chapter 4

Gabbie arched her brows, "which is?" She inquired

"Simple", he smiled "girls are weak".

She flew off the handle, all her pent up anger spilled "I swear to god Derrick I'll pull out all your hair!"

She charged towards him in anger but Jason blocked her path.

Her anger sprung "what are you doing!? Let me go! I'll kill this bastard!"

Derrick made faces at her while she struggled with Jason.

Eiden stared at them with a wry smile, they were like siblings, always fighting and quarreling with each other.

He averted his eyes to their surroundings. The land was grass filled, the trees were scarce and no houses in sight. The sun shone brightly not harshly and light clouds filled the sky.

Wisher's Death is a multiplayer game, they were fortunate that there were no players nearby, else they'll get killed and start all over.

Eiden looked back to them, still squabbling.

"You guys know we're sitting ducks right?" No weapon, no spells, they were simply preys waiting to be dissipated. 

He continued, "we've got no armor or shield, this is an open space, if we get caught here like this, we'll be killed and asked to start all over and you know there's not going to be another chance", they couldn't afford one.

Their squabble ceased, Gabbie folded her arms and looked away "you guys should warn Derrick, if he calls me weak one more time I'll shave him bald"

"Pfft, you couldn't even if you tried," Derrick scoffed.

"We need to focus," said Eiden, "I'm not sure why we didn't appear at a town square or a habited area but we need to find one soon. Another thing is, these skills and limitations we were given".

"Right" Jason cut in "I don't get it at all, I've been given lightning summon with no limitation"

"Mine's mind manipulation put I can only use it five times in a day" said Gabbie

"Spacetime manipulator, limitation deterioration. Oh great!" said Derrick sarcastically.

"And mine, swordmaster with my blood as my weakness. These must be the abilities of our characters, in other words, us".

"You've got it good Jason" said Derrick, his voice laced with envy. "You're the only one without a limit. In fact! You've all got it good, if I use my ability, I deteriorate. Not fair at all" he complained.

"Sounds pretty fair to me" said Gabbie "dumb ability for a dumb person"

Derrick ignored her. He had the ability to cut through time and space, if anything, his ability should be termed toughest.

"So now what?" He asked

"Isn't it obvious, we find a town or village, find props or loot and level up" Jason replied

"Right, we've already wasted enough time," Eiden added.

"System close" said Gabbie and the screen disappeared just as she predicted.

They all closed their systems and looked around. They had no map and didn't know where to start the journey from.

Just when they were about concluding the path to follow, the ground below them vibrated. They threw each other perplexed looks.

Again, the ground shook but this time more intensive than the last, almost like something was heading their way fast. It caused them to lose balance and they staggered a bit.

They looked all around, trying to decipher where the vibration was coming from. The ground rumbled again but this time there was no space for them to get their balance, the ground shook continuously.

At a distance, a far distance, there was what seemed like a wave of dust. It couldn't have been a sand storm, the area wasn't barren.

Eiden's heart dropped in terror. His mind raced and his eyes widened at the sight.

"It's a stampede," he muttered hoarsely under his breath.

Though it was far, it was coming closer fast. At this time, they all saw the stampede approaching but couldn't make any immediate response.

"What are we going to do?" Gabbie asked, the rumbling under her feet incite fear in her and the sight of the stampede caused her heart to beat out of rhythm.

"W-we have to run" Jason stuttered.

With only one solution in mind, they picked their heels. Running forward. 

Panting endlessly, they ran for their lives, literally; if they got trampled upon and died they would automatically log out and they would live with regret forever.

"This is so damn exciting" said Derrick in one breath. His heart was filled with fear as well as excitement.

The rest ignored his statement, they were too busy running.

Why did they spend so much time earlier? They would have avoided this. They couldn't even run well because of the rumbling, and the stampede was getting close. But what was the stampede? Eiden asked himself.

Still running, he glanced behind. In that moment, his heart dropped further down at the sight of what caused the stampede. Fear was an understatement for what he felt inside.

By reflex, his speed increased.

Behind, amidst the wave of dust were large beasts with black coarse skin and an ugly structure, almost nine feet tall. He could've been mistaken but he saw that they all had six legs with heavily clawed feet and possessed the body and head of a Mammoth with gnarled horns sticking out their heads.

The beasts were larger and faster but the four were determined to live. 

Unlike the guys, Gabbie was oddly running behind them. Eiden reduced his pace to match hers, he felt like they were leaving her behind.

It started to feel like it's been hours, the beasts were closing in on them. fatigue washed all over them but they couldn't bring themselves to stop running.

Though they were already close to death, Eiden had an uneasy feeling.

At that moment, still running, he looked up. A good amount of small diamond shaped crystals started falling from the sky.

Eiden didn't have enough breath to speak for long so he just shouted "look up!".

They did and instantly knew they were supposed to dodge the crystals all while running from the beast stampede that was already fast approaching.

They also had to dribble around the crystals that had already reached the ground, it slowed their speed. 

It was almost impossible, maintaining speed while jumping across crystals and dodging the ones that fell. No matter how she tried, Gabbie could only focus on the ones on the ground.

Eiden saw the crystal, he tried to warn her but, alas! She looked up, lifted her hand in a protective form over head by reflex.

The very instant the crystal touched her hand, blue hue hovered around her, she warped and instantly disappeared without a trace.

"GABBIE!" Jason screamed at the top of his lungs.