by Lee Morgan
By the time darkness took over the sky, they were all inside enjoying the company and laughing. Each person consumed half of their food supplies from their respective bags. Jillian used the outside snow to melt into clean drinking water. Sarah ate five of the freeze dried packages and saved the power bars for later. At about midnight they called it a night. Connor unraveled the sleeping bag and took the backside of the cramped room; sleeping together in the sleeping bag for two. Connor proved himself to be too tall to sleep completely straight, but he bent his knees and became reasonably comfortable. The other couples had the same idea. Mark and Kara slept by front of the door while Sarah’s parents slept between them.
The journey continued after packing up their things. They resumed the same positions and traveled at the same pace, glided around trees and leapt across frozen streams became second nature. Not even once did they encounter any form of human habitation and it made things much clearer to run at the pace. At about one in the afternoon they had already crossed over fourteen small mountains and trees galore. On the positive side Sarah felt that the bond was telling them that they are a little over halfway to their destination.
On the way up another steep mountain, that stood covered in thick evergreen trees Sarah thought she heard Connor say ‘Stop.’ And a worry crept into his emotions and entered her emotional climate through their eternal link. Apparently it became a figment of her imagination because no one stopped to listen. She could barely see twenty feet in front of everyone because they were surrounded by nothing but thick evergreen forest. If she didn’t feel the temporary bond pulling them forward she would be afraid of getting lost.
Then, without imagination, she heard Connor yell at the top of his lungs “EVERYONE STOP!!!” and his worried emotions flared with danger.
Sarah spun around to look at him instantly and so did everyone else, a second later. If something gave him cause to halt everyone something was wrong.
Sarah was the first to stop and her expression grew worried by his tone and what she felt through their connection. Then everyone else stopped as quickly as they could. The other stayed where they stopped and held their running positions. Sarah was about ten feet in front of him and Kara and Jillian took a cautious step forward to be on either side of Sarah. Everyone’s eyes were scanning the surrounding foliage with cautious eyes, but they didn’t know what is happening. Both Mark and Kara were sniffing the air trying to smell for danger and found it clear. Jack and Mark held their positions in the front, also defensively standing shoulder to shoulder.
Connor’s instinct began informing him that great danger is rapidly approaching. His heart began racing and all of the hairs on the back of his neck were standing as straight as pins. Even in the pit of his stomach the worry became all too real. He scanned what he could see with only his eyes and could find nothing, but the feeling had never failed him.
“Connor, what’s the problem? Why did you yell like that?” Mark asked evenly while keeping his guard up, knowing there was a good reason.
“Something’s horribly wrong; I can feel it.”
His instincts gave him the sudden urge to feel the ground. Connor dropped to one knee and buried his hand deep into the snow. When his hand settled in the snow everyone became quiet and watched whatever he was doing. His hand began to faintly shake, but not from anything he did. Small tremors moved the snowy ground. The ground increasingly shook his hand faster and harder.
As Connor abruptly stood he fired off rapid sonar pulses to see beyond the immediate surroundings. When he saw it all the blood began to drain from his features. Sarah demanded as she looked into his glowing eyes “Connor! What is it!?”
He didn’t have time to explain so he shouted. “Sarah! Take Kara and Jillian to the sky!”
As he summoned his high reserves of power so too did she without any hesitation. She grabbed his sister’s left wrist in her right hand and her mother’s right wrist. Sarah held the two of them with an unbreakable grasp and used Pressure to launch the three of them into the sky. Connor forced energy down into his legs and used his abilities over Pressure to rocket forward. Just as he propelled forward Mark heard the rumbling behind him and turned to see where the noise came from. Connor opened his arms wide and finally made it to them. He wrapped his right arm around Jack’s torso and the other arm around Mark’s back. Just then the massive wall of white crashed into view. Ten feet high of mountain came forth. Connor planted his feet directly down and poured even more energy through the soles of his feet. Without a second to spare, he shot the three of them above the trees. Connor eased the force of energy to his legs once cleared from the danger, but remained at this height.
