“Oh, how romantic,” a sneering voice said. Only a few meters from us.

***

I got a shock and pulled away from Aaron. I tried to gaze into the darkness to see who was talking.

I thought in my head: “I need leading light.”

The Ring’s green light made a clear ray into the darkness behind a silhouette of a man. But it didn’t light up his face.

I swung my leg over the motorbike to jump off, but my legs had gone numb from sitting still for so long, so I stumbled and fell on my knees.

While I silently grumbled and got on my feet, I could hear Aaron behind me. He had parked the bike and stood off.

“Who’s there?” he shouted. But the answer came from behind us.

“Shouldn’t we make a guessing show?” a voice whispered right into my ear. In shock, I jumped to the left and only kept myself from screaming because of my fright for showing how afraid I really was.

How did he walk around without a single sound? Every sound was louder in the night, but he didn’t make any.

But I recognized that voice…

“George? What are you doing here?” My surprise and confuse must’ve been obvious, as he started laughing. For a short moment I hoped rather than believed that he was just making fun of us.

“You are faster than I thought.” But his voice wasn’t the usual, cheerful, happy and light tone. This tone was hoarser and deeper, and the effect was scary rather than encouraging.

“Wait… George Hu, Y57?” Aaron disbelieving asked.

“I’m not Y57 anymore, stupid. I can act like the good cafeteria-boy when I have to, which is a good way to catch information from various conversations.” I couldn’t see George, but I could imagine his mocking expression.

“W-what do you mean?” I stammered. Not being able to see who I was talking to made me quite unsecure. Okay, that was an understatement.

And I knew that the Flower Ring was so near…

The Silver Ring heated up by its longing for the ‘friend’. It wanted to show me the direction.

“What I mean?” George was suddenly right in front of me. I hadn’t heard him move. “I mean that if I showed my real powers, I would be a top Z Coder. But why should I do that when spying is much easier when being a weak Y Coder?”

I could nearly hear him smirk. I held my breath.

“So you are spying on our organization?” Aaron had turned back to his professional, firm mood.

“You’re not as fast as your girlfriend.” George was suddenly behind Aaron, but Aaron stood still while I gasped in shock.

“And that is why I will let her go, continue, while you aren’t that lucky…”

I turned around and thought: “Give me light.”

My Ring lit up, but as George and Aaron didn’t seem to notice, I concluded that only I could see the light. Which was what I had wanted.

We were closely surrounded by the forest, deep inside it. But we stood on the path where another slim path led deeper in between the trees and bushes. I still wished this was a nightmare.

George was about to drag something from his belt. Something that looked like…

A huge, black sword. But it wasn’t a sword, it was a…? Arg, if I had just studied weapons when Aaron had told me to, instead of dozing off and dreaming about him…

And now it looked like George was planning to… not letting Aaron go. Finish him.

Aaron stared straight into the (for him) darkness, and George was right behind him. He had a black cap on.

“You!” I half screamed. “You cast that curse on Janosch!”

George looked in my direction, but his sight in dark was clearly better than Aaron’s. He found the silhouette of my face after searching for a few seconds, and looked straight at me.

“And cast the Garrow curse on me…” I whispered.

“Garrows and Endless Sleep-curses are my specialities. Actually a few hours ago, I sent another of your Z Coders on an endless dream… But that curse you sent back at me indeed wasn’t bad either. Never seen it before. What do you call it?”

I realized for how long we had been gone, gone from the head quarter, gone from everything. If we had been home now, we would probably have been studying a new, mysterious note, and here the answer was right in front of us.

“So you are the one who killed the others…? Wait, no. That was different persons. And… you weren’t working several days after my first mission when I sent that spell… at you,” I thought out loud. Keeping talking was my only way of getting time to figure out how we should get out of this trouble.

George grinned.

“You’re much smarter than I thought. Yes, it was No. 1 and No. 2 who killed Z7 and Z20. And now I have made Z19 join… what did you call him? Janosch? Whatever…”

“Why don’t you finish the top ten Coders first?” I asked him.

“No. 1 took Z7. And we aren’t busy. Better just frighten at first.” He talked about killing people like it was a game played with toy guns. Made me dizzy… that someone could be so cold-hearted.

“Who are ‘we’?” I just wanted him to keep talking. And if I could find some valuable information at the same time, it was just a bonus.

