Animal Spirits Season 1

A century ago, all the animals in the entire world disapeared. Instead, charms were scattered around the world. If one could get ahold of a charm, you would get powers. Each charm has a spirit of an animal. For example, if you had the rabbit charm, you could have rabbit powers. One power of the rabbit could be jumping enchantment. There was something else that came with the charm. Demons. Demons or ghosts, are beings that kill humans and are more powerful then them. The only thing that could keep the demons at bay was the animal charms. One day, there was a war between humans and demons. The demons pushed us until the only human colonization was a city. Seattle. That’s where I live. My father is a DGO. Demon Guard Official. It’s dangerous because my father has to guard the border between the demon and human walls. The walls are strong and we have several layers, but it’s still dangerous and we still get attacks. Becoming a DGO is very beneficial, considering the dangers. I guess you could say we’re rich. Most rich families would have charms for every family member, but DGOs need the charms and the more charms you have, the more powerful you are. Each animal spirit has about hundred attacks, but it’s impossible to even discover more than ten. It’s sort of like a game. If you use the attacks a lot and practice, you level up the attacks or spells and make them stronger. I heard if you’re really powerful, you can transform! I honestly don’t really understand it, but it sound amazing.

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Rain thunders down as I my alarm rings. I slap where my alarm should be and accidentally slap it to the ground, where it continues ringing. I groan. I get up and turn it off.

“Sala!” Mom calls, “It’s Ally’s soccer game today. Hurry up if you want to watch her game later.”

“Yes! Coming,” I say, as I trot down the stairs. I hurriedly change into my school uniform and eat a quick toast. Soon, I’m out the door.

“Bye mom!” I cry, opening my umbrella. It’s always raining in Seattle. But the beaches are pretty, besides some occasional weak demons that even little kids could kick and beat up. I run all the way to school, and when I get there, I’m panting. I put my umbrella away and walk to the gym, where our indoor soccer stadium is. The game’s about to end. I look at the score. We’re winning by a whole lot. Here’s something you should know about Ally. She could be the most popular girl at school because of her soccer skills. She even has a whole fan squad for her called Ally’s Angels. There’s one thing that stops her from being the most popular though. First of all, there’s this girl called Courtney that has three spirits and she’s the most popular, and second, she’d rather hang out with me and Lori. Lori and I are the opposites of popular, but Ally said that we were her best friends. Sometimes, I wonder if she really wants to hang out with us or not. After the game, Ally goes to the changing room and I meet her there.

“UM. AMAZING! ONCE AGAIN THE AMAZING ALLY!” I scream. Ally laughs, wiping of her sweat. Ally finishes taking a shower and changing, so we leave and get into our classroom.

“Hey, guys!” Lori sees us and waves.

“Hey!” Ally and I wave back.

“Did ya hear? Did ya hear?” Lori asks. She knows all the latest gossip, which is why she’s the head writer for the gossip section in our school’s newspaper.

“What now?” Ally didn’t really support Lori in becoming a gossip queen, but now that Lori is, Ally doesn’t care anymore.

“Jordan’s got new spirits! Cheap prices too!” Jordan’s the spirit dealer. Her family is the CEO of the company that sells animal spirits. Apparently, she takes the spirits that doesn’t sell, and sells them at school for a cheaper price. We also figured that out from Lori.

“Hmm.. What spirits?” I ask.

“There’s two. Worm and ant. They’re kinda lame when I think about it,” Lori shrugs. You must be wondering how our ecosystem works without animals. I honestly don’t know. After animals disappeared and plants started to go away as well, humans started adapting and now we don’t need oxygen or any air. We don’t need to eat either, but there’s these new snacks that are made from technology. A lot of wealthy eat them. That’s what people say, but I eat them all the time.

“Whatever… I’ll be seeing Dad’s Bee and Tiger today,” I say.

“Your dad is coming back already?” Ally asks.

“Yeah. They apparently have an extra break or something,” Lori says. Her aunt works at the DGO too. Lori’s parents died fighting the demons and her aunt took her in. They’re pretty rich from all the demon hunting.

“So I guess you guys can’t go to the library after school?” Ally asked.

“Sorry,” Lori and I apologize.

“It’s okay. I’ll go with Courtney and Jenny,” Ally shrugs. The popular kids. Great. We usually walk to the library after school to study or to just hang out.

“Everyone! Sit down!” Mrs. Grydors calls, and class started.

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“Dad? Mom? I’m home,” I call as I enter the house, careful to not get the floor wet. I put my umbrella and backpack away and call for my parents again.

“They’re not home. Some romantic date or something. Like you can have one in this rain,” my little sister Beni poked her head out from her room. Beni’s always sick, so she’s homeschooled and never see outside. It’s always raining outside anyways. Apparently about a year ago, she started getting hallucinations about seeing beautiful flowers in the bright sunshine. First of all, we don’t have flowers anymore because of those demons, and we never see the sun anyways. It only appears one week in a year. I heard before that Seattle was a city that was always raining, but in the summer, the rain would stop. They could actually see the sun twenty-five percent of the year!

“A date? Aww!” I giggle.

“Give me a break! You too? Lisa thought it was cute too,” Beni pouts. I sigh. Beni’s new ‘friend’ is actually a hallucination too.

“How is it not cute?” I ask.

“It’s always raining in Seattle. They should go to Los Angeles or something,” Beni says, her eyes looking into the distance. I bite my lip.

“Yeah. We all should go there together. As a family,” I say, hugging Beni.

“Ugg. Gross! This is so cheesy!” Beni wiggles out of my arms. I sigh and shake my head. I go to my room and shut the door behind me. I look out the window. There’s really not much to see. Just rain, rain, and rain. I wish I could see how beautiful it was with flowers before demons come. Gosh! All those stories might not even be true! I laugh to myself and turn on my computer.

