(GE Copy)

Chapter 18: Brothers Entwined (Part 3)

“...And still they wanted to give me advice in it’s place, when all I asked is ‘why?’ and not ‘how?’”

As the sun set, they could see it peer over the peek, riding down the slope into the long lasting fiery dusk and finally, dark. Aaron had expended more of his short ferro rod than he cared to admit, having never learned how to make a fire with the damned thing, and just began striking it frantically at the cost of his fingers. His blisteringly sore thumb got to recuperate once the rest of the tinder was caught ablaze and the sticks began to catch light. Felicity came with some scrapings of the green wood but even Aaron knew they wouldn’t burn, not yet anyway.

Zack could not scrounge up a single morsel of meal to consume and everyone was hungry. They took turns stoking the fire, more concerned than before. Aaron’s camping canteen was dwindling, and his stupid jar of magic water was still full but the swampy smell put him off from adding it to his water reservoir. Though every longing sip made his last resort nearer towards it’s reluctant, tangy, consumption.

“Did I ever tell ye about the tale of the Nata Bacca?” Aaron lifted his head hearing the words. He swore he heard it from the lips of an old and earnest man, but it was just Zack making a grim voice. “Legend is be said that it walk among ye, with a face like a goat, and the body of a man, even Sasquatch fears... The Nata Bacca.”

“Oh knock it off...” Felicity implored, taking poorly to the stupid voice.

“Ay, but it is be true, though, young lass... For in the night, I, as a young lad heard the cries of... The Nata Bacca!”

“Piss off...” Turning away

“It come be from they hills, dressed in fine garm it do be... Yes... Dressed like a Duchess, or a Barron of ol, with it’s scruffy beard laid down to it’s toe... The Nata Bacca. It’s eyes are like flaming gold, and it’s coat be weathered in mould, and sights and sound that have never been told for if ye see this creature your soul’s been sold! And it howls like the banshee, and it’s smell like the swamp for your times be tolled when you hear it...” A loud roar cried across the mountain top like the reverberated rattles of a mountain lion “Shit that wasn’t me...” Zack rose, turning back around.

Felicity rose with his sword. The shadows danced along the walls from their fire, making illusions of movement. They could feel it however, as though it took no eyes to locate and it walked along the fire’s edge. A tall canine shaped silhouette walked by their peripherals, it seemed broken and disjointed. It’s head drooped a foot off the ground, as though it’s neck had been slashed and it’s stiffened corpse like head stood upright to watch them with it’s ever glowing bloodshot eyes. The sight of it could never come into any brightness and was like a shadow on the wall, prowling like an illusion they could all witness. Liquid drooped out from it’s skin, from it’s eyes and ears, with a wriggling flicker to it’s shape. In some lights, the flesh looked torn and agape, in others it was matted and tangled. It felt as though others were following, and each noise that the of wind rustled sounded like the footsteps up of an even more harrowing creature. Thump, thump, tatter tatter, aglop aglop and trickling blood.

Unable to take much more of the prowling shadow, Felicity swung a loud and rending blow that could be heard landing behind the beast. It’s legs grew, unscathed by the cut, reaching ten feet above them, wobbling with it’s head still inches from the ground. It’s outline contorted of rotting infested hide that tightened skinily around the bone. Pressing from above it, the leg bones pierced out of it back, and a myriad of sharp curved blades gorged it into a walking amalgam of shrapnel and death. They could feel it’s suffering, like a poor creature fallen into a pit of hair ripping tar, and the demonic spirit holding it’s unearthly body captive in anger and malice. It’s panting were of nightmares, becoming louder and speaking unparseable words of affliction. A panting that surrounded them with each time that it’s head slipped out from it’s body like a slug, as though a dozen had laid dormant within, and slid out from it’s neck. “Be a real man, damn it, and let me HIT YOU ALREADY!” Again, Felicity struck nothing, and the boys had dragged the enraged swordsmen by the collar, away from the fire.