“Haha. I won’t tell you.” He showed me his tongue in a childish way, but then seemed to realize how stupid it was to do when it was all dark. Little did he know that I had light…

That I was able to see him while he couldn’t see me made me feel more secure. He was still standing behind Aaron. Aaron still stood as frozen and listened. Was he thinking of a way to get out of this?

“But as soon as we get back, I will tell everybody in the organization about who you really are,” I used all my courage to say.

George smiled in a weird way.

“Back? You’re not going back.” He slowly walked closer, taking his time for each step. When he was so near that I could smell his breath, he continued:

“Your future isn’t ‘back there’. It is with us. Become one of us, Wu Ying Jie, and you will get more power than you ever dreamed of.”

“I’ve never dreamt of power,” I coldly said. It was just about distracting him; I saw Aaron move in the background.

“Your pretty mouth can say that, but I know you’re lying. Everybody dreams about power,” George breathed.

“I’ve only had nightmares. About the terrible things power can cause when used by the wrong people.” I kept eye contact to distract him from Aaron. He should only see me…

Suddenly, something huge hit George in the back, and I just managed to move away before he was thrown forward. Aaron had sent some kind of silver bomb at him from behind, and was now watching as George got on his feet to examine the attacker.

He was breathing heavily, and quickly pulled his black some-kind-of-curved-sword to face Aaron. The two men were staring hardly at each other.

“So you think you can fight No. 3? Don’t be foolish.” George was standing on the small path, while Aaron was standing where the small path met the broader one. I stood behind George.

What time was it? Past midnight, way past. I wished that I really was at a movie night with my friends; but those kinds of things seemed to be farer away than ever.

And then suddenly, George disappeared, and appeared again right behind Aaron with his blade lifted…

“Aaron! Behind you!” I yelled, and Aaron turned around just in time to avoid being hit.

“How did you know that, little ?” George angrily shouted at me. Or, where he thought I was.

Aaron used the opportunity to attack again, but George shielded himself with the blade.

“Gui Gui, run! Find the ring!”

I followed Aaron’s command without further hesitation, as I really didn’t want to see more. I made the Ring show the light rays again and followed the green one.

I heard explosions and screams behind me as I moved forward towards the tender silence of the woods. These trees indeed didn’t yawn.

I was out of breath when the creepy silence was the only thing that surrounded me except for the forest. I couldn’t stop; I had to find the Flower Ring…

The green ray of light was stronger than ever, and led me further.

How did George end up like this? How could he be… evil?

He must’ve been controlled by someone else, I thought. I mean, he was one of my friends, and he was always so happy and careless. This couldn’t possibly be the George I knew.

But it was, a tiny little voice in my head said. It was…

I suddenly bumped into something and fell back on my . I got a shock before I realized that it was a tree. The hugest tree I had ever seen.

I immediately thought about one of H.C. Andersen’s fairytales. The one where the witch tells the soldier to climb down the hollow tree.

Could this be my hollow tree? Would the Flower Ring be guarded by three dogs with huge eyes?

I pushed the thought away and started walking around the tree. It was indeed hollow.

The green light ray pointed down, and the Silver Ring nearly burned. It hurt, but I didn’t have time to think about that now.

I had to think about how to find a way down. Had I ever learned that spell that could create a rope? I really needed a long line to hoist myself down.

“Uhm…” My own voice surprised me in the silence. A bird flied up from a bush.

 I closed my eyes tightly and thought intensely about the rope that I needed. I opened my eyes when I felt something in my hand.

The rope wasn’t… well, it wasn’t pretty, but it looked solid. With some practise I could maybe learn to make finer lines. If I survived this.

I slowly crawled down on the inside of the hollow tree. I had always wanted to try rappelling, but this wasn’t quite what I had expected. Especially because I had no kind of security equipment, only the line around my stomach.

I slowly went down as I held my breath in concentration. The green ray was now strong enough to light up the whole cave. I couldn’t see the bottom yet, and my arms were getting tired.

Finally, I could step down on the muddy ground. Old, withered leafs were covering the ground, all in different states of turning into soft dirt.

I sighed, but didn’t have time to catch my breath. I let the rope be, and lifted my hand to determine the direction. I didn’t have time to get lost.

Dirty water dropped down on my shirt. I went on through the underground tunnel. Frankly, I was getting a bit tired of tunnels, and especially their mysterious auras.

I had to bit my tongue to avoid the pain from the burning hot Ring. The good thing about it was that I knew I was getting closer.

