Free I Am Number Four by Pittacus Lore, James Frey, Jobie Hughes

back. As many Mogadorians as Loric are being killed. But the Loric are losing the battle against the beasts, which are killing our people by the dozens: breathing fire, gnashing teeth, viciously swinging arms and tails. Time is speeding along, going much faster than normal. How much has passed? An hour? Two?
    The Garde lead the fight, their Legacies on full display. Some are flying, some able to run so fast that they become a blur, and some disappear entirely. Lasers shoot from hands, bodies become engulfed in flames, storm clouds are brewed coupled with harsh winds above those able to control the weather. But they are still losing. They are outnumbered five hundred to one. Their powers are not enough.
    “Our guard had dropped. The Mogadorians had planned well, picking that exact moment when they knew we were at our most vulnerable, when the planet’s Elders were gone. Pittacus Lore, the greatest of them, their leader, had assembled them before the attack. Nobody knows what happened to them, or where they went, or if they are even still alive. Perhaps the Mogadorians took them out first, and once the Elders were out of the way, that is when they attacked. All we really know is that there was a column of shimmering white light that shot into the sky as far asanyone could see on the day the Elders assembled. It lasted the entire day, then vanished. We, as a people, should have recognized it as a sign that something was amiss, but we didn’t. We have no one to blame but ourselves for what happened. We were lucky to get anyone off the planet, much less nine young Garde who might someday continue the fight, and keep our race alive.”
    Off in the distance a ship shoots high and fast into the air, a blue stream following behind it. I watch it from my vantage point in the sky until it disappears. There is something familiar about it. And then it dawns on me: I am in that ship, and Henri is, too. It’s the ship carrying us to Earth. The Loric must have known they were beaten. Why else would they send us away?
    Useless slaughter. That is how it all looks to me. I land on the ground and walk though a ball of fire. Rage sweeps through me. Men and women are dying, Garde and Cêpan, along with defenseless children. How can this be tolerated? How can the hearts of the Mogadorians be so hardened as to do all this? And why was I spared?
    I lunge at a nearby soldier but go straight through him and fall down. Everything I am witnessing has already happened. I’m a spectator of our own demise and there’s nothing I can do.
    I turn around and face a beast that must be forty feet tall, broad shouldered, with red eyes and horns twenty feet in length. Drool falls from its long, sharp teeth. It lets out a roar, and then lunges.
    It passes through me but takes out dozens of Loric around me. Just like that, every one of them gone. And the beast keeps going, taking out more Loric.
    Through the scene of destruction I hear a scratching noise, something separate from the carnage on Lorien. I am drifting away, or drifting back. Two hands press down upon my shoulders. My eyes snap open and I’m back in our home in Ohio. My arms are dangling over the coffee table. Inches below them are two cauldrons of fire, and both of my hands and wrists are completely submerged in the flames. I don’t feel the effects at all. Henri stands over me. The scratching I heard a minute ago is coming from the front porch.
    “What is that?” I whisper, sitting up.
    “I don’t know,” he says.
    We are both silent, straining to listen. Three more scratches at the door. Henri looks down at me.
    “There’s somebody out there,” he says.
    I look at the clock on the wall. Nearly an hour has passed. I’m sweating, out of breath, unsettled by the scenes of slaughter I just witnessed. For the first time in my life I truly understand what happened on Lorien. Before tonight the events were just part of anotherstory, not all that different from the many I have read in books.