Chapter 5 || Death Wish

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- Nya's POV -

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He found the sword.

. . . Oh no.

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- Kai's POV -

Mum was watching me with her arms folded, blue eyes hard and narrowed.

"Kai," she said, voice even, "What did you find yesterday and decide to not tell me about?"

I leaned back on my chair. Play it cool, man. "Nothing. At all."

She raised an eyebrow. "Kai Dare," she repeated, adding in the last name for full effect. "What did you find in the attic that you 'forgot' to mention to me?"

I gave a half-hearted attempt at a smile. "Nothing important?"

She rolled her eyes and sighed. "Just spill the beans, Kai, and I promise you won't be in trouble."

I stopped tipping the chair over and straightened it to face her. "Yeah, okay," I started. "I sorta kinda opened this weird looking door thing in the attic, found a chest and looked in it. I didn't take anything, I swear."

Mum groaned. "Kai, seriously, there are hardly any rules in this house, but one of them is not to touch things that are clearly not meant to be touched, and we both know that a buried trapdoor in the storage room counts as off-limits in regards to that one, simple rule!"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I huffed, looking down. "I was going to tell you, but then I just sort of . . . didn't, I guess?"

Then she did something strange; she sighed heavily, slumping down into the seat, put her elbows on the dining table opposite where I was seated and rested her head in her hands.

I wanted to get up and leave because I didn't really know what the hell to do, but instead I sat there until she lifted her face. She looked almost weary, her eyes devoid of their usual playful light.

"The sword you found was special, Kai, and I needed it to stay hidden for as long as posible. I . . . I'm going to go visit Emerald, okay? You can come if you'd like. Dad can take Tali to her horse-riding class."

I shuffled out of the chair as quickly as I could. This was getting really strange, really fast. Mum never skips out on Tali's lessons, and what did she mean about the sword being special? It probably had something to do with the feeling I got while holding it, I guessed; that longing for bloodshed that made me queasy to relive. Or the nightmares it gave me afterwards.

The nightmares - if she already knew about me finding the sword, maybe I should tell her about the -

But before I could say anything else, Tali interupted with her typical yell of fustration; "Muuuuuum, I can't find my math book! Pleeeease help me!"

So she silently got up and left to aid Tali in whatever mess she'd found herself in, while leaving me lost and confused.

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"Hey, you know, Mum, there's something else I should probably tell you." Before you find out somehow anyways and I get into more trouble, I thought. We were walking down the street with hoodies over our torsos, fresh, harsh wind blowing into our backs as we trugged towards the McKinnons' place. It wasn't too far away though, thank Notch.

She turned to me, hood over her head. "What?" she inquired, looking vaguely interested, though I suspected she was mostly focussed on how cold it was.

"When I . . . when I held the sword, I felt . . . different," I finished lamely, glancing away.

She stopped, making me follow along with her abrupt action. "How so?" she asked, her voice significantly more perplexed than before, which I guessed was probably not a good thing.

"I, er, wanted to -" I didn't know how to complete the sentence. "To, you know - kill, kill with it," I managed to choke out in the end, leaving a deep and grave silence looming over us.

"Oh no," she said, cursing under her breath a few times as well. "I - I shouldn't have kept it in the house. It's bad, Kai, I'm so sorry -"

But I'd stopped listening, because a sharp cut of freezing air hit us both in our faces; a deathly cold, like wind that didn't move but instead hovered and circled you once you entered the cruel reach of its clutches.

"Mum?" I questioned, nervously. My gaze was plastered onto the street ahead of us - Iris's street - which had turned completely silent.

I gulped. "Mum, what's going on?"

Her eyes weren't their usual warm ocean anymore, but a fierce and dutiful icy stone. "Stay behind me," she said, and my stomach sunk. I didn't even question her request, just moved behind her back.

She edged forward slowly, the silence of the early night louder than anything I'd heard before, making my ears ring. I'd never seen Mum so stanceful, so quiet and pouched. A dark feeling spread through me; something was very, very wrong. Mum looked so determined that I refused my scared mind to ask her anything.

We headed towards Iris's house, which was just as cold and empty as the others along the small road seemed. By the time we'd reached the front door, Mum had one hand on a bow that was strapped under her light-coloured coat. I stared helplessly into the blank windows - windows that I'd never seen covered before - my thoughts twisting around in tight knots.

Mum knocked on the door, elicting no answer. A second action produced the same result; every sound echoed throughout the entire street, which felt like the whole world. The air was so cold I was vaguely wondering why it wasn't snowing, my chattering teeth the only constant noise.

Suddenly, the door was hit from the inside, a large wooden crash making both me and Mum jump. The door handle creaked, and it swung open almost desperately, Mum almost falling backwards in horrified surprise.

Oh my Notch.

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- Iris's POV -

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After dinner I'd sat down at the dining room table with Mum, her head stuck in some young adult romance novel ('Why, Mum, you're not a teenager, this is embarrasing for us both' I always think). I had some stupid math homework to work on, so I settled myself down with a pen and continued to sit there for quite an extended amount of time doing nothing, as expected from the moment I decided I would actually do my homework.

