Phantom drooped his shoulders in despair at Ronan's bland goals. "Come on, you're no fun."Ronan sighed and pulled out his cellphone, surprised at how long he'd left it untouched. It had been three days since he was kidnapped, the days painfully carved into the soft walls of his mind as a haunting reminder, a countdown clock ticking too slow for his liking.Just three days had been an eternity and a half.To his relief, his phone couldn't share in his suffering and still had a good amount of power, sitting snug at thirty six percent. He turned it off again, weakly rising to his feet as the cloak of Iridis, and every homely memory he'd ignorantly spent, dragging his shoulders into a curled slouch, his eyes barely open as its cold hood sang a headache to life.He'd gone through more traumatizing situations in those three days than the entire list from sitting in his empty house on Earth. To him, getting off the planet had topped winning the lottery ten times over and adopting a tiger cu

The ghost sighed, waiting for Ronan's attention before drifting to the middle of the room. It stopped at the thick desk, bending down to try and fit its large mass underneath the cramped space. After a couple shuffles and uncomfortable wiggles, there was a click, and the shadow came back out to reveal a secret hatch in the floor it opened, the gleaming smile still platered to its dead face.Ronan smiled nervously at its unfaltering joy, dipping his head in thanks before looking down into the hatch. Sure enough there was a glossy white stone, and some extra guests had woven the beautiful object a less than complimentary dress of thick cobwebs."There it is!" Phantom cheered, causing Ronan to jump and smack his head on the panel of wood. "Now, take it out and put it in the white circle in front of that bare wall over there."Ronan gave the rock a fearfully disgusted look and failed to move, his fear ridden gaze falling on Phantom."What's wrong?"He gave the thick spiderwebs a long hard

After a chaotic hunt through the bustling corridors, Talli's guardian Mi'karu had bowled over a sizeable swath of students hounding down Veronica's scent, and Ronan had definitely lost a couple potential friends by clumsily running into them while dragging a hyperventilating Truvius behind him.Now they were silently standing before the pair, sharing in their diverging form of discontent. Veronica was holding him down in cold silence while Cinder sang to Puff, and Red had a soured frown on his face that somehow tacked on a couple extra years to his features.But the only thing that mattered to Ronan was their focus.Him.He chuckled nervously in the tense silence thrummed with Truvius' incessant panting, holding out the fluffy and purring cat to Red with a faltering smile.Red immediately grabbed her, but she was quick to protest, latching onto Ronan's sleeve with an audible groan of displeasure. He stared at her with more irritation than confusion, giving the cat a light jiggle as he

Ronan was now standing in the middle of the school's field, surrounded by his fellow classmates and the green-uniformed students they were paired up with. They hadn't gone back to the forest since the first day of school, most likely due to the fact that Mrs. Vienta had gotten her weekly dose of mini heart attacks that day, and didn't want to risk any more.In fact, this was the third time they had even gone outside, since they were put through extensive safety protocols for practically everything. Ronan soaked in the brunt of the blame, but through the whispers and playful jabs he honestly couldn't tell if his classmates hated him for it or were still laughing and waiting for him to screw up again, like he was doing in all the other classes.Mrs. Vienta was giving the class a run down on her idea of a game, with eight menacingly large Molves sitting beside her.These ones seemed bigger, and they didn't have giant openings in their chests anymore.After a quick skim of his peers, it w

The ruined cathedral was dark, only giving form to unrecognizable shadows that played tricks on the eye as even the slightest bit of movement would give them life in the sight of caution. Alestra protested the idea to light up the path, as any lurking Molve would be able to plan an ambush on them from a mile away, so they were forced to stumble in the dark. The creepy and consistent dripping of water travelling through the dead halls like an ominous call.Phantom was a different story, he could coordinate his way in the dark like it was midday, and pointed out a number of concealed stones to Ronan, which was helpful, but also made him feel a twinge of cheating guilt as they racked up on points his group wasn't responsible for.The trio tip toed through the stone halls, cringing at the smallest sound they made, since it travelled further than a chunk of juicy gossip tossed to a hoard of famished valley girls. They had gone into a basement of sorts, where they found a small webbed room