Ember Fights for Her Freedom

                                    

                                          
-Steel Tikes-
                          
I walked with Ember for what felt like an eternity. If you asked me, she seemed extremely edgy, as if the walls were going to come to live and take her somewhere horrible. I could see her eyes moving side to side as she clutched her book bag strap. With her free hand, she played with the sleeve of the sweater tied around her waist. Ember looked as if she were holding her breath, waiting to be attacked, as if she can't avoid that fate. Ever since the incident with the griffin, she didn't seem as comfortable as she was. 
                          
"Ember? You okay?" I asked. 
                          
She was still walking and then froze. "Hm? I'm sorry. I didn't hear. Could you repeat that?" 
                          
"What's wrong?" I asked her. 
                          
"Don't worry about it." 
                          
"You've been out of it for quite a while. What's going on?" 
                          
Ember gently shook her head. "No, nothing." 
                          
I stopped. "Ember. What are you hiding? We're all really worried." 
                          
She ignored me and kept walking. Her breathing got heavier and her eyebrows knitted. I decided to drop the conversation. I didn't want to push her. We walked into a room full of hieroglyphs. The floor was tiled like the rest of the pyramid. I saw lots of dust everywhere, including the floor. Then I noticed footprints in the dust near the wall. It ran out and elsewhere.
                          
"Ember, let's follow the footprints." I said, with hope to find somebody else from the group. 
                          
She nodded slightly. We followed those out and into a new room that was less fancy but just as dusty. The walls were plain and there wasn't much to look at. I looked at the footprints and felt sudden panic. The footprints got messy. And soon, instead of two, there were six. And the one that was calmly walking obviously started running. I followed them out the other door of the room and soon realized that there were slashes on the wall. I had a small hope that those footprints meant the others found each other but the attacks on the wall say otherwise. And I grew horrified to see that the dust had been cleared out from the battle, leaving no more footprints. I soon saw another type of aftermath from the fight. It looked like the work of Zander's energy. Had he gone alone or found someone? What on earth happened? 
                          
"What do we do now?" Ember asked. 
                          
I shrugged. "No clue." 
                          
I was walking around hoping to find more footprints but had no luck. We lost them. I sighed. 
                          
"Let's keep going. Maybe we'll have better luck." Ember suggested. 
                          
I nodded. We walked until we saw two paths. We took the right one and looked around. We found ourselves in yet, another of the hundreds of room here. I sighed and saw the dust again. But there were no footprints. I soon realized they took the other path. Before we could walk out, the door slam shut! My eyes widened and I took a step back and coughed at the dust that went flying. All of a sudden, I saw a person with a wild grin and deep green eyes walk in. She looked straight at Ember. Two other girls stood by her side. They had dark skin and their eyes a gentle burgundy. I would have said they were twins but the hair colors threw me off. They most likely were and were just born that way. The girl on the left had long black hair that was tied up with bangs on her face. She wore a white outfit and black belt between her pants and shirt. The girl on the right was dressed exactly the same except her outfit was black and her long hair was white. The girl in the middle had glasses with her green eyes and her brown hair was in tied into a ponytail like the girls to her side. She didn't seem like a bad person, but I had a feeling that's not going to mean she is doing something noble right now. There were streaks of green in her hair. Her light skin was visible. She wore white pants, a blue t-shirt that was tucked into the white pants saying 'I Play Hard to Win' and a black leather jacket that was wide opened. All the girls wore boots.