Chapter Thirteen

John

"Hey! Hey, Four! Wake up, Johnny boy, you're girlfriend's on the phone," Nine yells in my ear. I open my eyes, and instantly regret it. About a thousand blinking lights appear in my vision, and it takes a few seconds for the multicolored stars to disappear. I'm vaguely aware that the Oniro, the stone that allows me to send dream messages, is cutting deeply in my palm. I stand, and feel dizzy, the room around me swimming in and out of focus. All I can think about is the dream—how Six and I shared the same vision and what Setrákus was talking about. Who is this person? Who is the key to Setrákus' invincibility?

"Hey, Four! Get your ass in here!" Nine yells. Boy, when he yells, you'd think he's on the other side of the world when in truth he's just on the other side of the door. "Just wait, dude! And stop yelling!" I say, a little too angrily, "Just give me the damned phone!"

Nine unlocks my door with telekinesis and hands me a ringing phone. His shirt is disheveled as well as his dark hair, and if I'm not mistaken, there is something that looks like lip gloss on the corner of his mouth.

"Now, get out," I say, slamming the door shut with my telekinesis after Nine walks out. I hurriedly press the phone to my ear and say, "Hello?"

"John! What the hell took you so long?" Six says in a panic. I guess her first premonition, which is completely accidental, has startled her. I didn't plan any of this to happen. "I just woke up, Six. And I am so sorry for having you endure that dream. It's just…I did not expect that comi—"

"There's no time for that now. Listen, Sam just called. They're in trouble."

At the word "trouble", I nearly the drop the phone of shock. Oh, what have they gotten themselves into?

Six continues, "He called when I woke up. There were a lot of gunshots and then Sam hung up. I have a feeling that…that he…" She did not have the strength to continue, yet I understand what she was about to say. I fall back on the bed in a sitting position, my face on the cracked mirror on the opposite wall pale. Sam. My best friend. A friend I only managed to save a few weeks ago. And now he's in trouble all over again.

"What do we do?" I ask quietly.

"I don't know. Crayton forbids me to go, John. How on earth are we going to save Sam?"

"Don't sweat it. We'll find them. Just stick to finding the ship, Six. I'll take care of the rest," I say, "Be careful there, Six. I love you."

"I love you too," she whispers, and hangs up. I sigh and let the phone fall out of my hand, catching it with telekinesis instead before it collides with the floor. What am I going to do? What if Nine disagrees to go find Sam and the others? Knowing how much of a bastard that guy could be, I doubt it. Even though his attitude lightened up when Meredith came around, he can still be the same jerk I met back at the cave.

But, it's worth a shot.

I stand up and open my creaky door. Again, thanks to Nine, we settled in this abandoned house in the woods, with ivy crawling up its walls. It looks as if it's been unoccupied for over a year because half its wooden furniture had been feasted by termites, and it's a miracle this thing is still on its feet. Also, we ditched our ride the minute it ran out of gas. "It's a waste of time," Nine had said. So, here we are, in this ancient house, on the way to find the Chimæras.

"Nine?" I ask, hoping he did not take my anger into account seriously a while ago. He's not in his room, and so is Meredith. Where could they be?

When I enter the living room, I wish I hadn't.

Nine is sprawled all over Meredith on the floor, his lips glued to hers, reminding me too much of Six and me, but not the way Nine is doing it. Meredith had begun moaning—no wonder Nine couldn't hear me. He is having the time of his life.

"Dude!" I yell, in disgust, causing the two's heads to snap up. "You could've waited until I was asleep! Or you could've done it in your room! Jesus, man! What the hell!" If you were in my shoes, you would've done the same thing. Seriously.

"You were busy talking to Six, and we practically did it while you were asleep. So, no problem there," Nine says, standing up and picking his shirt off the floor.

"Anyways, what's your problem, Four?" Meredith asks, her face smitten and filled with bliss. Looking at her with that expression plastered on her face makes me want to puke, especially when she shape shifts into Six just to annoy me. "Knock it off," I say, my palms lighting up from the stress and anger. Meredith hastily returns to her original state and walks out of the room. As soon as she's gone, I find myself slammed against the wall with Nine's telekinesis holding me in place. Whatever struggle I make against it is futile. "Don't you dare talk to her like that again!" Nine says, his voice dripping with anger.