They had no idea where they would go, where they could go, where would lead them to safety from this forsaken looping maze. They ran through the dark, stumbling, and holding ever tightly to another, praying they would not separate. Under the bluff of a weakened hill, they fell through the earliest crack onto a cliff side where they could hear the harrowing holler from overhead, much closer than they pertained to appreciate. They ran in the thin moonlight along the underside trail of the flat above them, making their way past a bend. Along the rock facing, they could spot a cave that illuminated brightly by the cold pale blue rock in the sky. That’s the say the heartless spotlight of the moon.

As they moved up the rubble and debris Aaron could feel his ankle twist and he fell onto the hard sharp rock. When he inspected, he couldn’t find any damage, it worked perfectly. Again, he could feel his arm cut upon the jagged edge, but somehow ten feet up the cliff from where he was, as though it happened outside his body. He could almost see, the movement of air itself form a person, struggling to escape the nightmare and the figure faded into a sea of faint forces also doing the same as the forerunner; like an ocean of tormented souls before them, projecting their story to the next to come. Aaron, Zack, and Felicity, now too were a part of this running of the bullshit. A journey, embedded into the fabric of the world itself, playing before him in the wind.

They slid through the opening, to a dim passage with the shadow lurking behind them. They came from the low belly of a monolithic chamber and followed up past the climb leading along it’s side. The shadow was gone, in the darkness they felt most safe. Where there was no light, it could not be felt, nor heard, nor seen.

“I guess we still got things to be afraid of.”

“Augh!” Felicity exclaimed “I’m even more pissed about running! Why is everything a damned ghost all of the sudden! What happened to good old fashioned ‘cut a bastard’s head off’!” “I’m so mad I could spit!” Proceeding to do so over the wall, with the illuminating liquid of his chamber.

“Oooh...” Zack detested. “I haven’t seen that, since that movie about exorcism... Gross.”

Felicity turned to spit at Zack too. “Well...” Aaron announced, “You’re the spotlight of our adventure now, Zack.” Wiping some of the liquid glow stick off the lad. “I forget how handy you are some times... Could you spread some of that over here?”

“Am I your spit slave now?” Felicity barked.

“Yup” The two lads replied. “Sure looks like it...”

Bored of waiting around for Aaron, Felicity wandered the room which was no way connected to the last place they could identify. Binding some soaked cloth, Aaron wrapped the layers around a telescopic weenie stick he tucked away in the emergency pouch. It seemed useless when he put it in there, and lo... It still was. “You’d be better taking that jar and turning it into a lantern...” Zack suggested. It wouldn’t be the first time it came in handy like that. Aaron reached for the glass container but was stopped.

“Guys...” Felicity mentioned, “We can’t be the only sucker in here.” Bringing an immediate tension in the party “Check these out...”

Aaron and Zack came over, looking at the inscribing along the wall. In all crude fashion, it’s painted hieroglyphics resembled a person, in fear of a pantheon of dark figures in many forms. Of a six legged beast, to one with wings, and another with two heads holding spears. On the right, under the peek of a long triangle, probably a mountain, were an even more grotesque tribe of thickened stick figures with weapons to met those being chased. To the side, Zack could spot another of such impeccably primitive drawings.“Are they worshipping these things?” Pointing out the details by the glow of his shirt. “Just... Many men on hands and knees facing shadow looks like it’s either serving, or absolutely wiped out by it. It’s a single shadow, looks like a... Bloody panther or something.”

“Well... Found your cultists after all...” Aaron mentioned. “Yeah, sorry, that was a rude time to bring that up...”

Backing off from the charcoal renderings, Zack wandered towards the corner of the visibly lit space, peering around the edge. The more he thought about the drawings, the more their safety seemed more like a trap inside a cave. He looked for some kind of exit, while covering their six, and never leaving for any period of time. The seriousness of it driven his mind into overdrive, sneaking from crevice to crevice like a ninja, checking every passage only to find it was nothing more than a fold in the rock that his poorly lit shirt could barely illuminate a shadow upon. Zack’s eyes had adjusted as much as they could widen, but the frail light dimmed until it was nearly faded. He turned back towards the team to assure them that he covered every corner, when a tall eight foot behemoth figure wandered out from the dark behind him, and gripped Zack’s shoulder.

