THE CHOSEN · BATTLE WITH A CERBEROSIAN PRINCE
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The Chosen: Battle with a Cerberosian Prince Fight or Flight
Fang notified them that they had to leave sometime
before sunrise if they were to miss the 12-hour movement
window. The earlier wakeup call was met with an overwhelmingly positive response. The cold weather, with the
constant strain on the body, resulting in fatigue and straight
up tiredness, meant waking up early was always a drag.
Everyone wanted to spend a few more minutes in their
sleeping bags. It was like hitting the snooze button on their
phones. Except, the threat of waking up to traumatic explosive sounds, feeling the ground trembling around them,
and seeing hurling objects all around them was nothing in
comparison. They happily agreed to the early wake up call.
It wouldn’t be as cold in the morning as it was at night.
So they could walk through the morning cold, although
just barely. It would still be very cold, but their Watches
were able to regulate their body temperatures just enough
for them to get through the first two hours of the morning
as the sun was rising.
They all fell asleep shortly after entering their tents.
They woke up to a loud noise in their ears. There was a
rhythm to the noise, but the rhythm was foreign to them.
It was so loud that it felt like it was right next to them,
inside their tents. Some of them tried to cover their ears
with their pillows, but that didn’t help. It was early, cold,
and still pretty dark outside. It was hard for them to move,
and they couldn’t really see around them.
“What in the world is that noise?” Pippa asked. “Make
it stop.”
It was loud. They couldn’t make out whether it was a
song or just a very loud and annoying noise. The sound was
harsh to their ears because they had all been asleep, so it
made it sound louder than it actually was.
After a couple of seconds trying to figure out what the
noise was and where it was coming from, they realized it
was coming from their Watches. All of their Watches. A few
of them managed to turn off the sound, but some of them
couldn’t get it right. They started hearing laughter coming
from outside the tents.
Fang and Ethan were laughing. Fang was snickering,
while Ethan was beside himself in laughter. It turns out
Ethan had wanted to pull a prank on the team for a while
now, but he had been struggling to figure out what to
do, and when to do it. He decided to get some help from
Fang, and they realized there was an opportunity with the
Watches. Fang had figured out a function on the Watches
that allowed them to sync a specific sound to play on all
their Watches simultaneously. So Ethan chose the most
annoying sounds he could think of, got the Watch to compile a mix of those sounds, and asked Fang to get them to
play at the same time in the morning to wake everyone up.
“It… came… to… me… last… night.” Ethan could
barely finish the sentence because he was laughing so hard.
“Are you serious right now?” TJ said.
“This is not funny,” Tumi responded.
Ana found it slightly amusing (once she was awake). She
decided to get ready and not think much of it.
Pippa, on the other hand, was not amused at all. She
was livid. She quickly put on her snow jacket and pants,
just enough so she didn’t freeze outside. She switched on
the light function on her Watch and chased after Ethan and
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