Chapter Four
The five pilots entered the house and headed for the living room. Heero sat down on the couch. He had an expresion of deep thought on his face. Duo sat on the floor across from Heero. He was a little worried about his friend. He had been acting weird ever since they got on the bus. Quatre sat in the chair by the door. Wufei sat next to Heero and Trowa sat on a stool by the TV. Heero looked at everyone.
"Well... that was interesting."
The others nodded. They just sat there in silence for twenty minutes. The phone wrang and Quatre went to get it. Trowa got up and headed for his room. Duo noticed the loud grumble in his stomach and got up. He headed for the kitchen to get something to eat. He didn't feel like staring at Heero in deep thought, espicially if his stomach wanted food. He quickly grabbed the materials to make a ham and cheese sandwich. He placed two pieces of ham and two pieces of cheese on the wheat bread. His mouth began to water as he completed the sandwich, lifting it and bringing it towards his mouth. He was about to sink his teeth into the sandwich when he heard Quatre talk from the kitchen door.
"Well, I guess you don't want pizza. Huh Duo?"
"What? Pizza?" He looked at the sandwich in his hand and smiled back at Quatre. "I can always save this for a midnight snack!"
Quatre smiled, "That's what I thought. I already ordered the food, and yes, I made sure I ordered your order."
Duo sighed with relief. Only Quatre would remember to do that. And even if one of the others remembered they wouldn't care. Leaving it out would mean less money to pay.
Duo decided to go upstairs and go on-line.
"Hey Quatre."
"What?" Quatre replied, walking to the counter with the milk to pour into a glass.
"Call me down when the pizza gets here OK? I'm going on-line."
"OK."
"Thanks."
With that he left the room heading for the stairs. He ran up stairs and into his room. He closed the door and walked over the stuff on his floor to the far side of the room were his computer sat. He sat down in the comfy computer chair and looked over his masterpiece. He turned it on and watched as it loaded quickly. Ah! My wonderful creation! Four times better than the computers they are producing for the public. He clicked the AOL icon and waited for it to load. He and Crystal had swapped screen names. Crystal had said she was going to be on-line. He logged on and listened to the computer as it connected to AOL. It connected successfully and soon all the windows were popping up. The 'Welcome' box popped up reading, 'Welcome, Shinigami002!' A voice blasted from the speakers, "Welcome! You've got mail!"
"DAH!" Duo fell back in his chair. He must of forgotten to turn down the speakers last night. He didn't have time to recover and turn them down when a loud bring sounded as someone instant messaged him.
/Sunfire72585: Hi!/
/Shinigami002: Hi, Crystal?/
/Sunfire72585: Yup/
/Shinigami002: What's up?/
/Sunfire72585: Eh, not to much. Just talking to one of my friends./
/Shinigami002: Who?/
/Sunfire72585: You don't know her, her name is Nicole. You'll meet her on the bus tomorrow./
/Shinigami002: Oh./
Duo loaded up a chat room and sent it to Crystal.
/Shinigami002: Tell Nicole to come in./
/Sunfire72585: OK./
Soon there were three screen names on in the chat room.
/Sunfire72585: Nicole, say hi to Duo./
/Mushu1486: Hi Duo!/
/Shinigami002: Hi!/
/Mushu1486: Crystal, were'd you meet him? Picking up guys online again, are you?/
/Sunfire72585: NO!/
/Shinigami002: LOL/
/Sunfire72585: In fact, I met him at school. He is a new junior. He is on our bus so your gonna meet him tomorrow./
/Mushu1486: Oh./
/Shinigami002: How are you, Nicole?/
/Mushu1486: Fine, you?/
/Shinigami002: Fine./
/Mushu1486: Oh, sorry to have to cut this short but I got to go. Bye Duo. Bye Crystal!/
/Sunfire72585: Bye Nicole! See ya tomorrow!/
/Mushu1486: Yup. Bye./
/Shinigami002: Bye Nicole, nice talking to you!/
/Mushu1486: Bye, same to you! See you later guys!/
Nicole's screen name disappeared as she signed off.
/Sunfire72585: I got to go too, Duo. I'll talk to you later, OK?/
/Shinigami002: OK./
/Sunfire72585: Bye!/
/Shinigami002: Bye/
Crystal signed off and Duo started checking his mail and other stuff online. He didn't realize someone had entered the room until that person screamed out in pain.
