Despite the peaceful, cool air of the sacred trail in the autumn forest I panicked. My hair was catching in my mouth as I ran uphill, but I didn’t have any time to brush it out. Behind me I could hear the pounding footsteps of three fast humans, and one oversized cheetah. There were also wing beats from two pairs of a human’s wings. A sharp pang encircled my arm as an arrow dug deep into my skin, but I didn’t let on about my injury and wrenched the arrow from my flesh, getting blood on my shawl. “Xylona!” shouted the leader of my pursuers, a green eyed, burgundy haired girl by the name of Zanita.  
	I didn’t dare answer her; if I did I might lose my concentration and fall; I was running and she was riding on the back of her demonic cheetah. Thankfully, I could run faster than most thirteen year-olds.  “Ha! I’m coming you fool!” Zanita warned mockingly and let another arrow fly.
	This one pierced deeply the left side of my back, nearly breaking the strap of my precious bag that I couldn’t afford to go back for, if I lost it. To avoid wincing, as the arrowhead painfully shifted position, I gritted my teeth against the hair in my mouth and looked straight ahead. After ten minutes Zanita knew I was slowing down, like the rest of her “friends,” Runa with her rare translucent hair and eyes, Daray who was exactly the opposite and had dark brown hair and eyes. Daray’s eleven year old sister Canace who had long blue hair and bright turquoise eyes, Jiba, she wore her hair short and blonde and had dull red eyes. Then the only two boys in her group; Nivan who had fiery orange and black hair and amber eyes, and Tashi, he wore his silver hair up in a small ponytail, and had gold eyes. “Give it up Xylona! We won’t hurt you too badly!” shouted my old friend Daray.
	“What in hell do you want of me?!” I gasped.
	“You know perfectly well what we want, now where is it?!” demanded Zanita.
	“The orb is hidden! I don’t know where!” I screamed and felt another arrow ram into my back.
	“Then in the name of my sanity you will tell me who can!!” Zanita exclaimed, sounding like she was about to lose it.
	Panting, I made my first major fall as I tripped on a root in my path and face planted. 
When I stood up again my enemies had only gained, my skirt had torn, and I could taste blood 
in my mouth. “I- don’t know of anyone who does!” I cried through breathing. 
	“Yes you do, or did,” she sniggered; she was talking about my dead friend, “You can see where it will be.” 
	“Gah! That’s a rumor!” 
	“You told me yourself.”
	At that I felt an arrow strike my right leg and knew it was over from there; once Zanita took out my mobility, with that annoyingly accurate aim of hers, it would be all over. “You look tired,” Daray sneered, “Stop for a rest.”
	“N- No,” I coughed.
	“You’re pathetic Xylona,” Zanita laughed as she hit the thigh of my right leg. 
	While my sweat ran into my open, bleeding wounds on my leg, back, and arm my strength ebbed; I tripped again and this time it took longer to get up.  All seven of them were getting much closer and I was only moving half speed. “Zanita we’re friends!” I cried despairingly with a glance at her.
      Canace and Daray were flying with their white, feathered wings of a dove they did not deserve. Zanita had one hand on her quiver and one on her bow; she was sitting easily between the shoulder blades of her cheetah, Lykaios, midsection exposed and her cloak flapping around.  Behind her sat Tashi who had never been comfortable riding Lykaios. Runa, Nivan, and the half demon, Jiba were sprinting along behind her showing no obvious signs of exertion. “If so you would tell me the location of the Faniiten (fah ni ten) orb!” Zanita pointed out impatiently, “Or maybe you’ll have to soon enough.”
	“No! I’ll never-,” I protested as I fell again, now there was a hole on the knee of my leggings. 
	Wet, hot tears were streaming down my face when I stood up to find she had shot my back again. Sheer determination kept me running in the first place, but they would soon catch up to me, I needed a new plan. By the wide pathway there was a steep drop off to the valley, I could jump, no, Daray and Canace would catch me since they could fly. Giving in wasn’t an option, running to a point of me passing out wasn’t one either; I had to see into the future for something to do. With my eyes squeezed shut I forced myself to look upon the road before me, and certain places I would reach soon. I saw that on the side of the ridge there was a small cave not too far away, but I would have to jump off the path to get to it. Inside it looked like I could hide from Zanita and the other six, and rest for a few days. “I know you know where the orb is!”  Zanita reproached, “You can see it right now! Jiba!”
	“But I don’t like invading minds,” Jiba, the ten year old, protested.
	“You will do as say!” Zanita ordered.
	“Fine,” she half agreed.
