Guardian

by Jack Porter

  Then just as quietly, I lifted myself up to the surface again, ready to attack if need be, and saw the darkness was scrutinizing the trees and foliage as he passed, obviously looking for me there.

  Precious seconds slipped by me while I kicked my feet under the water, nearly crying out as my shin grazed something sharp below.

  When I was close enough to reach out and grab the darkness’s corporal body just beneath the mist, I clasped my crystal tight and put all I had into jerking him down with me instead of safely above the river’s thrashing current.

  The thing screeched, though I imagined it was more from anger than the shock of the water’s temperature.

  The darkness let go of Hannah and her body slipped under the water immediately. I was ready. Another touch of the crystal, another surge. The whole world felt right again as I clasped her in my arms and went up for air.

  “Hannah. Hannah! Wake up.” I patted her chill, white face as gently as I could while the rapids tried to roll us underneath again.

  We bobbed up and down several times. I was afraid she was breathing in water, so I kept her above water at the cost of staying down too long myself. I had no idea if the darkness was chasing us or had given up.

  After a few minutes that seemed to take a lifetime, I began to realize that the current was starting to mellow out. I could keep Hannah and myself up well enough to begin swimming toward one side of the bank.

  That’s when the darkness struck, coming up out of nowhere, shoving me under the now almost serene river and shoving Hannah out of my hand. I watched as her gray shape began to drift down toward the bottom of the stream.

  I fought against the force that seemed to be made of nothing yet kept me tight in its clutches, before drawing on my crystal’s power and shoving it outward like a lawnmower shoots out its clippings. It was a sloppy win, as the darkness began to change, to brighten with the magic I was forcing into it.

  I didn’t have time to send more energy its way. I just dove after Hannah. The bottom was shallow enough. I could still get to her in time.

  Just as I was about to reach her, the darkness got there first and swooped her up to the surface. I followed and found with dismay that it was once again on its—whatever it was that made it float, this time too far away for me to reach. I glanced at Hannah’s eyes as they fluttered open.

  She tried to speak but the darkness put its long fingertips to her forehead and she—

  “What the fuck did you do to her?” I asked when I noticed the way her skin became immediately waxy. As if she were made of plastic instead of flesh and bone.

  “Killing her,” the darkness answered.

  I gritted my teeth, knowing it was lying to play with me. “No. I can still see her breathing.”

  “Might as well be dead. You’ll never find her. You’ll never wake her.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  The form under the misty darkness cocked its head to the side, as if trying to understand my question. “I do as I am told. It would do you well to submit to the darkness. The power it can bring you...” A rapturous grin split the darkness’s face wide. From this angle I could see its teeth were gray-yellow with rot. It lifted out a hand, as if to offer a handshake or help me onto its dark cloud. “...is incomparable.”

  I spit in the creature’s direction, and as if that weren’t clear enough, I added, “Fuck you. I don’t know what you are, but I can see your body is dead under all that power. You probably died years ago and I’m not about to jump on that runaway train.”

  Its disgusting grin dropped. “Then we’re done here.”

  The darkness drew on its own power as well as—I was shocked to see—my own, just as I was reaching for it. It could pull on my crystal’s energy too? The cheating bastard!

  A blast of obsidian mist struck me like a concrete wall. Nausea gripped me as the darkness sent me flying out of the river and onto the bank. As I shot to my feet, ready to jump in again, I found the river was empty.

  Hannah and the darkness were both gone.

  A numbness took over in that tangible space the winged goddess had left empty. I could physically feel her connection with me fading.

  Yet she was still with me in the smallest way. I took out Hannah’s crystal and held it in front of my face. This crystal belonged to her, even if it was separated from its goddess. I could feel her power and presence through the cold mineral.

  That meant I could track her. Save her.

  Pain lanced through my foot as I tried to determine which direction Hannah and the darkness had gone by turning one way, then the other. When I looked, of all the things I expected to see, a cut or a broken toe, the small field mouse with black mist encompassing its miniscule body was not one of them. The pain came again as the mouse lunged forward and nibbled at my biggest toe.

  Horrified to see the darkness transferring into my toenail like the rotting disease it was, I used my crystal to clear the darkness from me and then reached out to touch the crazed mouse too.

  The only problem was, seconds after the dark mist vanished from the creature, it returned again and darted forward to take another bite out of me.

  Obviously, I would have to kill it first, like I had the guardian. The thought turned my stomach. However, I knew if I didn't do the unsavory task, it was likely the creature would never stop in its quest to turn me into a dark host. It was the only thing I could think of that it wanted, with the way the darkness actively transferred to me if I didn’t fight it.

  Anger bloomed in my chest, hot and fierce, as the mouse broke noisily under my foot.

  A grim acknowledgement that this wouldn’t be the only host the darkness sent my way settled heavy in my heart. How was I going to protect the girls from this ugliness?

  Rage burned hot in my gut. The darkness wouldn’t get away with this. I was going to get Hannah back, find a way to wake her. I would kill anything that got in my way.

  And then I would kill that darkness too and destroy the source of the black mist, wherever it was, that had started all this madness.