"OW! Damn it, Duo! Don't you ever clean your room?" Trowa screamed as he stepped on something sharp. He had now realized why he usually kept his sneakers on.
Duo turned in his chair and smiled, "I could but than you guys could sneak in here and scare me. We wouldn't want that now would we?"
Trowa grumbled something under his breath.
"What was that Trowa?"
"Nothing," he snapped. "Come on. The pizza arrived five minutes a go."
"Wohoo!! FOOD!"
Duo bounded past Trowa. Trowa just stared in amazement that the braided idiot didn't even get hurt as he carelessly exited the room. He shrugged and carefully made his way to the door. He made it safely out of the room and down the stairs to the kitchen. Duo had his order and was eatting it peacefully in front of the TV. Quatre had two pieces of pizza on a plate and was making his way into the living room. Heero was eatting in the kitchen and Wufei was carring a small box upstairs to his room. Trowa grabbed a piece of pizza and started to enjoy it.
* * *
Night came quickly to the five teens. They went to bed at around 9 to wake up early the next morning. Duo sat at his computer looking up the school's web site. He was checking out some of the sports that the school had. The only guy sports were soccer, cross country, basketball and baseball. Hmm... what would I enjoy playing? Duo thought to himself. He examined the fall sports. There were two but only one caught his eye. Soccer sounds good. I think Heero would like it too. He wrote down a note to tell Heero. He looked back at the screen and a thought crossed his mind. I vaguely remember Quatre muttering something about soccer one day. Maybe he would like to play. He added to the note to ask Quatre.
"Wufei would never play soccer," Duo muttered to himself. "Hm... maybe he would like cross country."
Again Duo added to the note. He continued until the page was full of little sentences to ask the other four. In the end he decided that Quatre may like soccer, Trowa would enjoy baseball since he had a great pitching arm, Heero would like soccer and basketball, and Wufei would like cross country. He, himself, was planning on joining soccer, basketball, and baseball. He stretched and looked at the time on the computer. 10:56.
"Well, i guess I should head to bed now."
He shut down the computer and got out of the chair. He flopped down on to his bed and quickly fell into a deep slumber.
* * *
The horse trotted smoothly across the open path through the woods. Duo sat to the trot with out any difficulty or pain. The horse was a beautiful strawberry roan appaloosa. Her strawberry mane and tail flowed back as she moved quickly. The two emerged into a brilliantly green open field. Duo nudged the horse to pick up speed to go into a canter across the field. The sun was shining brightly with barely a cloud in the sky. The birds were chirping peacefully and there was a gentle breeze slightly moving the trees.
Neither horse or rider saw the ditch. It was covered in long grass that made it look level. The horse stepped and gave a shriek as its leg snapped. The horse fell forward and Duo was thrown off. He flew through the air and landed painfully a couple feet away. He slowly lifted himself, his arms shaking as if he weighed a ton. His vision blurred as he looked up. The horse layed in the ditch moaning in agonizing pain. He closed his eyes to try and clear his vision. When he opened them again he gasped at the horrible sight.
The sky was once a again a blood red, with black storm clouds swirling quickly and insanely in the sky. Fire balls fell from the sky, setting the field on fire. Wave apon wave of flames roared over the field, engulfing trees, bushes and the grass. The horse gave a terrified shriek as the fire engulfed her. She tried getting up, but her right front leg could not support her weight. Duo watched in horror as the horse slowly died in front of him. Than he noticed he was surrounded by fire. He stared as it came closer. Sweat pouring down his face thinking, this is it. This is how my life will end. He closed his eyes, breathing heavy, waiting for the fire to engulf him too, but it never came. He opened his eyes and realized that the fire had stopped a foot away from him on every side. He stared in disbelief. How in the world?
"Duo...," said a voice that seemed to carry in the wind.
"Huh?"
Duo looked around. Turning carefully, limping every time he stepped on his left leg. He strained to see through the smoke, trying to see anything that my indicate where the voice came from. Than he saw it. A giant oak tree with the girl hanging from one of the branches again. Her head rose slowly and what were hazel eyes were now flaming red. They stared at Duo as if trying to burn a hole through him. He started to shiver uncontrollably. His left leg buckled underneath his weight and he fell to the ground. A cold chilling laughter filled his mind as his vision faded.
Duo jumped awake and started fighting his blankets. When he realized where he was, he calmed down. He was soaked in sweat and shaking. What? Am I sick or something? He sighed and layed back down on the pillow, drifting into a dreamless sleep.
