The Forge of Legend

Chapter 2

The school alarms go off and bright red lights start to flash, there's a voice on the intercom saying that all students need to return to their rooms before further notice. We all look at each other, then look back up at the sky. We watch as the unknown falling object lands outside of the garrison. We watch as a bunch of soldiers walk out in uniform with their weapons and go towards the large unknown object. And we watch as the fire is put out and the unknown object is revealed to be a ship. But not a ship like ours, it looks more out of this world, more powerful, more alien-like. That's when it hits me, it's not ours. It must be theirs. But who could be on it? Are they dangerous or are they the one that everyone is looking for?
“We have to get down there!” Mikhail says in excitement.
“But it could be dangerous! I say we just go back to our dorms for the night!” Amilia says.
“No. We have to see what it is.” I say, agreeing with Mikhail for the first time in my life. He cheers.
“But Katie--" Amilia starts to say but gets cut off by Mikhail grabbing her wrist and pulling her along towards the stairs back down into the Garrison.
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We almost got caught many times, but we eventually made it outside. We are on a hill a little way away from the crash site. I have night vision binoculars up to my face, looking at what's going on. “Whoa, that things huge!” I exclaim.
“Let me see" Mikhail says as he pulls the binoculars up to his face, me still hanging on to them. “Oh neat!”
“Give me them back!” I say as I snatch them away from him. I look again and see them wheeling someone out on a table. They bring them into a dome-like structure that they set up. I gave the binoculars to Mikhail and opened my laptop, that I brought with me. I begin hacking into the garrison's camera feeds, looking for any new ones to see if they have one set up in there.
“We'll never get in there with all those guards.” Mikhail says in an upset tone.
“Well guess we've seen all we needed to, let's go back now.” Amilia says, as she turns around to start walking back.
“Wait!” I say as I find what I’m looking for. “I found a camera feed from one that they've got set up in there!” Mikhail grabs the back of Amilia's collar, pulls her back, and turns her around. On the screen is a room with a table, a man strapped to it, medical supplies, and some doctors form the garrison. I recognize who's on the table.
“Shin  , do you know how long you've been missing for?” One of the meds asks. “I don't know. Weeks? Months?! Look We don't have time for this! They're coming! They kill worlds! They’re looking for Lexinia!” Shin yells as he struggles to try and break free of his restraints.
“Calm down commander Shin. You're safe.” The man in the hazmat suit turns to the others in the room. “Put him under until we have this situation under control.”
“Aren't they even going to listen to him! The guy’s a legend!” Amilia exclaims.
“They never asked about the rest of his crew.” I whisper.
“No don't! They're on their way here right now! Aliens are coming! Listen to me!”  He yells, still struggling in his restraints. They pull out a syringe and fill it with a white, pearly liquid. They inject it into his arm and a few seconds later he is asleep.
“We need to get in there!” I speak.
“Agreed.” Mikhail says.
“But I though we couldn't!” Amilia yells.
“Well, we can now!” Mikhail answers.
Just as we were about to start walking towards the site, we heard a loud boom. Off in the distance, behind the crash site, there is a bright, big, mushroom shaped explosion. A bunch of the Garrison's guards ran out and they all ran towards the explosion to investigate. At first, I thought that it might be another Alien ship, but then I saw a guy on a hover bike fly down behind a rock just outside the crash site. I put the binoculars up to my face and saw a guy with brown hair that slightly covered his ears and neck.
“What was that?!” Mikhail yells.
“A toilet flushing.” Amilia says sarcastically.
“Stop. Just…stop.”
“Shut up guys!” I yell. “It was a distraction, for that guy down there.” I say pointing at the person.
Mikhail grabs the binoculars from me, again, and looks through them. “Oh, he is not beating me there!” Mikhail says, as if he knows this guy.
“Who is it?” Amilia asks.
“Koji !”
“Really?!”
They start running down there as I yell, “Who's Koji?!” Following behind them. We reach the small opening leading into the dome-like structure. Inside is the guy, Koji apparently, has just knocked out the last person in there when we run into the doorway. He pulls out a knife and cuts the straps on Shin, then he pulls him off the table and puts Shin's arm around his shoulder. He's about to drop him off his arm when I run up and put Shin's other arm around my shoulder. He looks at me confusedly, then the others. “Who are you guys?” He says out of breath.
“Hey you know me!” Mikhail yells.
“Do I?”
“Yeah. We were in the same pilot class!”
“Oh, you must be one of the cargo pilots.”
“Well, I’m not anymore since you dropped out!”
“Oh cool.”
Mikhail scoffs. Koji rolls his eyes. He starts to walk forward, and I follow him, my 5’0’ frame not helping very much in the long run. When we reach the rock that his hover bike is hidden behind, he quickly puts Shin in Mikhail’s arm, who exclaims in surprise and anger. He gets on the bike, and gestures for us to get on in an annoying manner. I get on behind him and Amilia gets on behind me, sitting backwards. Mikhail is standing on the back of it and him and Amilia are holding Shin, Amilia has her arms looped under his shoulders and Mikhail is holding his feet.
