Chapter 1 - Mythical Stories

Etta and all her friends - Betsy, Tayla, Steph, Riley, and Taya - hung out at her house while her parents were both at work. Etta watched, judged, and took notes on Tayla and Taya's chess game. Meanwhile, Betsy, Steph, and Riley were playing with the pets (four cats and two dogs).

Eventually, Taya took a pawn en-passant (which would normally NOT be a move, but it's officially made a chess rule).

"You can't do that!" shouted Tayla.

Taya showed Tayla the hundreds of videos on en-passant, and Tayla said, "That's not how I'm gonna play!"

Taya refused to takeback, supported by Etta, and just as Tayla was about to wipe all the pieces (particularly Taya's king and queen) off the board, she found a trap to earn the queen. She checked Taya's king, and when Taya reluctantly moved it, took the queen, her most valuable piece (other than the king). Taya refused to give up, but quickly lost to an easy checkmate sequence.

"Remarkable!" commented Etta.

After some more chess games and anger, Etta brought Taya and Tayla outside to play a new kind of game of infection. Etta started as the hunter, and Taya and Tayla needed to chop some wood, craft a shovel, and make a dirt hut before Etta tagged one of them three times. Then, they would be another hunter. If they or Etta tagged the remaining one three times combined, the game would end. Taya and Tayla had 10 seconds to run and hide.

They ran and hid on the other side of the hill, with lots of trees and dirt. They quietly chopped a tree and made a crafting table and shovel.

But when they started to dig, Etta walked in. They hid behind the nearest tree, turning to the opposite of Etta's movements. Etta then started walking in their exact direction, and so they ran from beneath the leaves and towered up. However, Etta tagged Taya one time when she was too low.

Now, Taya and Tayla had only a few blocks each, and could not get more. They jumped the trees, finding a low one to jump from. They found another hill.

Taya started to build the dirt hut, but then noticed that Tayla was gone.
"Tayla?" she decided to shout. "Tayla? Tayla!" No reply. But soon she found out, when it was too late to do anything but run hopelessly.

Etta was on main course for her. She ran and ran, crying out, but Etta had center advantage. Etta infected her with two more tags.

When Taya never ran with her - confirmed with Taya's cries - Tayla knew she was infected. That meant that they were both guarding each hill. She pondered hopelessly, ready to give up.

But then she noticed that there was dirt right below her. She dug down and collected enough dirt for the hut, getting tagged once each by Taya and Etta. She couldn't build a hut off the ground, she assumed, so she zigzagged confusingly until she was able to finish a dirt hut. Humanity had won.

Back in the house, the rest of Etta's friends were pretending to slay Riley the dragon.

"Please let me go!" cried Betsy when Riley had snatched her in his claws. Then Riley started to tickle her, making her laugh uncontrollably.

"Let her go!" demanded Steph, but Riley giggled and snatched him too.

"No! No! NO!" cried Steph, struggling to get free when Riley had pinned them both down.

Riley let go of his almighty grasp, and Steph desperately escaped, unlike Betsy. Riley slid Betsy to the corner of the room, and Betsy pretended to be knocked out.

"It's just you and me," said Riley happily, smirking evilly.

"You're going DOWN!" said Steph, just before Riley pushed him to the wall, putting his long arms out.

"W-we can talk about t-t-this..." he shivered, earning a more mesmerizing grimace. "I-I never actually hurt y-y-you! P-p-please-"

Riley squeezed him in a tight hug, then pinning them down to the ground. Steph winced and shrieked as Riley put his face up to his, until they reached the ground.

"I will never forgive you!" said Riley. Steph trembled in terror as Riley started to breathe fire.

But then Betsy got up and tickled Riley's neck! Riley went down to the ground, putting Steph into more pain. Betsy tickled everywhere, until Riley tapped twice.

"I'm s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-s-sorry!!!!" he shouted, only to be slain. They all had a good laugh and drew some more drawings of mythical creatures.

Etta came back to see them playing out some more mythology, this time with Steph as a blaze.

Etta sighed and said, "This stuff ain't real."

They all perked up in surprise, looked at each other, nodded, and said together in shaky, fragile discord, "You don't know anything about that!"

Etta shrugged and rolled her eyes when they couldn't see her, and walked away.

"Ett? Ett! Ett, please! It's just fun and games!"

Ett was not interested.

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