The tournament

2100: Drusilla

Without a response, I had walked with them for about ten minutes when Rees, who is behind me, yelled, "We are being followed."

The rough warning call on his friends' attention, including mine, startled I turned behind.

Humans were coming forth.

My brows pinched together while I contemplated.

It wasn't so hard to figure out it was the remaining participants coming for us, there were accelerating on their feet.

"What are they doing?" From behind, I heard Agnes confusedly asked.

I blinked rapidly trying to comprehend all that's suddenly happening.

Five participants advanced, did they believe they could fight three witches and a wizard?

I saw what all these people could do, I wouldn't dare try. I've seen Rees summons the sea, not to mention the blood of his friends, Agnes almost buried me back in the forest and Drusilla, I've seen her kill two people without breaking a sweat. Harper, well, Harper might not have a very detrimental skill according to the three powerful witches next to her, but she was a protection, a shield for coverage.

This is a dumb choice.

Dump choice? Is there any likelihood it's Cuthbert coming for me?

In the present situation, I would like Cuthbert to come forward. Is not like there's anyone I trusted here, because everyone has something hidden, but at least with Cuthbert, there's something that made me felt safe. However, right now coming to me is the dumbest choice, please let it not be him. I can't watch him getting killed, I can't lose the last person I have here on the ground.

What made me agree with Harper? I and Cuthbert were doing fine, we were handling everything well until Agnes happened and we had to seek shelter. Little did I know going into that tree was a circular turn towards the person I was running from that night.

How could she deceive me this much? I trusted her, I loved her with what little is left of me, I thought she did likewise.

If only I listen to Cuthbert when he told me not to go back for her.

In the meagerest degree of insufficient time, I dared myself to save the friend I thought I had, yet my good intentions weren't enough, instead, the aftermath was cruel; I made more enemies. Even the person I rescued proved to be a rat.

Oh, this vacant earth, isn't doing the right thing well enough? In my sixteen years of life, I can see how strangely unsettled this world is. My parents were screwed for being good.

They told me to do good, they told me that kindness within me would enlighten me and protect me in the obscurity of the ultimate hope. But it's always the polar opposite of that. I was snatched from my asylum to come to play a game that I wasn't due to. What could I do to be as blessed as those particular individuals who obtain all that is granted to them, even with bad motives?

Or has the world become too selfish to follow through on its promise?

I felt the breeze blow on my HAZMAT suit, my heart started to pounce in my chest.

That's when everything makes sense, those five participants weren't coming for us, they were running from something.

There's a tingle in my veins that tells me my blood was cold.

With an agape mouth, my body was alerted to the circumstance.

There comes a boisterous wind, approaching with an unbelievable folded wave of desert sand.

"f*****g Silas, it is f*****g dry here to get any liquid." Rees hissed. "I'm going to need somebody to help me kill these children." He added, meaning those participants.

"No!" Instantly I scream, turning to them.

"No one is asking for your useless opinion." Rees cussed.

"I can get into their blood, Drusilla we will need your help here," Agnes announces desperately, shrugging off some unnecessary backpacks.

But Drusilla's attention was with someone else. My body began shaking even when those ceramic red eyes edged with fury were pointed to the girl who manipulated me.

"What are you doing?" Agnes asked Drusilla, I sense the fear in her tone as she shifts her wide eyes between her friend and the crisis roaring towards us.

Never had I thought the eyes could be a weapon of destruction, but with only a look, each of Harper's veins bugles out upon her flesh, her complexion was a shift of something scary, that's entirely non-human until every pore in her body began streaming red substance.

At that moment I lost all hope, watching Harper die a painful death isn't something I can take in. She was my... I'm not sure.

I stumbled and retreated when an explosion noise came up and blew up her entire body right in front of me.

My breathing was heavy, fear, the shock had consumed me. Like a robot, I heard panic-stricken voices. I sense some struggling.

"She could see, she had the vision, that's the only thing I had to ask of her, but she let Silas, if she couldn't do her job correctly, then she had no use." It sounded like Drusilla's but I couldn't tell apart, reality and dream. I am stuck in terror, staring at the blood all over my suit. The red liquid dripping from my facial protector dips into the warm sand.