Zack screamed. You didn’t think he’d do something else, did you? His legs turned to noodles out from under him, falling him down out of the monster’s grip, held only by the grip it had on his shirt. Like the strands of pasta that his legs became, he slid out of the shirt as well, crawling. In his mind, he was either going to run in terror, to an untimely fate, or accept it and curl into a ball for convenience. Finally his sense came back into him to run, and the beast cursed, chasing after. Zack’s brain took a break, as his mouth took over and cried, “Holy crap, holy crap, holy freaking mackerel! GUYS!”

“We heard you!” Aaron arrived to the scene, in time to hear a wet slap. Eagerly, Felicity withdrew their blade, making a swift slice to the ogreish beast. It fell upon Zack, squishing the boy. As he squirmed out, Zack slid and tripped, falling his ass next to the bestowed blessing he has called upon.

“Why?” Zack huffed. “WHY!?... Why were we blessed by some fucking fish, huh? Why couldn't we have been blessed by some spirit of a hot blond chick who fell in a spring? Huh? HOT BLOND CHICK! HOT BLOND CHICK!” basking before the blessing of the hot blond chick “Don’t see that falling from the damn sky, do you? No, it’s fish, we were blessed by freaking fish!”

Relieved, Aaron remarked “I'd laugh if the mackerel sent you a goldfish the size of your aunt and dressed in a wig.” Then offered to help Zack up, but Zack was busy.

Zack’s eyes slid over to the flopping speed bump, It seemed injured, but pulled itself back to shape to salute it’s commander. Wiping the slime and scales from his forhead, Zack scowled. “Oh, fuc... No... Let me think about my words very carefully this time... Look... Bud...” Picking up the fish to stair it in the eyes, “I know you are trying your very damndest to help... Putting in a real effort, best that you can offer” The mackerel's eyes began to sparkle before it’s superior. “It really is, the best... That you can offer with your tiny fish body. I know it’s not much” It starts squirming excitedly. “Like a real, maximum effort kind of push for you, you know?” It wriggled, nodding it’s head up and down. “Just...” Zack shook his head, feeling bad about it. “Keep it up, you know, really... Really work on your... Skills... Yeah. Don’t... Don’t take any of them wooden nickels and all that... Please... Don’t get me fucking killed. I don’t want to die because of a fu... F-f-fish...y mistake.” It’s excitement halted. “It’s a two way street you know. I call Holy Mackeral, you fall from the sky, that’s on me... That’s my fault” Another fish flacking off of his head. “But... You need to... You know... Not fuck up, I could die out there, slip on your scaly slick sockeye ass and split my damned head open. Fuck that’d be humiliating and miserable...” Fish gets really teary. “So... Get strong little buddy, coz... Like... I’m not gonna be pleased if you go and screw us all up... I’m... I’m sorry, I’m a shitty fish father. It’s not your fault. I called Holy Mackeral, you showed up,” Fish falls “that’s me, that’s all me. You don’t deserve this, I’m just upset. You’re putting in your best, for the love of your deity. You’re just doing what you can and I’m just being a prick. Fuck! So this is why my dad drinks so much.” As he retried his shirt from the dead monster.

The mackerel flopped away, weeping as Felicity proceeded to walk past the fish. “Anyone gonna eat that?” To the response of confused and shaking heads.

Watching Felicity take a crunching bite. “NO!” Zack cried, “That was my fish!”

“YOU SAID YOU DIDN’T WANT IT! Ooogh...” Spitting it out. “This fish is disgusting! What is this shit?” Felicity complained before a fish beamed him in the head.