"Hey, Mum," I asked, dropping the pen I'd been gripping for a while, "How did you and Dad meet?"

She looked up from the pages, the cliche over-dramatised front cover siezing my attention for a second before I glanced back up at her. She smiled, puting the book face down on the table.

"I've been wondering when you'd ask," she said, excitedly, straighening her back and coughing a little in preparation.

Oh jeez, I thought. What have I gotten myself into?

"T'was a long time ago, my daughter, when I first felt my gaze drift to land on your father." I outwardly groaned. "Neither of us had felt true love before laying eye on each other. Music sung and colours danced as we connected across the distance, and slowly, we walked forwards to come together -"

"Cut it out, Mum," I groaned again. "You're getting all 'poetically dramatic' on me. The real story, please."

Mum stuck her tongue out at me. "You just love to ruin my fun."

I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Can I hear it now?"

Her smile was playful, but she still agreed. "Sure. Okay, so after I left uni, I got a job at this low-rate potions store, where Jay happened to also be working at. He asked me out after a month or so in a really dumb way, which was expected, and he took me to a zoo. A feral chicken escaped and jumped on his face, and like the gentleman he is, he panicked, screamed like an eight year old girl who saw a spider, and threw it on me. Overall, it was an extremely romantic day."

"I can see why you'd think that."

We heard Dad's yell from the lounge room. "It had claws, Em! You would've done the exact same thing."

Mum breathed a laugh, grinning happily. It was time like these, I remember, that filled me with a subtle yet special sense of gratitude that these two idiots were my parents.

I jolted and noticed that Mum did, too. A sudden rush of cold air had swept through the previously warm room, a chill that was neither natural nor intended. Dad poked his head from around the corner, face as confused as ours probably were.

"What's up?" I asked, not knowing if they could answer.

"Uh," Mum said. She sounded wary. "I'm not sure."

Suddenly, every torch that had been glowing in the house went dark with a soft sigh, a whisper leaving behind cold dread and almost overbearing quiet.

"Mum -"

A sound. From outside. A hollow whistle, low and dull, nothing I'd ever heard before, but one I had learnt about. Dad spoke with a sense of clarified fear.

"Endermen," he breathed.

And with that one word, a pair of gleaming purple eyes appeared in the window; eyes that belonged to something you could hardly call a body, a black abyss with no features except for those burning, cold, cruel eyes.

Mum stood up. "Jonathan, get me my sword, and Iris, go hide upsta -"

The enderman disappeared suddenly, leaving behind only violet particles that disintigrated quickly. Silence, chilled silence, was all that followed, carving out harsh and heartless terror into our memory.

With only the slightest sound, Mum turned to me. "Ice, I said go."

Crashing, booming, electrifying noise pierced the world, and for a moment when I glanced at our wall I thought the night was leaking in; but no, this night had purple souls and black hearts. In a shock, I fell backwards and hit the ground, my breath escaping my lungs so fast I was feeling dizzy.

Dad ran forward, towards the towering men, and for a second I thought he was going to throw himself into their hold, but instead he dived for a half-hidden chest, one that contained Mum's spare but still deadly iron blade.

He dived, and he managed to grab it, but although he was fast the endermen were faster and he barely escaped its enraged clutches before tearing open the chest's lid and throwing the now violet-lit sword at Mum who caught it in a practiced grip. She rushed forwards, strong, bold like she always was and sliced at the monster, the sharp blade scraping across its side, leaving no visible wound but a cry that pounded in my ears. Dad scrambled up, his blue hair swaying, moving back as fast as he could. My mind was fuzzy with fear but panic drove me to move, too, shuffling off the ground and crashing backwards into the bench, gripping it so I wouldn't topple over again.

Mum was fighting against four endermen, and they were constantly disappearing into lavender sparks, then reappearing behind her to attack her from where she couldn't see. My eyes burned and I wanted to scream but I saw her eyes, her bright, cyan eyes, the colour of ice, and I put all my faith into her because she was invincible when she fought, her blade swinging, her body moving, her strength empowering.

Someone grabbed my shoulder and it was Dad, his face urgent. "Go upstairs, now!" he shouted over the sounds of injury. I didn't want to listen. I trusted my parents, but I loved them more.

"I'll fight. I can look after myself! I'll help!" I yelled, letting go of the bench and clenching my fists.

He gripped my shoulders. "No, you won't. We can handle them. Go hide somewhere they won't find you."

We can handle them. We can handle them.

"Okay," I agreed, softly, and he hugged me so quickly and suddenly I didn't even get the chance to hug him back before he ran into the lounge to get our other sword.

I ran towards the stairs, dark and ugly, the un-lit torches preventing me from seeing well, as the endermen's screams of agony filled the house, driving me onwards, panic pushing my legs to a point where I couldn't feel them, couldn't feel anything.

