~Lukas's POV~

Magnus, Ruby, and I are going to find Jesse, and the others will get back to the temple.

I hope we'll find Jesse's prison quickly. After that mental shout, I can only imagine what she's going through.

"Would you rather fight ten zombie-sized chickens or a hundred chicken-sized zombies?" I wonder after we pitch camp and settle down inside. Which one did Jesse pick? Olivia must have posed the question to her at some point.

"Is that a riddle?" Jesse asks. The confusion is clear in her voice.

"No, just something Olivia would ask us," Magnus answers. Then he looks over at me. "The huge chickens."

"That's what I said when she asked me that," I say.

"I'd rather fight the baby zombies," Ruby says, staring into the fire. "Giant chickens, I can live with. Tiny zombies... ugh."

I nod, and we are silent for a time. "Why do you do that? Watch the fire?"

She blinks, once. "It helps me focus. Keeps the memories at bay." She traces the scar on her face.

"Where'd you get that?" Magnus asks.

She takes a deep breath, and expels it. "It's a long story. Somewhat gruesome."

"We have the time. My nightmares won't get any worse." Magnus nods in agreement, and she sighs.

"All right. I'll tell you the story."

The fire seems to dim, but maybe that's just my eyes playing tricks on me.

"We had gotten the powers a while back by then. They were a normal part of life. I was out with my friends, playing a game of Wolf's Den, when the Wolf, Aiden, just... disappeared. Nobody had any idea what happened to him, even though we could all see him."

Aiden... That name has bad memories for me. But how can someone just vanish like that? And when everyone's watching him?

"He was a good, kind person, if a little quiet. There's no reason for anyone to have had a grudge against him, at least not bad enough to do that."

That description is completely contrary to the Aiden I know. So it's not the same person. That's a relief. But the pain in her voice... had they been together, as Elle would say?

"Over the next few days, a lot of people started disappearing. There wasn't any order to it. And at the same time, any injuries we suffered became permanent, or at least slow to heal. Hardly anyone went outside, except to share news and get food.

"Then some group called the Hunters said they were the reason for the kidnappings. Me and a few of my friends decided we would try to find out where these people were located, and get our friends back. Their names were Kai, Monica, Shayna, Adit, William, Alyssa, Cody, and Sammy. We were a good team back then."

Some of these names I've never heard of before. Adit. Pronounced Aw-dit. What sort of a name is that?

"We started playing a game of Wolf's Den, like when Aiden was taken. And once again, the seeker, Shayna, was taken. Now that we were paying attention, we saw that she didn't just vanish; something pulled her up into the treetops really quickly. So we climbed up, and sure enough, someone was running across the trees. They must have had a potion of Swiftness or something, because they were really fast.

"Alyssa was a brewer, and she had some potions with her as well. No Swiftness, but she did have some Leaping and Healing. I took the Leaping, and Kai the Healing, and we started going. We would meet the others when we got to their stronghold."

I remember when Jesse had used Ivor's potion of Leaping to blow up a path to PAMA's core, and I understand why it could be used. But Healing? "Why would Healing help?" I ask.

"To heal the tiredness of your muscles after running," she answers, then continues speaking.

"We tracked him until we reached a giant tower. It was made entirely of some black rock we didn't recognize, and was surrounded by lava. We sent one of Kai's wolves with a message detailing where we were back to the others, and we waited.

"They came after a week of waiting. We had traveled further than we thought. But if we could save our friends, it would be worth it. But when we came inside..." She shivers and pulls her jacket closer to herself, and I have an urge to comfort her, but I get the feeling she won't appreciate it.

"They had these mutants guarding the place. Giant zombies and skeletons and creepers, and they had so much health, it was unbelievable. The zombies would come back to life after they died, and the creepers could explode multiple times without dying. We managed to sneak past them and get inside, but we ... we lost Monica and Cody. But we had to keep going.

"We made it past the human guards, and beyond them was a giant room filled with jail cells. We almost lost hope. But we kept going. There wasn't anyone in the first hundred or so cells, but then we came across some old friends of ours. We managed to free them, and they went back out, along with Adit and Shayna. The rest of us kept going.

"We found Aiden at the very back. He was badly hurt, almost unrecognizable. He died just a few minutes after we found him."

Those words send shivers down my spine. What if Jesse dies? How could I keep living?

"We were enraged. We practically flew back out of the tower. The guards and mutants tried to stop us, and managed to separate several more of us, until it was just me, William, Sammy, and Kai left together. That's when I got my scar, when a skeleton shot at me from the side. It scored my face and nearly took out my eye. We never figured out what happened to the others.

"We got split from Kai soon after that, and we're still looking for him. That's why we ended up in the Temple. We came through a portal and showed up near there. And that's my story."

She looks over at me. "That's the story of the scar."

<Jesse's POV>

Footsteps grow louder and closer to me. I look up, but it doesn't do anything. I'm still blinded.

"Good morning, Jesse," Aiden says, kneeling next to me. "How are you feeling?"

