"Chapter three: Daring Rebels" by Anna starlonia Young

               “Hey! Archen wait for me!” A girl with long blue hair called to a boy who was running about three yards in front of her. The girl sprinted and then leaped into the air. Instead of just landing a couple of feet from the place she jumped, the girl glided through the air and landed just behind the boy. They both stopped. The boy turned around to face the girl. “Thanks for waiting Arch.” The girl panted.

“No problem.” Archen replied grinning. He had very light blonde hair that was cut short. His big blue eyes searched the girl’s face. Then he started to laugh. His laugh sounded like wind chimes being blown. The girl started to laugh as well. Then Archen asked, “Are you sure that you want to do this, Aria? Because you don’t have to if you don’t want to, I can do it alone.”

“No way! I’m coming with you!” Aria shouted loudly.

“Ssssshhh! You don’t want to get caught do you?” Archen whispered urgently, quickly glancing around at the endless expanse of barren gray cloud around them.

 “Sorry.” Aria whispered back.

“It’s okay, let’s go.” Archen said, turning around again he started to sprint away, Aria close at his heels.

After five minutes of dead sprint, they stopped to rest. “So how far down do you want to go?” asked Aria panting.

“I want to go far enough down to see the other Realms.” Archen replied in a firm voice.

“If you say so.” Aria shrugged reluctantly. They started to run again.

Finally they were able to see where the white fluffy cloud they were running on stopped and only the light blue sky remained. Archen paused and turned to Aria, “Ready? We should do it fast because otherwise one of us might stop. All we have to do is run toward the edge of the cloud and when we get to the end, jump!”

Aria had a scared look on her face, but she quickly changed it to what she hoped was a brave expression, and asked, “That’s all we have to do?” Archen looked his best friend over slowly, opened his mouth as if to say something, paused and closed it again.           

 Then he said, “Well, let’s go.” They ran toward the end of the cloud, when they reached the edge they both took huge leaps into the air. They glided through the endless sky, until they started to drift downward about fifteen yards from the edge of the cloud. As their speed increased so did Aria’s fear. What if she forgot to fly? What if she remembered to fly, but she forgot how to? Or what if she just couldn’t fly for whatever reason and she ended up falling into one of the other Realms? If the fall for some reason didn’t kill her, she was sure that the people in the Realm she fell into would. When Aria was all but panicking, she heard Archen’s voice; Aria’s fear must have showed on her face because Archen’s voice was unusually gentle.

“Aria, it’s all right, just close your eyes and imagine yourself floating upwards.” Aria did what she was told; she took a deep breath and tried to relax. The wind rushed past her face and tore through her hair. She looked away from the big blue, green and brown mass that came closer at a dizzying speed, and closed her eyes. She tried to forget about the wind, and the other realms, she focused on herself, in the air, floating gently. It was calm and relaxing and…and she was doing it! She was flying!

“Good job!” Archen shouted from right below Aria. Now over her fear, Aria felt a rush of energy and swooped down and spun around a laughing Archen. “Come on, let’s go lower.” Archen urged and began a fast descent. Aria sped after him.

            Archen and Aria swooped and spun. They laughed and raced. Soon they were low enough to see what was on the ground far beneath them. “Look!” shouted Aria “There’s the Earth Realm, and there, no, over there is the Water Realm and oh! Archen! Look over there! It’s the Fire Realm! See it, way off by the horizon?” Archen felt as excited as Aria sounded. It was their first ever time out of the Air Realm. And sure they had already done a ton of other awesome things that would have gotten them into huge trouble if they had been caught. But now, now they were truly rebels, now they could be sentenced to death if they were caught.

Death. It hadn’t really crossed Archen’s mind that they could be killed if they were caught. That realization scared Archen. And the image of Aria’s limp, cold, lifeless body that flashed through his mind scared him even more. It startled him so much that he didn’t realize that he was falling closer and closer to the Land Realm.

“Archen!” Aria screamed. Archen jumped, startled out of his thoughts. He was surprised to see that he had stopped flying and was now falling with incredible speed toward his most certain death.