“SPC! On,” I say. SPC stands for Sala’s Personal Computer. Nothing special, really. I finish my assignments and look at my clock behind my bed. I guess you could say that my room is really modern-day pretty. Above my bed, I put fairy lights, the fancy clock I bought at IKEA, and some paintings that my mom does. She’s an amazing artist. My walls are painted pale purple. With the fairy lights, they shine the purple at different places and it looks like it’s splotches of light and dark purple. On the floor, I have a cute small white rug and a beanbag chair on the side. I have to say, my decorating skills are on point. I hear the door open and close, so I rush downstairs.

“Daddy!” Beni hugs Dad first. I wait for Beni to be done and I hug Dad next. Mom smiles and kisses my Dad.

“Gosh Golly! You guys grow so fast! It’s been only a couple weeks!” Dad laughs. We all laugh with him. Even when Dad’s jokes aren’t that funny, we all laugh because the way he says it makes it that much funnier.

“Ready for dinner?” Mom asks, heading towards the kitchen. As I said before, we don’t need food anymore, except on special occasions. Beni squeals. I nod, excited. Mom calls the Food Department, and in a few seconds, steaming hot pizza was outside out porch. Thank god we have a overhand, because otherwise our pizza would be all soggy. I honestly don’t know I they make the food without animals. They even found a way to put meat on the pizza! Beni and I run towards the dining table and grab our plates and stuff. We get some leftover ice cream from the cold room. (Where do we get the milk from anyways?!) We eat and laugh to Dad’s not-funny-at-all-jokes and hear Dad’s stories. When we finish, Dad smiles to us.

“Are you ready to see Bee and Tiger?” He asks. Beni and I nod excitedly.

“Bee! Tiger! Release!” Dad announces and a burst of light blinds us. When we can see again, we also see pale and yellow Bee and Tiger, floating around.

“Hi! Nice to see you guys again!” Bee, who’s the friendly one, whizzes around us, happy to fly again, instead of being trapped in dad’s ring. Tiger just nods, but also looks excited and jumps through the walls of the house. Since they’re spirits, they can go through things like ghosts. All they really do is give powers to the owners. People always thinks that the spirit will do everything for them, but you actually have to use the power yourself. Beni jumps and plays with Tiger, while I have a nice conversation with Bee.

“So, how’s it going?” I ask Bee.

“Ehh. Occasional demons. Not too much, actually,” Bee shrugs somehow with his little shoulders. I hear a beeping from Dad’s phone and he goes outside to take the call. Mom shuffles around the house, cleaning up everything.

“Not too much? Hmm,” I answer, in thought.

“They usually don’t have these little breaks either,” Bee says.

“I wonder what they’re planning,” I say.

“Demons don’t plan. They don’t really have a brain,” Bee points out.

“Hmmm,” I ponder.

“Campers are also coming out a lot,” Bee says.

“Campers? As in those idiots that go to the demon’s territory and live there?” Campers are people who want suicide and go to the demon’s place to live. They’re in constant fright. Since anyone over the age of 18 can go over, campers are not illegal.

“Yep! Those idiots. They get in the way of us, you know?” Bee sighs, shaking her head. And yes, Bee’s a she. Dad comes back inside and whispers something to Mom. Mom pales, and nods.

“Guys! Beni! Sala! We need to talk,” Dad says, sitting next to me on the couch. Bee settles on his shoulder.

“I just got the call that the demons are waging war again. I’m the commanding officer. I have to be there tonight,” Dad sighs, rubbing his temples.

“Wha?” I mumble.

“No! Daddy! You’re gone again? When will you be back?” Beni asks. Beni doesn’t understand anything. He might not be coming back. It is war.

“No! This.. This is suicide!” I cry.

Beni pales, “Suicide? What do you mean?”

“Sal,” Mom warns me. I stop.

“They’re giving me another fighting spirit. I have to leave Bee here,” Dad finishes.

“Me?” Bee gasps.

“I’m so sorry guys. I have to leave now,” Dad says. I feel a teardrop fall onto my lap. Beni tugs on my sleeve. I look at her and she’s shaking. Actually shaking.

“Beni?!” I scream. Beni wheezes and Dad and Mom quickly rushes to find her inhaler. We all don’t need air, but Beni was born needing a little bit, causing to have attacks like these once in a while. Beni heaves and I massage her lungs, patting her and saying she would be okay. Beni pales and shakes, her hair going all over her face. I brush it away. In what seemed like hours, Mom comes back with Beni’s inhaler. She shoves it in Beni’s mouth and presses on the tube. Beni takes the air the comes out the inhaler and starts to breathe normally again. Mom, Dad, and I collapse on the floor, relieved.

“Sorry,” Beni mumbles.

“No, no. It’s not your fault,” Mom pats her head. Bee goes towards Beni and goes through her body, probably checking her lungs. Bee comes back out and nods to Dad. He nods back, relieved. We sit there for a moment, thinking about how lucky we are to live, and how we were going to spend our last night with Dad.

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When I wake up the next day, I know Dad’s already gone. I hear Beni sniffing in her room and Mom crying downstairs. I cover my head with my pillow, maybe trying suicide like they used to, but I can’t because I don’t need air to live anymore anyways. I groan and quickly get changed. I probably still have to go to school. I want to. So I can feel normal again. Like nothing changed and Dad’s just coming home soon. I escape, saying a quick bye to my mom so she can’t stop me. I sprint and sprint and I don’t stop. I run a little bit at our laps in the rain, and go inside, crying. I see Lori, just sitting there, lost in thought. I run over to her and she looks up, obviously crying. I reach over to her and I hug her.

