Awake (17 page)

“Forget about us and go!” shouted Major in
the middle of the frenzy. “Get to the street! Get to the lab!”

Kevin fled and, as he did so, looked back to
see the frenzy escalate. It was his fault. He knew it. But, given
the same chance, he would do it again. Even though it pained him to
see the consequences of his actions, it would bring him even
greater pain to see Andrew overtaken before his very eyes. “Sorry,
Major. I promise I’ll make it up to you somehow.”

Kevin found an emergency exit. It took him
outside to the street, the one parallel to where Andrew was.
Judging from where he stood, the research facility was a few blocks
away, seemingly out of sight. Luckily for him, there was an old
bicycle lying by the side of the road. It looked pretty banged up,
the colors faded. Unsure of its condition, he cautiously sat on it
and started pedaling.

As he passed by the intersection, he looked
to his left and caught a glimpse of Andrew running for his life
past the bend. Kevin chewed his lip. There was nothing he could do
to help him. Unless, of course, Kevin managed to wake everyone up.
But that was quite a gamble. Andrew maybe had five minutes to live.
Kevin knew it would take much more than five minutes to even reach
the underground facility.

As much as he hated it, he was going to
ignore Andrew completely—that is, until he felt the tremor.
Boom… boom… boom
. It was a rather slow sound, like the
careful hammering of a nail. It was precise, maybe even
leisurely.

Kevin watched as a massive shadow fell over
Andrew. The dragon was already taking the lead in hunting down
Andrew. Though Kain could have easily outrun Andrew, he didn’t. He
was taking his time, as though he enjoyed it thoroughly. As
evidence of such, every so often a loud snicker reverberated along
the city buildings.

Andrew was about to pass out, panting for
air the entire time.

Kevin sharply swerved around the corner of
the sidewalk. He pedaled furiously and zipped toward the dragon.
“Leave him alone!” The front wheel of the bike snapped apart, the
screws rebounding off the asphalt. Had he not stopped the bike with
his foot on the ground, his face would’ve dove straight into the
road. Kevin got off the broken bike and chased after the dragon’s
huge hind legs. “Stop chasing him or I’ll…I’ll kick you in the
shin!” And kick him in the shin he did, though it didn’t make any
difference.

Andrew stopped running and fell to his
knees. He was done running. There was nowhere left for him to go.
They had him surrounded. Before him was a crowd of forest creatures
and at his back was a dragon nearly five stories tall. He was
finished, he thought glumly.

Kevin was so focused on the dragon that he
never noticed everything else. He spun around and around, watching
as the Forest Army poured into the road. They were all over,
forming a circle around the dragon. Major was right. They had been
ready to swarm from the start. Now it was impossible to escape.

Rooted in place, Kevin knew he wouldn’t be
able to run away.

Several wolves held the dogs captive,
pinning them to the ground.

A cougar swaggered over to Kevin, preparing
to pounce.

“No,” said Kain to the cougar, “leave him
alone.” Kain snatched Andrew up in his hand. Grinning, he looked at
Kevin and said, “You must have come to say farewell to your
friend.” Kain nodded, smiling to himself. “Friendship is such a
beautiful thing. I once had friends long ago. It’s a pity then that
I couldn’t die with them when I had the chance.”

Looking spitefully at the dragon, Kevin
said, “You can still die now.”

Kain guffawed. “It just wouldn’t be the
same. Dying pointlessly would be a shameful thing, one full of
regret. Now then, I want you to watch closely. These are the last
moments of your friend’s life. You should cherish such things.”
Kain howled in amusement. Almost like playing with a small doll, he
waved Andrew around for everyone to see, and then, with one huge
motion, lobbed Andrew far up into the sky.

Kevin screamed, “NO!”

“No? I am pretty good with this. You
shouldn’t worry about your friend falling onto the pavement.” Kain
opened up his huge mouth, looking as though he was going to catch
Andrew with his tongue.

Held in suspense, Kevin could barely look. His eyes
darted repeatedly from the dot in the sky, which he was sure was
Andrew, to the ground. However, he continued to watch, hoping for a
miracle. The miracle didn’t come. Andrew started to fall, wailing
tragically all the way down. Kevin cringed as he heard his distant
voice grow louder and louder. It was painful to know that there was
nothing he could do. Andrew was about to die and there was
absolutely nothing he could do.