	For a second, along with my other wounds, my head burned as Jiba read my mind. 
“Augh! Get out!” I cried and clasped my hands over my ears.
	“Zanita, I don’t think she knows where it is,” Jiba confirmed warily.
	“Doesn’t matter, we’ll make her look,” Zanita smirked as she yanked on the lock of my middle length lilac hair.
	“NO!” I shouted as I pulled away from her and fell off the forest trail.
	“Retrieve her, Daray and Canace!”
	Above me several feet I saw Daray and Canace fly away from Zanita’s group, diving for me. In front of me the steep ground didn’t have any plant life, except for grass, footholds, or anything else jutting out for me to grab. “It’s the end of the line,” Daray cackled. 
	My situation was pitiful, highly undesirable, but like a victim confronted by their bullies I fought back. “Ha Daray! I think you’ve reached the end of your line!” I retorted.
	“Just because you’re a Future Sensor doesn’t mean you know everything,” Canace replied in a honeyed tone.
	“But I know much more that you,” I said.
	Canace and Daray were about to reach me when I gripped my bag, grabbed a slight overhang on the rock, and ducked into the cave I had seen I should go in. Thankfully the entrance was concealed and only a foot, or so, wide and two feet tall, they wouldn’t be able to see it. Despite the small appearance, inside there was both running water and enough space to stand up straight and lie down. “Where the hell did she go?” Daray cursed.
	“No clue, she was here than she disappeared,” Canace added.
	“Zanita’s gonna be so happy,” Daray said sarcastically.
      I waited patiently for the sound of their wing beats to fade and when they did I determined the thirteen year old and her sister had reported back to Zanita, so I dug in my bag for an oil lamp to illuminate the nearly pitch black room.  After I found one I set my bag on the ground and lit the wick. The walls of the small cave were covered in moss, creating a spongy sensation; the dripping of running water was caused by an underground stream that ran in and out of the cave. Solitude engulfed me as I retrieved my bag and put it down next to the water and said to myself, “Now how am I gonna get these arrows out of my back and leg?”
	“I can help,” answered a voice I knew.
	“Huh?!” I cried and brandished my light towards it.
	Lying on a pile of spongy moss was a teenage boy, who had chocolate brown hair and red eyes; on his bare chest there were a few scabbed up wounds and one, on his arm, was still bloody so he had bandaged with his shirt. “Rune! You’re supposed to be dead!” I exclaimed and ran for him.
	“Sure, killed by my psychotic little sister, that would be low,” he joked as I kneeled next to him.
	“Jiba isn’t Jiba. Evil has corrupted our dear valley and for all I know, we could be the only good left,” I sighed, “Even my best friend turned against me and tried to shoot me down. I have the arrow wounds to prove it.”
	“Xylona, I’m so sorry about Zanita and Daray, but this isn’t going to get us anywhere.”
	I was about to respond when he sat up and pulled and arrow out of my back; it was sticky with my blood. “Oww,” I complained and passed out.
	Suddenly I woke up, lying on my left side, to another strong pain, this time in my leg; Rune had just pulled an arrow out of the back of my calf and had set it in a pile of four others. “Is that the last of them?” I asked tiredly. 
	“I pronounce you arrow free,” he smiled, “Do you have medical supplies in your bag?”
	However before I could answer, “yes” he was already digging through it.  “So what happened?” I asked as I propped myself up.
	“While Zanita, her group, and the few other groups of corrupted people attacked our village and Jiba stabbed me,” he began and pointed to a few wounds on his chest, “I played dead until the commotion died down. Then I dragged myself up the hillside to this cave, were I have been resting without food for a week.”
	“Then take some of this!” I cried and handed him some peanuts from my satchel.
	“Thank you,” he answered, wiped off the gash on my arm, and tied a bandage around it.
	Pushing up my skirt and ripping aside part of my right pant-leg, he started to wrap up the incision on my thigh and calf. “So,” I said.
	“So what?” Rune asked.
	“So, do you have any idea where the Faniiten Orb is?” I restated.
	“No, don’t you?”
	“Why does everyone expect me to find it?! My powers don’t extend that far!”
	“Then you obviously don’t know the strength of your power.”
      Afterwards we rested in the cave for five days, most of the time I slept while Rune kept watch. When I was sleeping I had vivid dreams most of the time in a colorful, red forest near a woman dressed in a soft white dress her arms covered by long sleeves. She told me things in a language I couldn’t understand, even though I felt the information was vital. Every time I woke up for no reason I could ever remember. On the fifth day I began to get seriously anxious about it. “Rune,” I began when were both awake.