“You too?” Lori sobbed. I just nod, and we look out into the distance.

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I change, and when I get to class, Lori and I don’t look like we’ve been crying at all. No one knew about what was going on yet, so we explained to Ally, who looked at both of us wide-eyed.

“Oh no!” Ally hugs both of us, and Courtney just stares at us from the corner. She thinks we’re having our little ‘Ally friendship hug’ thing. Suddenly, someone yells about turning on the news, and in seconds, the class TV is running the local news story. A picture of demons and people fighting are shown and I gasp when I see most humans dying. I hear my classmates mumbling about something. The news reporter announces the war, and the whole class goes into chaos. I keep watching, feeling Lori and Ally next to me. I hear and familiar voice.

“Dad!” I scream at the same time when Lori screams,”Aunty Leah!” I see blood, and Dad falling to the floor.

“No!” I yell, collapsing on the floor. I see him move and I know he’s still alive. I hold hope for him and he exits the screen, probably getting medical help.

“I’m going,” I scream, running out, but Lori and Ally hold their hands tight on mine.

“It’s too dangerous. We need to move further in to the next wall. You can’t help anyone before you die!” Ally screams out to me. I pull and pull, but Ally’s athletic muscles are strong and stop me.

“I need to go save him! I have Bee!” I say, pulling Lori’s sleeve. She looks away.

“I’ll sneak out to find him even if I have to. Lori. Don’t you want to save your aunt?” I ask. Lori looks at me, confused.

“Sala! Get ahold of yourself! You can’t survive,” Ally yells in my ear.

“Not unless we all go and bring spirits,” I’m stubborn. Maybe that’s how I’ll die. Lori gives up fighting herself and nods.

“I want to save Aunt Leah and I’ll go with you, Sala,” Lori tugs on Ally’s arms trying to free me, but it’s no use. Ally’s super strong.

Ally finally let’s go, but says, “Fine. But I want to go with you. We’re best friends. We have adventures together.”

I interrupt her and say, “That’s what I have been saying!” Ally looks hurt a little, but nods and says that she would bring her spirit and meet later today. Lori does too and we run home, the opposite way of where everyone at the school was evacuated to.

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When I get home, Mom pulls me in.

“What are you doing? I need Bee. I need to save Dad,” I scream, pulling from her grasp.

“Save Dad? What are you talking about, Sala? You can’t,” Mom screams.

“I can if I have spirits. Ally and Lori are going too! Please,” I beg. Beni comes over and tugs my sleeve.

“Don’t go,” she says, crying.

“I have to,” I yell, running to my room and grabbing the ring Dad left me. I put it on and run out.

“Sala!” Mom grabs me at the nick of time and hands me a bag of stuff. I look inside. There’s clothing and medicine. A blanket too. I look at Mom, my eyes filling with tears.

“Thank you,” I whisper.

“Bring Beni with you,” Mom puts her inhaler inside the bag.

“Excuse me?” I gasp.

“She can’t survive anymore. The doctor said that only going to the demons will cure her. You know they have air in that territory. It’ll heal Beni. Please,” Mom begs me. I look at her confused. Beni, already changed and ready looks at me determined.

“What? I’m still confused. This is a prank, right?” my whole body was getting numb.

“Beni.. Beni’s dying. I didn’t tell you this, but she’s not going to heal. She’ll die in a month, if she’s lucky. There’s only one way to heal her. She needs real air,” Mom shakes me. The demon’s territory has air because a lot of people who had their spirits died there. Legends say that the demons use those spirits that are lost and make their environment. That’s why they have air, water, and other really beautiful things.

“Uhhh,” I put my hands up in surrender.

“Please,” Beni looks at me in her puppy-dog eyes.

“If it’ll save Beni? Yes,” I agree. This decision will either kill Beni, or save her. She’ll die soon anyways. Mom hugs both of us, and gives something to Beni. I look at Beni’s hand, and there’s a pair of earrings. A spirit charm.

“What?” I gasp.

“Just take it and go. We don’t have time,” Mom pushes us out, and we’re running to the place where I’ll meet Lori and Ally. When we start seeing Lori and Ally, I notice that someone else is there too. I slow down and pace myself into a walk. I suddenly stop. It’s Mrs. Grydors, our teacher. I see Mrs. Grydors whip her head around to my direction, so I start walking again, firming my grip on Beni’s hand.

“I was looking for you girls. Where did you go?” Mrs. Grydors firmly asks. I look at Ally and Lori and they stay in silence.

“I was going to go save my father, ma’am,” I reply, making sure I don’t look like I lost all my confidence, which I did by the way.

“You know how dangerous that could be? Even with spirits! You even brought your little sister! You idiot!” Mrs. Grydors snaps.

“Well, for the record, she brought me to save me. And yes, our mother agreed,” Beni says back. Mrs. Grydors looks stunned for a second.

“Uhhh. But you bring your friends?” Mrs. Grydors recovers.

“Yes. I will save my aunt and we have already told our families,” Lori steps in, but I hear a little whisper from Ally saying that their families didn’t really agree.

“I can’t stop you guys, can I?” Mrs. Grydors sighs.

“Nope,” Ally shakes her head.

“Fine. I’m coming with you,” Mrs. Grydors says, “And call me Natalie. I think I can help you guys get through. I have a husband to save anyways.”

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“Help us? How?” I ask.

“You guys are missing something. And also, this is for my husband, so don’t think I’m letting you do this because I’m nice,” Natalie warns. Natalie grabs her backpack from the floor and shows us what’s inside. There clothes, blankets, and six ID cards. I pick one of them up and slap my head. We were missing something. A fake ID card that says that we’re 18.