"What do you expect?" I ask, my voice hoarse. I haven't spoken in ages. Or eaten, or had any water.

"Sore. Hungry. Thirsty. You know, this would be over if you decided to join me. No more beatings or anything."

"You've done worse than beat me recently," I growl back. "I'm never going to love you. The Hunters are terrible people. May Herobrine devour your soul and toss you to the Nether."

He leans back, laughing slightly. "My dear, Herobrine doesn't exist. You're just being foolish. And even if he did, I'd just get a new soul. I have friends in high places."

I roll my eyes, and get a slap in the face. "You will not roll your eyes at me! I am the Chief!"

"Like I give a slime," I mutter.

"What was that?"

"Nothing, sir!" I say sarcastically, earning another slap. In response, I lunge at him, but I'm yanked back by the chains binding me.

Another pair of footsteps pounds toward us. "Chief, sir! The Sentries have captured a wanderer outside our gates! Where should I put him, Chief?"

"Let me see. And bring her with." Aiden answers, standing.

The guard comes closer, and I growl at him. He takes a step back.

"Now, Don. I wish to see the captive."

He unlocks my chains, but grabs them as soon as they begin to fall. The guard pulls me toward the door, following Aiden, and they drag me down the hallway to a giant iron bar gate, where Aiden forces me to drink a bucket of milk, allowing me to see again.

In front of the gate, several Sentries wearing full iron armor and wielding diamonds swords stand at attention, accompanied by strangely mutated wolves. They're bigger and their claws are longer and sharper than normal wolves. And they're different colors, too; instead of the normal white and gray, they're brown and golden.

A young man, about my age, is hanging between two of the Sentries. He has short, curly black hair, but it's bleached white and gray in several places. His eyes are closed enough that I can't tell what color they are. His clothes are ripped and tattered, falling apart. He's definitely unconscious, but the guards are holding him as though he'll wake up and attack them at any moment.

"Did he kill any Sentries?" Aiden asks, and the Sentries nod.

"He killed Sam and Justin," one of them answers. "Along with this one." The Sentries bring forth another unconscious teen, and I barely stifle a gasp. He looks like me. Other than his brown hair to my black, we could practically be twins.

Clearly, Aiden noticed the similarity, too. He looks between the two of us, a frown growing on his face.

"What do you want us to do with them?" One of the Sentries asks. "Kill them now?"

"Toss them in a cell with this one," he answers instead, poking me with his foot. "When they wake, we'll interrogate them."

The Sentries salute and four of them split off, dragging the two boys and I into a bigger cell. They splash me with a Blindness potion again, and leave, shutting the door behind them.

I growl, pacing back and forth against the wall of the cell, until I remember the strangers and their injuries. I head over to them and begin looking over them.

My "twin" is clearly the less hurt of the two, but a large bump is swelling on the back of his head. The other boy is raked deep with claw marks. I close my eyes, thinking. What can I do?

Then a memory of a strange woman teaching Ruby about pressure helping stop blood flow comes back to me. I take off one of my pieces of armor and rip long pieces of cloth off my overall legs, pressing them against the wounds on his chest and stomach and tying them around the rest.

A few minutes later, I reattach the armor and curl up on the other side of the cell, hoping that the strangers will be all right and that Lukas is okay.

(???'s POV)

I slowly open my eyes. Just bricks, way above my head. I try to sit up, but pain shoots through my skull, making me press my hands to the sides of my head. "Ow," I whisper. The world is spinning. Is it supposed to be spinning? Where am I?

The memories rush back, making my headache even worse. That boy, Kai, had come to my family's home, asking for help to find a friend of his. We found an obsidian fortress and tried to fight our way inside, but we were taken out by giant wolves.

He's still asleep, next to me. But someone's bandaged his wounds, with what looks like ripped, bloodstained pieces of denim.

My gaze focuses. Kai looks pale. Even paler than normal. If he doesn't get help soon, he'll die.

But someone has helped him. Who is it? Can they be trusted?

I scan the rest of the brick room. Iron bars, woman sleeping on the floor, brick walls, more brick walls- wait, what?

I look back at the person on the floor. She looks almost exactly like me. Well, her hair is black, not brown, but otherwise, we could be twins.

This is creepy. But I head over there anyway.

She stirs and sits up. "Oh, hey. You're awake," she says. "Took you long enough." She starts coughing. "Sorry."

"What for?" I ask. "If you're sick, that's fine. Not your fault."

"I'm not sick, just thirsty. Been... a day since you got here. I think. Time is difficult when you're stuck in jail," she says, and a dry laugh escapes her.

"Stuck in jail? Why? I mean, we were trying to break someone out, so I get it for us, but for you?"

She shrugs, and winces. "Captured by some creep. The leader of these people likes me, and I hate him. Might be why."

"That's... interesting. So who are you?"

"Name's Jesse. You?"

I pause. "No way."

"Hello, No Way," she says, smiling.

"No, that's not what I meant. My name's Jesse, too."