1 Chapter 1: The Blue Orb

"Be quiet, they could hear us." A woman whispered to the nervous children hiding in the closet.

The sound of a heavy truck going by the worn-out house started to fade away. Everyone had their heads down, quietly waiting for someone to check the surroundings. From the corner of the room, an old man took a peek out the window. Finding nothing, he alerts everyone that it is clear and they are safe. Everyone sighed in relief as they slowly got off the ground and raised their heads.

"Don't you think this is a little dangerous? Having this many people up here?" Warren said concerningly to the village chief.

"A little sunlight and fresh air are good every now and then. After all, we still have the right to live, right?" The village chief replied without the slightest bit of concern and slowly walked away.

Everyone carefully makes their way out of the crumbling brick house and walks towards the water well, their underground bunker. While everyone is trying to get back to safety, Warren goes upstairs to scout for soldiers. He climbs on the ledge of the house for a better view. He doesn't see any coming from the north or east. The direction the heavy vehicles were coming from. He turns around, scouts south and west, but finds nothing either.

"Warren, dear, are you coming?"

"Yeah. I was just scouting and making sure we were actually safe." Warren replied while he got down from the ledge.

As he carefully made it out of the house, the surface of the ground started to rumble. In shock, he rushed back inside the house while the others rushed towards the water well. Warren quietly ran upstairs to scout. It was a truck filled with soldiers coming from the south side. Warren silently watched them as they made their way back towards the village. Warren grew nervous as the truck began coming to an abrupt stop at the center of their village.

"Here, I definitely heard someone here." Claimed a soldier from the back of the truck.

"Alright, let's go." The soldiers started to come out of the vehicle, opening doors for each other and passing weapons to one another. Their boss, Captain A, had a large scar vertically along the left side of his neck and wore a black uniform while the others wore dark green uniforms. They were getting ready to search the ghost town.

Warren started to slowly panic as he quietly made his way towards the other side of the house to get a view of the water well. Seeing that it was too far for him to sneak to, he desperately tried to find a place to hide while the soldiers were wandering around.

"Hey Boss, we found them. Over here!" A soldier shouted to his team and they all rallied to the spot.

Warren was shocked and nervous. He sneaked a peek outside and saw that they were headed towards the water well. In an attempt to save the others from being discovered, he jumped off of the second floor of the house and ran towards their truck.

"Over there, near our truck! I heard someone there!" The soldiers hurried back while Warren quickly searched their truck. With no luck in finding rare artifacts, alarmed and rushed, he quickly grabbed a blue orb from the truck and ran in the opposite direction of the well.

"Damn, they have someone with super hearing," Warren spoke to himself as he ran away from the soldiers.

Making it back to the truck, the boss gets in the driver seat and half of the soldiers jump inside while the others chase Warren on foot. The driver revs the truck and they take a sharp right turn towards the direction Warren had run off to.

"Hey boss, there's an artifact missing!"

"What?!" The boss shouted, then turned his head to check the inventory. He fixes his head to the road and shakes his head in irritation. He slams the wheel then lifts his right hand to press the earpiece in his ear and gives a command.

"Do not let him escape. I want him dead or alive. If he gets away with that artifact, then we're dead!"

Warren starts getting fired upon when the command is given. After the first couple of shots, he turned his head over his shoulder to see where they were. Seeing that the truck was coming from his left, he took a sharp turn to the right and into the forest.

"We're going to continue our pursuit through the forest. Drive around and corner him."

The soldiers communicated with one another before they entered the forest in an attempt to catch Warren. While the soldiers rapidly entered the forest, the truck drove past and to the other side of the forest. The soldiers ran towards the middle of the forest and found themselves lost.

"Where'd he go?" With no clear answer, they decide to disperse in different directions. "Say something when you find him."

Out of breath and trying to keep himself calm, Warren relaxes on a thick tree branch 50 ft in the air. He closes his eyes and tries to control his breathing as he rests the back of his head against the tree. He starts checking his surroundings then starts thinking about a way out of the forest without being detected.

"I hope they're fine and made it into the underground bunker." He reaches into his right pocket and pulls out the blue orb to inspect it. He gave a devious smirk. "Thanks for the artifact."

As he held the blue orb in front of him, the orb started to glow. Within seconds, the glow grew brighter and he found himself back at the village.