“Just let it scan your face. These are the cards that are scanner IDs. They’re made by just scanning a face. They’re all kept secretly because if they’re outside, god knows what would happen. It would be absolutely chaotic. My friend works there and she snuck some to me. Happened to have enough for all of us,” Natalie explains.

“Won’t they realize that we’re younger than 18? It’s pretty obvious,” Ally asks.

“Robots handles these things so they won’t know,” Natalie points out. We nod and let the card scan us. I help Beni scan hers and we hurriedly run to the checkpoint.

“A man?” Natalie says under her breath. I look up and I realize it isn’t a robot. Natalie curses under her breath. When it’s our turn, the man looks at us suspiciously.

“It’s a field trip to scare these kids. They were misbehaving,” Natalie tries to make her voice scary and scratchy.

“Awww. You guys are in for a treat,” the man rolls his eyes and lets us in. That was surprisingly easy.

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Seattle is divided into different Walls. 1st Wall is the inside wall for the rich folks, like us and is the safest. The 2nd Wall is the wall for the regular modern families. The 3rd Wall is for the poor people. The 4th, 5th, and 6th Wall are the protection wall between the demons and the humans. The 6th Wall was broken though. My dad was at the 5th Wall. We just went through the 2nd Wall.

“We have to get on a bus to the next Wall,” Natalie urges us to a bus stop and we wait. We didn’t have to wait for long. We get inside drenched. I take off my jacket and put it around a shivering Beni.

“Lisa’s cold,” Beni takes the jacket and puts it around a ‘person.’ Long story short, she threw it on the ground. I picked it up and put it around her again. Beni seemed to be satisfied and didn’t do anything with it this time. We sit in the bus’s heater and try to get warm before getting outside again. After a few stops, Natalie gets up and walk out as we follow her. I look up and I see the Wall. It looks like it would go up to the sky. It’s so beautiful if you didn’t know what was on the other side. I hear whispering voices and I turn around. Teenagers bunched up together and whispered to each other. I can only hear a little and it’s about us. Us being rich sluts. Oh well.

“Here,” Natalie tells us to get to another bus. We pretty much continue like this until we reach the 3rd Wall. To the Abandoned Area on the other side. The security person was a robot this time and we showed our ID and we were in. When we stepped out to the other side, it was empty. It was just a vast land(full of plants because it’s always raining) and only a few buildings for the DGO.

“We gotta hurry. Most likely DGO are at the field, but we still must be sneaky,” Natalie points for us to run to the next tall tree or plant. I’m still not used to calling my teacher by her first name. In what feels like years, we get to the 5th Wall. I hear a thud and I know there are demons on the other side.

“Here’s the time where you can back out. You can’t back out later so chose wisely,” Ally warns us. I nod and hold Beni’s hands hard. To save Beni, I have to get across the 6th Wall.

“We have to climb above the wall,” Natalie said.

“Bee! Release!” I call and Bee swirls out of my ring.

“Can you make me fly?” I ask Bee.

“You have to learn and master spells. Otherwise they don’t work as well, but your father already put two spells ready for you. Fly and Sting spell,” Bee responds.

“So?” I ask.

“Connect Owner! Fly spell Release!” Bee yells and suddenly, something goes inside my head and I’m dizzy. In seconds, I feel like information magically went into my head and I know what to do. I’m flying in seconds. It’s like I learned how to this long time ago and I was an expert because I knew exactly what I was doing and how to steer my wings, which sprouted from my back. They’re clear, by the way. Not magical like what you would expect. I go up and gasp in horror. Demons tore at each other and killed each other. I grimace. I go back down to get Beni. Natalie has a butterfly spirit and can also fly. Ally has the lion and Lori has the elephant, so they can’t fly. I carry Beni and Ally, while Natalie carries Lori and helps me carry Ally. We fly as long as possible and find a tree where we can rest.

“No going back now,” Lori says. No one says anything.

After a few minutes, Natalie says, “We should keep flying because in the back after the 6th Wall, there’s less demons and we can stay at the ground, but carefully.” I nod and we pick everyone one up again and carry them across. Soon, we can see the 6th Wall.

“Air?” Beni sniffs. I look at Beni in disbelief. She can already get a whiff of air? I feel a push back and gasp. Wind. There’s air here. Beni takes a deep breath and her eyes show a feeling of satisfaction.

“The demons are pushing a lot,” Natalie said. I pass a huge group of DGO and demons and see that the DGOs are losing. I turn my head away, not wanting to look.

“Can we rest at the 6th Wall?” I ask, my arms going heavy.

“Yeah,” Natalie said. We perch on top of the Wall.

“Water! A river!” Beni cries out. I look at the direction of her hand and I see a twisting road of clear water. Is this where all the rainwater goes?

“We can get a drink! I want to try water!” Ally cheers.

“Ready?” Lori asks me. I nod and we’re off again.

“Let’s stop where there’s less demons. Most of them are fighting right now, so there’s bound to be some place where we can set up camp,” Natalie tells me. I nod and we keep flying. The group of demons thin out and soon, there’s hardly any. We go down, and when we reach to bottom, I collapse. Using spells take a lot of energy and I also had to carry people. Natalie too collapses on the floor. When we feel better, we realize we missed something.

“How do we know where Dad is?” Beni asks. We freeze.

“I can still feel my old master’s spirit. He was here,” Bee says. I completely forgot he was with us.

“Where is he?” I ask.

“Farther. He is actually maybe 30 miles from here. That way,” Bee points at the direction away from Seattle.

“Let’s get a move on,” Lori urges.