"Well, excuse me but I just received a phone call saying that my friend could have gotten hurt and if that doesn't make me stressed, I must be abnormal!" I say, equalizing the tone of my voice with Nine's. "And you are very lucky to have her with you while I nearly dragged Six into something she wasn't supposed to see!"

Nine lets go of me, letting me fall on my side on the floor. I stand up unsteadily, my senses working overtime, adrenaline coursing through my veins. I feel like I'm ready for anything. "What do you mean?" Nine asks, his voice and face masked as to show no emotion.

I explain to Nine about the premonition I shared with Six accidentally. Afterwards, Nine shakes his head. "He's got Cole, Marina and Ella. He'll be fine." But that isn't the answer I was hoping for.

I catch Nine off guard and use my telekinesis to throw him out the door, severely damaging it, throwing it off its hinges. I startle the Chimæras outside by doing so. "Look here, Nine!" I say, holding him up in the air with my mind, "I don't care what you say, but we're going to find and rescue Sam and the other Garde!"

"You have to beat me first!" Nine yells, and with a powerful flex of his arms, he throws me back to the house, crashing through its window as the result of the telekinetic force breaking. I stand up and lunge at Nine, throwing punches everywhere while blocking some of Nine's own. "Stop it!" I hear Meredith yell, but we ignore her. I am not going down in this fight, especially since this is for Sam. And Marina. And Cole. And Ella; little, innocent Ella.

With that determination in me, I push him harder than ever. I can see his movements, but can't find any openings. Nine attempts to put both hands on my throat, but I bat his hands away, exposing his chest. A thought pops into my head, a thought that will lead to my victory. I punch Nine in the sternum hard, sending him backwards. "John, stop!" I hear Meredith yell, rushing over to Nine in a fraction of a second. I don't feel guilt, or remorse for that matter, for what I have done to my fellow Garde. "I beat you. Now, can we go?" I ask, waiting for Nine's surrender.

"Fine, only after we find the Chimæra in these woods," Nine says, spitting a mouthful of blood on the grass.

"I thought we were miles away from it."

"It moves around a lot quickly, and it's settled here. It's not that far actually," Nine says as Meredith helps him stand up. I must have hit him harder than I thought.

Nine has managed to make a few steps when a loud roar comes from the jungle, and a strangled cry of two men.

"Come on!" I yell, beckoning the other Chimæra to follow me into the woods. We follow our ears to the sounds of giant footfalls, and more panicked shrieks. Whatever it is inside these woods, I hope it's just a very hungry grizzly bear or something along those lines, not a piken. It would be hard to explain to the men what it was and where it came from.

That is not good, I hear Bernie say, along with the other Chimæras. They have all grown bigger in just split seconds. Bernie, in the form of the beast he once was in Ohio, takes the lead, some of the Chimæras behind him howling like wolves in the night. They all copied the beast BK has taken form of. When we reach about two miles away from the house, I nearly get hit by a body of a man thrown by something stronger than it. Based on the number of hunting gadgets on his bloody vest, this guy must be a Hunter—a dead one.

Chill, dude. We got this, one of the Chimæras say, moving in closer to the beast. I step out into the open and feel my mouth drop.

It is definitely not a grizzly bear, nor a piken. My guesses aren't even close to the beast I'm about to face right now.

This beast is one from myths, not meant to be real. But then again, I believe that there's nothing left in this world that is fantasy, considering being an alien from a distinct place. Nothing in this world is make-believe anymore. Still, I am unsure of what I'm seeing. I have only heard of this beast from my history teacher years ago, when he talked about Greek Mythology.

The beast is larger than Bernie Kosar and lizard-like, standing on clawed feet. It had seven heads in total, like snakes meshed into one scaly body. Two or three of them breathes fire, the very reason why the bushes are ablaze, while the tail behind it whips around, wrapping around men's bodies and throwing them away as if they were rag dolls. I hear Nine behind me ask, "What the hell is that thing?"

It's a Chimæra alright, another Chimæra says.

"I know it is, but what animal is it—"

"It's a Hydra," I say. At the word "hydra", the beast whips all seven heads and stares right at me with its glowing red eyes.