CHYNA

One second, everything was fine.

And the next?

Half of the city was ablaze.

The blast knocked me off my feet and onto the hard packed Earth. I carefully stood up, my back crying in pain, but I shook it off. There were more important things out there.

"Fletcher!" I yelled. "Olive!" No answer.

"GUYS!"

"We're right here," croaked Olive. Her voice was raspy, but she used the gate to help her and Fletcher up. We turned around and stared at what was going on before us. People were going haywire. Ash everywhere. SMOKE. Lots of it.

Before you knew it, the sounds of more planes came. "Move, move, move!" I yelled out, my voice getting raspy. Fletcher had not spoken yet. We ran over to a ditch and crouched down for protection.

The next bomb was even closer to us, in the neighborhood Lexi was living in. More screams. More shouts. I heard a distinctive voice, and I knew our time here wasn't going to be wasted.

"Lexi!" I screamed. "Down here! It's safe down here!"

Lexi scuffled over to the ditch, Her face was covered in soot and ash. "How...how do I know I can trust you?"

Olive held out her hand. "We told you already...you just can."

Lexi took Olive's hand and jumped into the ditch.

More bombs fell. We crouched down lower, not knowing where they were hitting. Minutes passed. Then hours. When the planes had finally left and the bombs stopped exploding, we each carefully made our way out of the ditch.

"This is bad," I whispered.

"Real bad," replied Olive.

"Wow..." said Fletcher. He had finally gotten his voice back.

"We should get back to the Slums," I continued, "It'll be much safer there than out in the open over here."

Olive and Fletcher nodded. Lexi spoke up timidly. "I can get you there," she said. "When I was crowned Victor, they gave me teleporting powers."

"Sounds good," I said. We all grabbed each others hands, and before you knew it we were back 'home'.

Not only was the city ablaze, but the Slums had been badly damaged. Crops were burned, homes were burned, some animals had not made it. People were screaming and shouting, not knowing what was going on.

Miraculously, 99 Willow's Edge was so far away from everyone else that it had been saved. There were people crowded around it, and they seemed happy when we arrived.

"Please!" They shouted. "Help me! My home was burned down!"

"My animals and crops were destroyed!"

"My sister is in the city!"

"Help! Please!"

Olive had a grim look on her face. "We'll help you! Just hang in there!"

OLIVE

All the window's were open as we were trying to get some fresh air. The house was filled to the brim with people, but we were still trying to squeeze people in. Some had to share rooms with us. Others were crowded into the study. There was not that much space available.

Eventually we had to find somewhere else to put people. We found a hatch on the bottom of the kitchen floor and there below us was a basement. A big one, too. We fit two more families in there and finally everyone was fit.

A knock on the door brought us back to our senses.

It was Ursa. With her were two children, a girl and a boy. And a goat.

I brought them to the back, near the pigs and the chickens, while Chyna and Fletcher tried to situate everyone.

"We saw everyone going here. Didn't think we would all be this fortunate," said Ursa.

"Well, I'm glad you can make it, but there's always room for three..er...four more." I tied the goat to a post and double knotted it just to be safe.

She gestured to the girl. "This is Ivy, my granddaughter," to the boy, "Jake," and the goat, "Mim."

I smiled. "They are beautiful children."

Ursa smiled back.

While we were heading back to the house, she kept talking.

"I should've known this was going to happen..."

"What?"

"Urr is in it's civil war."

"How do you know?"

"I am a very old woman, child. I know a lot of things."

"Then which side bombed everyone?"

"It's the government and the rich people verses the poor emigrants and the middle class. Melody's side did it."

"If she did, then why was the city bombed?"

"A war tactic. She bombed the city too to make it seem like we did it, but her main target was the Slums. But we don't have that much advanced technology. And it could go either way, since this place is destroyed too. It's going to be a long war."

FLETCHER

The next morning, everyone woke up bright and early automatically, even without the roosters. They each had a fruit and some milk, both from some cows that were brought over and Mim.

Ursa, our official wise lady, met with us in one half of the basement which had become our official drawing room.

"If we are going to end this war soon enough," she said, "We are going to have to start an army, get some weapons, and invade when they least expect it."

"How are we going to do that? I understand the army part, but where do we get weapons from, let alone invade?" I asked.

She put out a map of Urr.

"North is the city. South are the Slums. West are the Merchants or the middle class. East is the Urr Forest. Northeast is the government, including Melody's castle. Northwest is the market. Southwest is open land. Southeast is the armory."

"So we have to get to the armory, which is between the Slums and the Urr Forest?" asked Chyna.

"Precisely, so its not that far off. If we travel in the night we could go there with our newly assembled army."

"But won't it be heavily guarded? We cant just walk in there, get weapons, leave, and bombard the castle. We'll have to get a plan, a difficult one that will confuse us at first and then them." Said Olive.

"So?" I asked her. "How do we do that?"

"Here's the plan-" said Olive...