“Watch out! Parker yelled, but it was too late. The fireball crashed right into the kid’s chest and set them flying backwards, crashing to the ground.

“No!” Parker screamed.

He took off with a burst of wind and crashed, full body, into the attacker. The two of them went careening through the air and crashing into a tree. Parker rolled around on the ground for a moment before struggling to his feet.

The attacker was already up and on the move again. Caleb sent rocks the size of watermelons soaring through the air. Parker was sure they’d make contact with the attacker but they turned to sand in the air.

Parker could tell from the look on Caleb’s face that he hadn’t done that. “There must be another one!” Parker yelled. And as if on queue, three more people burst out from the trees, one able to control each element. Rocks, fire, wind and water started flying in every direction, it was like a hurricane of chaos.

Everyone ran around in a panic unsure what to do or where to go. Parker quickly made his way to Alexis and then a moment later, Caleb was by his side. “What should we do?” Parker yelled to the others. It was hard to hear anything over the chaos the attackers were whipping up.

“We need to take them out!” Caleb yelled.

“We need to be careful and think this through,” Alexis shouted back. Parker couldn’t believe she was trying to think rationally at that moment. They needed to get rid of these people before anyone else got hurt. And holding back didn’t seem like an option if they were willing to attack a kid that was only about eight years old.

“Caleb,” Parker said, but paused for a moment. “Let’s do it. What we practiced.” Parker was nervous to say it. Would Caleb even be willing to work with him like that again, after everything they just went through with each other?

Caleb nodded and shouted, “Let’s go!” He sprinted forward, jumping over rocks and dodging fireballs. Parker zoomed in behind him and as they got close, Caleb shot the ground up from under Parker’s feet sending him through the air.

The attacker paused as he watched Parker soar through the air at him. Parker sent several fireballs at the attacker, distracting him just long enough. Caleb had just closed the gap and with a rock covered fist, punched the attacker in the chest with all of his might. The attacker fell backwards to the ground, out cold.

“One down!” Caleb shouted to Parker who had just landed.

Parker looked over to Alexis to see what she thought of their attack and noticed that she wasn’t where he had left her. He searched for her for a moment and saw that she was standing over two unconscious bodies. His jaw dropped.

“Get it girl!” Parker heard someone yell as she ran by.

There was only one attacker left now and Parker was itching to be the one to get him. It was the guy who attacked first. Attacked a little kid. Parker’s blood boiled at the thought of it. How could someone be so awful?

Parker took off toward the last attacker, eyes filled with rage. The attacker froze as more people started running at him and before he knew it, Parker had swept him off his feet and sent a gust of wind so strong it threw him straight up in the air at least twenty feet.

Standing there, staring at the guy as he soared into the air, Parker couldn’t help but decide to let him just fall to the ground. By the time anyone else realized that Parker wasn’t going to stop his fall, Master Sora stepped up and tried to stop the attacker from crashing into the ground. He was able to keep the guy from hitting the ground at full force, but it was still a hard impact that left the man unmoving.

“Parker!” Alexis screamed running to him.

Master Sora turned on Parker faster than he’d ever seen. The look on his face made Parker’s insides turn. “Explain yourself! Now!”

Parker didn’t know what to say. Why had he decided to not stop his fall? That wasn’t like him at all. The look on Alexis’s face made him drop his head. She looked so ashamed in him.

“I…” he stammered. “I… don’t know…” He looked down at his hands as if it was their fault he hadn’t stopped the guy from falling.

“Go,” Master Sora said pointing in the opposite direction of the man.

Parker turned and walked away with his head down. He could tell that no one followed him as he made his way into the trees nearby.

Once he was far enough away, he began screaming into the trees. After a few minutes he collapsed against a tree, breathing heavily. How could he have done something so stupid. It had been such a rash decision and now Alexis looked like she couldn’t stand to be around him.

The sun began to set and Parker felt like he was about to fall asleep. He turned and saw a rabbit sitting a few feet away. “Think they’ll take me back?” he asked, knowing he didn’t really have a choice. The rabbit scrunched its nose and then ran off into the trees.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

He took the short walk back to their little camp as slow as he could. By the time he made it there the sun had completely set and the moon was high in the sky. He didn’t know why, but it seemed like the sky was different on Earth 2. The stars all seemed to be in different spots than he remembered.

“Where have you been?” Alexis shouted at him when he arrived. Parker just kept his head low and didn’t respond. “Hey!” she exclaimed, grabbing him by the elbow as he tried to walk by her. “Seriously Parker, what’s going on? I’m worried about you…”

“I don’t know Alexis!” he snapped.

