The Lost Sentinel

10 Going on a hunt.

Tan P.O.V

Hanika taps my shoulder and I blink my eyes rapidly as she comes into focus. I feel like I am waking up from a dream.

“Did you fall sleep,” she asks staring at me strangely. I shake my head feeling dizzy and breathless. I feel like something just rammed into me hard. I take a deep shaky breath, and my ribs and chest flare in pain. I groan getting to my feet.

“What is wrong with you?” Hanika asks me as if I am faking or something.

I shake my head, and step off the damn cushy mat. I am done meditating.

And what kind of meditation will leave someone feeling like they’ve been tossed in a meat grinder. One on this damn ship, that’s for sure.

“We have work to do Tan. There is not time to play,” she says walking out.

Yeah, right, I think as I follow her. My chest aches with every step I take. I follow Hanika all the way to the control room.

I come to a stop outside needing to go to the bathroom.

“Where is the bathroom?” I ask her before she disappears inside. She stops staring at me as if she is losing her patience with me.

Is she going to be this grumpy all the time? I shake my head waiting for her to direct me.

“Four doors down where we came from,” she says pointing down the hallway. I walk back, until I come to the fourth door. I walk inside to find small stalls and a bank of metal basins on opposite sides. I go into one of the stalls and take a piss. Once done I go to one of the basins and wash my hands.

I stare at myself as I wash my hands. My eyes move from my face to my chest and stomach. I want to see beneath the shirt – see what I am feeling, because the pain is just terrible. I dry my hands on my pants and lift my shirt.

I stare in horror at the red and purpling bruises that to have been punched into my skin. I gasp not understanding what I am seeing.

It looks like I was in the worst fight and I survived barely alive.

What?

I stand there frozen, and terrified out of my mind.

Rhine did say….

“And oh by the way, whatever happens to you here will affect your other half, so be careful.”

I guess the same applies the other way around…

Oh…my eyes bulge out at the streaks of colour and the flare of pain as the cold air hits it. I take a few careful breaths. I don’t believe this.

I thought he was joking.

But if I am still alive, it means I survived my first fight.

“I won,” I say to the empty room feeling too happy to be alive. I stuff my hand inside my pocket feeling the need to share my victory with Mak. I rub the coin feeling tears fill my eyes…damn I wish he was here.

Mak would see this as another adventure and not the end of the world bullshit it feels like. I shake my head feeling stupid for almost talking to the coin. I shove it back into my pocket.

“Tan,” Hanika’s voice comes through the door.

I walk to the door and open it.

“We have to go,” she says already turning away. I don’t know what her problem is, but there is no need for her to be rude to me. I am here helping her out, trying to save the world, the least she can do is to be nice.

“We’re dropping off at the Wat Chaiwatthanaram in a few minutes. Get ready,” she says turning to leave me standing there, probably expecting me to follow. I don’t. I stand right there and stare at her receding back.

She must realise that I am still where she left me, because she turned around and looks my way.

“Tan?”

“Say please,” I say not budging.

Her face screws up in a mask of anger that makes me almost move. Damn…no pretty girl should look like that.

“What did you just say?” she asks as if I insulted her. Damn she’s scary. I shake my head walking past her. She grips my arm bringing me to a stop.  “When we get in there, you find the artefact and you absorb its power. No games. Do you hear me?” She starts towards the door.

“What does it look like?”

“I don’t know,” she says stopping at the door.

“What?” I ask incredulously. She can’t be serious.

“You’ll feel the same way you did when you found the stone. Just open your senses.”

“Okay,” I say.  

We walk to the door that will lead us outside. The whirring sound of the big ship going down fills the space. After a few seconds the door whooshes open and a ramp extends to the ground. Bright light – green and gold cast showy shapes on towering forms not far from us. The biggest one of the towers, glows with a gold hue that is mesmerising and very beautiful.

“Is this Wat Chaiwatthanaram?” I ask awestruck.

“Yes,” Hanika says walking down the ramp. When she hits the ground she rushes through a grassy area disappearing where the spotlights don’t reach. I follow her going down the ramp, to where she disappeared to. I look back at the ship, and realise it is hovering above water.

Wow, that is so cool, I give it a last glance rushing after Hanika. She headed towards the larger tower, and I find her standing at the bottom of the steep steps that lid up to an opening at the mouth of the tower. There is a bar at the bottom of the stairs that clearly means we shouldn’t be going up there, but Hanika ignores it. She steps over the bar carefully – looking as light as a cat.

She looks back at me.

“Step lightly. We are not here to disturb anything. No one should know we were here,” she says going up. I step over the bar, and I walk up the stairs feeling like I am walking on egg shells. We make it up into the tower without breaking anything. The darkness in there is thick, and it’s hard to see.

Hanika lights a small torch that’s lets out enough light we can see where we’re going. Rubble litters the floor, and there are statues seated on platforms. I open my senses looking around me.

The coin warms in my pockets.

I pull it out and I see its glowing red. The last time it did that there had been aliens after me.

I turn around to show Hanika, but she is already turning back towards the opening of the tower. Whirring sounds of machines hovering above the ground fills the silent night. It sounds like there are a thousand ships out there.

I clutch my chest as my heart hammers with fear.

“How did they find us?” she asks turning back to face me. She throws the torch at me. And I try to catch it, but it blinds me hitting the wall, to drop down to the ground. I blink in the dark picking it up. “You find the artefact. I’ll draw them away,” she says flicking her arm releasing her flaming sword. It hisses in the dark as if it is eager to kill.

Hanika stares at me one last time, and turns to leave.

“Hanika…”

“Find the artefact Tan…” she says running out – her hair trails behind her like a dark cloud.

  I stand there for a few minutes not sure what to do…

How did they find us? How many were out there? I ask myself feeling frozen from fear.

Find the artefact…I say to myself forcing my legs to move.

Clashing sounds fill the night…oh the fight has already started. I hope Rhine can do something to help Hanika, because I can’t…not yet anyway…

I need to get stronger…and that means finding the damn artefact. I look around me, at fallen statue heads, and stones that used to be part of the way. Paintings dot some parts of the walls but there isn’t much left.

I stop in the middle of the tower, searching for that feeling that drew me to the stone in the basement in the first place.

It had a strange light that drew me to it.

I look around me for a strange light. I glimpse something in the darkness, but before I can go to it something rushes me, knocking me to the ground.