Mike

Mia was shaking him. "Jayden! Jayden! Jayden please wake up. JAYDEN!" His eyes fluttered open. "You rang?" he asked weakly. "Jayden!" She jumped on him and hugged him. "Mia. You're breaking my ribs."

"Oh my god I'm so sorry!" She quickly stood up and brushed herself off. I laughed at how nervous she was. "Jayden..." Kevin began. "When you were walking away... that Nighlok sent a power symbol at you."

"What was it?" Jayden asked. "That's the problem. We don't know. And it appears to be taking you apart. You are unfit to lead."

"And if you dare get out of this bed, or try anything that you do EVERY TIME you get injured, I swear to the ancestors I will strap you down and force-feed you my personal recipe chicken noodle soup. And I'll be extra careful to burn the chicken!" Mia nearly shouted. He smiled. "Consider me warned."

"I'm worried about you, Jayden. I know you're used to fighting, but we need you to be safe if we're going to defeat the Nighlok," I said. "I know, Mike. But it's going to be ok. I'll actually heal up this time. I won't go running off to find Deker, or defeat a smelly Nighlok, or whatever. I swear." We all smiled. "Well, we're researching the symbol he used. We're going to figure it out, and we're going to cure you. Promise." Mia's voice was so determined that for a moment I was actually scared of her. "Yeah. We will." Jayden closed his eyes again and fell back to sleep. We went into the library to look through textbooks. We just skimmed each one for pictures of the symbol and then set it down. After almost two hours, Emily suddenly yelled, "found it!" She was silent for a minute, reading. Then she muttered, "oh, that is not good... Oh, shit!" We all looked at her and she looked at us. "There's something inside of him that is literally tearing him up inside. And... there's no way to stop it."