“No. It’s going to be dark soon. We should find a place to hide for the night. We will take turns as a look out,” Natalie shakes her head. We nod and split into groups. Beni, Natalie, and I and Ally and Lori. We told Bee and Butterfly to keep watch from up air and be our communications. After twenty minutes, I found a perfect spot. Demons couldn’t climb or fly, so I found a tree that I was sort of flat on top. I know. There’s actually trees here. When Lori and Ally come join us again, we all climb up and see that there’s enough space for three people. Perfect. Three would sleep and Two would keep watch. We put blankets down and Beni, Natalie, and I slept. I laid down and stared up. The sky full of little stars. I gasp in astonishment. It was so pretty. I felt the wind and Beni whimper in happiness. The wind and everything felt so good. Why did animals have to go away? I smile and slowly drifted asleep. In what felt like five seconds, Lori was shaking me awake.

“Huh?” I rub my eyes. It’s still dark.

“Your turn to keep watch,” Lori says and I get up. We let Beni sleep, and Natalie and I keep watch. I look around, yawning every few minutes.

“Mrs. Gry er Natalie?” I ask.

“Yeah?” My teacher says. God! I can’t get used to the fact that she was my teacher and she’s helping us do something illegal.

“I don’t really know you very well. You’re looking for your husband you said?” I say.

“Yeah. My husband. Jesse. He’s a DGO in training. He was sent to be in the war because they didn’t have enough people,” Natalie said, her eyes looking right at me, but I know she wasn’t really seeing me. I hear something and look at the direction. I squint my eyes. Footsteps?

“Hello?” I ask, my voice echoing. How did my voice even echo? We were fricken outside. Natalie summons Butterfly and gets ready for whoever or whatever was next to our tree.

“Hello?” A boy appears from the darkness and Natalie and I take a big sigh of relief.

“You. You look like me,” the boy looks at us confused and surprised.

“Huh?” I ask.

“You. You’re the same species as me,” the boy backs away a bit.

“Yeah. No fricken kidding,” I murmur under my breath.

“Are you okay?” Natalie asks.

“I feel faint, but that’s all. Why do you look like me?” Then the boy fell to the ground.

“Oh. Great,” Natalie curses under her breath. We bring him up to our tree and I notice he’s around my age. Maybe older. And god. He’s fricken hot.

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When Lori, Ally, and Beni wake up, the boy’s still knocked out cold.

“I wonder if he’s okay,” Lori poked and prodded him.

“Pervert,” Ally snickers.

“Maybe he needs water or food,” Beni says. Silence.

“Beni-“

“I’m not joking,” Beni cuts me off, “If you live long enough in air, you’ll soon need food and water to live like the old people.” That certainly caught everyone off guard.

“I’ll go look for water, then?” Ally says, a little confused.

“I wanna come!” Beni tugs Ally’s sleeve. I look at Ally and she shrugs, so I let Beni go with her.

“I’ll go get food,” Lori tells us. Ally, Lori, and Beni climb down the tree.

“Be safe. Don’t go to far,” I call after them. Ally replies to me with a salute and Lori waves as they split up. After about half and hour, both groups were back. Lori had some nuts and berries and Ally carries a makeshift bucket of water that was leaking a little. Beni seemed to be happy and drank a little bit.

“It’s safer now because there’s light, but it’s still pretty dangerous. I almost ran into a herd of demons,” Lori says.

“Thank god you’re still alive,” Ally replies. We give the boy the food and water, and soon he was waking up. When he saw us crowded around him, he shrieked a little.

“What's your name?” I ask when he calmed down a bit.

“Isaac” he says, a little jumpy.

“I’m Sala! Nice to meet you!” I smile. Damn. He’s so fricken hot.

“Y-yea. What species are we?” Isaac interrupts.

“Huh? Species. Like humans? We’re humans? Is that what your asking?” Lori shrugs, confused.

“HUMANS? WE’RE-“ Isaac starts crawling backwards.

“Hey- stop!” I pull him back. He almost fell off the tree. Why are tree branches so skinny? In the books we read, it looks way more bigger.

“I-I’m a human?” Isaac paled.

“Yeah???” Lori looks at Isaac skeptically.

“But I’m not evil. Are you evil?” Isaac looks at us in panicked eyes.

“Calm down,” Natalie pats his shoulders. Isaac seemed to snap back to reality and blinked at us.

“Now, explain,” Ally says.

“What? What do I explain?”

“Where did you come from?” Lori rolls her eyes.

“Uhh. Well. Fine. Since you saved me, I’ll tell you my life story. I was raised by what you humans call demons,” Isaac nervously played with his shirt.

“Demons? You were-“ Natalie interrupts Lori with a stern look.

“They told me humans were evil. They, or we, ripped the animals off Earth. They said that animals were gone because of humans. They told me that we needed to kill all the humans so Earth could live,” Isaac explains.

“But don’t demons have no brain?” Beni points out.

“You mean the Rabids? There are two different types of demons. The rabids that fights the wars and also the only ones that humans see, and the masters. The masters can think and do anything, like me. They live far deep inside. Far from human colonization. Far from—Seattle? Seattle right? I lived with them too. They told me to never come here. Not even to United States of America, the old country land. I wanted to explore though. So I did. I snuck out and decided to come to Seattle and see the humans with my own eyes. Now I know why I couldn’t come. I am a human,” Isaac takes a deep breath, obviously out of breath. Natalie pales.

“Wait. They can think and they think we’re destroying Earth and we killed all the animals!” Ally yells in disbelief.

“Do you know anything about that belief?” Isaac asks. We shake our heads.

“We always thought animals just disappeared,” I say. Isaac rubes his temples. Silence.

“Wait. Does that mean that the demons are attacking thinking we are doing something bad? If we clear it up with the demons, that could save us!” Beni hides behind me as we all stare at her.

“That-That could be the best idea,” Natalie empties the silent void between us. We nod.