Kevin forced himself to watch. Andrew was
now coming clearly into view. In a few seconds, he would be gone,
down into the pit of the stomach of an angry dragon. Kevin averted
his eyes. He could no longer bear to see. He counted in his head.
Three. Two. One.
Then he heard the dragon’s mouth clamp
shut. Though it may sound strange, Kevin waited for some
affirmation that the dragon had swallowed Andrew: a licking of the
lips, a satisfied rubbing of the belly. Nothing came. Instead, Kain
stomped his feet, hissing and snarling.

Scanning the sky, Kain growled angrily, “Who
dares interfere?”

Wondering what was going on, Kevin looked
above. A blue streak zoomed across the clouds.

Kain bent down near Kevin, glaring at him.
“You knew! You brought them here, didn’t you? How dare you make a
fool out of me!”

Kevin shrunk back at the terrifying sight of
the black-rimmed dragon eye. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but
since he was going to die anyway, he might as well pretend to know.
“Yeah, that’s right! I did bring them here! I love making a fool
out of you! So what? What are you going to do about it, huh? That’s
what you get for messing with me!”

“Why you—Die, worm! I’ll make you suffer!”
Kain drew in a deep breath, sucking in all the air around. Even
Kevin was being sucked towards him. Then Kain huffed out a long,
gentle flame.

Shielding himself with his arms, Kevin
yowled. Kain was doing this on purpose, Kevin thought, to torture
him. Kain could have easily incinerated him with a powerful breath
of fire, but he didn’t. Kevin now realized what it felt like to be
slowly roasted in an oven. He kept his eyes closed, unwilling to
see himself get burnt to a crisp, though he could still see the
brightness of the flame. He could feel the heat on every inch of
his skin tingling and burning. He was suffocating because it was so
difficult and excruciating to breathe.

Then there was a relief. The intense heat
faded and he could breathe again. The light from the fire was gone.
He opened his eyes. The dragon’s mouth was no longer in front of
him. What was before him was something even stranger, if that were
possible. He was staring at the side of a huge golden wolf-like
beast. Nearly half the size of the dragon, it was almost as big as
a school bus. Its fur was silky smooth, shimmering with an
unnatural shininess. The wolf was blocking the flames with its
body. When Kain realized his fire had failed to harm them, he
stopped, backing away.

The golden wolf looked kindly upon Kevin.
“Don’t worry about Andrew. Terminus has him and is taking him to
the others.”

Kevin stared into the beast’s eyes.
“Genesis?”

“Genesis,” echoed Kain sinisterly. “So we
meet at last. I’ve heard much about you.”

Genesis turned to the dragon. “I suggest you
leave peacefully.”

“I’ve come this far,” said Kain, baring his
jagged teeth. “And a single Relic Knight won’t be able to stop
me.”

“We’ll see…” Genesis glanced at Kevin. “Go
on, do what you must! I’ll deal with Kain!”

Gesturing with his hands toward the army of
animals, Kevin said, “I can’t go anywhere!”

At that moment, Kevin felt something grab
him by the back of the shirt. He was lifted off the ground by a few
feet, and then he was watching the ground suddenly leave him, as he
was jolted into the sky.

Kevin screamed, unable to tell what was
happening. Moments after being in midair, he landed on the rooftop,
dangling helplessly by the threads of his t-shirt. Kevin tried to
look over his shoulder but couldn’t see much of anything.

“Hang on,” Kevin heard someone mumble. “I’ll
take you a bit farther.”

Kevin quickly said, “Wait—ahhhh!” Before he
could another word, the movement started up again. It was like a
wild roller coaster ride, except much more frightening because he
had no harness or belt or anything to keep him safe. Kevin was
being carried over from roof to roof with great leaps. There was no
time for him to catch his breath.

Every time he was thrust back into the air,
he wondered if his shirt would rip or if he would fall down into
the streets below. He covered his eyes with his hands, peeking
through the cracks of his fingers. It was quite disorienting to be
zipping across the city without a proper seat. He was like a rag
doll, swinging hopelessly up and down. One moment he was staring
into the unreachable sky, then the next he was plummeting to
another rooftop.