I saw a lamp ahead. It shined with a yellow, weak light. Next to it was a door.

It was an old door made of wood. But the key hole was weird.

It was… round. And…

I heard a sound behind me. A bump, like someone hit the ground after climbing down my rope…

A feeling of angst that I had never known before hit me, and I completely panicked and pulled and pushed the door, but it wouldn’t open.

The sound of running steps became louder. Tears of panic started falling from my eyes, and I sobbed and yelled inside my head for the door to open, begged to god…

A hand grabbed mine, and I screamed the loudest I had ever done, before I completely broke down in tears and hiccups and tried to pull the person away, until I realized…

“Gui Gui! Gui Gui, calm down, it’s me, Aaron…”

I sniffled and was out of breath, and he hugged me to calm me down. I still sobbed.

“Don’t panic, I knocked Y57 down, he’s unconscious.”

I slowly caught my breath, and closed my eyes to regain my senses. When I didn’t hiccup anymore, I pulled away and dried my eyes. I took a deep breath and turned around toward the door again.

“I know much has happened these last two days. It’s understandable...” Aaron mumbled, and slid his fingers through my hair, standing behind me.

But he didn’t understand. He never freaked out like this, and probably never had. He was raised to be a professional fighter.

And I was… well, raised to marry someone who could take care of me the rest of my life when I was handed on to him by my parents. I should never need to take any responsibility through my whole life.

Aaron taught me to care about myself, I, who had always only cared for everybody else. And to take decisions by myself, take action. Maybe I secretly wanted it. But I wasn’t ready. Yet.

I studied the key hole. And then got an idea.

I placed the Silver Ring in the key hole and turned it till it fit perfectly. The door swung up.

We stepped in. It was a very small room with a tiny table in the middle. It only reached my knees, and a teacup was probably the biggest thing one could safely set on it. Now it held something smaller.

It looked so fragile that I barely dared to touch it. I looked at Aaron. He nodded.

I placed a finger on the table and tried the strength of it. It stood steady as a rock.

I placed both hands on it and tried to move it, but it stood just as solid.

I then dared to remove the white cloth, and revealed a small ring made of braided flower leafs from a forget-me-not.

I picked it up and looked at it. The Silver Ring finally cooled down.

“It is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” I whispered.

I put it on my smallest finger, and felt the most relaxing sort of stream going through my body and bringing all my cells to peace. This ring had been lonely for too long and rewarded me for bringing it company.

I got on my feet and took a deep breath.

The tiredness overtook my mind. But we still had to walk all the way back to the motorcycle and then drive all the way home. It would be Sunday before we were home…

The sky had started to lighten up a bit when we crawled up from the tree. It had that dusky blue colour that meant the sun was on its way up.

As we walked closer to the place where the motorbike was, I got more frightened. The forest spaced up a little – a very little – but enough for me to feel more exposed.

Had George gained conscious?

When we reached the place where the two paths met, he wasn’t there. There were burn traces of the fight, but no George. Completely disappeared.

“How the heck could he teleport himself? I’ve only heard of one person who’s done that before, and that was like 1000 years ago…” Aaron went to the motorbike while mumbling to himself, and I silently followed.

***

Someone is having a party nearby. Again. But this time I’m in my summerhouse, lol.

Yay! New computer!

So sorry for not updating for so long, but a new computer means installing a lot of stuff, not the least Word. So I haven’t really been able to write /:

Gosh I’m tired. Yaaaaaaawn………zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Gui Gui found the Flower Ring :D

But who is George working for?

Who are No. 1 and No. 2?

Will she be able to find the other three Rings?

And will Aaron finally admit that he likes her…?

Hehehe. I know all the answers. But read on to find out (:

Noooo! I don’t want to start school again on Monday!

I NEED more vacation! Seriously. Why has it gone so fast?!

Good night. Comments are very much loved (: <3

- Blitz

P.S. List of Coders:

Z1 (Master) – Jack Na

Z2 – Aaron’s dad

Z7 – Sam - Hebe’s fiancé – killed by No. 1 from ?

Z9 – Aaron

Z10 – Rainie

Z11 – Jiro

Z12 – Ella

Z13 – Hebe

Z14 – Selina

Z15 – Chun

Z16 – Calvin

Z19 – In endless sleep

Z20 – Killed by No. 2 from ?

Y8 – Gui Gui

Y12 - Jolin

Y57 - George

X5 – Janosch Feng (in endless sleep)

Receptionist - Fiona