Chapter 2. Afraid Of The Dark

"Max?"

"Max? Are you all right?"

"That was great! What did you do?"

"She's awake."

"Max?"

I groaned, trying to sit up and looking at the faces of the concerned flock around me.

"wh- what happened?" ahhh… my head! This needs some explaining.

"that was sooo cool, max you've got a new power! Do I get one? That would be awesome! I hope I get something good like yours…." Nudge rambled on.

"Max" fang's voice "you turned into a ball of fire."

"Then you blew them all up!" Gazzy exclaimed. "It was fantastic! Mine and Iggy's bombs don't look half as spectacular!"

"Max! Max! Can you show us what else you can do with fire! Or is it just an exploding fire ball thing? Ohhh… can I try it that would be so brilliantly amazing and sooo cool!"

"Nudge, calm down. I will try out my newest powers later, we can all try. But first things first; who else was hurt or was hurt? Angel hows your wing?"

"Painful and sore I might not be able to fly well for the next few days." Angel looked a bit sad about the last part.

"That's okay, we heal fast so you will be up and running in no time!" giving angel a supportive smile I turned to Iggy "I saw you down, what happened?"

"Two of those over-grown-tin-cans tried to wack me with there guns I dodged both but got a kick to my back as a third had crept up behind me!"

"Are you okay now?"

"Yeah I'm good now."

"Nudge, Gazzy, are you guys okay?"

"Yeah I'm not hurt at all." Nudge said while Gazzy on the other hand said;

"No I lost all my good bombs! The ones I didn't lose got wet and destroyed!" Gazzy over exaggerated the lack of bombs as an 'end of the world' scenario.

Rolling my eyes at Gazzy, he'll find a way to make more, sooner rather than later. I asked where we were.

This time it went quiet.

Then angel said "in a cave somewhere."

"Where's somewhere?"

They all shrugged.

"France?"

They all shock their heads. This was starting to annoy me, not to mention the frantic worry creeping up on me!

I sighed. Then taking a deep breath, I got up and walked to the mouth of the cave. Okaaaay we are neither in France nor any other place I've been to before. Where are we?

Time to organise the flock. We need food. Might as well stay a night or two, until we are all healed and ready for a long flight. Grabbing my bag I chucked everyone a muesli bar.

"Let's make camp. We need food, fire wood and fresh water. Angel, nudge, Gazzy, find fire wood and water. Fang, Iggy, we are on food duty. Lets go!" flying out of the cave we started to search for things we needed. I needed a hot shower but I had small hopes of finding one as we looked for food.

We returned to the cave an hour later with a few small rabbits and rats. It was getting dark quickly so Gazzy started a fire, and Iggy cooked our food on sticks. Dinner wasn't to bad, how dose Iggy do that?

Angel sat away in a corner of the cave hugging total. Nudge was talking about the day's events and fang was gone. Probably invisible, again.

I waked over to angel to sit beside her. Angel looked up with a scared expression. I went on alert. Angel scared usually equalled something bad happening. Not good.

"Sweetie what's wrong?" I asked carefully.

Angel got a terrified look "there are other things thinking. Not human. They're in the cave."

"What do you mean?"

"Something's in here with us, max."

"like what?' this is very bad! Things sometimes want to kill us,

"I don't know, but they know we are here." Angel was now shivering, and probably not from cold.

"Okay don't worry angel well find out what it is." Damn what do I do now? Things thinking? What kind of things?

"Thanks max"

"Fang, come here, we've got company." We have to check out the cave, otherwise those things might decide they have big issues with us and die trying to kill us. What joy that would be.

"Who?" fang materialised by the fire.

"Donno yet. Shall we go find out?" I walked to the back of the cave where it continued into a dark hole/tunnel. Fang walked into the darkness.

Following fangs lead I called to him "fang, it's so dark, how are we going to see anything?"

"Keep walking." Greeeeaaaaat! We are just going to walk blindly into a lightless hole with things possible in it. Well I could certainly see the cleverness of that.

I rolled my eyes. We all have great vision in the dark (Iggy did too, before they tried to improve his.) but we did needed some light. Any small amount of light would be fine.

Wow! It was getting lighter yeah it was slow but I m able to see again. "Fang! I can see a bit! It's getting lighter."

Fang didn't respond but I could see him now so that was okay. The weird thing tho was that it kept getting lighter and I didn't know where the light was coming from. Now I am suspicious of almost every thing so when lights start changing in a small claustrophobic tunnel you know what I do? I get into battle mode, of course.

"Ow! Fang!" I'd walked into fang, who had stopped and was staring at something.

"Fang, what is it…." Then I saw the rocks. They were different colours but all very beautiful. I also noticed that this was the end of the hole and that there was no source of light coming from any where. Pushing fang out of the way I moved towards the first one. It was all white with silver swirls around it. Reaching out to it fang grabbed me.

I glared at fang's hand "what? Fang, it's a rock it can't hurt me." For god's sake it's a rock! That was obvious, plus the worst it could do, would be to drop on my foot and since that was not going to happen fangs protectiveness was uncalled for.

He let go. So I reached out again and picked it up. Nothing happened. I sent a look to fang see told ya so. Ahhh let's run from the killer rock! He smiled briefly, my heart beat faster.

Putting down the strange rock I reached out to the next one, this one was red, white and black. I picked it up too.

"Should we take some back to show the flock?"

"What ever you want." Oh four words at once, fang was Mr talk-a-lot tonight!

"Okay, pick one you would like to take. I like this one." Holding the white, black and red stone in my hands, I watched fang pick up a smooth black rock same size as mine.

We headed back to the flock. I was a bit worried about the thoughts angel heard; we hadn't seen nor heard anything but us in this cave so far, this unnerved me. There was something angel said there was and she's always right. Fang and I went as far as we could through the tunnel; we were at a dead end. Still nothing moved or made a noise as we passed.

I hadn't noticed but it was a lot lighter now than the previously pitch black tunnel. Something was wrong, very wrong.

We found the flock in the same places they had been in before we left. But as I came out of the hole the flock turned quickly. They looked ready for an on coming attack, another very bad sign. They were relived to see us back.

"Whats sup?" I asked on high alert.

"Max! Fang! It went darker very suddenly, just before you walked in. I know its night and all but it was so, like, sudden. We were sitting here talking when it went dark. What happened max? Why did it go dark? What is that max? Can I have a look? Can…"

"SHUT UP!" We all yelled at nudge. I relaxed an inch; we weren't being attacked, period.

"Firstly I don't know why it is dark it is the same in the tunnel but it went lighter and not suddenly. Secondly I have no idea why it went dark or light. These are strange coloured rocks me and fang found in the tunnel." That answered all questions and explained nothing, great.

"MAX! That's what is thinking! The rocks! Only they are not rocks they are alive!" angel almost shouted in panic.

"How can they be alive?" I knew angel never lied and was always right but living rocks?

"I don't know max they just are." Angel cried desperately "they are thinking about fire and… flying and… fighting and… lots of things!"

"Okay angel, I don't know how rocks can be alive but if you say so. It's late time for bed kiddies! I'm first watch, Iggy I'll wake you up when it's your turn."

We did our nightly hand staking with totals paw on top.