“Ooh...” Aaron dismayed, “Looked like a fifty yard hike to the face!... Sure glad it wasn’t my head that took that blow.”

And from Zack’s lips, Aaron never heard a “That’s what she said” more sad in his entire life.

Leaving the dark figure behind them, they knew these creatures were mortal, and that’s all Felicity needed to know. They found a network of carved passages. Places where the natural curvature of this eroded passage were remodelled, and built upon. Whatever hard working people lived here, left behind a well designed network, but very primitive. The large choppy edges were jagged in places, and the slew of creatures taking roost in the cracks and crevices were a structural detriment. Spitting up another glow stick’s worth of fluid, Felicity illuminated a wide passage that cool breeze promised to leave this place.

They passed many cobwebs, letting Felicity take point with their repurposed web wacker. Aaron felt a crawling upon his leg and slapped it away. It felt like a normal, boring ass bug, but his nerves weren’t going to allow even the most benign of insects purpose his legs as a climbing pole. Even Zack was keeping one eye behind them as they passed through. They could feel a dark crawling from behind, though it may have been the scurrying of a rat, it kept them moving despite the looming feeling.

They came onto a light that shown in from the side. It flickered. Peering into the dim chamber, they could see an entire tribe of the same, large ogreous creatures in a more depicting light. Their yellow muscle clad bodies were firmly upkept with scars and hard work, but their skin was like of old warriors, who still lived in their glory days. Bone necklaces, and piercings, with a white warpaint that seemed thick and chipped as it dried, they appeared more like shamans; really buff, old warrior shamans, with a demonic aura to them. As Aaron could get a better view, their heads turned in unison towards the doorway where the lads were, and Aaron turned his head quickly, “Shit, I hate it when they do that!” He cussed under his breath.

“Come on,” Zack dragged Aaron. As the creatures flew in single file, Felicity lifted his sword, taking vengeance for his honour. “You wanted adventure, you got it sword girl!”

“I’ll hold them off...” Felicity informed, making a barricade with the bodies, but another creeping feeling crawled up, louder than in the passage. It’s clacking claws sounded like a hundred tiny pins, becoming larger and larger. Nothing could be seen, but after the last experience with these shadow creatures, Felicity withdrew his blade. “Nah, I’m not taking this shit...” Before seeing what horrors this one was known to instill.

Above them in the large chasm, fell the light of the moon and a cold wind from the top hole, with no ladder from the bottom reaching towards it. Behind them laid an armada of cultist brutes and their unholy pantheon. They looked for a way up, but nothing could quite make it from where they stood. Felicity lifted Aaron, chucking him part way up, which was about the limit to his strength. Then doing the same with Zack, Zack landed a few feet below Aaron on the ledge, barely holding on. Aaron reached out, grabbing Zack’s arm and helped lift him up on the jutting rock layer. They could see a small improvised ladder of sharp rocks jutting out now that they were closer to the hole, and the ambient lighting could make shadows to better highlight behind them. With each grip of stone, Aaron could feel the cries of a woman, dying with each handhold, and the memory of her being dragged back into the pit. He shook this thought, making his way up past the influence of whatever stuck itself into him.

The end was in sight. Felicity gave Zack another chucking from the shallow ledge, grabbing onto whatever he could find. The cultists leapt up, gripping the ledge firmly and pursuing up the walls until their combined weight dislodged the layer of rock back down to the cold ground below. Two assailants still had a hold of the wall above the old platform and were hastily making ground. Aaron’s arms were getting tired, and looking down he could see a creeping shadow that imbued with the rock. It leapt like slime, climbing the cultists to get to them, until the cultist’s had no strength left and fell to the ground unconscious. The shadow crept, oozing out of the walls. He could feel the calm peace of a grave taking away his strength from the air behind him.

Having aided Zack out of the hole, Felicity returned for the adept and capable climber who’s eyes were running pale. He lifted Aaron by the arm, and holstered the boy onto his shoulders for the last stretch. They rolled out onto the rock, and slid out of the cave along the icy ground to safety. Hopefully.

