy said, trying to be calming.
Without another word, Gerta threw the notebook and pencil in the boy's face and jumped off the side of the bed. The nurse stood up from her chair, but she was at the other side of the large room. Elena was only a couple meters away, and she quickly moved between Gerta and the boy.
"Elena, Mike, both of you get away!" The nurse called as she pushed a button on her intercom and sprinted to the scuffle.
Stubbornly, Elena held her arms out, trying to keep the scared Gerta contained. She wasn't expecting the other girl to ram into her and send them both falling to the ground in a tumble of limbs. There was a sharp, stabbing pain in her right wrist as she heard the other patients screaming. She could see another nurse and a doctor rush through the door and into the room. As the wailing and cursing Gerta was pulled off of her, Elena looked to her wrist and saw several deep, bleeding bite marks.
Why this? Why now?
You.. you made the same choice, didn't you?
Okay then..
Zoey slowly opened her eyes and looked around her. The rest of her companions were lying on the beach, looking like they were starting to wake up as well. Most notably, Brick was missing an arrow to the shoulder, but Zoey couldn't see from her current angle if the wound was healed. She turned as she felt something brush against her arm.
"Huh?" The little cat was sitting at Zoey's elbow, holding an arrow with a bloody tip in her mouth. The cat moved her head slightly closer, as if presenting the arrow as an offering.
"Oh, er, no thank you.." She uttered nervously.
"It worked!" Brick cheered and pumped his fist in the air. "Thanks kitty!" The cat dropped the arrow and ran over to Brick. She curled up next to him and started purring.
"Yeah, it looks like she really likes you." Staci said. "I wonder if there's a specific reason."
"It was Brick's choices." Dawn said knowingly. "I'm not sure beyond that, but that's why she was so happy to heal him.
With a grin, Brick picked up the cat and stood up. "It was an honor to be of service, ma'am."
The cat bopped him on the nose with a dark brown paw.