I sensed my way to the arena.

“Be prepared,” I told him. I threw a blunt spear at him. He dodged the spear and reached out a hand and caught it. Where his hand touched the spear, the metal spear started melting.

“WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?” He shouted.

“THAT COULD HAVE KILLED ME!” I could almost see flames in his eyes and smoke coming from his ears.

“Geez! Calm down! It was to open you powers! If I don’t surprise you then your powers won’t come out. Your power is cool though bro! You could probably throw fire with some practice! Maybe go with Crystal? She can cool you down if you mess up.”

“Me with Crystal?” Dave blushed a deep shape of red. “I can't go with her! She’s a girl!”

“Whelp.” I smiled maliciously.

“You're going to have to deal with it. Come on, I’ll help you first. I think that I can trap the fire and kill it with air. You're going to try to avoid that.”

After some practice and some mishaps, Dave was pretty much able to control and fire at will. (No pun intended.) (Not really.) I tried out some attacks but his fire dissipated occasionally. Especially when I cut off his fire's air supply.

Sweaty and hungry, we were in the middle of lunch when the air started growing hotter and hotter. At first, no one noticed it, but after a while, everybody was getting uncomfortable. I was just about to get up and do something when the ceiling collapsed. In a perfectly even sheet, it fell. Everything started to become slow-mo and I instinctively made an air wall over the whole room. When the ceiling fell on it I almost passed out. People were frozen in shock. Beads of sweat dripped down my face.

“RUN!” I yelled at the top of my lungs. People slowly started to unfreeze. They looked around in confusion, as if they were wondering whether or not the ceiling actually came down.

“RUN!” I yelled again. The ceiling fell to the ground in a corner with no people. This seemed to encourage the people to run. With Dave and Crystal in the lead, everybody ran outside to the courtyard. I followed behind them, letting the ceiling fall and crash into rubble behind me. We huddled together and watched in horror and fascination as the palace fell, piece by piece, tower by tower. When the dust had cleared. All that was left was the looming cathedral of the throne room. We all stumble towards the throne room. Occasionally we stopped to save the people that were still alive under all the rubble. When they were out, they looked horrible. With gashes on their foreheads, and broken arms or elbows. As I watched them, a sudden realization hit me. I was tired from holding up the ceiling. Not Berry. Did that mean that the potion had worn off? But it was supposed to last for a lifetime.

I was pulled into reality when Zoe slapped me so hard that I went reeling. I blinked, realizing that we were the only ones left outside.

“Jeez! You didn’t have to hit me that hard!” I rubbed my cheeks.

Zoe laughed then froze.

“You hurt?”

“Uh duh.”

“But Stephanie- she said it lasts forever. That’s not possible.”

“That’s what I was thinking! Remember, great minds think alike.”

“But fools rarely differ.” Zoe metered under her breath.

“Come on! We need to go!” The ruble was starting to clash against each other, breaking each other into smaller and small pieces until they were finely ground sand. They then started moving to block the entrance of the throne room.

“RUN!” I shouted, and together we burst into the throne room right before the last grains of sand sealed us in.

“We- are- sand- impossible.” I tried to speak while gasping for breath.

“Whao! What sand? What’s impossible?”

“The ruble- is hitting each other- until they are all sand. Then, they moved and floated to the door- and blocked us in.”

“Yes, and we just realized that when I slapped Joe, he felt the pain, not Berry.” Zoe added.

“But why would you slap Joe?” Stephanie asked curiously.

“Uh- never mind that, just I thought that the potion would last forever.”

“It should. The only time that it stops is if one of the users has died.”

“DIED? But me and Berry are both alive. Right?” I looked around, trying to find Berry. After searching the entire room, Berry was nowhere in sight. I concentrated on where Berry could be and my body started walking towards the back right corner of the room. Everyone stared in silence as I walked and made a hole in the wall with my body. I kept walking in a trance, further and further. Stephanie and Zoe came up behind me and blocked my path, trying to stop me. I pushed through them with force that I didn’t know I had.

“I’m sorry.” Zoe shot a wall of rock hard air in front of me. I expected that my possessed body would break through it easily, but the wall wouldn’t budge. After countless tried and failed attempts, my urge to find Berry dissipated, and I collapsed on the ground. The air wall instantly melted and Zoe fell to the ground beside me. I hadn’t realized that Zoe was putting in effort to stop me. Stephanie lifted us off that ground and ran in the direction that my body had been going. I tried to stop her and protest but I was too tired. I felt my eyelids going heavy and I fell into a deep slumber.

I woke up tied to a bed. I tried to sit up but a chain strangled my neck. I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep.

“Very good job.” The voice was definitely Kevin’s.

“I see that my possession worked. Now put that girl to sleep too.”

“No no no no no, what did i do?! I didn’t mean to do this.”

Stephanie’s voice cried in despair. I opened my eyes just the slightest bit and peeked out. I saw Kevin, looking paler and weaker since I had last seen him, standing next to an even smaller man that was hunched over in a bow. The small man began to tie Stephanie to another bed. She struggled but she was no match in her tired state.

“Now make sure that they are asleep.” Kevin ordered the small man. He went away and came back with a blueberry shaped metal. While wearing gloves, he dipped the metal deep into a fire. When he took it out, it was glowing red and orange. He then smeared some black dust on it, I realized that it was black sand. He came over and jabbed the stick onto Zoe’s neck. She twitched but remained asleep. When the man took off the metal, a black blueberry mark remained on Zoe’s neck. The man repeated the process of fire and black sand then came over to me. I knew that I had to pretend to be asleep. I made an illusion of me sleeping peacefully with no sound, then braced myself for the pain. The pain was less than I expected, it felt like he was carving my neck with a hot knife. After a second, he took the metal away. I swallowed and realized that whenever I moved my throat it hurt. And I mean hurt. Like even worse than my ankle had ever been. I tried to remain calm and not to move my neck.

After around half an hour, all 3 of our beds started moving. We turned and twisted so many times that I had no idea where we were going. Finally, we reached a huge auditorium like room, there was a blazing fire and hundreds upon thousands of people crowded around it. Our beds floated onto the fire and started lowering us deeper and deeper. I felt my pants going on fire and I sucked the air out of the fire instinctively, not realizing that I wouldn’t have done that if I was asleep.

“AHA! I KNEW SOMEONE WAS AWAKE!” Kevin roared so loud I felt my eardrums were going to break. The crowd roaring didn’t help either. I was about to get up and say something along the lines of,

“it was me sir, please don’t harm my friends,” when before I could, Zoe got up.

“It was me sir.” She spoke calmly and with an air of confidence. I wondered if I could have done that, if I could have not wet myself to save my friends and family. My brain had been planning to but I don’t know if I could have actually done it.

“If so,” Kevin said,

“Then how did you not scream to the mark?”

“What mark?” Zoe seemed genuinely confused.

“The one on your neck you dufus.” Zoe swallowed and then, and only then did she realize that it hurt to swallow.

“WHEN DID YOU DO THIS TO ME!” She cried,