“My guy...” Zack mentioned, finally coming to a stop upon the snow. “Who would have thought you’d out climb me...” Seeing Aaron slide down beside him

“Here, I’ve always admired your runners build...” Aaron replied faintly.

Lifting his head, Zack’s eyes shot open, “Now where the hell did we end up? When was this here? We weren’t at the north poll! What is all that white shit right here?” Dropping onto his knees “Please tell me this is frosted sugar, I’d really rather be in a cold bowl of cereal right now...”

Shaking his head, Aaron dismayed. “Tapia never changes...” Kicking the snow out of his way, as he dislodged from the comforting backrest. “Same old shit, everywhere you go. A million stories pass by us every minute, every corner has a history, and you never have a moment to learn the whole picture. Giant monster, looping corridor, the ghost was right... No wonder everyone gathered in Stagna for so long. It’s the only place that makes sense anymore...” Spitting his frustrations onto the ancient wet powder as he wandered atop the barren mountain peek, far from the cave entrance.

Following his friend, “So... What?” Zack cynically chucked, “The pile of flags is just a couple feet up the hill, or something?”

“Yeah, right next to the first snow angel ever made.” Aaron pointed, “Oh, hey, look at that, it’s still there to this day.”

“And there is the guy, frozzen, still inside it... What a dumbass...”

“Oh, look, Santa on his way to deliver presents... Aaaand, there he goes... Wonder what kinda gas millage that sleigh gets.”

Returning dryly, Zack came back in a groggy voice, “Say, did I ever tell you about the guy who thought his ass too smoke?” Taking the silent no, Zack bent over, clasping his two fingers together to mimic puff of smoke, until farting a protruding fog cloud from it’s mouth.

Smirking, Aaron took the stage, “I’m afraid if we get stuck out here...”Aaron mimiced pissing into a cup, and turning it upside down, “I’ll have to drink my own piss to stay warm” but comically the invisible lemonade was already frozen to the fictional cup.

Chattering teeth, Zack’s head turned to one side, until sliding it back with an improvised typewriter sound effects.

Aaron stuck his finger up like a poll, and stuck his tongue to it, pretending to desperately pull it off.

“Dairy truck goes down a bumpy road, does it become ice cream?”

“Yo mamma so cold,” Aaron chuckled, chattering, “We throw her in the ice box to save on the bills during the summer.”

“It always diverts into yo mamma jokes doesn’t it?” Sighing with the same shivers, “...Yo mamma so fat, I could cut her open and stay warm in the winter.”

“Yo mamma so cold... She’s your mamma, Zack, she’s yo mamma.”

“Yo mamma so... Shit, I’ve got a headache from all this... How are we getting out of this mess anyway?”

Felicity simply stood beside themselves on the twelfth joke of Christmas, piecing together what just transpired.

“Hey, look...” Aaron pointed out, “Another cave, what are the chances of that? All this world seems to know is cave this, cave that... It’s like we all came sprouted out the ground like plants or something... Think it’ll kill us?”

“Might as well look inside...” Zack opted, far too cold to last the mountain top snow and air. Letting Felicity take point, they fell onto a short dead end with a chill floor but no wind. “Well, I’m just glad we got one. Shallow, no monsters living inside... Die miserable and alone, cave... Dammit” Sitting himself sideways, Zack complained. “Useless freaking pants buttons, digging into my ass! I’m about to get a bloody callus from these things.”

“At-t-t...” Recovering his ability to speak from the shivers. “At least they keep those savings of yours safe from the tumbles we keep taking... Damn it’s cold... Fire? Anyone? Magical fire ability? No?” Aaron asked, knowing very well the tree count in the barren wastes outside their new home. “I rather not go spooning with everyone here for warmth...”

