Ashkii Dighin- The Hunt for the Hypnotist

by Adam Lynch

  “It means you’re not alone. You don’t have to do this on your own.”

  “I’m not alone?”

  “You’re not alone.”

  Hearing this, he didn’t know how to react, much less finding the words to say next. What could he say to this? Or maybe… he wasn’t meant to say anything at all.

  Then she grinned, escalating his heartbeat as she wrapped her thumbs under his ears.

  “Kiss me,” she said, his heart thudding now.

  “What?” he asked, thought he was hearing things.

  “Kiss me. But this time for real and because you want to.” He stared, not knowing what to do. “You do want to kiss me—don’t you?”

  His mind felt conflicted, though under this captivating moment, he couldn’t gather why.

  “It’s okay,” she reassured. “Just one kiss. Close your eyes.” She brushed her hand over his eye lids, shutting them. “Now follow your heart. It’ll know what to do.”

  With his eyes closed, his mind silenced, he felt his anxiety depart from him. Self-consciousness eased. In this moment, he saw now but one thing—something he wanted.

  He eased in, lips skidding her neck—a soft moan to encourage him. They climbed up, tongue marking its trail until his lips met their mark. When they’d tasted that her fruit was sweet, they locked in, relishing in her vigor so profound it’d seemed forbidden.

  One kiss and suddenly everything felt different.

  Gravity no longer kept him down.

  Emotion no longer seized his heart.

  Thoughts no longer clouded his mind.

  His consciousness unusually at peace, his body felt nothing but pleasure.

  She was irresistible.

  Opening his eyes, he saw the sun like never before. He wasn’t blinded by their celestial glow. It was like her kiss had granted him the vision to see—not the sun, not her plain hazel eyes, but her eyes as they always were: glowing radiant stars.

  She grinned, noticing his astonishment. “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “Weird...” he said.

  “In a good way though, right?”

  “Yeah...” He looked away a moment, searching deeply for thoughts very difficult to conjure up in this moment. “But it feels… misplaced somehow...”

  “Ask me a question, Ashkii. Ask me and I’ll give you the truth.”

  In first attempt of this his mind was blank—pleasure had lifted him far above reality. But then suddenly something opened. He started feeling pain, confliction, irrationality, humiliation—like his old self was quickly returning… but was it ever really lost? Finally, he gathered the words he wished to speak. “You said you shared a similar origin… to mine?”

  “I come from a land outside of Seasons—as I’ve once told you. The Sky Pirates have raided my home. They set everything I once knew and loved in flames, burning, decapitating, and beating my people mercilessly. I was terrified. I was very young. Before they could find us, my mother took me and fled. We escaped to a far away land where the pirates have not yet discovered. Eventually, we arrived in Winteria, lodging there for a time. Then, one night, I awoke and found my mother being torn apart by a bloodthirsty werewolf. Today, I can still feel her blood spurting on my face, her screams ringing in my ears, the sight of my loving mother torn open, organs exposed to the foul air.”

  Ashkii spun his glance away, avoiding his expected reaction of sentiment. Though he had felt something from it, he wasn’t good at displaying it.

  Again he felt conflicted, confused as he pieced together all the things that he had just heard… along with all the things he’d already known. Suddenly, a lot came back to him. He recalled everything that had happened on the battlefield. Suddenly conscious of his surroundings, he scanned the area and noticed that they were inside the forest next to the field. Everybody was still fighting outside—but now, he saw something else: Sky Pirates—or The Chosen, specifically. Over the hills they marched, White-Bloods, Mystics, Spirit Hunters, and Sun-Shields fighting together to push them back. Where had they suddenly come from?

  How did he and Kelanassa get over here? Did he not fall unconscious after her? Perhaps she dragged them over to safety after waking up?

  Rolf Valentine. Ashkii remembered killing him. He remembered retrieving the stone. But the stone never became a compass. It exploded—it exploded into a gas that made him unconscious.

