Hybrid: The Awakening

Chapter 11-Tristen

Date on Earth: Thursday, October 5th

"Ow, stop squirming!"

"You stop squirming!"

"I'm not even moving."

"Well, I can't breathe when your 200 pound body is sitting on me!"

"No, you're sitting on me."

"Is this your face?"

"Get your hand off my butt."

"Would you two be quiet please?"

The argument echoed off the walls of whatever place we were in. No matter how hard I strained my eyes, I couldn't see a thing.

The one thing I did know was that we were dangling from a net that hung from underground roots.

And it was very uncomfortable.

"Tesha, got any ideas?" I asked her.

"Not at the moment," she responded. "This must be a trap set up by Zogi. Unless it is normal to have these things on Earth?"

"No, definitely not." Asher squirmed some more.

"Can you two see anything?" Tesha asked.

"Besides Tristen's rear end? Nope."

I rolled my eyes.

Asher suddenly went still. "Wait, do you guys hear that?"

I listened closely before sucking in a deep breath.

Footsteps.

"Someone's coming!" I whispered aggressively.

"We need to get out of here," Asher stated. "How far underground do you think we are?"

"Wouldn't matter, even if we did know. More ground would probably cave in if we attempted pulling ourselves out."

"We must stay calm," Tesha told us. "We don't know what they want with us yet."

"Not sure I wanna know," I retorted.

Tesha sighed. "But I think it is-"

A loud clanging noise silenced us instantly.

A moment later a small flaming light appeared in front of me. A loud cheer bounced off the walls.

"Yes! Take that you pesky little thieves! I knew someone was stealing from my food stash." The voice had a unique accent, which sounded strangely familiar.

Whoever the person was stepped closer, and I could make out the outline of something that did not look human.

There was a scoff. "Humans. Of course. What are your species doing this deep in the forest huh? The one place I thought I'd be free from your kind. Figures."

So he definitely wasn't human. Did that mean...

Tesha answered the question for me. "Zogi! Thank goodness we found you. It's me, Tesha!"

"Ms. Aster?"

"Yes! Oh, you have no idea how happy I am to see you."

"You mean we found him?" I felt a smile grow on my face.

"Knew we could do it!" Asher exclaimed.

"Zogi, do you mind freeing us now?" Tesha asked in her soft voice.

"Huh? Oh yeah, right." He pulled on a lever next to him and sent us tumbling down to the ground. I groaned when we crashed on the hard ground.

I weaved my way out of the net and leaned against the dirt wall, rubbing the arm I had landed on.