A look of terror spreads across my face.   He looks at me, but doesnt see the fright otherwise, he probably would have reassured me.  We turn and faced the enemy together. 

            The Emperor cackles at us and said, "You are very brave to come here, when there is certain death."

            "I don't know about that!" Shouts a man from our small band of soldiers.  They are not really fighters, but they are willing to risk their life for the greater good—freedom.

            I reached over and clutched his hand and squeezed it, he squeezed back.  We are both terrified of what will happen.

            "Release the beast!" Shouts the Emperor.

            Metal doors open behind us with a loud creak—like when cars skid to a stop on a highway.

            We all turn around and see a giant shadow wandering out the tunnel.  We all take a couple steps back only to be stopped by cold, hard, rough stone pushing us forward and digging into my spine. We are trapped.

            The monster turns, and we see that it is a black dragon with fire burning in his throat ready to attack.  Our men hold up their shields hoping to save themselves.

            "Start climbing," he says.

            He gives me a boost and I start ascending the jagged stone. I reach up and grab a rock that juts out and pull myself up along the wall.  I climb the stone as fast as I can.  Once I reach the top, I take off running after the emperor. He turns left, I turn left, he turns right, I turn right. After turn after turn, after turn, we finally reach the familiar part where I was held captive.  He goes right, I go straight. After spending 4 weeks here, I know my way around pretty well. After 3 more turns, I finally intercept the Emperor.

            "A-hah!" I exclaim.

            Just then, I hear the roar of the dragon and a rush of heat blows through the corridor.  Then, my com beeps and he starts shouting.  "Hurry!"

            I pull out my gun and threaten to shoot him if he doesn't put the dragon back in his cage.

            "You wouldn't shoot me," mocks the Emperor.

            And just like that, bang, I shoot him in the arm.

            "Put the dragon back," I say again more sternly.

            "Code 42!" says the Emperor.

            "That's not surrender is it," I reply.

            "Nope."

            With that, I shoot him in the head. That’s 7 I've killed today.

            I start to hear shouts of pain from my friends and rush back there only to be caught by guards.  The screams of agony and distress only get louder and fill my ears.  I start to scream because it is the most excruciating noise I've heard in my life.

            The guards escort me down the hallway to where my friends are.  They say they were ordered to take me there and watch them suffer—that it would be a better way of torturing me.  As we get closer, the wails get louder and more ear piercing as we get closer.  I can no longer hear the dragon; they must have put him in its cage and replaced the beast with something much worse.

            As we round the last corner, I am blinded by a blazing light.  My captors have put on what seems to be a special pair of glasses to protect their eyes.  I wish I could have something, but the light slowly dies down and the cries of pain become quieter, too.  I start panicking because I don’t know what kind of state my friends are in.  When my vision focusses, I see all of my friends sprawled out across the floor curled up in tight little balls as if they were electrocuted. I scream out his name, but a man walked up to me and introduced himself.

            “I am the Commander and will be now in charge here due to the Emperor’s death.  Speaking of which, you are to be executed tomorrow for your crime.”

            His head perks up and he says as loud as he can, “No!” He is closest to me, so he is easy to hear.

            Looking from him to the Commander, I say, “What I did was no crime.  He is an evil man and so are you!”

            “Well, look, she has an opinion,” he chuckles.

            All I do I do scowl and he kicks me in the stomach.  I let out a shriek and fell to the ground.  He is now trying to stand up and but crumples back to the ground.

            “Turn it back on,” says Commander.  “And take her to the cells on 237.”

            I am being pulled away and just as I leave the area, the door close and I see a bit of the light and screams once again fill the atmosphere. 

I had guessed that my cell would be one of the dirty, dingy cells, but I was wrong.  Mine was very high-tech (probably so they can keep watch over me at all times); there were security cameras everywhere and glass windows so they can see all my movements.  It almost seemed like they were studying me rather than holding me prisoner.

            When they leave me in the cell, I start pacing back and forth in my room with my chains dragging behind worrying about my friends because I have no idea where they are or how I will even be able to reach them.  I have terrible images of blood splattered everywhere.  I tremble at the thought. 

            After I am in the cell for what seems to be four hours, the door opens and my head snaps up to see who my visitor is.  I see that it is him with five other soldiers all with loaded guns; how they got them, I may never know.  Two of my rescuers wait outside with guns loaded ready to shoot.  He comes up to me and tries to shoot the chains trying to get them to break—but after numerous tries, we are pretty sure that the guards will be here any second, and I am still fastened to the wall.

            “Hurry!” I whisper harshly.

            “I’m trying!” he replies.

            “Well try harder,” I say.

            Just then, I hear two gunshots and feet running down the hall.  The two soldiers positioned outside the door crumble to the ground.  He shoots another bullet at the chains and they crack.  He tries to shoot again, but he is out of ammo.  He starts hitting the metal with the gun hoping it will break free.  The guards enter the room and shoot at him, but they miss and hit the chain and it snaps.  I get up and he tosses me a hand gun.  I cock it and shoot at our enemy.  I hit one in the stomach and he hits one in the head.

We hurry out and I follow him left, then right, then right again and after a few more turns, we meet up with the rest of our soldiers.  All of them are in terrible shape and we just want to get the heck out of here.  When we finally reach the landing spot, we have guns shooting at us from behind.  We hear the roar of the dragon trailing behind but it doesn’t peel ahead or attack us in any way as if it is waiting for command. 

            We don’t dare look behind but shoot our guns randomly hoping to hit someone or something.  Our men are dodging bullets and he breaks off and tries to get us a ship.  We hear chains snapping and I turn around and see that the dragon as taken flight and fire is shooting out of his mouth. 

            I call out, “Watch out!”

            He looks at me and just then, a small bomb explodes in front of him and he is blown off the ship.  He flysthrough the air alongside with the rubble and collided with the ground about 50 feet away from me; I rush to save him.  A commander in chief hurries to another ship and gets in without any trouble.  He quickly jump-starts the engine and takes off.

            By now I have reached him and he is bleeding extensively and is unconscious.  I call out for the Commander in chief to come pick us up, and he steadily hovers over us.  Most of the other men start running towards us.  We aboard the shuttle and the men follow us.  After we are all on, the door seals behind us.

            We count our losses and survivors.  The numbers are devastating.  This is just one of our many failed missions to retrieve the Piece.