After a while, I decided to take the word:

“Hebe... may I ask you something?”

I could watch her black silhouette nodding.

“What was your relation to Sam?”

***

After a few seconds of silence, she answered:

“He is... was my fiancé.”

I didn’t really know what to say, so I just responded with “I’m sorry.”

She smiled sadly.

“He knew the risk. We all do.”

Well, I didn’t, but I didn’t say it out loud. I hadn’t known that people could die on missions.

“Is there many Coders who... die?”

I think she could hear the fear in my voice, ‘cause she quickly assured me:

“No, not from our organization. Sam... This is the first death we’ve had for two years, but of course there is a risk. And...”

She didn’t continue, and I was too scared to speak. How did I ever get mixed up in this?

We left the cottage as quickly as possible the next morning.

I hadn’t slept much, but it seemed like nobody had. But the food, warmth and water had given us new energy, so I felt fresh enough to ask Rainie a question.

“Miss Z10, where is our destination? And how are we going to find that... memory? Ella said it could be anyth...”

“We don’t know exactly who stole Y10’s memory. But we know he hasn’t destroyed it – yet – and due to some information Y5 provided us with, it should be hidden around here. Y10 had just been on a mission about... no, that’s not important, but we have reason to believe that his memory is very well guarded. So be aware,” Rainie firmly explained, but it had actually just given me more to speculate about.

A few hours later, we were walking in a forest nearly on top of a mountain. I wondered why we couldn’t have driven or biked all the way. Would have been much easier. But maybe this was a part of the ‘graduation’.

Rainie stopped so suddenly that I, who walked behind her, almost bumped into her.

“Ssh!” she hushed.

We sneaked our way after her between the trees. I couldn’t hear what she followed, or see why she turned in exactly here. But Ella, Selina and Hebe were all listening closely too.

“It’s here...” Rainie stopped in front of a huge rock. Jolin, Janosch and I kept in the background while the four girls examined the rock. I got a bizarre urge to laugh, but kept silent.

Ella followed a crevice in the rock with her finger, and it lit up. They stepped back to silently watch it melt away and reveal a hole in the ground. It was so deep that I couldn’t see the bottom.

“Do we have to... jump down?” I asked.

“What else?” Janosch rolled his eyes.

“But how do we know if this is the right place?” I stubbornly demanded to know.

“Good question. We can’t know. But Y5’s information has led us to this forest, and the rock had been placed here at least 48 hours ago, so we are pretty sure.” Rainie didn’t even look at me while answering.

“But what if there’s someone down there already?”

“Then you should prepare your little princess to fight... or at least defend yourself, Miss Can’t-sleep-in-a-dead-man’s-house,” Janosch mocked.

I scowled at him, but panicked inside at the same time.

“Eww, a spider!” Jolin suddenly shouted, and jumped back from where she was standing.

“Don’t worry, I’ll kill it,” Janosch smirked.

“No!” I yelled, and jumped in front of it. When he stood still in astonishment, I kneeled down and picked the spider up.

“What the heck are you doing?” he exclaimed.

I walked a few meters away and let the spider down again before I walked back.

“If you like killing innocent creatures, you should join Sam’s murderer. Isn’t one death enough?”

“But it’s only a spider! Nasty little...”

“It is just as alive as you are!”

“Yeah, but it’s stupid and clammy...”

“Then you two have even more in common.”

Jolin giggled silently. Janosch couldn’t find a way to talk back.

Without a warning, Rainie jumped down in the hole. We heard her hit the bottom three seconds later, which meant an awfully long way to fall.

“Are you okay?” Selina yelled.

“Yes, just follow one by one!” Rainie shouted back. Her voice made an echo.

Selina jumped down, and when we had heard her land, Ella followed.

When Hebe also had jumped down, Janosch, Jolin and I looked at each other.

“Who goes first?” Jolin asked.

“I go last,” Janosch immediately said.

“I don’t care,” I declared, which was more than true.

Then Jolin jumped down, and I followed.

Three seconds may not sound as much, but if you’re falling, it’s a scary long time.

I hit the ground hardly, and my legs gave way under my weight. I moaned over the pain in my knees and got on my feet. A bump behind me told me that Janosch now had joined us as the last.

It was all dark in the tunnel; I couldn’t see my own hands, and definitely not the six persons around me.

“Can’t someone make some light?” I had never heard Janosch that frightened.

“Can’t you do it yourself if you need it?” I asked back.

“I-it’s not that easy...”

“Is it not?” I asked surprised.

“No, Miss Wu, it isn’t. Either you have to conjure up a flash light or something else that can light up, call for one or set fire to an object you already have,” Rainie explained.

“Then why don’t you do it?” Janosch broke in.

“I... I can’t do it when it’s so dark... If Master Na had been here, he could’ve done it, but it doesn’t matter. We don’t need light, it’s only a tunnel.”

“But...”

“Mr. Feng, do it yourself if you can.”

Janosch kept silent, and I wondered why darkness made it harder to make light. It was kind of unpractical.

“Hey, wait!” I suddenly remembered something. I thought the sentence “I need light”, and the silver ring lit up.

“Thanks!” Janosch hugged me. I had gotten quite a big suspicion that he was afraid of the dark.

It only took five minutes to reach the end of the tunnel. Halfway through the ceiling, walls and floor had changed from earth to rock, and I suspected that we were inside the mountain.

That thought was proved right when a big dripstone cave opened up in front of us. Somewhere the rocks were luminous, so I made the ring turn off its light.

I had been walking in front since I lit up the tunnel, and now I felt incredibly insecure. Especially when I heard something move...

