The Arks: Over Heaven (by Ben)

Chapter 16: Confrontation

Part 1/2

“Okay, so what’s the deal here? Are we just going to walk up and… scare them? I think that’d be funny,” Ben said.

“No. We’ll just walk up to them, say hello, and tell them where we’re going next,” Samuel replied. Aurora sighed, and began to walk up to the two, Neddy and Ruby. Samuel, Ben, Star, and Samuel’s Raptor followed closely behind.

“Hey! You two, we finally found you!” Aurora shouted. Neddy and Ruby’s heads jerked to the right, and for a second a wash of disappointment crossed Ruby’s face. An annoyed look flashed across Neddy’s face, and he got up and crossed his arms.

“Why did you and Samuel leave us to die to the orange-eyes?” Neddy asked with furrowed brows. Neddy’s eyes darted to his implant, which was humming ever-so-slightly. He looked up and saw Samuel and the others emerge from the treelines.

“And I see you’ve brought friends,” Neddy said. Samuel put her hand on Aurora’s shoulder, stepping forward with a dark look on his face.

“We didn’t mean to, Neddy. We both believed you had died, we had called out to Ruby so she could run away with us, but she refused to leave your side,” Samuel explained. Neddy let out a snort, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah. I figured about that much,” Neddy grumbled, “You’re lying, Samuel. You’d be the first to figure out if I died or not. Stop pulling words out of nowhere just to save yourself.”

Ben looked around the woods, a look of worry across his face.

“It’s nothing personal, Neddy,” Samuel rebuked, “Just trying to keep the rest of the team safe. We wanted to mitigate casualties. You couldn’t even recognize the dinosaurs with the orange eyes. Who knew what kind of a threat they’d pose?”

Neddy opened his mouth to speak, but then stopped.

“Good point…” Neddy said, “But it still doesn’t change the fact that you abandoned us, friends never abandon each other-”

“Who said we were friends?” Samuel asked.

“What?”

“You heard me,” Samuel replied, “No one ever said we were friends. We are ALLIES. They are not the same thing. My only friend EVER is-”

Samuel paused, cutting his sentence off as soon as he could. Star looked at Samuel solemnly, and then back down at the ground in shame.

“Please, Neddy,” Ruby said, walking up to the group, “I don’t want any more quarrels. Aurora is… a good person, I know she is. She didn’t mean to, really. You already know my thoughts about this. Let’s just forgive them and figure out what to do next.”

Neddy sighed, and then nodded in affirmation.

“Fine. We forgive you,” Neddy said, glaring at Aurora, “But next time you pull something off like that, there’s going to be a problem… supposed leader.”

Aurora nodded, and Ben finally interrupted the group.

“Um. Are we done talking?” Ben asked with a grin, “I don’t know what happened between you guys, but, I’d prefer if we are all on the same side here.”

Neddy and Ruby looked at Ben confusingly.

“Hold on a moment, who are you?” Ruby asked. Then she looked at the raptor that towered behind Samuel, loyal and obedient to him.

“And why is that thing following you around as if it were your pet?” Neddy said with shock.

“I am Ben,” Ben explained, “And I’m a member of the Book Club. You see, one of our members discovered that the place we are on, this island, was the setting of a book that they had read. A novella, called… Well, I can’t remember the name at the moment, but it had ‘Tale’ in it, that’s all I’m sure of knowing.”

“What? A book?” Neddy said, intrigued.