“I hear freezing to death isn’t actually all that bad of a way to go...” Zack grimly elated “Starvation hurts unbearably for five days so that sucks. Eaten alive is well... Eaten alive. Comparably, freezing’s quite nice; after the hypothermia kicks in, everything gets warm again and you just kinda doze off into the big sleep... Shit.” Recollecting his thoughts “Well, if I die here, cold and frozen... I guess I’m just gonna regret it if I don’t say something...” Placing his hand on Felicity’s shoulder “I just want you to know... I think that you’re very beautiful, and I am completely jealous that Aaron gets you all to himself” Seeing the snide and offended gaze of their resident serpent. “No, no no, let a dying man finish.” Zack instilled, “Don’t think I don’t see what’s going on. It’s something I could only dream of happening to me... You’re... Your skin is very cold...” Remarking his surprise.

“I’m a snake...” Felicity retorted, “What do you expect?”

“So that’s why you’re not shaking like the rest of us...” Recollecting himself “Look, I am really sorry to ask, but... You being the closest thing I’ve had to an ‘S tier’ fantasy come true... Can I at least see something in my last dying hours?”

“ZACK!” Felicity scowled.

“I know it’s none of my business between you two lovebirds but come on, help a brother out... We’re all gonna die anyway! Am I that repulsive?”

Aaron intervened, lifting Felicity’s top before anyone lost a finger, exposing it for everyone to see “She’s a dude!” slapping ‘his’ flat, nippleless scaly snake chest.

Zack stared for a long while, “But that don’t mean... A snake’s already flat ch... And... Nip... Um...” To a silent and stuttering shiver. He looked down towards the cold bare palms of his hands, then to the snake’s feminine hips and midriff, then back again as though intently staring at his hands. “AH HELL, NAWL!”

Looking rather offended, Felicity pouted turning away from them, “Even you have boundaries, Aaron... I’m not your toy... Not anymore...”

“You guys think you got it bad now...” Aaron huffed, equally displeasured as he took a hard sit. “We’re out of water...” Shaking his canteen. “Draw straws for the last sip before we dig into bog water?”

“Just open the damn thing,” Zack muttered, “I’m not feeling too high and mighty for little flavouring at this point.” Holding his head up by the knee propped elbow and guilty palm.

Pulling it out of his pocket, Aaron withdrew his glass jar of water with his cold weak hands. The chills had rattled his hand on transit, and his sore overworked thumb from the farro rod could not grip the jar any longer. It fell out onto the hard ground below, shattering the glass and pooled between them. Zack took a deep, exasperating breath and Aaron’s eyes teared up. He grit the frustration within until he could no longer bare it’s burden, and Aaron cried for everyone. “I’m tired of this shit... Everywhere in this stupid asinine realm of bullshit just becomes more and more fragmented. Every two feet you end up somewhere new. It’s like it just can’t make up it’s mind what it wants to be. Hey Tapia, what do you wanna be today? You wanna be hot, cold, a cheeky twat or a massive thorn in my FREAKING brown eye?!... I miss home...” Snuffing his cold runny nose back into his head, and wiping away the tears. “It makes so much more sense, it’s simple... If the real world is so chaotic, maybe I should just stay home and die there as miserable old men...”

Zack didn’t have much to say that wasn’t already just mentioned. They were cold and thirsty, but for once, he couldn’t really blame Aaron for being upset. They all were.

Aaron reminisced there, thinking of better times. He missed the smell of juniper trees back home, the babies breath and sun baked grass. Yes, even those noxious white weeds they call flowers. The warm that permeated the skin from every corner like an ambient robe.

He could almost picture the place at home, where his childhood took place and later took for granted. The corner, past the hallway at the bottom of the stairs past the garage where they kept all the junk and old computers, that in time, he forced himself to the garage instead because he thought it was ‘all growed up’. He remembered the cold in that corner, that sunk in like the cold around him now, back then he enjoyed that feeling; at least until the evening sun passed through the window and radiated from the wall until he’d remember that he was no longer secluded there. How the air would change when he left it, like it were a world in and of itself, and he was always sad to leave it. Something so simple, and so basic that he could appreciate at any time in the day but passed it up for something exciting... and yet he’d run headlong into danger to remember it again. Not like he’d have the chance too now. Perhaps there was an answer still standing outside their frozen cave, something he’d have to fight to achieve, like everything lately. It never used to be like this, when mysteries and answers to everything came and found him instead. Everything always seemed to work out anyway, no matter how hard it got, but even Aaron wanted to loose hope so he could simply role over and accept giving up.