“Gui Gui! Look out!”

Rainie’s yell from behind warned me early enough for me to avoid the attack. She blocked it and sent a new curse back at the attacker.

But there was not only one, but three, and they all attacked from different angles. I had thrown myself down to the floor when Rainie warned me, and could now only catch glimpses of what was going on, as I didn’t dare to stand up.

I could see the silhouettes of the others cast spells and running around, and I tried to see who were attacking us.

From their body builds, I could only figure out that it was three men. Even though they were less than us, their Skills didn’t stand back.

“Gui Gui? Where’s she?” I heard Hebe yell right next to me. I poked her leg, and she jumped to the side in shock. Through the noise of curses and spells, attacks and defences, I made her know that I was alright.

“Get the teddy bear! Hurry, the teddy!” she shouted, right before blocking and returning the attack from a man who was alarmingly near.

I looked in the direction she had pointed, and saw a teddy bear thrown away in a corner; one of the men – didn’t he look familiar? – was standing not many meters from it and kept Ella and Janosch from coming closer.

I saw Janosch fall from an attack, and Hebe took over his place. I crawled out near the rock walls and waited until the two girls had gotten him a bit more away from the corner. Rainie and Jolin were in a chaotic fight with one of the men, one with a blue cap on. When I carefully and as invisible as possible crawled along the wall, I saw Selina fight a man on her own, and this one had a red cap. I thought about attacking him unexpectedly from the side, but I couldn’t make myself do it, the same way I couldn’t let Janosch kill the spider.

So I crawled on, behind the man Hebe and Ella were fighting. I tried to figure out why he looked familiar, but his black cap was pulled down over his forehead and cast a shadow over his face so it was impossible to see.

I was only a few meters away; Selina finally hit the man she was fighting, he fell to the ground; Jolin had got hit, Rainie was fighting alone; Hebe and Ella kept distracting the black capped man from noticing me...

Right when I had put the teddy under my jacket – I had now realized how obvious it was that it was the memory we were searching for – the black capped made Ella and Hebe fall backwards, and before they got on their feet again, he had noticed me.

“No!” he yelled, and shot a curse at me. It swept through the air with a whistling sound, looked like a golden sparrow...

I screamed out in pain when he hit my left shoulder, and without thinking, I made a hand move towards him; the next thing I heard was another person’s scream, or was it my own? I fell and fell...

I was lying on something... soft. But... arg. My head hurt. And my shoulder...

I kept my eyes closed. What would I see when I opened them?

But I couldn’t be in the cave anymore, then I would be lying on a rough rock floor. And this felt like soft blankets.

I heard voices.

“Mr., you can’t see her yet, she has to rest...”

“No! I have to see if she is okay!”

The voice sounded familiar... but it couldn’t be...?

“I assure you that she is... will be. Soon. We will prevent the curse from spreading through her body...”

“Will? That means she’s still in danger?”

Someone brutally pushed someone else away outside and opened the door. I didn’t dare to look up.

He stopped. I could hear him breathe, even though it sounded like he still was a few meters away.

“What is it? Is he okay?” Someone ran in behind him. This voice I couldn’t get wrong; it was Genie.

“Aaron, answer me! Is she okay?”

It really was him. I couldn’t believe it.

But he didn’t answer.

I could feel Genie sit down on my bed and take my hand.

“Gui Gui, wake up!” she exclaimed.

I opened my eyes, and looked up at Genie’s teary ones. I looked to my left and saw Aaron stare at me. I smiled slightly to him, but then had to make a painful grimace when a of pain went through my shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” Aaron immediately asked.

“Nothing,” I shook my head.

“Yeah, right. Like a Garrow curse doesn’t hurt. I’ll get the doctor.” He was nearly back to his old, commanding self, and walked out of the room.

Genie poured some water in a cup and helped me sit up. I took it and drank the water.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I have no idea. You all came back about half an hour ago, and you were unconscious, along with a boy I don’t know. Jolin could hardly walk.”

“How did we get home?”

“I saw them arrive on motor cycles, and when I saw you, Jolin and that boy on the back of the others’ motor cycles, we were afraid something was wrong.” A tear dropped from her eye.

“Who are ‘we’?”

“Well, all of us who were waiting for your return... Me, Master Na, some other Coders, Aaron and Jiro,” she said.

“Jiro? Why Jiro?”

“He is Jolin’s trainer, you know. The trainers had to be there when you arrived.”

I had to keep silent when a new strike of pain hit my shoulder, and Aaron came back with the doctor. He gave me some medicine, and I fell asleep.

***

Preview:

-

Even though the door was closed, I could hear them clearly.

"Aaron? Were you really worried about Gui Gui?"

-

"They're okay, but... Janosch, he..."

***

Wow, thanks for the comments :D It made me so extremely incredibly extraordinarily abnormally fantastically happy to read them all <3

As some of you are a bit confused with the Codes, I’ll make a short list of what NAMED Coders we have until now:

Z1 (Master) – Jack Na

Z7 – Sam (Hebe’s fiancé) (dead)

Z9 – Aaron

Z10 – Rainie

Z11 – Jiro

Z12 – Ella

Z13 – Hebe

Z14 – Selina

Y57 - George

X5 – Janosch Feng

X9 – Jolin

X32 – Gui Gui

Receptionist - Fiona

But some of it will change through the story, so I can maybe post a new list whenever something is changed or added? :) if you’d like to...

Anyways, I hope this chapter was satisfying :b since you had to wait for it.

And it would make me extremely incredibly extraordinarily abnormally fantastically happy if you left a comment, just a small one :D

<3

- Blitz