The Adventures of Rin and Aya

Raf kneeled down next to the two sleeping girls huddled underneath their blankets for warmth. “Come on girlies…time to get up!” Rin and Aya continued on sleeping, not fazed even a little bit by Raf’s wake up call. With a sly smile he stood back up and nodded at Soren who stood next to him. In no more than two seconds Raf grabbed onto their blankets, yanked them off of the two girls leaving them completely exposed, and Soren quickly sent a stream of ice cold water towards them.

As soon as the water hit them they both sat up, gasping and wide eyed due to the coldness. Setting her eyes on Raf, Aya quickly snapped out of her shock instantly and jumped up with the deadliest glare that she could muster. “AUGH! YOU STUPID JERK!! I AM GOING TO KILLYOU FOR THIS!!” She launched herself at him and with large eyes he turned and ran the other way, Aya following close behind with a fist raised in the air.

“Will you two stop fighting please?” asked Chase in a slightly annoyed tone of voice. “Aya and Rin, get yourselves cleaned up. Everyone else get packed and wake up the others. Raf and Soren, if I was you I’d run as fast as I could and try to get as far away from here as possible because when Ra’ Shari hears about what you did to the girls she really is going to kill you.”

Gulping in fear, Raf heeded Chase’s advice and continued on his way, trying to find a good hiding place where he could stay for one or two or twelve hours before Ra’ Shari calmed down and Soren quickly followed after him.

“SOREN!!! RAFAEL!!!!!!! At that cue they both picked up speed.

~The Next Day~

“Shouldn’t we be there yet?!” Luka lazily somersaulted in the air and sighed in frustration. “It’s been two days just like you said Ra’ Shari but we still haven’t reached our destination.”

She turned her head in his direction, narrowing her eyes in annoyance. “Well maybe if you spent more time flying and less time whining we would get there faster!”

“I don’t think that will be necessary.” Everyone turned to look at Chase. “Look,” he said as he pointed ahead of them. Sure enough, there was the place that they had been trying to reach for days.

---

“What is it?” asked Rin as her and Aya crowded closer to Ra’ Shari. Shortly after spotting their destination they reached it and landed.

Everyone was staring at the “building” if you could even call it that with large eyes and mouths hanging open as their necks were craned backwards. “I have no idea,” replied Ra’ Shari. Just in front of them stood an enormous hedge like structure that was at least a good ten feet tall, and it appeared to go on for miles no matter whether you looked to your right or your left.

“I think,” Chase started. “I think it’s…a maze.”

“A maze?” Micah gave the blonde man a look. “What the hell would a maze be doing just sitting out in the middle of the forest?” Shrugging, Chase blew off the cold remark, but not before narrowing his eyes and shooting Micah a look of his own.

Standing a little ways away from the group Sin sighed lightly. “Well are we going to go inside and find whatever it is that we came here for, or are we just going to stand here all day staring at it?”

“What?! We’re going INSIDE that thing?!” Rin screeched.

“Yeah,” agreed the pink haired Aya. “Haven’t you guys ever seen Harry Potter? People died!!”

Ra’ Shari bit her lip and contemplated this thought for a few seconds. “They’re right. We don’t know what’s in there and there is no point in risking their lives if its something dangerous. I say we leave them outside, and just to make sure they are safe out here too we should have someone stay with them.”

“You are absolutely right!” Micah pointed out. “And that is why YOU are going to stay out here with them,” he said, jabbing her in the shoulder with his finger. She protested defiantly, but she was quickly silenced when he held up his hand. “You just said so yourself that it might be dangerous, so what makes you think I’m going to let you just waltz on in there?”

Her hand quickly latched onto the thin chain around her neck and she held up the golden pendant. “Because I have this. If there is life threatening danger I can use the pendant to transport us all out of there safely and quickly.”

“She has a point,” Raf butted in as he popped his head up over Micah’s shoulder, but he retreated when the older man shot him a nasty glare.

“I agree. And I too feel uneasy about letting her come with us, but Amaranta wouldn’t have sent us on this mission if she felt it was too dangerous so I say that we take her with us.” Micah mocked Chase under his breath, but he quietly agreed even though his tone of voice said that if they were wrong he was going to kill someone.

The blonde woman squealed in excitement, nearly choking him when she threw her arms around his neck in a tight hug, and she gave him a big kiss on his right cheek. “Thank you Micah! Thank you thank you thank you!!”