Alexis stepped back and dropped her head. She turned to walk away but Parker grabbed her by the wrist. She stopped where she wasn’t but didn’t turn to look at him.

“I’m sorry…” Parker began. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me right now…” He looked at her for a moment, waiting to see some recognition that she heard him.

“Maybe if you stopped pushing everyone away we could help.” She said it with such disdain that Parker winced. Parker gave her a look that almost looked like he didn’t know what she was talking about. “Everyone time someone asks what’s wrong or how they can help you just tell them you don’t know and then you walk away as if no one around could possibly understand or help out.”

“Well, how can you help out Alexis? Huh? Any ideas?” He was shooting the questions at her so rapidly that there was no chance for her to respond even if he didn’t have an answer for her. After several questions he realized what he was doing and stopped. “What is wrong with me?” he screamed out to no one.

Alexis didn’t say anything but she could tell that Parker was looking for her to say something about it. “What do you want me to tell you?” she asked after several quiet moments.

Parker thought for a few moments and couldn’t come up with an answer. He simply shook his head slowly and looked at his feet.

“Whatever is going on, we need to figure it out. I’m tired of you snapping at me over nothing. If you can’t get that under control, you’re going to push me away.”

Parker’s eyes went wide and he stared at her. “You’re going to leave me?”

Alexis looked deep into his eyes. “I’m not going to leave you Parker. You’re pushing everyone away. It’s like you’re falling into yourself and it’ll get to the point that you’re not going to let anyone in. I really don’t want that to happen.”

Before they could continue their conversation anymore, Master Sora walked up to them. Parker jumped, not seeing him approach from around the fire they’d been standing near. The look on his face made Parker feel like he was going to get yelled at again.

“Parker, will you walk with me for a moment?” the master asked. Parker still thought it was comical that the master always asked for permission to talk to them instead of just commanding it. He was pretty sure if the roles were reversed that he would just walk up and start talking. He nodded his head and followed the master as he turned to walk.

Parker turned his head and looked back at Alexis. He wanted some reassurance from her that she thought he wasn’t going to be in any trouble but she’d already turned her head and started to walk off in the other direction.

“We have the man—”

“I don’t know what came over me!” Parker blurted out. “I’m sorry! All I could think about was how he attacked that kid. I don’t even know who the kid is, but the fact that this man was willing to attack a defenseless child… I just couldn’t let him get away with that.”

Master Sora stopped Parker in his tracks and put his hand on his shoulder. “Parker, it’s okay,” the master said in a calm, soothing voice. “We’ve been talking to the man since he woke up. We’ve learned a lot and I feel like you should hear it.”

“Why didn’t you ask Alexis to come along then? You know there’s no secrets between us…” his face got a little red as he said it, even though he knew he shouldn’t be embarrassed.

The master chortled softly. “I know, but this is something that I wanted you to hear on your own because I also know that you’ve been a bit…” he trailed off, clearly trying to figure out how to put it gently. “...short-fused lately.”

“Is something wrong?” Parker asked, growing concerned.

“Well, it turns out that the group this man had traveled with ran into Lara not terribly long ago.”

Parker’s eye went wide. “What happened when they did?” He asked the question but there was a part of him that truly didn’t want to know the answer. It felt like, at this point, he wanted to just disappear with Alexis somewhere that no one could find them. Find some place on a lake somewhere far away from the rest of civilization. And here on Earth 2, that should be easy with over half of the population being gone. As soon as that thought crossed his mind though, guilt wreaked havoc through his body. How could he wish that when he should have the power to go back and fix everything?

Master Sora broke his eye contact and looked away slowly. He took a deep breath and sigh. “She killed the rest of the group…” There was a long moment of silence. A silence that Parker wasn’t sure he’d ever felt before. In that moment, this man that Parker had almost felt content killing turned into someone that he felt bad for.

“Do we know what they attacked us out of nowhere?”

Master Sora shook his head. “He hasn’t given up that information yet. We’ve got him bound right now and we’re trying to get him to tell us as much as possible, but he’s only given a little information so far.”

Parker thought about it for a minute, trying to figure out what the master had to tell him privately. “What other information has he given so far?”

“Well… that’s what I wanted to talk about. He mentioned a few names he heard her talking about. Some were helping her, and some seemed like they were being forced to help her but he couldn’t remember which names fell into which category.”

Parker stared at the master, confused. He couldn’t figure out who would willingly help her out or who she could’ve forced to help her that would affect his life. As Master Sora started to open his mouth, he figured out the only reason he’d bring this up privately.

“Parker, it sounds like she’s found your parents somehow.”