  The log. He’d done everything that it had written. Had he done something wrong? Was the writer of the log misinformed? Impossible. It was too specific to be miscalculated.

  A question that needed to be answered, he pulled it out, flipping the pages.

  The page. He never found it. Odd. He must have missed it. Starting from the beginning, he flipped through the pages again. Never found it. In fact, he found no documentaries of any creatures anymore—nothing but the words of a horrific experience… like a diary. There had to be some sort of mistake. Again, Ashkii flipped through the pages—and did this again and again until he found what he was looking for.

  But he never did.

  It didn’t make sense. It made no sense at all. No sketches or documentaries of any kind. It was a diary—that was all. Words on a page—all concerning the soldier’s horrific experiences. No sign of pages being torn anywhere…

  It was all there. He was sure of it. He saw it with his own eyes. The content. It was right there in plain view. Ashkii was sure that this was the right book.

  “What is it?” she asked, peering over his shoulder as he flipped through the pages again and again. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t understand,” he said, his eyes scanning every page. “It was all here. But it’s gone. It doesn’t make sense. I saw it with my own—”

  “Eyes?”

  “Yes.” It wasn’t until after he said this that he realized it strange that she finished his sentence—like she knew.

  Closing the book, he gave her his full attention, their gazes heavy on each other.

  “Ashkii Dighin—have you learned nothing over our time together?”

  His countenance displayed skepticism, but he still wasn’t certain of her meaning.

  “If there was anything I had wanted you to ‘see’ over our time, it would not be through your five senses, but through your heart.”

  He shook his head while never letting go his glance, his eyes still full of skepticism and confusion. His body frozen still, he awaited her next words with complete undivided attention.

  She leaned forward towards him, grinning, then opened her lips to speak again. “Ashkii. It was your heart that led you to me and nothing more.”

  That did it. He sprang up, eyes peeled, heart thudding. Tension was written all over him.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay,” she whispered, rising with him, caressing his cheeks and calming him. “It’s me. It’s me, Ashkii. It’s still me. It’s always been me.”

  “Y-You’re the Hypnotist,” he stammered. “Aren’t you?”

  “I am Kelanassa Kaliete. That is my real name. It always has been.”

  He shook free of her, pulling away, eyes on full alert. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re not.” Gazing back at the notebook and then at her, he chuckled sardonically. “That explains it. Yup. That explains it. The log—everything written in it from before—that was all your forgery.”

  “Forgery? It led you to me, did it not? So in what way have I lied to you?” She slowly approached but Ashkii continued backing away, shaking his head—fighting the tears escaping his eyes.

  “Every way.” He stopped suddenly, letting her approach him with hands on his cheeks. “You lied to me in every way.”

  “Ashkii, look at me,” she said, waiting for their gazes to be fixated. “I did not lie to you. I never lied. I’m just me. I’ve always been me.”

  “Stop it,” he said, shaking her off again. “Stop that. Quit messing with me.”

  “I’m not messing with you, Ashkii.”

  “You’re manipulating my senses! You’re
forcing me to have feelings for you!”

  “No, Ashkii, I’m not. I can’t. I’m powerless to control one’s actions and emotions. I can only influence how something is perceived. What you are feeling right now is not hypnosis, Ashkii. It’s love. I know because I feel the same thing. It’s strange, isn’t it?”

  “No!” he shouted, extending his distance from her. “You’re messing with me. You’ve always messed with me. How can I trust what I see anymore? How can I trust anything my mind tells me?”

  “You can’t. You must trust your heart, Ashkii.”

  When she backed him against a rock, his sobs over took him and his legs weakened. “Damn you, Kelanassa!” he shouted, his words barely coherent. “Damn you! Damn you!”

  “Ashkii… it’s just me… it’s always been me.”

  “Yes, it was always you. I knew but I turned my head like a fool. I didn’t want to believe them. I didn’t want to trust them.”

  “Trust who, Ashkii?”

  “I hate you! It hate you, Kelanassa! You made me feel like this.”

