The Hunt of Five 1

The blood is streaming freely, running down the back of my neck and sticking to my sweating, heaving back and shoulders.

Stumbling almost blindly to my feet, I dive for the only opening I see, the space between his arm and his side. I dig my knife into his ribs, pushing with a solid shove and rolling off before he could grab and snap my neck. Ash suddenly covers my face and body, and I stumble my way through the underbrush, and I can feel my blood starting to clot around my exhausted body. I finally collapse on a bed of what appears to be moss and roots, slipping in and out of consciousness as I stare the top of the tropical overhead at this part in South America.

I have been running for my life ever since our Loric ship touched down on Earth several years ago.

In the beginning, I had a Cepan, Jemstone, and her six-year-old daughter, Summer, was hidden away on the extra ship along with the baby of one of the Elders. Summer wasn't supposed to be coming with us, but Jemstone was desperate. I can even remember that for my young age, watching, horrified, as my only home in the universe, once so beautiful and powerful, was destroyed into war, death, blood, screams, and destruction.

The Mogodorians did this to us.

They'll pay for this…I remember thinking as I stared out the window of our ship, staring into the blank, dark space, all of those stupid Mogs will pay for this.

I was still a child, though. I never fully understood at that time what danger I was already setting myself up for, I knew that I was willing to fight all of them and come back home one day.

There were other children on the ship. A boy about my age who was always being harassed by a girl with olive hair and dark skin; a blonde girl who tended to cry for fear a lot. There was a boy with long black hair who was always really annoying, and a boy with short hair who seemed to get along very well with the girl with the olive skin. There were three others, too, but I don't remember much about them.

But I still do.

I remember sitting with them all, being coaxed out of the corner by Jemstone to eat at a large, white table. I didn't want to be around them; I wanted my parents, and I wanted to fight the ones who destroyed my planet. I remember all of the Cepans smiling at us, worry etched in their eyes I couldn't see back then but I do now in my memories, trying to keep us all calm.

There was always the edge something would happen before we reached Earth.

We separated almost instantly when we all got out of the rocket. Somebody hugged me, the boy with the long black hair, and the other Cepans did, too. Jemstone found Summer, and the three of us stumbled our way into the darkness, blindly, heading far away from the other children.

I remember asking if I could go back and tell the boy with dark hair to never touch me ever again, but Jem said they were couldn't ever go back near any of them ever again.

Now I'm collapsed in a tropical forest of South America, trying to avoid attention. I lifted a ton of slab off of an elderly man in Argentina, then ran the second I could. No attention is what Jem always said to Summer and I, and so that's what I hold onto and go by every day.

I touch the burnt parts in my leg, still trying to figure out what they mean. All I know is that, up until about a year ago, there was nothing that the Mogodorians could do to me that wouldn't end up killing them. I was invincible to their power, and I instantly went around, killing as many as it took to get my point across to them I was clever and I was strong.

But now something has happened to make me start being affected, so now I have to be extra careful. I am completely alone, and there's not much I can use to protect myself from their army at this point.

When I started to get hurt, I decided to stop trying to fight them as much and start running, to stay completely hidden in corners and shadows, looking for somebody to explain things to me. Most of what has happened is confusing to me, and there is a lot I can't explain.

There are two things I know for certain, though.

1.) The Mogodorians are bloodthirsty, and they want to kill me. They somehow have something to do with these Loric-looking symbols burned in my leg, and I have to kill them before they kill me.

2.) I have to find the other kids that were on that ship and get some answers before we're all gone.

When I wake up, the house is completely quiet, which makes me uneasy. After all that has happened and changed recently, the peace is almost unreal, and it sets me more uncomfortable than the action of fighting the Mogs or trying to reunite all of the Numbers.

All of us are united, except for one.

Number Five is somewhere in South America, according to my tablet. It's obvious she moves around a lot, since she was in Jamaica two days ago, then was traveling the Atlantic Ocean yesterday. When Henri and I were still together, I'd read an article about the girl who lifted a two-ton pound of slab off of an elderly man, then could not be found for interviewing. There was no doubt she was one of us, and now it's certain that she is Number Five.

We need to find her before Setratus Ra does.

Now that the charm is broken, any of us can die at any given time. Before, we had a spell cast on all of us that meant we could only die in numerical order. I am Number Four, and when Numbers One, Two, and Three were killed, I knew I was next.

But I'm in an old, worn-out, long since abandoned farm house with the other remaining numbers, with the addition of a girl who was baby from the second ship that left Lorien, Number Ten, Ella. She and Number Seven, Maria, are sharing a bed up the old, creaky steps that make up the boards of this home. Number Eight is passed out on the couch, and Number Nine has made himself at home in the second bedroom upstairs while Number Six sleeps in inside of the third room.

I have the ground floor bedroom, which I ended up sharing with my girlfriend, Sarah Hart. We were both a little shy about the idea of having to share a bed, but Nine ended up bugging the crap of us until we finally did.

