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POV: Yona and Evan
"Evan... the power... of the bullet..." Yona muttered, her voice a mix of awe and horror, as she stared at the small pistol in her hand. "Are you absolutely sure you designed this to be a birthday gift?"
"Umm... maybe it was a bit more potent than I anticipated." Evan scratched his head, his face a mixture of apology and disbelief, as he looked at the place where the worm—or what had been called the worm—used to be. The looks of fear and disgust were clear on his face. That reminder of what we had just done made me turn my gaze back to the mangled remains scattered here and there. Then I looked at my hands; my entire being shook, and I slid off Evan and ran to a nearby tree, emptying the contents of my stomach. I was utterly disgusted by the sight I had witnessed.
Only seconds passed before Evan was beside me, his large hand nervously patting my back. I felt him trembling, then looked up at his face, which was distorted between the horror of what we had done and the revulsion toward the blood. He said in a rushed voice:
"When you're done, I kind of want to throw up too."
He walked to the next tree, and moments later, he, too, began emptying his stomach of breakfast.
After minutes that felt like an eternity, a heavy silence settled, broken only by their ragged breaths. Evan moved away from the tree, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, looking ashen.
"I think... we'd better not use... this gift... on anything else today," Evan said, his voice husky and barely audible, as he avoided looking at the bloodstain. "It doesn't seem... like a very peaceful weapon."
Yona lifted her head, still leaning against the tree trunk, a bitter taste in her mouth. She looked at the pistol that had fallen from her hand near Evan's foot. It was small, sleek, and deceptive.
"Evan, this isn't just not a peaceful weapon," Yona said, trying to sound steadier than she felt. "You destroyed... an area roughly the size of a small tennis court, just to take out a worm. What were you thinking?"
Evan let out a deep sigh that shook his chest, then finally looked at her with wide eyes still filled with unspent panic.
"I was thinking... that it would be awesome to make a bullet like the one in the movie." Evan then admitted with surprising enthusiasm, as if explaining a scientific theory. "The goal was for the round to be fast and precise enough to freeze or momentarily disable the target. But I... may have overdone the power source."
He finished, calming down slightly and saying the last part with a strained tone.
I thought about how Evan had always loved inventing, to the point of being terrifyingly good at it, and he always loved mixing fantasy with reality. Perhaps if it weren't for Melis, Luca, and Loyan, we might have found him accidentally destroying a city. I looked at him and saw his expression, as if he were a child who had miscalculated his candy count. Well, I couldn't scold him. I looked at him and said with a faint smile:
"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get the bullet just right next time."
Evan's eyes widened slightly, as if her words were exactly what he needed to extinguish the last spark of panic within him. A shy smile appeared, then transformed into that usual bright grin that always preceded the announcement of a new invention or a crazy plan.
"You... you're absolutely right!" he said in a steadier voice, his eyes now gleaming with the spark of engineering instead of horror. He cautiously bent down and picked the small pistol off the ground, avoiding the nearby spot. "The problem was the power source, definitely. I calculated the power needed to freeze the target, but I forgot to add the 'maximum flow rate limiter' during the practical execution. I should have used an ionic energy capacitor with a much lower discharge rate. This is what happens when you rush to test a prototype you haven't finalized, but don't worry, I promise I'll make a better one for you."
Yona looked at him with mild exasperation, shaking her head as she muttered, "Evan, we're still talking about a worm..." Then she sighed, feeling it was pointless to argue with him. His mind had already moved on to the repair and development phase. "Fine, you destructive genius. Since we've ruined breakfast and celebrated my birthday by destroying the local environment... what's our next move? We're not leaving this... blood abstract art here, are we?"
"It's fine to leave it here, I bet the sun will evaporate it now. We need to figure out where we are, where the others are, and why the bag suddenly dropped on us." His enthusiasm calmed as he looked at me with a serious expression.
We have to find the others, but how? We're in a desert! Could they be in the cave? No, I don't think so, it felt empty.
How can we find them? I thought desperately, pacing back and forth.
"Yona," Evan said calmly, as if he had realized something. I turned to him, looking at him to continue:
"Our stuff worked here, meaning this place didn't disable our tools, do you understand what I mean?"
I looked at him for a moment; he was right, he had used the compass and it was working. What does that have to do with... I turned to him, filled with hope. I checked my pocket for my phone, but found nothing.
I looked at Evan with desperate eyes, as if all my hope had been torn away.
"My phone isn't with me, where is it??"
Evan sighed, looked at me calmly, and said:
"I wasn't talking about the phone, Yona, I couldn't find mine either."
If he didn't mean the phone, what did he mean... wait, just one moment, was it still there? I slowly looked at his hand, specifically his index finger. I saw a ring, black as coal, shaped like a cat's head; one eye was bright green, the other blood-red. That ring, our communication ring, which we exchanged when we were ten as a symbol of friendship. I remembered we had asked Evan to equip it with a communication device.
I wasn't sure I had the strength to smile, but I felt a spark of hope light up in my chest.
"The ring..." I whispered, slowly raising my hand to examine it. "Do you think it...?" I pressed the green button; it was the call button... I heard a faint ringing sound, growing slightly louder.
But there was only silence. A dead, frustrating silence that stretched for seconds, feeling like a direct mockery of her fragile hope.
Then, as if life had just returned to a severed wire, a rough, broken voice emanated from the ring, mixed with a lot of static, but it was a voice.