"You could have killed her in a way that I will have blood, I needed the fluid." Rees groaned, he knelt and picked up Harper's wristband resting next to his boots.

And when he straightened, Drusilla flips two fingers towards a panicked participant battling to escape and that motion took off the head protection of that person, exposing them wholly to the cruel atmosphere.

"Now you can have liquid." Remorselessly she replied to Rees.

No, I can't watch. This can't be happening.

During the hours that I have been here, I have not had to attend to a recurrence of my mother's experience. I can't imagine witnessing it happen to someone right in front of me.

I shut my teary eyes and shove my hand into my pocket, holding tight to the only love I have left. My stone, when all I see is red.

There was an atrocious and painful cry that cracked my heart. No, no. This shouldn't happen, I shouldn't have to see it.

By the time I reopen my eyes Agnes was burying the last two participants standing between them and who I believe is Silas.

The waves might have stopped, but I could sense it was just getting started...

"Give me the girl and I will stand out of your way." From distance Silas ordered.

From what he could do, it's possible he was behind the disaster from the parched land the very first time.

"We are on your way dumb." Agnes corrected him.

"I am giving you this offer for the last time, give me the girl and you could live." He said.

"This moment is inevitable, I've been waiting for it. Let's see the worst you can do. " Said fearless Drusilla.

"Know that I offered, you were only stubborn." Silas shrugged with one shoulder.

I think the clouds have gone dark like in the dinghy.

"And here I thought you needed liquid." Agnes pitches to Rees.

"I save the best for the last." He smirks at her.

"Take her with you" Drusilla ordained Agnes and I felt a firm grip around my forearm. I attempt to get loose, but witches are stronger than humans. I was powerless.

"Don't touch me." I kept wiggling, but it was pointless.

And then there was rain, an actual rain falling on the sand. It washes me off.

I began stepping back slowly, hoping Agnes was distracted just like the others.

When I slipped out of her grasp, I started to escape them.

"Catch her, she can't make it to the bridge," Drusilla screams. It felt like a victory washing through me, for I thought I had escaped. But before my eyes, something unbelievably mythical happened.

A troop of human figure armies made of plain desert sand rises from the red desert.

That was when I knew I wasn't going to make it. It was when I lost all hope that I didn't feel my body collapsing down when Agnes tackled me until the golden stone of mine rolled down and sink into the shaky sand as Drusilla's armies approach.

Indeed, she was powerful.

I start crawling towards the armies for my stone had sunk there. I wasn't frightened, I was only desperate for that last piece of my parents, but Agnes wouldn't release my ankle.

I fought, I pushed, I shook, she was so strong.

I was overcome by irritation and anger, I felt so alone, so tired and sad. But the pain of losing that stone was more overwhelming, resulting in the release of scream I've kept in for years since I lost my father-throughout losing everything and it was the powerful thing that ever happened on earth.

The scream came with a blinding glow that in a sudden, exploded out from me, brightening everywhere, and ceasing the movement of time or any other activity.

It came with something within me, I never felt, strength.

There have been female whispers in my ear just like my father's. "Arise, Daphne"

Lifting my head, there was a golden creature batting its huge wings above me.

"Dragon?" I heard someone whispered behind me. "What are you?" They went on.

A golden dragon? Okay, now is the actual time to say I can't really tell apart, reality and dream. A dragon isn't real, this isn't real. I began crawling backward.

"Kill her." A distant voice commanded.

It was a ring for me and I quickly shot up to my feet.

I look behind me at the strangely clear expanse which troops of desert armies were just coming from until that scream that changed everything in a blink of an eye.

From here I could see Rees working for his hands as the other time in the forest and behind me, that creature was blowing intense wind from its strong golden batting wings.

There was nowhere to run to, my body was beginning to shut down, my knees could barely hold me up. When I look down at my wristwatch, I have zero left of air.

Oh s**t!

Everything started to fade, including the figures that were approaching me. I could be delusional, but I could swear I saw a roaring wave of fire, and that was the last thing I saw before I passed out in the desert.