“DAMN! THAT WAS AN AVALANCHE!” Jack yelled from the right arm.
Just below their feet slid a rolling wall of snow, rocks, trees and earth came barreling down the slope of the mountain that they were all running up. The wall of the avalanche was at least ten to twelve feet high. Trees effortlessly began breaking under the stress of the onslaught, adding their limbs to the tumbling slide.
Connor grew worried where the girls were and altered his left leg, just a little forward to turn around. He scanned the surroundings and finally found them about a hundred yards away and about five stories above ground level. He adjusted Mark to fit more comfortably and eased some of the pressure from Jack’s ribcage. Connor angled his feet slightly behind to fly towards the girls. And Sarah had the same idea and came closer to their direction and dropped her altitude down to their level. She still held the arms of Jillian and Kara in her vice-like grip. Both of the girls were dangling by their arms, shocked by what just happened. Sarah held them both easily in the air and her facial expression remained neutral. Everyone’s cloaks were all open and flapping in the wind, like flags. Even with both Jack and the heavy Mark in his arms, it was still easy as breathing to fly.
When they flew closer Connor asked all the girls “Are you all alright?”
“I’m ok, Brother.” His sister sighed loudly. “Man… that was a close one!”
She had no idea.
“I too am fine, Connor.” Jillian said, finally easing the shocked look from her face. “Thank you for the heads up or else we would have run directly into it.”
“Connor?” Sarah said in her silky voice and everyone became calm and quiet. “How did you know that was about to happen?”
He sighed with relief that everyone was ok. “I had a very bad feeling that something was about to happen, it isn’t easy to explain. I’m just glad we were able to avoid it.” He looked down at the devastation left from the avalanche. Trees were uprooted, stripped, broken and all together ruined. The snow mixed with rocks and dirt and made it immensely more dangerous. The movement had finally stopped. He scanned the ground and something began nagging in the back of his mind. He looked back up at Sarah and said “I think it’s safe to touch back down.” then entered her mind. “I think there might be a problem about all this.” Her green eyes flared with alarm and scanned the ground. “I will explain to everyone when we touch down.” She looked back up and nodded, barely.
As they were dropping towards the ground Mark turned his head and sat his silver eyes on his friend. His voice was calm. “That was some quick thinking. I was in an avalanche once before and let me tell you, I never want to wind up buried again. If it wasn’t for my physical strength, the snow’s pressure would have completely immobilized me.” He smiled and showed off his perfectly white teeth. “Thank you for not making me relive that frightening experience again.”
Connor is about fifteen feet from the ground as he said “You would have done the exact same thing for me if our positions were reversed, Bud.”
He snickered. “You’re right about that.”
Sarah reached the ground first and as Jillian and Kara touched the ground she released her hold. Then she easily touched the ground and stopped her power output. Connor touched the ground then released the two men on the solid earth. He looked at both Jillian and Kara as they rubbe
d their wrists from where Sarah firmly held them. The ground and surrounding air were both completely silent.
Sarah walked up and wrapped her arms gently around her husband. He kissed the top of her head. She then finally pulled away and said evenly “You said something about this not being right.”
“What do you mean?” Jack asked and he had his arm over Jillian’s shoulder. His azure eyes were wide and looked very worried. “What isn’t right?”
Sarah spun and pressed her back into Connor’s torso as he began speaking. “That avalanche shouldn’t have happened without a cause. Trust me, something is wrong, but I cannot explain it… I don’t believe in coincidences.” He looked up at the darkening sky of building clouds. “The new snow hasn’t fallen yet. And the slide happened just as we were on our way to the meeting. I simply don’t believe that this avalanche was a coincidence.” Everyone looked at everyone else with worry. “I can tell that it wasn’t tripped on purpose because I didn’t feel any malice. I only felt danger.” He pointedly asked “What if someone else is buried under the snow?”
