Claimed

Chapter 5 - Faded

Fifteen Minutes Later

Well. We're Screwed.

Within a short amount of time, we were - all six of us - stood in the middle of a gigantic hall, bearing strange resemblance to the great hall of Auradon Prep, where Ben's coronation took place.
Except for the fact that it was completely different.

The probably-once majestic stone brick walls squatted sadly in piles of rubble, what little left standing worn by weather and age. Light recoiled from their stone grips, leaving craters of darkness, hugging the walls. The air inside was stale and bitter, stinging as it rushed into my lungs, and the floor was littered with mounds of wood and stone, evidently where the ceiling had collapsed in on itself.
It was a rather sad scene, actually: something so beautiful and proud pulled down without a thought.

Although being on the island was a pretty big problem in itself, the arguably bigger one was the group of shadows surrounding the six of us.
We stood in a circle, backs facing in, each of us facing a different shadow head-on.
A wave of thoughts rushed through my head. They stood there, shrouded in darkness as dust swirled at their feet, continuously joining their forms and breaking away. There were six of them, and six of us.
Would we be able to take them down?
It was pretty easy to take on those other two, and by the look the one infront of me is giving, I'd say that Injury and Wobbles were back for round two.
But more importantly: do I really want to take that risk? And so soon; I had quite literally only just got my best friend back, and neither her or her new friend were in particularly good condition.
I decided against it. Initiating a fight now would throw us at a massive disadvantage.
Instead, I resorted to glaring Wobbles down, staring deeply into the swirling vortexes that I assumed were his eyes.

Suddenly, I heard a gasp from behind me, and my head snapped round, alarmed, thinking something had happened.
But instead all I saw was Evie staring up at the shadow before her, her eyes wide in fear.
"You..." She muttered quietly.
I glanced back at Wobbles, trying to ensure that he didn't try anything during this less-than-wanted moment of vulnerability. But it wasn't him that I had to worry about.

Before I knew what was happening, Katelyn was at Evie's side, a hand on her shoulder while the other pointed at the shadow in front of them.
"You must have a death wish," Katelyn growled viciously, "Coming back here. But here's the thing," she waved around at the rest of us. "We're not alone. Not anymore."
I raised a questioning eyebrow at her statement, wondering why she thought we'd back her up, but then considered that we kind-of owed it to her. She'd been the one to help Evie when the rest of us couldn't.
It's the least we can do.

Apparently, Carlos had had the same thought.
"Yeah, so.. So..." He struggled to find the correct word, "So.. Go away!"
I could visibly see him cringe at this weak attempt, but it was one of the things I liked about him. His inability to be nasty to even the worst of people.
Jay swallowed. "Carlos is right!" He yelled. "Get lost!"

But only too late did we notice our fatal mistake.

Katelyn's movement, and our distraction, left us with a weak spot - a circle became a line, and half our backs were so exposed.
Typically, our enemies chose to take advantage of this.

I felt an arm push into the small of my back, while a leg suddenly found the back of my knee. Both points were pressured, and I fell under the tremendous weight of the shadow.

You'd expect figures made out of what looks like dust alone to be weightless, but this is, in fact, not true. At all.
Instead, the six of us found ourselves quickly overpowered - just like we had been outside of Evie's cave - and on our knees, hands held tightly behind our backs, kneeling at the feet of the three shadows that weren't holding us down.