A thought came to Aaron, scoffed and tucked away until he could process what it was. It was about the day at Grandma’s place, the memory he seemed to lose, and Aaron cried. Again. The memory that just two days ago, sent him on a long and unforgiving headlong journey. He remembered the gate way, the one that closed by the blank wall of the hallway, and remembered the thought of remembering something else; like how someone would see a reflection of a mirror inside another mirror with themselves inside, and the infinite foggy passageway it alludes to the eyes. It wasn’t the first gateway he passed up. He remembered another related moment that came before, thinking the same exact thought, and another, and another, like each step on a stairwell where the same thought played out for him to ignore and simply admire --Then to when it suddenly stopped when he thought that he’d always remember. More memories arisen, memories of times where that same exact thought had vaguely originated; as well as each instance where it had applied before and thereafter, to what he felt then, what he was thinking, and where he was at the time that it happened. Still, the gateway to another world, standing in from of him, closed. He remembered why it closed, when he turned away from the gateway, because it was taken for granted; that it was only a matter of time until Aaron ‘found another one anyways’, because those gates opened absolutely everywhere, and yet he’d always forget until it came back in front of him, and he remembered everything, and then forgot again, out of arrogance... Always arrogance, ‘I’ll remember’. But this arrogance did not stop him from falling onto the unknown, only blind him from seeing it’s outline, to where it was, and the internal method to breach that realm. He only remembered when he fell in, and his mortal mind could retain some thought that something had occurred at a place in a time. It was what he took for granted, that blinded him of his sight, his ears, his mouth and his heart. The magic didn’t leave him, instead, he left it, and it continued to exist without him. He was only eight.

Aaron sure felt stupid for throwing his careless life into the wind, chasing after the same blind arrogance that severed him the first time. He was certain the truth was outside of him, but forgot that it also lived within him. All of this, however, would mean nothing as if he could never find his way home. He could even picture the entrance by the lake, how he could feel it’s edges, like a memory dragging him in. The smell of swamp, like the water beneath him, with a refreshing waft of moisture evaporating from beneath. “OH SHIT!” Zack exclaimed. Aaron lifted his head to find whatever caught up to them but there was nothing at their entrance. “What happened to the glass?” Aaron looked to the clean puddle. It seemed deeper. Reaching into it to find the shards, the puddle became innumerably deep and even started to raise the level in their cold steaming cavern with a warm liquid. It was warmer than the cave at least, and that’s all that mattered.

As the tides engulfed their feet, and penetrated the stone beneath the rubber soles, it dislodged their footing and they fell into the reviving waters. Aaron couldn’t believe himself, as everyone’s flabbergasted expressions questioned what in the crap just happened. “Like the edge of two drops of water, becoming one... It just needed a place to go...” Aaron muttered, “Like I did...” Before sinking peacefully into the deep and emerging on the other side.

He gasped for air, taking control of his mindlocked body and threw himself from the waters, waiting for the rest to arrive. “We did it...” Aaron muttered, watching his friends emerge from the dark misty pond, “We... We did it!”

Zack coughed as he risen, crawling up the sandy pebble shore, and shook his head as though he were waking from a dream. “Where the hell was that? Felt like I just pinballed between a bunch of different places... We’re... Somewhere, aren’t we?”

