A few months went by, and things were getting worse. For starters, I think the other three had begun to go... insane, perhaps. Jeriah had been acting oddly since that prank with the cats, as if he actions were being controlled by someone else. Every time we brought up Ianite, Spark would become very moody and protective, and he spent literally all of his time in the End with her when we weren't planning. Even Alyssa was acting different. She barely spoke to me anymore, or even to Mianite. She spent a lot of time in her room on her own, and that scared me.

"It's understandable," the priest said to me. "You guys must have been used to nice, calm lives. Now you all have to deal with constant fear, and the acceptance that you are trapped in a war against an immortal being, and that you could die any second. It's natural for someone to go insane after dealing with that for so long."

I shrugged. "But why now? I mean, we've been dealing with it for a long time."

The priest sighed. "It's probably just starting to take a toll on them. As for Alyssa, she's going to be entering her teenage years soon. She's almost twelve already. She's going to get moodier, and negative things are going to take more of an impact on her, you know."

"I... I suppose I understand." I thanked the priest and left, even though something was still bothering me. Why wasn't it taking a toll on me? I was still the same old determined person I used to be. And why was this affecting the others in such a weird way? Something was off.

I went home to find Alyssa at the dinner table by herself. "Hi, Dad," she said, looking up guiltily at me.

"Alyssa, why are you eating alone? I thought you always waited for me to come home to eat." I was right, there was no doubt about it. Something was awry.

"No reason," she said, although there clearly was. "Just wanted to eat early today. I got hungry. And," she finally admitted, "I kind of wanted to be alone. I wanted to eat alone so I could be alone in my room when you came home."

"Why do you want to be alone?" This conversation was making her insanely uncomfortable, but it was a conversation that needed to happen. "You've been hiding something from me. You know that you can trust me, right? I'm your father, and I'm always here for you."

She couldn't meet my eyes. "Look, I know that. But I really don't want to have this talk now. I'm not ready." She ate the last bite of food on her plate and scrambled out of the room, leaving me by myself and with no more information than I had come with.

The next day, I decided to confront the others at our meeting. This behavior needed to end as fast as possible. I had thought that we had this war in our hands, but it now looked like it was slipping away. I couldn't let this happen.

Jeriah was the first to arrive. "Hey, Jeriah," I greeted him with a false smile.

Jeriah raised an eyebrow. "Hey, Jeriah? You're smiling at me? You're saying hello to me in a friendly, casual way? What's wrong, Mot?"

He could see right through my cover, so I might as well be honest. "Fine. I'm kind of worried. Something's... wrong around here."

He frowned. "What do you mean? I don't think Dianite's around here right now, otherwise Mianite would alert us."

"It's not Dianite, I don't think." How on earth was I going to explain this? "I just feel like you, Spark, and Alyssa have been acting different lately."

"How so?" A look of alarm filled Jeriah's eyes. Perhaps it was the thought that something was going wrong while we finally had the battle plan down, or perhaps... he knew something I didn't.

"You're usually not this cheerful, and you've been acting rather childish lately. I mean, since when did you start pranking people? It's not like the moody, rude Jeriah I used to know." I threw in a few insults, but it didn't seem to bother him.

"You're going to blame me for being optimistic? I'm sorry if I'd like to keep a light heart when the battle is inching closer and closer to us every day. Someone is going to die, Mot, and I'm sorry if I want to go down happy." He spat the words at me.

"You've never shown this optimism before!" I began to protest, but Jeriah was having none of it.

"I've never been in this situation before! My gods, creeper-boy. With a daughter and everything, I'd expect you to be a bit happier. You have to be a role model!"

"Alyssa's been acting differently too!" I ran my fingers through my blond hair out of frustration. "Always spending time in her room and purposely avoiding me. Everyone's acting different, Jeriah, and not in the same way!"

"What are you two fighting about now?" Spark grumbled, walking over to us.

"Mot here thinks we're all acting weird," Jeriah said, glaring at me. "Apparently I'm too optimistic for his liking. And Alyssa's too sad for his liking. Wonder what he thinks is wrong with you."

Thanksfor putting it like that, Jeriah. Really helpful. "You've been overly moody and protective lately," I said to Spark. "I can't talk about anything to you without you getting offended and annoyed!"

Fury filled his blue eyes. "Excuse me? Maybe you're the one being ignorant, and deciding that we need to change to fit your standards!"

I threw my hands into the air, defeated. "I'm worried about Alyssa, okay? Could you, I don't know, ask Ianite if you don't..."

This threw Spark into a fit. "Believe it or not, Ianite has bigger problems than handling your eleven year old daughter! For the gods' sake, Mot, she's growing up! Everyone's changing, even you! You're becoming paranoid by everything! What happened to your courage and determination? Is this war going to end badly because of you? This isn't always about other people!"

So much for a friendly talk.

That night, as I was walking home, angry and confused, I heard a voice next to me. "You seem troubled. Why don't you lighten up for a bit? I could talk to you, since nobody else seems to want to do that. Didn't you use to talk with my alternate self?"

I whirled around to face thin air, where Dianite's spirit was lurking. "I've. Had. Enough. You aren't the Dianite I used to know. You aren't going to want to just talk. You're my enemy. Go ahead and follow me all you want. Watch me while I sleep. See if I care. But I will never, and I mean never, be fooled by your sudden kindness. I may not know very much about you, but I know that this isn't you." With my fists clenched, I turned back around and continued home.

After a stunned silence, the scarlet god finally spoke. "I must say, you've been showing much more potential than you did previously, I'm impressed. Few have been able to escape the wrath of my kindness. Even back before you people showed up, I was able to control quite a few of them. I obviously had Tom under my full control, at least at first. I was even able to lure Sparkly-boy into a trap a few times. It was much easier than I expected to tease him with diamonds and emeralds before burning him in lava. Oh, and something you might be more interested in," Dianite said with a laugh, "You're right that something is terribly wrong about the other three. Good luck stopping it."

I stopped in my tracks, my heart pounding, and letting his words sink it. Maybe we had greatly underestimated our enemy.