“Urp!” His hands shifted from his eyes to
his mouth as he tried to hold back the urge to barf, feeling the
effects of motion sickness.

Finally, after landing on one more roof, it
all stopped. Released from the terrible ride, Kevin fell to the
floor. He turned back to see what had carried him this far. It was
an overgrown black panther, big enough to make Kevin look like a
kitten, and possibly treated Kevin like one when it had carried him
over the roofs by the back of his shirt.

Almost hysterical, Kevin chuckled. He made
eye contact with the panther and, after examining it, said, “You
must be Luna.”

“What a perceptive child,” the panther said,
musing. “How did you know?”

Kevin thought for a moment, rubbing his
chin. “I don’t know. You guys just have that special quality about
you.”

“Anyway,” said Luna, “this is as far as I’ll
take you. I must hurry back to Genesis. He cannot handle the dragon
alone.”

“What about me?” Kevin protested. “I can’t
reach the lab alone. I have to get there!”

“The HPC will help you with that.” Luna
paused. “I mean, they need you for that. Go down this building.
You’ll find them nearby. We rescued them from the hotel so you’ll
have a large force under your command. I heard from Major. You have
a solution, right? Good luck with that. We’ll be cheering you on.”
With that said, Luna quickly left, jumping from rooftop to rooftop
until she disappeared.

- Fight or Flight -

Andrew opened and closed his eyes slowly,
over and over. It sure didn’t look like he was inside a stomach of
a dragon, unless the stomach of a dragon appeared very similar to
the outside world. He looked down and found he was riding on the
back of a large bird. It wasn’t a hawk, but it wasn’t anything he
could conceivably recognize either. He studied its back, its
plumage black and white. It seemed familiar.

“Are you okay?” said the giant bird.

“Uh, yeah,” Andrew answered. “I think so.”
He ran a brisk check to make sure. His hands, feet, and head were
all there. He wasn’t poked full of holes either.

“Good.” The bird glided through the air,
scouting the city. It searched for the tallest point, which was a
skyscraper with gray walls and blue windows.

Andrew hopped off the bird’s back and
curiously cast his gaze upon it. There was no way for it to be
true, he thought. But at the same time, it was hard to deny. The
bird looked like a blue-and-white budgie, except budgies were
normally smaller than his hand, but this one was slightly larger
than him.

“Do you not recognize me?” said the large
budgie, putting a wing across his chest. “It is I, Terminus.”

“It can’t be,” gasped Andrew. “What are
you—really?”

Terminus explained, “I, along with Genesis
and Luna, are Relic Knights.”

Andrew raised a brow. “What are Relic
Knights?”

“Peacekeepers of the animal kingdom. There
are six Relic Knights in all. So as not to be biased, three are
allies of humans and other three are wild. We were chosen from both
sides to prevent war, though it seems we have failed.”

“That still doesn’t explain why an
itty-bitty parakeet turns into a giant one!”

“Oh,” said Terminus, nodding, “you were
wondering about
that
. This is a special form we can invoke
for emergency situations. We wield relics of great power that
greatly enhance our physical abilities. But we can only use them
for a short time. We have but an hour or two.”

“Then what?” Andrew wondered.

“Then we lose consciousness for about a
day.”

Andrew’s jaw dropped. “That’s extreme!”

“Well, it is what you would call a desperate
measure.”

“What are you waiting for?” said Andrew.
“Why are you waiting here while your powers have a limited time?
Shouldn’t you be out doing something?”

“Andrew,” said Terminus softly, pointing at
the city with a wing, “tell me what you see.”

Andrew looked out across the city,
squinting. Since he was on the highest structure in Korgen, the
entire breadth of the city was in plain view. Smoke and flames rose
into his sight. Then he caught a glimpse of large shadows being
cast over the factories. The dragon was there and it was locked in
combat with a massive yellow wolf.

The two gargantuan beasts attacked each
other. The dragon kept his distance and spewed hot balls of fire
from its mouth. The wolf dodged the flames, which now ended up
leveling some of the buildings behind him. Then the wolf managed to
get up close to the dragon and mauled on its wing. The dragon
yowled and flailed its wings about, smashing the wolf into the tall
chimneys of the factories.