Last Night on Jaguer

Jarun and I both glanced at each other, then went back to staring up at the towering castle. The place was larger than I remember: 200 foot tall purple clay walls made sure no one could climb up into the windows. Jarun finally said something to interrupt our gaping.

"Well, I'm not doin' it." He crossed his arms in defiance.

I silently told myself I'd get him back one day. "Fine. Guess I'll do it. Imma get you back tho."

Jarun laughed. "Ha! Bet!"

I took in a deep breath and called to Ziya above. In seconds, her window fluttered open and out popped her head. She definitely looked older than last time. Her long silver hair was now cut short, about shoulder length. Her yellow eyes gleamed in the night sky. Her face now had four blood-red dots, two small ones connected vertically to the large dots.

"What do you bastards want?" she asked. She made it seem as if we were being bad guys.

I finally found my voice to speak up. "Wanna hang out?"

"Why the hell would I do that?"

"I dunno. Figured it was my last night, so why not have some fun with me and Jarun?"

A long pause hung in the air around us. Finally she made a decision, but she said it like she was going to regret it. "Fine. Better not get me in trouble though."

As soon as the windows closed, Jarun started humming, a green aura surrounding him. He wasn't a close ranged fighter, so why was he glowing with the same type of energy as Kabai?

"Oi, Jarun. What are ya doin'?"

He stopped and turned to me. "I'm humming a love song. Usually doing that will bring good luck."

I was surprised. "You like Ziya don't you?"

He blushed then looked away. "Nah bro. It's part of my healing chasm. If I focus on happy thoughts, I'm able to bring good luck. I was able to find this out a couple weeks ago, so I'm not exactly sure how this works."

I ignored his entire statement, focused on the subject that he liked Ziya. I knew he liked Ziya from the very start. Even when we were training for the hunt, I could tell he liked Ziya. I was honestly surprised he still held on even after this long.

"What are you two waiting for?"

We both turned at the same time to see Ziya standing behind us. She no longer had the red dots on her tan face, her silver white hair gleaming in the moonlight of the two moons that were in the sky. I was about to ask how she got behind us, but Jarun had taken the words right out of my mouth.

"How did you get behind us?"

She smiled, revealing a set of fangs. "Isn't it obvious? I jumped out the window."

We looked up to see the window still closed.

"No, really, how did you get behind us?" I asked.

"I closed the window as I jumped out," she replied, taking pride in what she did. "What do ya guys wanna do?"

"I dunno. I didn't think we'd get this far."

We all laughed before going into a complete moment of silence.

"Hey I have an idea! What if we went and played Jegoball?"

I was confused. I had never even heard of a game like that. "What's Jegoball?"

They both cried out at the same time. "You've never heard of Jegoball?"

"Nah bros. I've played dodgeball, but never even heard of Jegoball."

They both stared in utter shock, as if I was a completely different species, which I probably was, but I didn't know. Ziya was somewhat human while Jarun looked like a fuckin' boar with a human body. No offense.

They tried to explain what Jegoball is, but their words just kept intertwining mid-air, meshing into some weird stuff. From what I got out of their words, Jegoball was a game where a person who wasn't playing the game would hide the ball around the village and try to find the ball before everyone else. If you found the ball, you had to make it back to the starting spot without anyone noticing that you had the ball. If you were caught with the ball, the person that caught you first would take the ball from you and you were out.

It sounded like a simple game, but it also sounded kinda hard. Just my type of game.

"Let's do it dudes," I said after they were finished.

Suddenly, I heard Thomas's voice behind me. I turned around to see a ghostly image of him.

"T-Thomas? I thought you would be asleep by now."

Jarun looked confused for a second. "Who are you talking to Andrew?"

I realized that neither of them could see or hear Thomas. For some reason, only I could.

He responded almost immediately. "I am asleep, but this is a part of my crystal's power." He lifted up his neck to reveal a black crystal hanging off. "I heard you guys are playing Jegoball, right?"

"Uhhhh, yeah," I thought. I was wondering if Thomas was listening to my thoughts and not my words. It turned out that he was.

"Hmmm. Cool. If you are gonna play, kid, then I have a quest for ya."

My heart skipped a beat.

"Another quest?"

"Yeah, didn't stutter, did I? Anyways, I want you to win this game. Don't be overly competitive, but I want you to win. If you don't, even if you win tomorrow, I'll make sure you don't return home with that watch on."

My mind and heart was racing. Another quest? All I wanted to do was simply just have a good time, because I knew for sure it was going to be my last. I wanted my last moments to be happy, but I obviously couldn't get that either.

"I guess I could do that Thomas, but what do I get if I win? Hmm?"

He paused, then a smile started to unravel across his face as his image slowly disappeared. "You'll see kid. You'll see."

Jarun put his hand on my shoulder, which nearly gave me a heart attack. I had already forgotten they were still there. "Yo, who you talkin' too?"

"Oh, I was just humming a song to myself."

Indeed I was singing a song. A love song, one that would give me luck.