“But I have to save my aunt,” Lori points out, “We don’t know where anyone is!”

“I can help with that. The demons invented this compass that tells us where anything is,” Isaac takes a sphere shaped compass from his pocket.

“Wha-What do I do?” Lori takes it from his outstretched hand.

“Hold it and think what you want to find. I’ll give you a vibration when it finds it,” Isaac instructs. Lori holds the compass in her hands and closes her eyes, concentrating. Suddenly, her eyes popped open and the compass changes direction. We take turns, each looking for someone and finally, we realized what we were going to do.

“Lori and I will go look for my husband and her aunt. Isaac, Ally, Beni, and Sala can go look for Sala and Beni’s father and then go report to the- master demons, right? It’s master demons right?” Natalie gets her answer with a nodding Isaac.

“No. Ally, can you take Beni home. She got her air and her cure. Please take her back,” I beg Ally.

“Bu-“

“Please,” I interrupt.

“O-Okay. I’ll take her home safely,” Ally nods. I sigh in reassurance.

“We got our teams?” Natalie asks.

“I hate to leave each other like this, but we need to,” I say, hugging them. Right when we can’t see each other anymore, Isaac takes my hand and walked toward me. I squirmed, uncomfortable. I walk back and Isaac makes the gap between us smaller and smaller, so I walk back some more until my back hits the tree.

“What are you doing? Stop!” I push him back, but it’s too late. Isaac puts his lips on mine. This time, I succeed in pushing him back. Isaac looks at me surprised. Like he was in a trance and didn’t know what he did. I blush and struggle to find words.

“Wha-What was that?” I manage.

“I’ve been wanting to do that since I saw you,” Isaac blushes.

“HUH?” I look at him confused. I mean, I was attracted to him, but I had no idea that any guy in the whole world would be attracted to me. Isaac looks up at me and without knowing it, I walk over to him and kiss him back. His lips are warm from the earlier kiss and they taste a little of berries. Isaac kisses me back and traces his hands to my waist. Suddenly I look up at him.

“Wait. If you were raised by demons, how did you learn how to kiss so well?” I ask.

“I was raised with other girl demons too. They were all ugly AF though. You’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen,” Isaac responds, bending in for another kiss.

“Ha! Not Ally? Don’t you think she’s an angel?” I laugh.

“Who?” Isaac responds, but we’re already kissing again.

“Now can I ask how did you learn to be so hot?” Isaac breaks away from me.

“I’m 18! Of course I’ve dated before. Though of all the guys, you’re the hottest,” I laugh, pulling him on to me again.

“Hmm. Aren’t I lucky? I’m 20” Isaac’s lips curl into a smile.

“How does that do with anything?” I put my lips onto his.

“Mm,” Isaac smirks.

“We should start going,” After about 15 minutes, Isaac finally pushes away and I agree. As we walk towards my dad and Isaac’s parents, I don’t leave his hand because I’m scared that if I do, he’ll disappear.

***********************************************************************************

We walk for the rest of the day until we couldn’t see the sun anymore.

“How many miles did we walk?” I ask, panting.

“Uhh.” Isaac checks his compass which also tells us how many miles we had walked. “About 15 miles. That’s pretty good.”

“We should take a break and rest for the next day. Let’s find a tree!” I say in fake enthusiasm.

“No. It’s fine if we stay on the ground. I know the demon’s planned routes. They have no brains, so the masters control them. The master plans all the routes. That’s how I came here unharmed. As I said, they have no brains so they attack me too. Shit, they kill themselves too,” Isaac laughs awkwardly.

“So we’re safe here?” I ask.

“Mhm,” Isaac nods. I take out my blankets and laid down, expecting Isaac to take out his own blankets, but since my blanket was pretty big, he laid down on the other side. I blush turn the other way, but Isaac puts his hands on my waist and goes so close to me that I feel his breath on my neck. I turned around and was surprised to see how close Isaac is to me. His eyes are closed and he really looks adorable when he’s asleep. Or almost asleep. His eyes open and he grins. I kiss him and he kisses neck. He smiles and actually starts laughing while I laugh with him, not sure why he was laughing.

“Why are you even laughing?” I ask, after I calmed myself down.

“I’ve only known you for a day and I feel like we’ve known each other forever,” Isaac touches my cheek.

“Maybe we knew each other in a past life,” I joke and Isaac snorts. We’re already so close, but I move even closer to him. Don’t worry. Everything was at most PG 13.

“We should actually rest, though. We need to get ready for tomorrow,” Isaac turns the other way, but I do the same thing he did earlier. I put one hand across his waist and one hand under my head, positioning my face so close to Isaac’s neck that I’m practically kissing his neck already. Slowly, I drifted asleep.

***********************************************************************************

Isaac sits next to me on a picnic table and we laugh about a joke I don’t remember anymore. I realize Isaac looks like he’s just around 15. I look at myself. I look like I’m 13. Huh.

“Um.. Sala,” Isaac blushes. His cheeks flush much more than he does now.

“Hm?”

“Will you be my girlfriend?” Isaac smiles.

***********************************************************************************

When I’m awake, Isaac is still asleep, so I take that time to just curl into a ball next to him.

“I know you’re awake, Sala,” Isaac says. I jump on top of him and hug him.

“No, no, Sala. We must not do that,” Isaac pushes me off.

“That’s not what I meant to do, but I like the way you think, Isaac,” I grin. Isaac wrestles me, laughing. Suddenly, I feel like I know Isaac from somewhere. I stop laughing and Isaac stops when he sees my distant eyes.

“Are you okay?” Isaac eyes look at me in concern, and I suddenly recognises his soft blue eyes, but I don’t know from where. Did I have a dream about him? Hmm.

“I know you from somewhere,” I say, frowning.