  “I can’t make you feel anything, Ashkii. You know this.”

  “Stop it! Stop it now.”

  “I’m not doing anything. I’m not doing anything, Ashkii. I swear it.”

  “Everything. It was all your doing—all along.”

  “I protected you, Ashkii. I’m still protecting you.”

  “I thought I finally started feeling something, Kelanassa. I thought it was something real. But it was a lie. All a lie. A lie you created.”

  “I created nothing.”

  “But now I see that everything I felt—what I feel now—was all your forgery. I thought I was finally beginning to connect with someone, but that was all an illusion. I’m as empty as I’ve ever been—as I’ll ever be. Never to move past that night.”

  “What you are feeling now, Ashkii is not an illusion. It’s real. I swear to you. I know it because I feel the same thing. I know what it’s like to feel empty, disconnected. We’ve both gone through the same thing. It took psychological studies and acting lessons for me to pretend feeling something all these years. But then I met you. Then it all changed. You hurt me. You made me care for you—sacrifice. Right now I’m sacrificing everything by telling you the full truth about me. Why? Because I love you. And I want you to know everything.”

  “So tell me then. Who are you really? What do you want?”

  “I am like you, Ashkii—the sole survivor of my people, the last of the Kiren just as you are the last of the Caribou Clan in Autumnum. What I want is for us to live alone in solitude, shielded from all that threatens us. I want protection, security—I want to be with someone who understands me, who gets me—who feels the way I do, making it possible for me to feel something at all. I want to start over… move from the past, and find happiness.”

  “There’s more. There has to be.”

  “That’s all I want. But I require much to get it—the Spirit Bow most of all. I need you to surrender the Spirit Bow the same way I had absorbed Fiere’s ashes. As I’ve once explained to you, in addition to hypnosis, I possess the ability to absorb powerful energies and transmute them into tools of my own nature. Noted that the Spirit Bow can never fully be removed from its wielder, even if he gives consent. But by this, you’ll know that I can never betray or hurt you. If you die, it dies. So let this assure you that I intend to keep you strong, happy, and healthy.”

  “Why would I ever give you the Spirit Bow?”

  “The Sky Pirates. The Sky Pirates, Ashkii. They’re coming. The same captain who tricked my people and invaded my land is beginning to do the same here in Seasons. I’ve seen him. His illusive clones are everywhere.”

  “Who?”

  “I know not his name, nor do I care to learn of it.”

  “You want the Spirit Bow to fight against them?”

  “No. We cannot stop them. They are far too numerous and powerful. I will use the Spirit Bow to shield us. To form a barrier around Seasons. The same way Chiharu had done for Springeria, but stronger—much stronger.”

  “You’re mad. The Spirit Bow isn’t capable of that kind of power.”

  “It is with the help of a massive amount of life energy. With the aid of the Spirit Bow, I can harvest all life energy in Seasons to help form and secure the barrier. Seasons is a very populated land. With all that life energy, our barrier would stand against any threat, even the Sky Pirates.”

  Ashkii shook his head, staggered by what he’d just heard. “Do you even hear what you’re saying, Kelanassa? Making light of intentions as dark as these. Harvesting all life energy? You speak of mass murder.”

  “Not murder, Ashkii. Sacrifice. Either way, they are all going to die. Their fates have already been decided. The pirates are coming, Ashkii. When they come, they will kill and destroy everyone and everything you know—just like they did my land and my people.”

  “You’re insane if you think I’m going to let you do this.”

  “Listen to me, Ashkii. Everything you’ve seen of the pirates so far—it isn’t them. Everything that Chiharu Fantasia has said about them was true—everything. I’ve seen them with my own eyes. They’ve taken my land. They’ve taken other lands. If we don’t do something to prepare here, they’ll take Seasons as well and do everything to its people as they did mine and countless others. There’s nothing you can do to save them, Ashkii. They are all going to die—whether by my hand or theirs. But you, Ashkii—you can live. I can protect you—protect you as I’ve protected you this entire journey. All I need is the Spirit Bow. Then everything—all of this mess will disappear. I’ll absorb all of Season’s life energy, set the barrier over this entire land, then you and I will live in peace, safe from all the destruction that the Sky Pirates have wrought upon our world. They’ve nearly taken every land, but with your help, Ashkii, they won’t take Seasons. And they won’t take us.”

