Chapter 7 my lucky day

Fenton turned and stared at me. His eyes were wide and his mouth fell open. I looked at him for a moment, and then tried to avoid eye contact. 

“Hey, hey!" He grabbed my arm and shook me. 

I did my best to continue to avoid his eyes by craning my neck away from him. He was making it hard though.

"What was that? I said aim at the dragon! You know, the giant flying lizard that's in front of us!” 

His yelling was largely ignored by everyone. They were a little busy due to the dragon in question, screaming out in agony.

"I mean, technically, I did hit it. Just not directly.” I peeked at his reaction from the corner of my eye. 

He was still holding onto me, but he wasn't looking at me. I followed his gaze up into the sky. Far above us, his eyes were focused on the dragon's health bar, which was now at 0. 

The dragon let out a final rawr and landed hard on the ground. Everything shook when its body landed and there was a giant cloud of dirt, dust, and debris.

Silence fell all around us. Everyone was staring, stunned by what happened. "Who made the kill?” The whispers started as a low drone and gradually rose in a cacophony of sound. 

Even without my ability I could tell the atmosphere has changed. Rather than getting lighter with the dragon's death, it grew heavier. The once noisy battlefield had a different sound echoing. "What happened? Who did it? What now?”

My instinct was to run away from this. The noise was overwhelming and my instincts said, ‘go.’ So naturally I started to walk away from the situation, until Fenton pulled me back. 

"What are you doing?” He whispered in my ear. "It was your arrow. You need to speak up and be the one to collect the artifact.”

There were an awful lot of things I needed to do apparently.

He didn't seem confident though. I could tell he was nervous about this too. Unfortunately, I couldn't tell if he was nervous about the situation, or what he heard. Somehow, Fenton had heard something from the dragon- something that I didn't hear. Was it because of his ability?

I looked at him for a moment and then replied, "Yeah, but, I don't really want to?” I had such a bad feeling about this. 

He gave me a huff and was about to say something else when we heard a loud booming voice echo over the din from the soldiers: "Who did it?”

It was Jacob. 

His voice was even toned and commanding. It was terrifying. 

A few rogues approached him and told them what they saw. An arrow had hit a supply tent setting off everything inside.

“So, who's arrow was it?" The rogues all looked at one another, and gradually eyes moved to Fenton and myself. I was still holding the bow I had used. 

Meekly, I tried to hide the bow behind my back. 

Fenton was watching me out of the corner of his eye and shoved me sideways, making me drop the bow in full view.

I turned my stumble into a low bow. 

There were no cheers. No congratulations. Everyone looked at Jacob to gauge his reaction. I straightened, embarrassed, and stood as normally as I could with my face on fire.

Except for Kendrick. "Faust, was it you? That's amazing! Congratulations!” The dummy was the only one clapping his hands, but he didn't seem to care. 

Jacob looked at him and finally let out a loud sigh, "Fine, what's done is done," he growled. 

“Now that you're a part of this let's make sure we do it right." He indicated for us to follow him over to the dragon.

We both hesitated, but a crowd was starting to push us after him. They weren't being forceful, but I did not get the feeling that I could freely leave anymore. 

"You already know that you're the one that needs to collect the artifact, but there's more to it.” He glanced back at us, as if making sure we were paying attention.

"The books that we found on the artifacts indicated that whoever kills the beasts needs to collect them. They also need to be the ones to return them to the temple.”

"Yeah, that's what Fenton said earlier.” I wasn't sure why he was repeating this back to us.

"Do you know why?” he asked.

I did not. I didn't really know anything about the artifacts, actually. 

When everyone first realized what was happening and that we were stuck in this game, I immediately hid from all of the other players. If I needed to interact with anyone, I kept it to a minimum. So, if there was any information about the artifacts, I would not be the person to ask.

He let out a sigh, "It's because if it's not you, then there could be a backlash.” 

"Backlash?” I repeated it back hoping for him to explain, but he never did.

When we reached the dragon I could see a large gem embedded into the beast's chest. The gem was probably larger than my hand. It was a faint green color, but seemed almost transparent.

"Get it out," Jacob directed. 

I looked at him. When Jacob spoke, there was a finality in his tone. Like he wasn't accustomed to anyone arguing with him.

I stared at the gem. It looked wet. 

It made me want to argue. 

I continued to stare at it for a long time, then turned back at Jacob. His expression was somehow getting harder. So I turned back to the gem. 

“Do I have to?" I said with a slump. I really didn't want to. I couldn't tell what would happen, but it felt like it would be bad. That little voice in my head was going hoarse from screaming to run away.

I could see Jacob starting to get frustrated the longer I took. He wasn't the type to kid around, or be patient.

I let out a big sigh and stepped forward. As I approached, the gem started giving off a green glow. I could feel…something resonating from it.

Ok, this is a sign to not touch it. I had seen a lot of movies back in the real world, and if they trained me for anything, it was this: Do not touch the glowy green gem stuck in a dead dragon's chest.

I looked back at Jacob and he had murder in his eyes. I started thinking that my luck might be used for a slow and painless death.

I turned back and got closer to the gem. 

As I was about to put my fingers on it, the gem started giving off a loud buzzing sound. I had never heard this noise before. It vaguely reminded me of an insect and I pictured a cicada or another large big bug jumping out of the open wound. 

My hand approached the gem slower when suddenly I felt Fenton grab my arm. As I turned to look at him I could feel myself being pushed into the buzzing gem. 

Everything around me went black. 

I couldn't see, smell, or hear anything. I felt something though- my right hand throbbing and burning. There was a sensation of tiny pins and needles piercing every inch of my skin until it was like my hand was torn to pieces. The throbbing continued at the center of my palm. I couldn't see it, I couldn't see what was happening. 

Anxiety started clawing at me and I tried to move- tried to do anything. 

Suddenly, I felt a pressure on my other arm. I could hear a muffled noise next to my ear. There was a ringing, but the noise was bringing things into focus. 

“Fenton?" I breathed out. 

The pressure moved up my arm and held me down. It didn't feel uncomfortable though, it was warm. I leaned into it and felt the heat surrounding me. 

"...” 

He was saying something, but I couldn't make out what it was. I tried to look for him. The darkness gave way and I could see his blurred form. 

I don't know how long we laid there, but it seemed to take ages for my sight to return. There seemed to still be some ringing in my ears, but I could finally make out what he was saying.

"Faust, your hand. The dragon's gem- it's in your hand.” 

I didn't know what he was talking about. I could tell at this point that there wasn't anything in my hands. They felt heavy, but not from holding anything. It was like I had run a marathon and my body had become a bag of sand. I felt weighed down and exhausted. 

I tried to raise my hand to see what he was talking about.

At first, I thought I was seeing things. In the center of my palm, was a green gem. I tried touching it with my finger tips, but a sharp pain sent my body rigid. 

"Don't touch it! We don't know what's going on, or where we are,” Fenton said anxiously.

"What do you mean where?” I asked. I sat up as much as I could and looked around.

The spot actually looked very familiar to me. 

In fact, I had been there just that morning. 

Above me was a fruit tree. 

And, off in the distance, I saw a Hellhound silently approaching us.