“What do you mean?” Isaac grabs our stuff, getting ready to pack.

“Mm. I recognize you from somewhere. Probably just my heart wanting you,” I shrug off. Isaac grins, laughing.

“I’m hungry,” Isaac says. I remember that he still needs food to survive.

“Uh. Should I help you get anything...er” I awkwardly put my hands around my waist, hugging myself tightly until my arms grew numb.

“Nah. It’s fine. Come with me. I don’t want to leave your side,” Isaac seductively hooks my arm around his waist. I elbow him in the ribs, laughing. I swear. I remember him from somewhere. Otherwise we wouldn’t have been this close in two days.

“Hello? Sala?” Isaac waves his hand around my face.

“Huh? Oh. I zoned out. Sorry,” I apologize hastily. Isaac looks at me with a concern look for a brief seconds, but turns back around to where we are headed.

“Here. Sit here, okay? I’ll be right back,” Isaac points to a small rock. I sit down and realize I was at the edge of some river. Something moves in the water and I look down. I gasp to see fish swimming around. They looked so much bigger than in the books we read at school. Isaac comes back with a dead fish and a big bucket of water.

“Why is it so big?” I ask.

“That’s what she said.” Isaac grins.

“No! I mean why is the fish so much bigger than in the books?” I slap my head.

“Hm. I don’t know. I don’t read your books, you know,” Isaac scratches his head. I shrug. I must of shrugged a million times today already. Isaac builds a fire with a small lighter on his keychain and puts the pot of water on top. He actually made the pot with some wood and leaves. Damn creative. When the water’s boiling, he adds some spices that is also on his keychain.

“New technology that make infinite spices and fire,” Isaac winks at me. I roll my eyes. Isaac puts the fish that he cut already into the pot, and after about 30 minutes, he grabs bowls(also made by branches and leaves) and pours the soup in.

“Try it,” Isaac offers. I take a sip and realize how hot it is.

“Slow down,” Isaac laughs at my pained face. I take another sip and I notice all the flavors. From the spices all the way to the savory fish. I finish the bowl in less than a minute. When we finish our meal, we pack our things and head out again. Suddenly, I see some tents in the distance.

“Demon settlement?” I ask Isaac. He shakes his head.

“Human settlement?!” My eyes grow wide. He nods. I race towards the tent and realize it’s housing one person.

“D-Dad?” I gasp. My dad’s in tattered clothing and there’s injuries everywhere.

“Sala?” My dad looks surprised.

“Wh-“ My dad hugs me tight. Then, he sees Isaac.

“What are you guys doing here? Who’s he?” Dad asks.

“I came to look for you. And this is Isaac,” I don’t say anything else about Isaac and me. I explain everything and my dad’s silently listens, letting Isaac treat his wounds.

“Hm. So you think this will save us?” Dad wonders. I nod, scanning his face.

“I’m coming with you,” Dad slaps me in the back.

“Ow. Wait.. What?!” I rub my back.

“Tiger will help you,” Dad smiles. I look at Isaac. He nods.

“Okay!” I agree.

“And, you can’t get to China by walking. So, here. Ride this,” Dad points to a car looking thing.

“What is it?” Isaac asks.

“It can go 300 miles in 5 minutes and also goes on water. It’s new tech that only DGOs can get. I could get home from here, but I didn’t know where home was. They threw me so far that I didn’t know which direction I came from,” Dad says.

“Okay. I’ll drive,” Isaac volunteers. We get in, and soon, we were jumping across state by state. I must have fallen asleep, because when we stop the car thingy, the car is wet from the ocean, and we were already back on land.

“Where are we?” I mumble.

“China. We’re close to the demons, so we have to walk,” Isaac tells me.

“Let’s go,” Dad says, limping out of the car.

“No! You’re injured. Stay here and protect the car,” I snap.

“-fine,” Dad goes back inside and sits there, watching us leave. When we’re off in the forest, Isaac’s lips are on mine as he pushes me down.

***********************************************************************************

When we reach the demon settlement, Isaac tells me to stay hidden in the trees just in case. I mean, he came back home after so many years. He quickly kisses me goodbye and leaves. I keep watch of the demons and realize they look different than the ones at home. I can’t believe I’m outside of Seattle, much less on another country half-way across the world! The demons look more human. They’re still pitch black like any other demon and they’re big and tall like any other demon, but they now had facial expressions and little demons running around. It was like they weren’t even demons. I study a demon reading a book, and suddenly, someone, or something, puts a cloth on my mouth. I shriek, struggling. My eyes start to feel weak and heavy, and slowly, everything turns black.

***********************************************************************************

When I wake up, I’m in some kind of dome building thing. I scream, realizing that they tied me on a chair. They didn’t tie my mouth closed though.

“Calm down, human. Jeez,” a demon comes inside.

“Who are you?” I yell, pushing and pulling, trying to get out of the knots.

“I guess I’m someone you call..demon. But my name? Veri.” Veri come pulls in with a cart full of guns, knifes, scalpels, and hammers. Torturing tools.

“Back off!” I scream, trying to kick him. I make the chair fall instead, and hit my head hard on the ground. I blink, seeing stars in my vision.

“Why are you humans here?” Veri asks, grabbing a knife and putting it on my neck.

“What do you mean?” I growl back.

“Fine. You can tell me when you’re ready,” Veri gets the knife and cuts my hair, slicing a bit of my neck at the same time. I scream. He starts drawing on my back with his knife. I feel stings of pain and some blood bubbling off my back. I scream and scream. He looks at me with excitement.

“Are you ready to tell me?” Veri positions his knife in front of my stomach.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I manage. He stabs me in my stomach. I feel a sharp explosion of pain, screaming until my throat hurt and I couldn’t anymore. I just lay there, not moving, as he stabs my skin off. I blacked out probably millions of times, but I just laid there. It hurt so much, it almost numbed me.

