“Stay focused, Liss. Hey, hey, do not close your eyes, you hear me. You have to keep them open, concentrate damn it.” Sir Nick muttered in the face of a girl laying her head on his lap.

She looked like she was at the gates of the afterlife; her face all pummelled up in every angle from zero to three six zero, her eyes out casting tears in red that completely drenched her forehead’s sloped sides. They camouflaged the blood that was leaking from her ears. She had bones dislocated in her tiny little nose, one of her not-so-broad shoulders, along with the entire lower torso starting from below her waist and her abdomen. Dark Reddish-brown stains painting the lower part of her face screamed the amount of blood her nostrils squirted. And the fresh blood oozing out of her mouth from the corners of her lips made a clear path, ploughing through the dried stains down onto the chin.

“Why didn’t you crank up? You damn well knew that monster wasn’t your brother, yet your feelings for him got the best of you. See where that got you, you stupid girl.” he said.

His sight was trembling at her horrible state, teardrops rolling down his cheeks as he cried his heart out for that little girl. He didn’t stop for a second, shouting at her, screaming into her ears, slapping her cheeks hard and harder, whatever it took to keep her from slipping into the abyss.

“I saw it coming, yet I carelessly left you alone with him. Had I put him out of his misery with my own hands, you would have been creeping around, being a pain in my ass like the beautiful little adrenaline-driven elfin you are. I did this all to you. I’m sorry, sweet pie. Please don’t leave me alone in this god-forsaken world. Please, open your eyes.” stammered words of guilt and sorrow got thrown out from his mouth, his voice stuttering in pain and fear of losing her as he watched her eyes not opening any more.

“Ryan, gas the rover power to beta,” he said to the young man, panicking in the driver’s seat. He was adjusting his glasses up and down over the ridge of his long pointed nose.

Sir Nick’s cold gaze passed chills down his spine at the very brief moment when his eyes locked with the latter’s. He looked out his seat window and took a deep breath out of the wind blowing over his face at the insane speed their land rover was thrusting forward into the light greenish crystallized terrain.

It was big. It had a size of a six-seater at the least. It had six gigantic wheels whole, two front, and four below, packed far apart. The only thing they got in common is their thick hardened multi-coloured but mostly greyish monster skin tyres. A fence made of sharp-edged monster bones embedded with their razor shaped teeth formed the bumper of that monstrous truck. The earth under that speeding rover got more and more crystalline as they pushed forward into the Mayan dungeon.

“You sure about doing this, Sir? You may not be thinking straight right now.” Ryan said as he stomped his foot onto the gas pedal.

“The only way to save my daughter now is to crank her up before she turns into one of those hideous things we hunt.” Sir Nick said in an affirmative tone, without taking his eyes off her.

“I can understand if any of you are not up for this suicide mission. Now is your chance to speak up.”

“Liss didn’t leave me behind, not once, no matter how bad the situation got out of hand. She more than earned my gratitude and respect.” the girl, sitting across from Sir Nick, said as she leaned forward and gently brushed Liss’s hair with her palm. She was genuinely worried about her. She looked just like Liss except for her short coiled hair and sky blue colored eyes as the latter had silky-soft wavy brown hair and a unique set of cat-like eyes. They both had faces featured with a strangely identical freckle design extending from below the eyes onto the nose.

“Zoe.” Sir Nick looked at her, his eyes filled with warmth and appreciation toward her. “She is very lucky to have found a friend in you.”

“Hey, keep it together, old man. No one’s backing out on anyone. That’s what being a team means. We always got each other’s back.” seated beside Ryan in front of the rover, was Riley, a woman with her looks in mid-twenties, her face covered from sunlight by a baseball-type hat and screened from the magic dust by a square scarf wrapped around her face. It stood on the base of her nose, and hanged all the way down to her perfect waist, outlining her well-endowed chest.

“Heh. Yeah, what she just said.” Ryan took a gulp of his own saliva, which his tongue secreted excessively because of the panic inside his heart. He was freaking out from every hair of his head to that of his toe, but it seemed like he had a lot of experience in how to act cool in a pant wetting situation. He raised his hand to face his palm toward her, expecting her to land a hi-five on it instead he got a cold shoulder and attitude from her.

“Alright, then, you all know the drill. Loosen your seat belts and get ready to roll.” Ryan instructed as he drove the rover into the entrance door of the dungeon. It was a single gate made out of magic iron with three sets of thick hinges supporting it on one end and chained to the wall on the other end. The impact vibrated its way onto every single one on the rover, but at the power level they were at, it felt like, well, nothing.

Thrusting forward, it gouged the door right off its supports while the chains binding it to the crystal wall were being pulled out like veins from a human body. The enormous weight of the unhinged door struck onto its bumper, and the chains it was dragging created enough friction against the rover for its engine to overpower itself and burn hotter than it ever did. Its hood got blown off because of the pressure exerted by the steam its engine emitted and the white smoke that was let out along with it blinded the path in front.

“Time for some action, guys!” Ryan signaled the team as Riley crawled into the back of the rover from her seat. He then lifted his foot and stuck a cane-like monster bone onto the gas pedal before hopping to the back. Forming a circle around Liss by holding hands up to each other’s sleeves, they tapped into their souls and concentrated their energy into a sphere that enclosed the entire team. They rolled off the rover just before the sphere lost its form and scattered them all like pesticide grains in different directions.

Sir Nick didn’t let go of his moribund daughter as he held onto her the whole time when they both were thrown away from the others. He landed with his back against a thick spiked crystal pillar holding Liss in his arms. More than two spikes pierced his rather fat than a built-up body, one in the shoulder, one in his right chest, and one just below his heart. They protruded from under his flannel jacket, stapling it with holes.

...to be continued.