  “There are no pirates coming!”

  “Yes there are and you’re a fool if you do not see that! Don’t take my word for it, or Chiharu’s, but look with your own eyes—the eyes that you trust so much. Look around and see them here, there, everywhere. And so many more are coming! This is but the beginning of birth pains.”

  Ashkii, still unconvinced and filled with fury, strung his bow and raised it at Kel’s chest. “I should have listened to them,” he wailed. “They had warned me to end you the second I saw you again. Now I understand why they told me to do so without hesitation.”

  Kel, instantly baffled, stood puzzled. “What? Who? Who is this you speak of?”

  “It doesn’t matter. They were right about you. They were right about everything.”

  “Who, Ashkii, who?” Suddenly—her eyes peeled—the light came on. “Oh no...” she said, Ashkii’s curiosity engaged. “Oh no...”

  “What? What is it? Speak your defense or I’ll strike you where you stand.”

  “That explains everything now—the time something separated you from me in Chiharu’s palace—that was him, wasn’t it?”

  “Who?”

  “The ghostly figure with the purple eyes. Like me, he is a master of hypnosis, though, thankfully, not as powerful. The children you see surrounding him, don’t be fooled. They are all him, masks of his illusion. You mustn’t believe anything he says, Ashkii. He is one of the six Sky Pirate captains working under the behemoth. He is the vile man responsible for destroying my land and my people. And now, he’s set his sight on Seasons.”

  “Why should I believe anything you say? Much of what he told me was the truth. Are you not the Hypnotist?”

  “That is not my name.”

  “That is besides the point.”

  “I cannot prove to you that he is your enemy, Ashkii, but surely I’ve proven to you that I am not.”

  He scoffed.

  “You’re alive. I haven’t killed you. I protected you. I protected your body as well as your mind. I didn’t lie to you when I said I was immune to illusions. I am immune to illusions. But that�
�s because my hypnosis reigns supreme above all other practitioners. This is fortune, however, because with my title of superiority I am able to protect you and Seasons. I am not its destroyer. I am its savior.”

  “You only protected me because you needed me.”

  “Yes, I needed you. I needed you to remove four obstacles that would prevent me from acquiring all the life energy I’d need to build a strong barrier around Seasons. And I need you now to give me the Spirit Bow. But I don’t just need you, Ashkii. I want you. I love you. And by risking my life and telling you all this, have I not proved it? Have I not proved myself trustworthy? How do you think you even got this far? You think it was by your own merit? No. You found me because I declared it so—because I led you to me. All those clues you found of me—the book. I embedded them into your realm of sight to keep you encouraged. To keep us going. But of course I couldn’t reveal myself so soon. In addition to those obstacles I had you take care of for me, I needed time to see if you’d come to love me like I’ve come to love you—when I knew that you wouldn’t kill me upon uncovering my identity.”

  “Quite the story you have there, Kelanassa—almost as good as what the figures with the purple eyes have told me.”

  “Concerning what? How you’ve come to uncover my identity? You mean they told you something different than what I’ve said? What was it?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Why should I give you another opportunity to conjure up more lies?”

  “Hear what I have to say first—then decide if I’m lying.”

  “They said that it was them who’d slipped clues about your identity. They had tried breaking in your hypnosis net that I was trapped in to communicate with me. They had said that when I saw a child with purple eyes, it had meant that they’d breached your net. But your hypnosis was more powerful than theirs, so they could not speak and warn me about you. They could only unveil what they could about you, until seconds later you’d erase their presence from your fictionalized world. It was because of this that they ran when I saw them. They were trying to lure me away from you—to free me from your net so they could verbally warn me about your true identity.”