“TELL ME! WHY ARE YOU HUMANS HERE?” Veri grabbed a gun and aimed it at me.

“What-are-you-talk-ing-about?” I wheeze. Veri shoots me on my leg. I yell. Gunshots hurts way more than stabs. I notice that tears are falling off my cheeks.

“FINE!” Veri leaves me. I don’t move. I stay in that position, hurting and crying. Suddenly, I hear the door open. I expect Veri, but instead, it’s Isaac. I cry with relief as Isaac runs over to me with a medkit.

“Sala! What did they do to you?! I’m so sorry,” Isaac unties me from my chair and lays me on his lap. He cuts my clothes with scissors. By this point, I don’t even care if he sees me in my bra. He examines my wounds and winces. Isaac gets a bottle of rubbing alcohol and squirts it on my back. I scream as I feel the stinging getting worse.

“Hey, hey. It’s okay. Shh. Sala. I’m here. It’s okay,” Isaac blows on the alcohol and make the burning sensation stop, but it still hurts and I cry, clutching onto Isaac’s hand. Isaac cleans all the cuts and wraps bandages around me.

“Okay. Now the stab wound. This is going to hurt a lot,” Issac says. He flips me over to my back again, making my cuts on my back hurt. He squirts some rubbing alcohol on the stab and I scream, blacking out. When I wake up again, the stab wound is clean and bandaged with medicine.

“Thank god you didn’t bleed out. But your bullet wound is. I’ll have to use some of this,” Isaac point to a bottle of technology. That’s right. A bottle of expensive technology that can heal pretty much anything. It releases hormones that spreads to the injured place and heals it.

“First, I need to take the bullet out,” Isaac says. I grip onto Isaac as he gets medical tweezers to take the bullet. Isaac uses his one numbing liquid that the demons gave him on the place with the bullet.

“This will hurt. A lot,” Isaac warns me. When he takes the bullet out, I scream, cry, and blackout in no time.

“Shh. It’s okay, Sala,” Isaac pets my hair and untangles knots in them. Isaac puts the hormones and medicine in, than bandages it.

“I’m done. You can rest now. And let go of my hand. It’s running out of blood,” Isaac tells me softly. I realize I’ve been squeezing Isaac hand, which is slowly turning purple. I let go and relaxed on his lap. Tears still fall from my cheeks, so Isaac wipes them with the hem of his sleeve. He pets my hair until I fall asleep.

***********************************************************************************

When I’m awake again, the pain had minimized to a sore as long as I didn’t move. I mean, it still hurt a lot because Isaac had to stitch me up where the bullet was, but it felt much better now.

“Hey. You okay?” Isaac asks. I turn around and try to sit up, but collapse back on his lap. Yup, it hurts like hell when I move.

“Whoa, whoa. Slow down,” Isaac gently lays me on his lap again.

“What happened? What did you guys talk about?” I ask.

“Ah. I was getting punished, but when I told him that nothing really happened, he stopped. He asked how I knew you, but I said I only just met you and he told me to heal you. Because you were being tortured,” Isaac puts his hand through his black hair.

“Damn. Torturing me before even knowing if I did anything. Jeez,” I roll my eyes. Isaac chuckles. Someone comes inside and I freeze.

“Father!” Isaac yells happily. I turn to see a demon that looked more human than any of the other demons. He looks pretty old too.

“He’s your dad?” I ask. Isaac shakes his head.

“No. Everyone calls him Father because he’s the oldest here and the wisest. Apparently he has the power to find your memories or something,” Isaac tells me.

“EXCUSE ME! ISAAC! I’M NOT OLD! I’M-I’M not old,” Father mumbles. Isaac laughs.

“Out of everyone here, I trust Father the most,” Isaac compliments.

“Th-Thanks,” Father shyly smiles.

“Um. I’m Sala. Nice to meet you, Father,” I awkwardly try to shake his hand, but instead I wince in pain.

“Sorry you had to go through that Sala. I had to go quickly tell them to stop, but they were already done by then. But I think you guys need to know something. Come with me to the Memories Rock,” Father urges.

“Memories Rock?” I ask.

“Yeah. Apparently the rock tells you your memories that are deep inside your brain that you have forgotten. It’s probably some super advanced tech or something,” Isaac teaches me. Father nods.

“Where’s Bee? Where did you put my ring?” I ask.

“Sorry,” Father shrugs. “I don't know where they kept your belongings, just hurry to the stone! Quickly.” Father urges me, so Isaac slowly helps me to my feet and Father and Isaac leads me to a place that’s a short walk from the village. Stone steps lead us to a place that’s bordered with large boulders. Sure enough, it was some tech that was doing that.

“How does it work?” I go study the code. I gasp. There is no code.

“Haha. That’s just my own coding I do. Memories Rock is purely natural. No one knows how it works,” Father shrugs. I doubtingly sneak a glance at Isaac. He also looks like he’s doubting this whole rock thing.

“Well, stay here and I’ll get ready. I was just kidding. I have all the code in the back,” Father winks at us. I let my breath out, realizing I have been holding it the entire time.

“Uh. What do we do?” I ask.

“Just stay inside and let the rock do the work. I send code to the rock, which sends signals. The rocks were from a special cavern we found. We still don’t know what type of rock this is, even if it looks like regular old granite,” Father gets out and goes behind the rocks. Suddenly, I hear some buzzing and I get feel a jolt of pain in my head. I try to stay conscious, but I hear Isaac fall behind me. I look behind me to see him knocked out, as I slowly fall to the ground with him.

~~~Season One Ending~~~