Final Quest by B. C. Harris Page A

into a frying pan. The heat penetrates my clothes.
    Jasmin shrieks.
    The creature that is rising from the sand has five ferocious heads at the end of long necks. It’s as though each of the heads is dangling on the end of a rubber hose.
    I try to lift myself up from the sand. I can’t move. I panic. It feels like something in the sand is holding me.
    “Help!” I scream. “Something is attacking me.”
    Jamie is the first to arrive to help me.
    It’s no use. Something below the surface of the sand has me in its grip as though I’m caught in quicksand. It’s beginning to pull me down into the sand.
    Jamie grabs my hands. Michael arrives to help.
    I’m being sucked downwards.
    An ugly cry reverberates around me.
    The monster that emerged from the sand is slowly moving toward us. Green saliva is oozing from each of its mouths. Although I can’t see the lower part of its body, the sand is erupting in front of the frightening creature as it moves. There’s a disturbed trail of sand leading directly from the beast to me.
    “It must have a long arm under the sand that has caught you,” Michael says.
    “Emily, use your emerald,” Capurni shouts.
    I tug my hands away from Jamie and grab my emerald. The lower half of my body is now under the sand.
    A gunshot splits the air.
    Drew fires his gun again and again.
    One of the heads on the hideous creature jerks backwards in pain.
    Drew must have hit it.
    Unfortunately, this seems to have made the monster angrier. I feel a huge jerk downwards.
    “Abruella!” I shout as my emerald delivers a bolt of lightning at the beast.
    “Abruella! Abruella!” I scream again and again.
    Flashes of lightning explode against the ugly creature.
    The monster cries in pain. Its screams are horrendous. It begins to withdraw back into the sand.
    My legs come free.
    “Pull me!” I shout.
    Jamie, Michael and Drew grab my arms and pull.
    I pop out of the sand.
    “Run to the jungle,” I yell.
    I have barely taken a few steps when Michael exclaims, “Look!”
    My eyes dart everywhere, wondering what Michael sees.
    “There!” he points.
    There is a tiny speck in the blue sky moving towards us. It’s one of the flying objects. The Zelareans are coming to get us.
    “Run!” I shout again. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
    It’s quickly apparent that we are never going to make it to the jungle before the flying object reaches us. It’s moving far too fast. In spite of this reality, I continue to run for my life.
    Drew is out in front of all of us with Jasmin racing after him. Jamie, Capurni and I are struggling to catch up with them. The soft sand makes it difficult to run.
    I realize that Michael is no longer with us.
    I stop.
    Michael is standing by himself a little distance back on the beach. He’s digging into his backpack.
    The flying object is getting closer. In another few seconds it will rip us apart with its weapons.
    Michael throws a small object into the air. I guess that it’s a nan-drone, but I can’t understand why he’s doing this. It’s not going to help us to get more video of a flying object. We need to escape.
    I take my emerald and point it at the flying object. Our only hope is for me to blast the object out of the sky. If I do this, I wonder how long it will take the Zelareans to figure out that their emerald has returned. Once this occurs, I will be the most hunted person on this planet.
    Suddenly the flying object veers away from us. It’s rapidly descending. It’s diving towards the ocean.
    The flying object hits the surface of the ocean, exploding in a fiery ball.
    Black smoke drifts upwards.
    “Not bad,” a familiar voice says.
    It’s Michael. He’s now standing beside me. I didn’t even notice him walking to me.
    “Not bad? What do you mean?”
    Michael grins from ear to ear as he tucks his spy-pad back into his backpack.
    “They’ll never know what happened. They’ll think the plane had a mechanical failure.”
    “What did you do?”
    He