	“Yeah Xylona?” he replied.
	“Do you know any other languages?” 
	“No.”
	“Ok, I’ll ask-,” Zanita I thought.
	Luckily he didn’t let on. “Why’d you want to know?” he questioned.
	“I’ve been having these visions lately and in every one there’s this woman who’s speaking to me in another language, I know I’ve heard it before!”
	“You probably have.”
	“Maybe she’s telling me where to find the orb…”
	“Then that would be important, very important,” I heard him rummaging around, “Hey! We’re out of food!”
	“What? Oh no. “
	“Can you travel? In the village we could snatch some.”
	I looked at my right leg that has done a fair bit of healing over the past few days, it was still sore, but could definitely take running. “But that would be so dangerous. We might as well be the most wanted people in the Sali Trinity,” I interjected.
	“But everyone thinks I’m dead.”
      I found that I had no argument for that. “Ok, ok, but what if you’re seen? Then we could lose our greatest advantage. What happens if-,” he cut me off.
	“So what? If we stay in this cave and leave people to die because of these wars, we’ll eventually starve to death anyway!”
	“Then at least wait for nightfall.”
	For the remainder of the day, I tried to sleep and Rune stared out the entrance thinking deeply. When I had woken up I saw the oil lamp was lit, but burning low. “Are we running out of fuel too?” I questioned concernedly. 
	“Yeah, it’s night outside so I had to light it,” Rune replied. 
	“We’re going to travel without it? And how are we gonna get out of here?”
	“Climbing. I discovered notches cut in the hill leading to the ground.”
	“Ugh, let’s get this over with.”
	My heart beat with anticipation when Rune blew out the oil lamp and the room became pitch black; Rune’s half-demon eyes glowed red in the dark. He could see to because he led me to the entrance holding my bag and carefully slipped out of the hole. When I didn’t hear any cries, scrambling, or slipping I stuck my head out. Rune was swiftly climbing downwards and I saw the ground wasn’t far away; and glad to be out of the dark shelter I jumped from the cave.  Again the ground shifted before me and for a second I thought I was going to hit the level path,  but my foot hit the stone cuts Rune had described and grabbed one above to steady myself. “Hey!” Rune exclaimed before he toned down his voice, “Don’t get hurt again, I can’t get you back up here.”
	“Sorry,” I apologized.
	We scaled the hill quickly and got down to the even path; the moon was lighting us up, not helping us blend in at all. I worried. “Would Zanita be around?” I whispered.
	“No idea,” he replied. 
	The moonlight actually felt hot on my back, but the air was freezing so I clutched my short shawl around me and covered my ripped pant leg with my skirt. As the intense heat on my back grew so did my fear, I tried to walk faster but my boots made too much sound. My mind was screaming at me “NOOOOO! Get to safety! HIDE! She’s looking for you!!” hopefully it was just my apprehension. The heat had just become unbearable when I looked around to see what could be causing it, and only saw the crescent moon. “Rune? Can you feel the moon’s heat?” I questioned and turned around again.
	“Heat? It’s freezing,” he answered.
	“I know, it’s only on my back,” suddenly I squealed when someone pinched my shoulder. 
	“Mmhm Xylona, found yourself an ally?” Zanita questioned and stuck her head into my face. 
	“You!” I exclaimed and elbowed her stomach; she quickly backed up.
	“Fufufu, where’re you aiming? I’m over here,” she taunted. 
	The future flashed in front of me and I evaded an arrow heading for my leg. She shot a few more at me, but none hit, meanwhile I could sense many more fighters advancing upon us all much older than Zanita. “Tell me where the orb is!!!” Zanita shouted, obviously annoyed at my perfect health.
	“I’ll- never,” I nearly managed between all her shots, and made one mistake. 
	The arrow that had struck my shoulder was tipped with some potion that made you sleepy very quickly. “Xylona are you ok?” Rune demanded when I backed into him and nearly collapsed. 
	“Run…” I yawned and fell to the ground, “They’ll get… you… too…”
	“What?” he quickly kneeled down next to me, “There’s no way I’m leaving you to them.”
	Above me I could see the many people I had sensed in my line of vision, standing over me was Zanita. “Isn’t this precious? Even out-numbered the boy who brushed Death stands to protect his girlfriend,” she sneered.
	It took only seconds to realize I was paralyzed and couldn’t tackle her and then that 
Rune wasn’t objecting to Zanita, did he like me? That was the last I knew of that place for I lost consciousness when the white light from the moon hit my eyes once more. 
	



	
	
	
	
 
Sh?rai no Sensa, 6-8, p. 1