Sprinting into my room I stopped on the balcony where an ivy ladder grew, climbing down it as fast as I could with shaking hands and chattering teeth, to below, where below the cobblestone outlining was a small room, one that I used to use as a kid.

I didn't have a pickaxe, but it didn't matter; I punched at the stone, my knuckles sore and probably bleeding, until it broke open, revealing a ladder that I climbed again. The room had chests and carpet and I quickly filled the gap above me, the starlight reaching in, with cobblestone to cover my tracks.

Now in peace, I sobbed, shivering, trembling, finally relinquishing in the terror that had burned inside me ever since the torches had dulled. I could still hear the endermen screaming - they were losing, I could tell. I muttered under my breath repetitively - Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you they're dying.

 I froze when I heard more whistles; low, cold, unfeeling except for anger. More, I thought, and my breath caught in my throat. More of them.

Then I heard something else.

It was my mother's scream.

I buried my head in my arms, my knees pulled up to hide my face and quiet my breathing, dread pouring out of my eyes in hot tears; her cry was angry, but painful, and it happened again, and again, and there was Dad's, and his again, and then both, blurred together into a nightmare, two agonised shrieks, a sound that echoed and echoed and echoed and it was all I could hear and my face is burning -

And then stopped. Cut off, like a record.

I pulled my head out and glanced around; the room was dark, but no doubt protected, the roof low and buried. Unsteady gasps broke the silence repetatively, and I prayed for them to stop.

They're gone, I thought. No calming relief sheltered me from terror.

An endermen's husky crow was loud enough for me to here, and my stomach sunk even further. No - they're looking for me.

A chorus of their sounds whispered above me, slowly moving, soft pops whenever they teleported, and I refused to make any noise at all. I heard something from above the blocks I'd used to cover up the entrance; two demonic voices, a couple of endermen, and from the exchanges between sounds, they might of been . . . conversing.

Arguing, even. Eventually, one must have won, because both of them stopped and their mute behaviour almost drove me to madness, but it didn't last long.

From outside, a rush, one even stronger than the breeze that had stunned my parents and I before the attack, blew through the air, and I internally panicked at the thought of even more endermen invading my home.

My parents - Oh my Notch, why did they stop fighting? Are they okay? Stupid question, Ice, of course they are. They always are. Just . . . where did they go?

Footsteps - not a soft pair, either, but one that was hard and strong, blasting shocks even down through the earth below, to me. A person; a powerful person.

"I thought I could count on you," a new voice scorned, low and monotone, much like an enderman's, but distinctly more feminine and . . . commanding.

The enderman above me replied in its un-translatable moan, striking me into confusion.

"I left this task to you and your force. It was not difficult, either. Tell me exactly why you require my aid."

She wasn't pleased, obviously; but she was talking, engaging, with an enderman, which I couldn't wrap my head around and understand.

"So you're telling me you cannot complete the mission I assigned you without help from my ability."

The enderman replied, and she growled in response.

"The Dragon raised your kind to be unapproachable, not hesitant and weak. She's only a child, after all. Hardly an issue to call upon my presence to deal with."

A child - me?

The woman scoffed. "You're not being serious. You want me, the Ender Dragon's Child, your general, to track down a sixteen-year-old girl? What sort of leader do you think I am? Certainly not one who does her subordinate's job for them."

I froze with a gasp.

"Besides," the woman continued, "I don't think finding her would be too hard, considering she's right below us."

A whimper escaped, even though I tried to swallow it down; I heard her footsteps, above the entrance, and my heart stopped, it ceased beating, panic replacing blood as my vision turned blurry.

The enderman chose that time to speak up, its voice raised slightly in urgency. The girl laughed - but it lacked emotion, warm, or any kind of human feeling. It was cold and uncaring.

Suddenly, other voices, ones so muffled yet amazingly familiar, echoed from around the house; Kai was here, and Nya was with him. I breathed sharply in relief, but also in fear, because they don't know what's going on, they don't know that there's still some here, an enderman is still here -

A loud knock on the door blocked my thoughts, the sound the only clear thing I could register. I heard the woman outside growl in fustration.

"We shall leave, now. Kill the daughter later."

Then nothing, no footsteps, no low whistles, no noise at all.

A voice broke the silence. "Iris! Iris, where are you?" It was a desperate call, one of fear, horror, pain. Kai was worried, but so was I; scared to see whatever the endermen had left back in the house, what they did to Mum and Dad.

So I kept sobbing, softly, burying myself in my despair, clutching onto strands of my hair, blue as day, the same colour Dad's was before it had been bloodied and stained - I heard Nya's cries, also quiet, but still broken, as she wept over the bodies I knew were above me, their life spilt beyond reaches of healing.

And I wished I could have stopped.

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I am SO SORRY about how long this update took. Wow, writing this was hard.

And also, apologies about how dark and deathly it was, my bad. Hopefully it'll get a lot happier and lighter by next chapter (although, iris's parents did just die so :/ )

QOTC: Do y'all have any political opinions of any sort? I'd love to hear them!

See all of you guys next update!

- Jazz