He starts moving and it looks as if Mikhail is going to fall off, but he quickly steadies himself by putting a hand on Amilia's shoulder. I turned my face back towards the front from where I was facing Mikhail. Shin starts waking up and Amilia yells at us, letting us know. My hair is blowing behind me as we ride, faster and faster. I'm aware of some cars chasing us as we keep going. We went on a jump and my grip tightened on Koji's shoulders. I can hear the vehicles behind us speed up and get closer. And closer. And closer. They're basically on top of us when Koji turns to the side to try to stop the bike from going off the edge of a large cliff. The people chasing us get closer and closer, their headlights blinding us. We all abandon the bike. “We’re going to have to jump!” Mikhail yells. At this point Shin is fully awake, although still out of it.
“JUMP! Are you crazy!!!” Amilia shouts back.
“No, he’s right!” Koji says.
“You two are crazy!” I yell.
The cars get closer and closer. Koji looks back and then he grabs my wrist and pulls me with him as he jumps off the edge. Mikhail and Amilia jump a few seconds later, Amilia screaming bloody murder. Koji still has a hold of my worst we he grabs a big tree coming out of the side of the cliff. Mikhail barely grabs the branch too. Amilia is holding on to his ankle as he grabs the branch with both hands. Shin is above us, climbing down the side of the cliff like an idiot. There’s still a bit of air under us before we reach the bottom, but there are some good hand holds on the side of the rock. After thinking about it I begin swinging my legs back and forth to gain momentum. “What are you doing! You’re going to make us fall!” Koji yells down at me.
“Just trust me!” I yell back. As I get more and more momentum and I’m sure I can catch it I tell him to let go of my hand when I grab his wrist.
“I’m slipping so if you could like, I don’t know? Finish what you’re doing!”
“Oh my gosh be quiet for a few seconds please!”
I grabbed his wrist and he let go. I’m sure I can catch it, so I let go too and I grab the side of the cliff. Besides sliding down a little, some places that will surely have bruises, and a few bleeding scratches I’m good. Koji seemed to be catching on because he puts his other hand and begins to slide down the tree until he’s next to the cliff and he grabs onto a hand hold. I try not to look down as my arms begin to shake and my heart races. I reach my leg down and find somewhere that seems firm and place it there. I find a place to put my hand, which is very hard because the sun is basically all the way gone. After a little bit of climbing awkwardly I begin to find a rhythm. Foot, hand, other foot, and other hand. Koji is climbing down above me and Amilia and Mikhail have just started to climb down after realizing what we’re doing. Shin is having a good time and getting closer to us.
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After a few minutes of climbing, I’m almost close enough to jump down without getting hurt. I keep climbing down until I’m sure I won’t get hurt from jumping off, and of course I don’t want to stay on this cliff, so I jump down and land not so gracefully. Koji jumps down and lands next to me, Amilia coming a second after and Shin after her. We all look up and see Mikhail climbing down as slow as he possibly can.
“Can you go any slower Mik?” I ask him and he slows down exponentially. I roll my eyes and a rock break where his hand was, and he slips and falls. I burst out laughing and Amilia, who is clearly trying to hold back a giggle, goes over and helps him up from where he’s lying on his back on the ground. Koji turns around and starts walking, Shin following him. I started walking too, not caring in the evening if they followed us or not. As we walk through the barren, rocky plain I begin to sweat, and it looks as if the entire world is shiny and moving in waves.
“So do we have a destination or are we just walking aimlessly?” Mikhail asks behind me.
“Well obviously we have destination, or we wouldn’t have left the cliff side where people will easily be able to find us from the Garisson if he need help!” Koji yells at him, clearly irritated. We walk for miles until Koji turns and goes into a little cave on the side of a large rock. I turn around and look at Amilia and Mikhail who just shrug at me. I go in after Shin, who was up talking with Koji since we started walking and see a dimly lit cave with a very large laid out rug, a bed in the corner, a dress, a lamp, a map on the wall and a…. rock band poster? I decide to ignore it and instead focus on Koji and Shin, who are taking animatedly in the corner. Koji is moving his arms around stiffly and Shin is gesturing around.
“What do you think they’re talking about?” Amilia whispers to me.
I shrug at her. We stand there watching them awkwardly. Mikhail keeps trying to guess what they're saying. I roll my eyes as his guesses get more and more absurd. “You don’t have anywhere to watch TV man! What are we going to do?” Mikhail says in an annoyingly deep voice and Amilia hits his arm. Shin clears his throat and turns around with his arms crossed over his chest. He has a strong build, and his arms are big and full of muscle. He has black hair with blonde tips. He’s wearing a black jumpsuit with grey lines going down the sides of it and a cold, grey T-shirt over it. His gaze lands on me for a long second and then looks at the others.
“So, uh…,” Koji starts awkwardly, “Since you guys are here you might as well know what's going on.” He turns around and rummages through some papers that are spread out messily on his bed. He pulls out a bunch of printed- out photos. “These are somethings I've found nearby.”
“Can I see?” I ask him and he holds them out to me. I grab them and start sorting through the pictures. They're a bunch of glyphs. The first thing I notice is the recurrence of a moon that has lots of swirls, as if it's water. There's also some that look as if they're dripping. Although, the one that catches my eyes is a carving of a man. I held up the picture and set it side by side with Mikhail. The man in the carving has short hair and rounded eyes, like Mikhail's. When I compare the two, they look very similar, as if they could be siblings. “Where did you say these glyphs were?”
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Honestly not as happy with this chapter, but, as I said in my last chapter, this is only my first draft and I am open to suggestions!!