The Crystal by Jones M (ready to read books .TXT) 📖

their weight. I also noticed a man and a woman in the same predicament as ours.

"Emery? Are you okay?" my mother asked as she faced me with a concerned expression. It was her voice that was whisper-shouting at me.

"I'm fine! How are you holding up?" I asked her as I tried to release my hands from the chains with no success.

"I'm okay!" she whispered back.

I turned my head to look at Selena and Erick, noticing that they too were groggy and were regaining their consciousness.

My mind instantly replayed the memories before I got knocked out. Tevix had us inhale some kind of sleeping drug. I closed my eyes, summoning my powers of telekinesis. It didn't work.

Then I summoned a fireball. It didn't work too. I even tried levitating, but it also didn't work.

"What's going on?" Erick asked once he inspected our surroundings.

"The erwich got to us, and now he has bewitched the place so that we can't use our powers to escape," my mother informed him.

"Mum! Dad!" Selena shouted as she faced the two other people we didn't recognize. My mother inspected the people, and she had a look of shock.

"Evelyn? Mark?" she called out their names in disbelief. The two were dangling from the ceiling like we were and they were either unconscious or worse, dead. Their eyes were closed, and it looked like they hadn't been in a shower for days. What happened to them?

"Good to see that you have all woken up," Tevix said as he emerged into the room. He had a stupid smirk that made me want to hit him. He faced me with that same smirk, as if knowing what I was thinking and rubbing it in my face, before going to the pot in the middle of the room. 

By the way, why was it there?

"Now we can proceed with the party," he said.

"What party?" Erick asked. "If I remember correctly, you trapped us here!"

"Please, let go of my parents," Selena said as she started crying. "Take me instead. Just don't take them!"

Tevix rolled his eyes at my cousin.

"Oh, please. I have nothing to do with you," he said before taking out a knife from his pocket. My eyes widened in fear for the life of my cousin. Tevix gave us an evil smile before proceeding to take out a small bowl from his other pocket.

Wait, what?

"What do you want from us?" my mother asked. I could hear the phobia in her voice, which also made me scared. We were trapped with an erwich and that person could do anything to us.

He rolled his eyes and sighed.

"You really want me to spell it out to you?" he asked. No one answered.

"Well, in the past six years, we have been attacking witches with little to no effort in our part. We wanted you all dead so that we could take over the world, but then it wasn't a good decision," he started, shrugging at the end of the sentence.

"So I had an idea. If we kept on doing that, you would all relax and expect little to nothing life-threatening from us," he said while walking towards Selena's mother, holding a knife.

"No!" Selena screamed out, but he ignored her. Once he reached the woman, he unexpectedly turned towards the father and swiftly cut his neck. The man gave out a weak cough as blood oozed, filling the bowl that Tevix positioned under his neck.

"NO!" Selena screamed as tears flowed out of her eyes. We all started struggling under the hold of the chains, but we all failed in escaping them.

"Why are you doing this?" my mother yelled at Tevix.

"See, the past five years was a plan in motion. We wanted all of you to think we were...what's the word? Oh yes, stupid. Then we would look for the ingredients of this potion," he said while tilting the bowl, enabling the blood to flow into the pot.

My eyes widened in disbelief once I remembered something.

"The earthquake," I stated. Tevix faced me with a smile.

"Yes, stupid girl. That was part of our plan when we were still mixing the ingredients for the potion. You see, we got all the things we needed," as he spoke, the contents in the bowl furiously began to boil. He turned to face us all with an evil smile.

"We sent the erboons to Crystalia. That failed, seeing that you casted a protection spell over your city. Then we sent the erboons to earth. I knew that would cast an immediate response from the witches. We knew that your kind would send the crystal to solve the problem we caused, but this? This is a lovely surprise. She will love that you are here."

"Who are you talking about?" my mother asked. Tevix turned to face her with an evil smirk.

"You know who she is." 

My mother was confused at first, but then I noticed her eyes widen in fear. I did not understand what spiked that reaction from her. Before I could say anything else, the pot in the middle of the room emitted green light towards the ceiling. Outside, the ground shook for a moment before dark clouds were scattered around the area, making it look like it was about to rain heavily.

The black contents of the pot continued their green glow. Then suddenly, a hand protruded from it. It was coated with a black dripping substance that slowly flowed back to the pot, and there were long nails on the fingers. It looked like the creature had sharp claws.

The erwich in the room grasped the hand in his own before pulling the form out of the pot. The only thing I could make out was the hand. The other was a disfigured form.

However, once the figure got out, it started taking shape. The figure's blackness was quickly disappearing to reveal a person. 

It was a woman.

Her skin was roughened due to old age. She had a few white hairs. She had worn a black dress, her form was hunched, and she was stinking up the room. Who was she?

The woman groaned something unintelligent before turning to face us. I flinched at the sight of her, stunned by her appearance. Her gray eyes traveled across every one of us. Her mouth opened and revealed a mouth that lacked teeth. Then her lips formed a smile.

Seriously, who was she?