“You think that someone would be out here? This is the middle of nowhere.” This coming from a quiet Jillian.
Connor cryptically asked “Then why are we out here?”
Her jaw dropped once she realized what he meant.
“What do you think we should do?” Mark asked beside his mate. Her head rested on his shoulder, but her gaze remained on her brother.
Connor checked the ruined surroundings while developing a plan. He looked back at him. “We’ll all search for two hours and if we don’t find anything we will continue.” Connor looked sharply in his silver eyes. “I will need both you and my sister to become wolves and help us with your extreme sense of smell. Mark you will split up with Jillian and Jack and Kara will travel with Sarah and me. We Balancers will survey the area with our sonar and you’ll use your nose to see if you find anything out of the ordinary.” He looked at everyone; even Sarah as she tilted her head back to see him. “Time is not our friend right now. I know this is an odd request to search for someone that might not exist, but wouldn’t you feel better knowing that you made sure there wasn’t someone in trouble.”
In answer Mark and Kara’s pupils began to glow almost as if of one mind. They shrugged off their backpacks as they began their transformation. Bones all over their body began breaking and reforming. Both of their statures began growing. They kicked off their boots and they didn’t have any socks. Their toenails began to shape into versatile claws. Their hands became more like claws and even their arms began to grow and lengthen slightly. Then both of their necks thickened. Both of their facial features began breaking and their mouth and nose began lengthening to become a muzzle. Then their hair started growing finely over their faces and the hair on their head grew down their neck, but this time they didn’t fuse their hair to become armor. Mark’s fur appeared jet black while Kara’s is sandy blonde. Their rounded ears changed shape to become pointed. Then their chests became barreled. The shirt’s they wore were now tighter, but didn’t rip.
They finished their transformations practically at the same time, but Kara was the first to speak. She opened her muzzle and showed her menacing new teeth. Her voice turned animalistic, but still held an air of femininity. “Let’s get to it, Brother!” She grinned as she dropped to her forelegs with a gentle crunch from the snow. Connor also noticed her long sandy blonde tail protruding out of the back of her cloak.
He grabbed his sister’s bag and Jack grabbed Mark’s. Connor said to Mark as he had just dropped to all fours “We’ll all meet back here in two hours. If you find anything contact me.” His massive head nodded once and followed Sarah’s parents. As he followed he kept his nose to the ground, already on the job.
Sarah, Kara and Connor started the search about where the avalanche originated. The ground and terrain were barren and gave away that this place didn’t have any trees originally. This place is prime avalanche territory. They split into a loose net between the three of them. Each person took about fifty yards between each other to cover a larger search area. Both Sarah and Connor used sonar more specifically to detect anything under foot, but such focus reduced the overall range to a hundred yards at most. Kara scurried along the snow sniffing both the air and the ground in her search. Her silver slit eyes were focused on the task.
Rapid sonar pulses were used every twenty yards or soto look under ground. The colored images his brain usually received from eyesight were only in black and white. It became possible to see through the different layers of snow. An avalanche starts by snow piling on lighter snow then on heavy snow. The avalanche occurs when the softer layered snow can no longer hold the weight of the snow above it and gravity pulls the snow at an angle causing a slide. Below the snow lies the rock and stone of the mountain.
They were about to call it quits because an hour and a half passed without any luck. Connor decided to take one last look with sonar for good measure. Beneath the shifted snow laid something… big. He had a hard time determining the shape because he had never seen anything like it before. It wasn’t moving either. He looked inside it and saw a heart beating, but it was as large as a person’s head and pumped very slowly. If not for the movement of the heart his sonar wouldn’t have discerned whatever it is from the ground. There was also something solid and close to it and lucky for them it was buried in only fifteen feet of snow.
Connor yelled “Sarah! Kara! I found something!”
