"Rob no!"

"Let's go, Preston."

"No."

Preston froze, stamping his foot down.

"I'm not going to watch you kill someone, Rob!"

"You aren't going to watch," he replied, taking Preston's blaze rod from the wall, handing it to him, "You're going to help."

With that, Preston dropped the blaze rod, letting it spark on the floor from the impact. he backed up from Rob in terrible fear

"no. I'm not doing that. I steal, but I don't kill. I will NOT help you, nor would I watch. Leave me out of it."

"You should've thought of that before you even let them near here! It's your fault you have to come with me. This is nowhere near my fault. Now get a move on!"

"NO!"

Rob grabbed his wrist, and twisted it down, immobilizing Preston's entire arm.

"You lost that choice when you talked to them and let them in."

He shoved Preston away.

"Now let's go."

In a bad mood, Rob left, dragging Preston through the Maze by his small wrist. The whole time, Preston constantly dragged his feet- making Rob even angrier.

"Preston, stop it."

"No."

"Preston-"

"You can't FORCE me to do anything, Rob!"

"I'm not forcing you. I'm putting the option you gave yourself in front of you. In proper perspective. And you have to deal with it."

"I can't! It's not me! It's not who I am, or how I act. I just can't do it."

"You can't just ignore what you did, Preston. You jeopardized your own life. Heck, you could've jeopardized me if they wrecked any flowers. These flowers are my sanity, Preston. They ruin any flowers, I'd kill you in seconds, without another thought."

"At least I watched them and made sure they didn't! Rob, you don't know what I've gone through! I may know you even less, but at least I was left alone and didn't hurt anyone. You need to learn from me- how to remain neutral. Without neutrality or pacifism, there's chaos. I will NOT hurt Lachlan or anyone who approaches me. Unlike you."

Preston spun on his heel, and ran the other way- back to the flowery dead end.

~~+~~+~~+~~+~~

"EEEEEEEEEEEHHH?!"

Mitch let out a high-pitched squeal and the beast winced and covered its ears.

Flailing away, Mitch tried to calm the blood rush to his face and head, but to no avail. He looked back at the beast, whose expression was something of a mix between lust, rage, confuzzlement, and amusement.

"No! no, Jerome, that is NOT okay!" he squawked, bopping it on the head. The beast's ears laid flat.

"ℏḙ⑂!"

Mitch turned away in a huff, grumbling.

"... stupid +mumblemumble+ douchebag +groan+ idiotic..."

Yawning, the beast curled up against his back. Napping solved any problem. (A/N ~ cue Sans)

~~+~~+~~+~~+~~

"Hey Vikki~" "When are you~" "Gonna 'fess up~" "And admit~" "You like Lachy~?"

Simon, Tobi, Ethan, Harry, and JJ stared at the dark figure. Vikk felt as if Lachlan and Josh had dumped him in a tank of piranhas, although in reality, all they had done was go out scouting.

"I don't," he said, turning away.

The children kept giggling.

"You do!"

"Don't."

"Do!"

"Don't."

They tackled him, and Ethan stared him in the eye, appearing completely serious. "You do. You want to smooch him and make babies." (I had a hard time writing this in class... I kept smiling maniacally... Almost got caught)

"But boys can't have babies, Ethan!" JJ corrected. Tobi smirked. "But they can try!"

Vikk sighed, letting his head drop to the mossy ground.

"You kids are crazy."

"Kids are the future. We have to be full of crazy ideas and imagination. Otherwise, we'll always be stuck." Harry said, voice expressionless. Vikk met his gaze and felt himself flinch.

Harry's eyes were a glowing ice blue.

"Stuck where?" he found himself asking.

"Under them. You're stuck under them, aren't you, Vikram? Yeah. You've fallen prey. Don't believe everything you were taught, Game Over."

His eyes stopped glowing, and he looked confused as if he didn't remember what he had just said. But the other boys simply laughed again, running off with him, as if this sort of thing happened all the time.

"Does it?"

Tobi answered him.

"Yeah. We're dreamtreaders."

"What?"

JJ's eyes flickered purple.

"Dreamtreaders. Telekinetics. Psychics. We all have different powers. But Harry is a dreamtreader- he reads the dreams of the Key."

"The Key?"

"The one who will set us all free," they all said in unison, and then ran off.