"Shhzzzt... Yona? Evan? Loyan? Anyone... can... can you hear me?"
The voice was distant, distorted, but it couldn't be anyone else.
"Sister!" Evan shouted with an eagerness he hadn't shown since he invented his first flying device at the age of six. His back, which had been tense the whole time, straightened, and signs of sudden, immense relief appeared on his face.
"Melis! We're here! Are you okay? Where are you all?" I said, feeling reassured that she was fine.
"Melis, wait... Shhzzzt.... Yona, are you alright? Are you hurt? Where exactly are you?"
I gave a sad smile, as if his tense voice brought me back to reality, and all the stress and things that had happened to us today hit me hard. I said with great sadness:
"I'm fine, brother, but I don't know where we are. It's a vast desert, then there was a worm, and I fired a bullet I got from Evan, which turned out to be an energy bomb or something, which turned out to be my birthday present, then Boommm... Thwackk... and everything scattered."
"Shhzzzt... Energy bomb? Yona! Speak clearly! Are you injured? What about Evan? What is this nonsense you're talking about a worm and an explosion?" Liam's voice was extremely worried for us.
"No, I'm not hurt, we're fine, except that we just threw up. Believe me, it's not nonsense, it was a gigantic worm... and we ended up in a desert, then the bag fell on us; it contained our stuff from the sky, Liam." I said in an exhausted voice, looking at the ring.
"So you're fine, that's good... What about the rest? And what is the bag?? It contains our stuff? What do you mean?" Melis said in a relieved voice, as if her panic had slightly subsided.
"I don't know, all I know is that it's just Yona and me here, and as for the bag, sister, say 'bag' out loud, and a bag containing a lot of stuff will appear for you." Evan said, opening his arms in a theatrical way even though Melis couldn't see him, and looked at the ring.
"Bag??! ... Oh... Shhzzzt... Melis, are you okay... Shhzzzt"
It was as if something had crashed to the ground, the sound started to break up little by little. I looked at Evan with an accusatory look, and he met me with a nervous and guilty one.
"Sorry, I forgot to tell you, it always likes to fall on us, are you okay?" Evan said, his features extremely anxious.
"Not much, my back is probably broken and has joined my foot," she said sarcastically, despite her pained tone.
"I apologize... I apologize, but you said your foot, what's wrong with your foot?" Evan's panic was interrupted by a voice.
Another connection made our hope suddenly grow bigger, the line opened:
"Hello... can you hear me? Anyone... Shhzzzt... Loyan, Yona, Evan, Melis, Liam..... Shhzzzt.. Any human on the line with us.... Hey, Louis, calm down, let us hear them."
I heard Louis and Luca's usual commotion and we smiled with joy.
"Evan and Yona are here," I said calmly and happily.
"Melis and Liam are here," Liam said.
"You bastards, where are you? Are you alright? Oh, is Loyan with you? It's good that you're still breathing. Inhaaaaale..... Shhzzzt, Louis, take a breath and let me talk... It's good that you're here, are you okay?"
The voices were overlapping between Louis's and Luca's.
"Yes, I'm fine, a lot has happened and we're in a desert.... Just a moment, you're saying it's just you, Louis, and us, Yona, Melis, and Liam, where's Loyan? Then, for heaven's sake..." I saw Evan losing his composure, his tone becoming extremely anxious.
A wave of cold panic washed over me. This was no longer about an exploding worm or a "slightly powerful" birthday gift. This was about Loyan.
"Shhzzzt... Loyan isn't with us, Evan! Shhzzzt... We thought he was with you and Yona or Melis and Liam after we... Shhzzzt... split up." Luca said in a tone that showed great concern despite the static.
The sound, which had previously been a cheerful mix of joy and noise, suddenly froze. We all felt like we were holding the same fear-filled breath on the line.
Evan, who had moments ago bounced from relief into "inventor-fixer" mode, became as rigid as stone. The brief, bright smile vanished from his face, replaced by an inexplicable expression of pure shock.
"Loyan..." He repeated the name, this time not a question but a shattered whisper, then continued with strong insistence, as if hoping there was something more.
"Everyone listen to me, I equipped the ring with a feature that allows us to connect to the others quickly and doesn't need their approval to answer us, it's called Self-Connect, activate it, everyone. It's the button next to the green cat head." Evan said in a sharp, commanding voice, shattering the absolute silence that had choked the line.
Evan extended his trembling finger and pressed the small green button next to the cat's eye, a button no one had used since he first fitted this ring years ago. A very faint humming sound echoed from the ring, as if preparing itself for a greater power.
"Alright! Shhzzzt... I'll do it!" came Luca's panicky and uncharacteristically obedient voice.
"Wait, which button? Oh! Do you mean this one?" Liam's voice was calmer, but filled with seriousness.
After a few seconds of charged waiting, the whispering static that filled the air transformed into a single, loud, continuous ringing, as if tearing through the void. It was a different ring from the normal connection ring; it was more urgent and profound.
"Automatic Mode – Activation. Searching Range: Loyan... Shhzzzt... Searching Range: Loyan..."
Evan lifted the ring close to his ear, his eyes widening with fierce hope.
Then, in the midst of the frantic search, the loud ringing suddenly cut out.
"Shhzzzt... Range Detected. Location Confirmed: Loyan..."
Please, please let him be okay.
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I hope you will give me Your opinion
And another thing, how can I post pictures of the characters here? If anyone knows how, please let me know.