“Yeah yeah,” he said while crossing his arms over his chest, still not happy with the decision but it was slowly ebbing away as he saw how excited Ra’ Shari was.

“So who’s going to stay behind with them? We definitely need Chase and Raf because I doubt there will be any light in there, and since we’re dealing with darkness Sin would be more than helpful. He would be even more helpful if he could see in the dark…” The woman didn’t know the full extent of their new powers, so she thought it was fitting to ask and see if Sin was capable of such a thing.

Sin pushed off against the tree he had been leaning against with a smirk. “I’ll lead,” he said as he casually strolled towards the entrance which was a simple archway cut out of the hedge roughly the same size as a door. Ra’ Shari took this as a yes.

“And since we’re dealing with a hedge made up of leaves, and twigs, and vines, and other things I think nature boy here would be useful as well.” Luka beamed at the thought of being useful to the group and he started rocking back and forth on his heals, barely able to contain his excitement. “That leaves Micah and Soren.”

“Excuse me?” Micah asked with raised eyebrows. “Did I actually just hear you consider me to be the one staying out here to watch them? If you honestly think that’s going to happen then you obviously have some brain damage because there is no way I am letting you put even so much as a toe into the maze without me!”

Ra’ Shari looked over at Soren with an apologetic look on her face. “Sorry, but it looks like you’re going to have to be the one to stay out here and protect them.”

Shrugging nonchalantly Soren walked over to one of the nearby over-sized trees and sat down, his back pressed up against the trunk. “If it means that I don’t have to get killed by whatever is in there then it’s fine by me.”

“Can we go now?” Everyone that was going into the maze made their way over to Sin who had already been standing next to the entrance for a while. “To help prevent anyone from getting lost put your hand on the shoulder of the person in front of you.” Sin was first, followed by Luka, and then Chase. Just after him was Micah, who refused to remove his arm from around Ra’ Shari’s waist, and just after them was Raf at the very end of the line.

Just before entering, Sin closed his eyes tightly and everyone could practically see his eyes moving around almost as if he had rolled them into the back of his head, but when he opened them they saw that his pupils had become elongated, resembling those of a cat. “Here we go.” They cautiously started making their way to the left since it was the only way they could go. With his “night vision” Sin was able to see farther ahead than the others, and he was able to pick his way around any dead ends that they might have encountered. The fire and light that Raf and Chase provided allowed the others to see their immediate surroundings, but in the long run it wouldn’t really help them maneuver their way around the maze.

For almost five minutes they walked through the twisting hallways of the maze, occasionally holding a debate on which way they should go if they were given the option. Besides their voices the only noise that could be heard was the hedge walls shaking and quivering almost as if a breeze was hitting it. At first it had unnerved the group, but when nothing threatening happened they settled slightly.

By now Raf was starting to get impatient. “Who else thinks it would be smarter to split up into two groups so we could cover more ground?”

Ra’ Shari’s eyes flashed as she craned her head around to look at him. “Are you crazy? We can’t split up in a place like this! If we split up it’s going to be too difficult trying to find each other again. And didn’t you hear Jonan say that we shouldn’t get separated?”

“Hmm, must have missed that part,” Raf responded sarcastically.

“Ra’ Shari’s right though. It’s too dangerous to split up, especially for the group that wasn’t with Sin. He would be able to tell if there was a bottomless pit ten feet in front of us, but the other group wouldn’t notice until they’ve fallen in.” Chase made a compelling argument that Ra’ Shari agreed with.

“Then we’ll flip a coin to see who gets him in their group,” offered Raf.

Sin groaned in annoyance and rubbed his temples lightly. “Look, we are not going to flip a coin to see who’s group I’m in, and we are NOT going to split--” All of a sudden the hedge wall to their left practically jumped up from the ground and veered towards them with immense speed. Micah instantly released Chase’s shoulder and pulled his arm into his body as he pushed Ra’ Shari and Raf backwards.

Just as suddenly as the hedge moved, it stilled after connecting itself to the wall on their right. “What is going on?” Ra’ Shari asked in a quivering voice as she pressed herself closer to Micah. At the moment she really wished that she had listened to him when he told her to wait outside.

He continued to stare at the dark green hedge wall in front of him, not sure if he could even begin to answer her question. “I think,” he stated in a low voice. “We’ve just gotten separated in a maze that’s alive.”