Chapter 10: Triad triplets

Nothing felt right to Derrick and Rosa. Andy's disappearance was anticipated, but they hoped she'd tell them before leaving. The elders had put Andy's family on house arrest, with Guards everywhere. They really wanted to track down Andy. Rosa was sure something was up. A search this big was questionable. Why search for an anomaly with no gift using armed forces?. Something was fishy and they wanted to find out what it was.

Several days after Andy's disappearance, Derrick came over to Rosa's place to discuss what their next plan of action would be. Unlike Derrick's mum, Rosa's parents accepted Andy like she was their own. When they heard she went missing, they sent out their own troops to find her and keep her safe. Rosa's parents, Bill and Dion, were not elders, but they had lots of power in the Eldora.

"Hey, what's up?" Rosa immediately asked Derrick who took her out of the house, secretly.

"Well, I think I know where Andy is"

"You do!" She yelled, but reduced her voice when Derrick gave her the sign to speak in a low tone.

"Where is she?" she whispered

"Remember what I told you about the last time I saw Andy. She was by the Riverside when she asked me to leave" he said

"Yeah I remember, but where are you heading with this?" She asked

"Well I could've sworn I perceived Nakamaru's cologne around her"

"So you think she'd be with him, right now?" She asked Derrick, who looked at her with all certainty.

"But right now I can't think of where they might be," he added.

"You're as dumb as they get" Rosa insulted him

"We went to a safe house, remember?" She stressed each word, except the last one.

"Oh, yeah" he concurred

"Oh Christ" she said as she opened her right palm and spanked her forehead with it, shaking it at the same time "and they say I'm the dumb one"

"Whatever, I'mma go grab a few stuff and be back in ten, we're going to find her" Rosa said as she went back inside her house.

Derrick waited outside for a while before Rosa made it back to him with a big bag. It looked filled up.

"Let's go" she said as she stepped forward but stopped and took a step back when she noticed Derrick was standing and staring at her.

"Someone's gonna get hungry" she said as she pulled him.

They had only walked a few miles into the woods when Derrick started feeling strange movements around them. He was feeling a little scared and unsure of the path they were taking. He asked Rosa if she was sure this was the right path and she gave him an affirmation. They kept walking for hours non-stop until Derrick paused. He felt as though they had been walking in circles, after he noticed the same tree, thrice. They decided to mark the tree with anything they could find and then walk the path again. After walking together for some minutes, they spotted the marked tree again. Shocked by this, they decided to walk on separate paths, to be certain about everything so far. Each of them walked for minutes on different paths, but still stopped at the marked tree.

It was obvious that they were being tricked, maybe an illusion of some sort. They didn't know what to think or believe. If it was an illusion, it looked too god-damn real. The tree was touchable and didn't shake or show signs of being extremely fake. Every natural structure in the woods was definitely real, so they couldn't get what was wrong. They were stuck.

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"The Triad triplets are one of the most powerful Castus civilians. Each of them has the ability to control the weather. One of them controls the wind and can conjure a powerful storm, another controls the rain, which could cause a flood and the last,..." Nakamaru paused, "...can produce lightning, that alone can destroy an entire village or the world as we know it" he concluded as Andy just stood, perplexed.

" If they are that powerful, how come they never escaped in the beginning?" She asked

"According to some rumors, every civilian in Castus is always subjected to put on some kind of control band on their wrist, to keep their gifts inside as they trained them"

"Trained them for what? I thought they were living normal lives but with rejection from their families"

"I don't know what they are training them for, but as for rejection, some people don't even know about their missing children. The elders have a way of making people forget…I'm not sure of this though, it's still a rumor" he replied.

It was a rumor, no doubt, but Andy felt a lot of truth attached to this said rumor. The elders had been hiding this from all the villagers for long, even her dad.

"So you're saying all the elders are aware of this?" She asked, wanting to clear her doubts about her dad

" Well…not all of them. Only elders that have been placed in charge of Castus knows about this, the rest don't even know about anything but Eldora"

"How'd you find out then?" She asked, taking steps back.

"Cause I was an apprentice to one of them" he spoke, feeling disappointed in himself.

"One day they caught me eavesdropping and when I said I wouldn't keep it a secret from the people and expose them, whoosh, I became a criminal…been hunted down ever since" he said.

"I'm sorry about that" she said as she placed a hand on his shoulders and she heard him draw his nose.

"Are you, crying" she asked

"No, I would never" he said as he cried out

"Are you sure?" She asked, while he blew his nose. He was pathetic.

"Yes I am" he tried to show confidence.

"That reminds me, your mum and dad?"

"What about them?" Andy asked

"They are under house arrest…"

"What!?" She yelled

"Shhhh, someone might hear you. They're okay, nothing bad has happened to them" Nakamaru explained.

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"This is ridiculous" Rosa lamented after they tried everything they could to break out of the loop they had found themselves in.

It was getting foggier by the minute, the entire place wasn't that clear anymore. Both of them decided to walk the path again and gather more clues. Before they moved, Derrick noticed something different about the environment. Apparently the color of the tree was fading a bit and there was a broken branch that wasn't there before. He stopped Rosa from moving, as he held her back and showed her the difference in the tree they had marked. It was almost as if whatever was creating the loop had become weak. Rosa suggested they walked again so they could keep draining its power source.

After walking a few laps again, they were exhausted, and so was the tree. Rosa placed her hands on the tree, as she tried to catch her breath when she heard something or someone. She could feel the presence of a gifted person, she could hear his thoughts. They had been trapped by someone on purpose. She kept her hand on the tree as she tried to study her subject. Derrick was immediately informed about this and was told to play cool. They still had to act like they were unaware of what was happening. They had to keep playing their roles in this loop.

"I think he's alone" she whispered as Derrick quickly made a catapult, waiting for Rosa's order.

"Now!" She instructed after revealing where their enemy stood and Derrick roughly aimed at a subject he couldn't see and released the stone in the catapult.

The illusion quickly fell off and they saw the person that had trapped them run. They quickly chased after him as Derrick broke weak branches of trees and shrubs and formed a bow and an arrow. After running and aiming at his Target for a while, he let the arrow go and it struck the leg of their target, making him unable to move until both Rosa and Derrick caught up to him.