The old woman turned to walk towards Selena's mother. My cousin struggled against the chains constricting her, but her movements were unsure. Even I didn't know what she was doing. I turned to face my mother. Instead of a look of curiosity, she had a look of fear.

Once the woman was near my aunt, she caressed her skin. 

Then the next events happened so quickly.

Her mouth opened and her eyes glowed white. My aunt began screaming, but that ended quickly. Her skin was eroding, turning into sand that the old woman was sucking into her mouth. Then there was nothing left but bones of Selena's mother.

"NO!" Selena screamed, but her shout was turned to deaf ears. We were looking at the woman whose form was slowly contorting into that of a young woman.

Sand swirled around her, and the sagged skin was gaining smoothness. The woman's features seemed to be improved.

She was facing something on her side before turning to look at everyone in the room.

My eyes widened once I noticed who the woman was.

Eva.

CHAPTER 18

Liam's P.O.V

"What do you think is going on? It's been five hours and they aren't back yet," Ethan said. He and I were with the guards, hiding among the dense trees of the forest near Eva's castle. We had been there for quite a long time. Honestly, I expected Emery and her friends to be done with whatever they planned to do four hours ago.

"Prince Erick told us to wait, and that is what we shall do," Brian, one of the guards, said. He could not have been serious, but he was.

I furrowed my eyebrows as I faced him.

"Aren't you worried about what's happening in there? Maybe they have been captured."

"Please," he said with a snort, "they have a crystal with them. Maybe they are fighting Eva's minions."

"For five hours?" I asked in disbelief. "How many are they?"

"The erboons are about one hundred. The erwiches, however, are more than a thousand."

I gulped, scared of the thought of fighting against 1000 erwiches.

"And you think they can defeat 1000 erwiches?" I asked with an incredulous look. Brian remained silent, thinking over my point. I was glad that he showed loyalty to Prince Erick, but there was a difference between being loyal and being stupid.

Suddenly, the wind picked up. It felt normal at first, but then the speed of its movement increased.

Looking up, I saw a couple of clouds gather across the sky. They joined and swirled against each other at an unusually fast pace, covering every inch of the sky. Then they blackened, making it seem like there was a solar eclipse. The ground shook for a moment before everything went still.

"Something's not right," Ethan said as he looked up towards the sky. "Is that supposed to happen?" he pointed at the black clouds.

"No. This means we have to go to Eva's castle," Brian said, shocking me. "I have a bad feeling that the erwiches are using dark magic for something awful. We need to be ready to face them."

"No!" the other guard, who had been mostly silent throughout the quest, shouted. "We don't need to fight them. We just have to go save the King and his followers from being killed. It won't help if we too were dead."

We sat in silence, thinking over the guard's words. I found out that he was right, and so we all agreed to do what he said.

"We will have to place our luggage here," Brian advised us. Then we proceeded to do what he said before he handed us some weapons. They consisted of swords, both long and short. I gave him a stare of disbelief. Were we in the fifteenth century or something?

"Whoa! Do we need these?" Ethan asked as he stared at a dagger that was given to him.

"No, but it is important to have something in case our powers don't work."

I blinked, discarding a thought of asking him how our powers might not work.

"Why not use guns?" I asked.

"They're loud. They will bring attention towards us. We will need to be silent when we sneak in. If your friends are alive, we'll get them and teleport back to Crystalia."

The explanation about the gun made sense.

The others have started walking towards the castle. With a sigh, I decided to follow them.

We were walking at a slow pace that did nothing but freak me out. Just then, a booming sound echoed around the area. We looked at each other then turned towards the source of the sound. 

It came from the castle.

In an instant, we were running towards the building.

Zane's P.O.V

"Have you heard from Liam or Ethan?" I asked one of the guards in the castle. 

"No," the guard replied. However, I doubted he knew who I was talking about. 

I was with Harry and Logan in Crystalia. Our management team required that we created a music video for our new song Unbelievable. It had been a day since we had last seen or talked to Liam and Ethan, and the rest of us needed them in the music video that was to be shot in two hours.  

"I don't think they have returned yet," Logan stated with a bored look.

Suddenly, there was an earthquake. It slightly shook the ground for a moment, making me lose my footing.

Before I hit the ground, Harry and Logan grabbed onto my arms. Then they helped me stand up.

"Thanks," I told them. However, their attention was on something behind me. I turned to face what it was, only to be shocked by what I saw.

Clouds were stretching across the sky at an unorderly fast pace. They seemed to cover every inch of the sky before turning a grayish-black color.

"Is this normal?" I asked the guard. He had a look of shock that quickly turned to fear.

"It isn't," he replied. I began to worry about the safety of my friends.

"Something is not right!" the Queen shouted behind us. We turned to face her, only to see her approaching the exit of the castle. We made way for her and bowed our heads in respect.

Once we stood up, I saw that she was looking around our surroundings.

"Someone is using black magic, and I'm sure of the source's location," she said. Then she turned to face the guard at the door.

"Get the rest of the guards ready.