Suddenly sounds of both swift and heavy running approached. Her cloak billowed out as she ran on all fours in his direction. At the same time she arrived so did Sarah and her expression questioning. Sarah asked “What did you find?”
“Let’s find out.” He said quickly.
He took a few steps forward to where he was closer to it. Power came forth again and in his mind he opened a hole in the snow that lay right in front of himself. Liquid is perfect to remove snow and his instinct to focus the power to bring forth the reality came effortlessly. He held both hands over the ground and felt the cool flowing sensation trickle down his arms. Instantly a hole appeared in the snow and it descended down to whatever it was. Kara cautiously stepped closer to watch the hole being made open before het and Sarah stood on the other side as she too peeked below.
When Connor reached the ground, after removing all of the snow and revealed whatever it is, Sarah exclaimed “It’s a Keeper!”
Relaxed and Frightened
“This is a Keeper!?” Connor asked in full astonishment, pointing down the hole that finished opening per his command. Sarah’s worried green eyes looked at her mate as she nodded in upmost seriousness. This was an unforeseen event that would change his life yet again.
Back when Jillian and Sarah told him about the keepers, they said he would reference them closer to dragons.
In his mind he pictured dragons with long sinuous necks and huge wings to fly. A dragon with spikes and horns covering its entire scaly body, with four talon covered feet and a thick rudder-like tail. Connor felt so very wrong in his initial assumptions of a dragon.
In the large hole he created is what a real Keeper looked like. The actual Keeper lay completely oblivious to the world and teetered on the razor’s edge of life and death. Its still body caused some panic within himself until he witnessed it finally take a small breath of fresh air and its heart began beating somewhat more regularly, but too slow for his tastes. The Keeper was laying on its back with its legs and arms bent in painful positions. The creature was huge. He guessed that this Keeper would stand at least ten feet tall and weigh approximately three thousand pounds or more. From the Keeper’s massive back legs revealed that it could be both bipedal or a quadruped if it so chose. The arms and legs resembled the joints of a human, proportionally. He guessed that they might move somewhat like humans. The only thing Connor had correct in the original assumptions were that the skin of the Keeper is actually made up of scales, but were smooth and glossy black. A dirty white robe covere
d the large creature and wrapped around its body and at its waist shone an ornate belt made of linked gold and encrusted with red rubies. It had three clawed fingers and a thumb on each hand. Each claw was also jet black and curved. Its feet had three claws per foot as well, but they weren’t as long as their finger counterparts. Its inside ankles revealed two sharp dewclaws on either foot that looked remarkably similar to a Vilociraptor’s trademark claw. The soles of its feet were scaled and flat and somewhat resembled humanoid. The breast of the Keeper seemed somewhat barreled and Connor knew that it had a large lung capacity. Upon closer inspection he guessed the Keeper to be female because of its subtle curves, but also noticed that she didn’t have breasts like a human woman. Another indication that it was a she lay in the way her muscles looked and showed that they were relatively subtle compared to a normal male’s bulky, corded muscles. A black, sleek, thin whip-like tail remained laying between its legs. Finally he looked at her head. The neck of the Keeper was as thick, if not thicker than a bull’s, but is smooth and sleek and not bunched up in muscle. The head of the Keeper was as large as Connor’s torso. Both eyes were closed, but he could tell that they were centered forward on the skull; the mark of a predator. With the eyes pointed forward it gives the creature a better judge of distance to its prey. Her forehead is sloped back unlike a human’s high ridged foreheads. She has a short rounded muzzle. It looked like half of an alligator’s mouth. Its leathery lips covered its teeth so he couldn’t tell what they looked like. Its nose had two holes about an inch apart.
It looked like one still arm was reaching for something. Connor looked in that direction and discovered an oval shaped object. It was as wide as his arms held out into a circle and as tall as his hip. It was pure white and he knew what it was. “She was trying to protect her egg!” he said aloud to himself and to his companions.