"C'mon, Johnny!" he'd said, punching me in the shoulder, "you've talked about this girl all the time, and now you don't even want to cuddle with her? You're not virgin, are you?"

This had made both us embarrassed and made me pretty angry at him, but I dropped it after a little while. Getting into a fight with Nine was pointless, now that were all so close together and needed to work as a team in order to wake Lorien from his hibernation and restore our home.

But first, we needed to find Number Five. And Sam Goode, my best friend still trapped somewhere with the U.S. government.

When we ran from the government facility in New Mexico, we'd teleported back to America with the help of Eight, who had a pretty good knack for finding blue Loric transportation stones. After a run-in with Setratus Ra that almost cost us Ella and Sarah, there was no time to try and find him in the prison cells.

But I will not abandon my best friend, no matter what I have to do to find him and get him safe.

Just like Sarah, he's only human. They don't have Legacies like we do, and they barely stand a chance against their government, much less the Mogodorians trying to conquer their planet, and every planet in the universe. I've gotten myself mixed in with them and fallen in love with Sarah, and now I have to keep them alive at any and all costs of my own.

"Hey you," Sarah's blue eyes open groggily as she smiles at me, planting a soft kiss on my cheek, "did you sleep any last night?"

I just shrug. Even though the couple of times I've allowed myself to sleep have been dreamless of run-ins with Setruatus Ra, it still makes me uneasy to sleep. These run-ins are horribly and haunting realistic if not completely real in a sense, and the reality of them gets harsher each time I wake up.

I kiss Sarah back, though, glad she's at my side again. Nine did have a point; I did think about her and talk about her a lot when she was at the Mogs mercy. They will pay for what they've done to her, to Sam, and to all of us.

Loud banging on the bedroom door makes both of us jump, and Sarah grips my arm before I hear a familiar laugh, "Wakey wakey!"

"Nine…" I grumble under my breath, rolling off of the bed and pulling on a fresh shirt from my Chest as Sarah makes her way into the bathroom to straighten out her own clothes and fix her hair.

As I make my way into the kitchen, I see that Marina and Ella have been cooking. Three plates of eggs are on the large wooden table that is set off to the side of the Spanish-tile kitchen island and the rest of the kitchen. Out of the entire house, the kitchen/dining room section is nicest, simply because the tiles and the light from the big window just in front of the table gives it a more modern feel.

"Good morning," Ella chirps, and I smile to her weakly as I sit down beside Six, who seems to be attempting to inhaule her plate of food.

"Remember to breathe," I joke lightly, but she doesn't pay much attention.

When I taste the food, I can't blame her for not responding.

"Where did you learn to cook like this?" I know Marina was in a orphanage for most of the time here on Earth, but I have to say, the cooking skills she apparently picked up there were impressive.

"We had to work the kitchen a lot," there's a certain edge to her voice, one that says she's glad to be free but one that also says it was familar to her.

All of us are soon sitting at the table, savoring the taste and the sunrise. We're apparently all used to waking up at the crack of dawn, even though we're actually not, meaning we're all decent enough to eat at the very least. It surprises me that Nine seems to most awake out of all of us; I would think he'd sleep in the most. Then again, I don't understand how his minds works, and I've been longsense trying to stop trying too.

"So, where is Five now, Johnny Boy?" Nine asks after shoving another piece of toast in his mouth, making Marina and Ella both recoil a little as I pull out my tablet again, scanning the screen for a moment.

"It looks like in South America," holding up the screen, I let others study it for a moment. Eight is the first to break out into a wide grin as he gets to his feet, tipping his plate in the sink quickly and running a hand through his black curls.

"Well then," he suddenly announces, "what are we waiting for? Let's hit the road!"

Apparently the Mogodorian I killed early had some friends.

A lot of friends.

I am struggling with my wounds, and they seem to notice it. They are clawing at my blind sides, laughing manically and seeming to enjoy toying with me. Clenching my fists to my side, I start wrestling around with my all, not caring it's opening wounds that are still fresh. Somehow, I manage to kill most of them before I find an opening.

Ducking between the Mogodorian's legs just as he was about to attack my blood-drenched back, I manage to knock it out of his grasp and slash his own back. Ash covers me as I make history of the few remaining, smirking as I do so at their surprise and franticness to live.

But the smirk is short lived; I'm wounded even worse than before.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see who appears to be the lone surrvior of the fight disappearing. He knows that I'm pretty much helpless, and that's going to end up getting me killed. I know that I just got here from across the ocean, but now I'm going to have to move again unless I want to die. It's a shame, too: I actually thought for a moment I was actually to like living in this place for a little while.

It can't be helped that I'm hunted, though.

I try to shove this emotions back down as I stumble to my feet. The bleeding has stopped considerably, and I'll be able to walk a little, at least to find shelter for the night. By daybreak, though, I'll be headed somewhere else again, hopefully unnoticed by the humans who live here.

Now my only concerns are where I'm going, how I'll get there, and how fast I can get knocked off the map.