Throwing his wet shirt to the ground, Aaron laughed basking in the warm fiery midnight fog, and breathed a breath of strong saving air while still shaking his core warm again. “Zack, write this down! I thought where I wanted to go, it took me there, just like the boardwalk... There’s more to it, but I’m still putting it together... We got out of there!” Yet if the portal should exist, why then lose his ability to pass through the day before? Life’s rabbit hole would have to wait. “I... I guess that means Iswana’s kinda full of it, huh?” Cuffing the warm water aside, and watching it splatter “This water actually does do something after all... Well, considering we’re here already, let’s see the old guy...”

“So why did it activate that time?” Zack complained.

“It needed a command. I’ll never get over it: No matter what I seem to need, it always comes when I need it most... I guess I’ll never understand it, and that’s fine... I used to wonder... Now I just accept it. Something is out there, my guy, and it just saved all of us, again!”

Running down the hill with the biggest, smuggest smile on his face, he knocked on the door, calling the old man to the deck. Kaylemen stood agog, to see the glimmer in the young boys eyes, with the professing of his claims. Aaron asked if Kaylemen had a jar laying around, but it was empty. Aaron held everyone put, before running back to it’s source. Aaron plunged the swampy mixture into his fresh jar, and made a booking back to the old house. Catching his breath only at the doorway.

Aaron dropped the water into a flat plate, creating the puddle that he would connect. Aaron held the rims, taking the time to settle himself and picture the same weak memory of the pond. In a few moment’s Kaylemen himself began to marvel. Soon the plate began to overflow, and the water from it’s spring halted. Aaron called his master to pass his hands through but as he did, Kaylemen was still baffled, trying hard to remove his hands. Aaron placed his hand in as well, feeling the resistance and what appeared to be a half baked portal that only barely passed through space after all. Aaron was disappointed, yanking his hand from the mirrored bowl, yet the tugging would not lift the bowl from the table as he did. Tension, was taken somewhere else. “It’s like before, isn’t it?” Aaron dismayed, “When I could feel the power in these stones, and after a while it faded... I’m always just so close to picking up the truth, and yet it’s a filament away from my touch, like it doesn’t want to be found.”

Closing his eyes, Kaylemen pondered, then alluded aloud. “Perhaps you withhold yourself from these miracles instead, half heartedly, in fear that they will tell you more than you want to hear. An action, with no follow through, like a shot into the wind. Still...” Marveling at the display, Kaylemen pondered further. “It is revelating... Perhaps, like the energies we feel in the rocks, and some times in other people, these things can react to us, itself, as they react with one another. What should cause this imaginarium of possibilities I cannot say I have discovered. Perhaps we too, have a will that reaches beyond as you say, but this old man is at his limit as well. I will reevaluate this after my sleep. It is late...”

“I’m sorry,” Aaron apologized, playing with the water in the plate, “It’s going to take a while to figure it out, but I’m closer... There really is nothing physically special about this water that I can tell... It’s... Intent, and... Ambition. It’s the ambition of being there. Something that feels like I already am there, and it inherits that will. It doesn’t even need to be specific, so long as there is more water on the other side, it locks into it; otherwise I might have returned home through the pantry by now.”

“I told you, not every discovery is immediate...” Kaylemen assured, leading the party out. “But if you wait until I’m dead to figure it out I’m gonna be lividly enraged! It is astonishing, do not diminish it. I’m going back to bed now, keep that fire within you lest it be snuffed out by a passing breeze, and carry on... There will be more of your journey to come, young master.” Laughing himself proudly, as he shooed everyone from his abode and sealed the door... Followed by his gem stash.

Aaron’s smile grew, having the blessings of his teacher. That smile stalled however, as he turned to Felicity, who looked rather depressed. “What’s up?” He asked still ecstatic.

Felicity turned away for the balcony, and looked to it’s vast dark expanse. “You seem to figure things out all on your own, get where you need to go, and I... I can’t seem to even protect anyone...” Biting on their lip before returning for the stairs up. “Maybe I’m not that useful after all...” And for a moment, Aaron felt guilty beyond his shining eyes for saving them, yet what could he have done otherwise for their pride’s sake?