Dark Raven

"GO!" I yelled out. Red followed right behind me as the blood trickled down my hand, splattering onto the ground. The pain that followed was immense, but I couldn't let this pain stop me!

"GET BACK TO BASE! NOW!" I pushed my body and headed towards the east side, in the direction of Ellie's house. They'd be able to follow my trail of blood. Thinking back on it, I would've run right back home and endangered everybody else had it not been for Domin's influence.

I pushed my body over a log and continued to run, holding my fingers to stop the bleeding as much as I could. I looked for any cover I could use to hide from my predators, but I wasn't sure that I could get any good place.

"Up here!" Charlie held out his hand and I grabbed it as it came down in front of my face. Charlie pulled me up into a little hideout he made hidden in the leaves of several trees.

"Is Red okay?!" Charlie asked me. I nodded, looking out of the small grooves in the leaves.

"Yeah, she's fine. This is where you hunt?" Charlie nodded in response to my question.

"We were being chased by somebody, they cut my fingers off with a throwing weapon, and I told Red to run back home. Right before that, Ellie told me to run away from the base. I think we're under attack again."

Anxiety started to eat me up. Dani, Red, and Carl are all in that base… my friends, everything we've worked for is in there. Ellie told me to run, but that was just impossible!

I heard a scream from Red, back in the direction I came, and then I could hear footsteps approach this hideout.

"White Stone! Come out! I have something pretty valuable to you. Or… don't tell me, you'd ditch your own comrade's life for your own? Selfish, as I always assumed!" The man said. It made me angry listening until I heard Red's voice.

"I won't leak a thing! Stay hidden, Sky! He's saying that to make you even angrier!" I heard Red scream even more.

"Stay here. Don't come out until I come to get you myself." I dropped out of Charlie's hidden base and landed right in the middle of a crowd of people, all pointing bows and holding swords at me.

"Leave her out of this. It's me you want, right?" I asked the black-haired, blue-eyed man. He nodded at my question.

"Precisely that, but I'd rather not let go of her." He was holding Red by her hair in a clump on the top of her head. She had a slash mark on her chest and her shirt was ripped open, leaving all buttons off.

"Before you kill me, I have questions for you." I heard bowstrings draw back, and his offhand went up. Afterward, the bowstrings loosened.

"Go ahead," He said.

I spoke loudly, for everybody to hear. "What is it you want with me? Why do you want me dead? Do you know a girl named Lia? What about Dante?" I asked, but he stood there blankly.

"What do I want with you? I want that stone on your left hand, but I missed and got your fingers only." The katana on his hip swayed back and forth.

"Why do I want you dead? They're orders, I follow them when I get them. Lia? Dante? I know one of those miserable little shits, but I don't know anybody named Lia." He said. I stopped. By telling me he knew Dante, that meant that he was connected to the two as well. Lia must've been a grunt in the force that was attacking me.

"That was all. So, you want to kill me then?" I drew the sword on my hip and pointed it at him.

"You can fill my body with arrows if you'd like, but I ask that you leave the rest of my people alone," I told him. The man put his hand on the handle of his katana, leaning his body to the right.

"Then why did you draw that sword if you're so willing to die?" He said. He unsheathed his katana, pointing it right at me just like I did to him.

"Because I promised I'd try to avoid death as much as possible." I clarified. The man put the katana back in his sheathe.

"Then let's go find who you promised that to. Or was it this girl?" He held a dagger to Red's throat, and I stepped forward, before realizing the position I was in.

"Raven. I found their base, it's closer to the beach." As Raven smiled after his friend told him where my base was, the scar on his forehead scrunched and my eyes widened.

"It's definitely his, did you see that look he just gave me?" Incapacitate him." I was quickly surrounded and brought to the floor, my sword being left in the dirt and my hands tied in front of my body, they dragged me right beside red along the dirt.

"Sorry I came out… I couldn't let them hurt you like that." I told Red. She shook her head.

"This isn't too good… we should've listened to Ellie ahead of time," I muttered.

Raven dragged us to the gate of our base and knocked on the door. Nobody came to answer, which meant my defense plan was working.

"What the hell?! Open up, you idiots!" He yelled out. I cracked a smile but was slammed against the wall of our base.

"What is that?! Where are they?!" Raven shouted at me. I looked down at the sand, searching for some sort of lie.

"Well… I don't think they're behind that wall. Maybe they started swimming?" I proposed the question. I pointed southwards and he punched me, sending me straight into the sand.

How irritating… it reminded me of my fight with Ullr.

"You have ten seconds to open this damn gate before I cut off your White Stone's head! Ten!" It made me so angry, as he got closer and closer to one, that I was hunted yet again. Lia, Dante, Raven, and this crowd of people… everybody was so obsessed with me, yet I didn't do anything.

I woke up one day and the world decided that I would be killed within the month. Not even a fair chance at life, and Domin had to suffer for it. So did Red, and now, my life will end and that will be it. Such a pitiful ending… an ending Domin nor I deserved.

"THREE!" He shouted, continuing on. I analyzed the blade of the katana, it looked sharp enough to kill me in one hit, at least.

"TWO!" The gate creaked open behind me and I noticed. I threw my body into it to block Raven from getting in.

"RUN!!!" I yelled out.

[SYSTEM ALERT: DANGER! DANGER! DANGER!]

I ducked my head to the right and kicked at Raven's knees. Red got up and kicked the man holding her. Due to a release lever on our gate that allowed us to push if it was an emergency, I was able to get in after smacking it. The bows were drawn back and I pushed back against the gate, closing it as fast as possible as the arrows deflected off of the stone coating the gate.

"What the hell is happening?" Carl whispered cutting the restraints on Red and my hands.

"Another attack. There's a lot more than two people, everybody who can fight assume positions, everybody who can't hide inside." I nodded towards Dani, and she unsheathed her own longsword, staring at the gate. Xavier pulled back his bow and Ullr prepped his sledgehammer.

"We've learned our lesson! This world tries to fight us and kill us just for simply wanting to live, so we'll fight back! PULL IT!" I demanded. Mandi pulled the rope to the gate and the shields in front held up their defenses, stopping the arrows.

Three people on Raven's side instantaneously died after the counterattack, causing him to get into cover with his crowd. There were a ton of people, but we could take them. Ellie said it herself, this is where I would be useless, but my ability to defuse attacks and parry them was higher than anybody else's. I would take Raven under my custody after we defeat this crowd and ask him about the outer world - or so I thought.

Like giant battering rams coming from the cliff above, our high-constructed wall, made so nobody could jump in from the overhang, was instantly taken down. The fact the wall fell wasn't the biggest surprise, it was Ellie, hiding behind the rising dust from the rocks and cementing paste crashing into the ground.

As if a tick in my brain, I instantly was overcome with anger once more. I was betrayed again.