  Twenty

  At some point the other girls joined me. It was only then that I realized I had been staring at the river for nearly an hour, clutching Hannah’s crystal with nothing but the thought of getting her back running through my mind. I had tried gripping the crystal, willing the dark man-creature to reappear and fight me, but nothing happened. It had wanted Hannah, not me, and I didn’t like to think why.

  Questions about where she could have gone, and unbearable thoughts about what state she would be in when I found her, swirled around me like an invisible wind.

  “Dexter, what happened?” Megan asked. “Did you find her?”

  Piper was the first to notice the extra crystal in my hand. “Is she hurt?” Piper’s low voice shot high with worry.

  I gave a brief summary to the girls about the feeling Hannah and I encountered each time we activated the crystal’s power. Their eyes grew large and tearful when I told them about Hannah’s fall, my rush to get to her before the darkness did, and then capture.

  “I failed her. I’m sorry girls.”

  “You did everything you could,” Layla said, trying to comfort me with a light touch on the shoulder. “We will get her back.” The conviction and anger in her voice startled even me.

  “Yes, I was thinking the same thing. You girls stay here. I’ll go rescue her.”

  Immediate backlash assaulted my ears as every girl tried to argue with me at once. I picked up bits and pieces as they all talked over one another.

  “We can help, you’d have no idea how to care for her wing if—” That was Piper.

  Layla was almost yelling. “You can’t go alone. What if something happened to—"

  “Like hell I am going to sit on my ass while my friend—" Megan sassed.

  My heart softened, and I held my hands up in mock surrender. “I can see I’m not getting out of this. You have to understand how dangerous this is though. The darkness is after me, I th
ink. I don’t want to put you girls needlessly in harm’s way.”

  When they looked confused, I reluctantly told them about the mouse still laying just a few feet away from us.

  Megan looked over and back quickly. From the emotions flickering on her face, Piper seemed to be at war with herself. Sick at the thought there was a dead mouse so close to her, and being thankful that it was dead, and worried at why I’d had to kill it.

  Layla had her finger touching her chin lightly in thought. Slowly she spoke. “If we find our crystals, you stand a better chance of defeating him. Think about it. Our transformation depends on you, Dexter. Kind of like the darkness is using animals to attack you, maybe you use us to defeat the darkness. Aside from the ability to heal yourself and purify the darkness, you didn’t gain any of the physical anomalies that Hannah did. That means you have some other purpose, perhaps.”

  “So, you think when you get your powers, whatever they are, you’ll be more apt to help me defeat the darkness. That makes sense.”

  “No way you can stick us in a cave now.” Megan winked. “But first, we need to find Hannah. We can keep our eyes peeled for temples or crystals along the way.”

  “You’re right.” I sighed.

  “So let’s go,” Piper said. The others nodded.

  I felt the urgency to get Hannah as quickly as we could, but we needed to be smart about it.

  “Not yet. I can feel the faintest connection of Hannah’s power through this crystal. If I concentrate hard enough, I can sense what direction she’s in. Nothing exact, but close enough that I trust it. They are heading toward the mountains. I want to go after her too, but we have to wait until we get you guys sufficient clothes.”

  The others started to grumble again, but I cut over them. “That is the only way you’re coming. You can’t do me much good if you’re all frozen solid. Until you get your crystals, you are breakable.” The truth of it stung. I wanted to protect them all. Shield them with my own body from anything that might come their way. But I couldn't. All I could do was hope they found their crystals quickly.

  “Do you remember the plants she pointed out for you? I think I can smoke the deer hide from what little information she gave us before you guys left Piper and I in the cave.”

  Despite the severity of the moment, we all shared a knowing look. It was harder to concentrate on what came before the girls left than what happened after.

  “It was pretty dark out, but I remember,” Piper said. “It will take longer to twist the fibers than to smoke the hide, so I’ll start on that as soon as I get back.”

  “I’ll help, Pipes,” Layla said. “Dexter, why don’t you go find us the hide. Deer is preferable, but with enough rabbits I think we can get the job done as well.” Layla was already turning back toward the cave.

  “Good idea,” Megan said. “I’ll get the fires started. Hannah said we’d need a few small, low heat ones to smoke a large hide without it catching fire. She even said we’d also need to build a wooden rack so we could drape the hide across the fires evenly. I’ll do that too.”

  “Sounds like a plan, team,” I said. “I’ll go and hunt now. If I bring back a few bucks, that will be all we’ll need for clothes, footwear, and maybe a blanket. After that, I’ll build another fire and smoke all the deer meat so we won’t have to stop as often for food.”

  Feeling determined to get our jobs done to the best of our ability, we split up.

  Trusting the girls knew their way back, I took off deep into the trees to scope for a trail of droppings that I could follow. Soon I realized it was here that I missed Hannah the most.

  She’d gone hunting with me most of the time since the ruins. It wasn't so much the help that I missed though. It was the company.

  Despite the fact that Hannah was better at tracking and gutting than me, what made a feeling of loneliness tug at my gut was that the woods were far too quiet. Without Hannah’s jokes and gentle laughter to muffle the silence, the trees seemed a little less green, the sun a little less warm.

  I missed our contests to see who could get the biggest kill. And I missed her handywork with the knife as she prattled on about how she longed for her favorite set of pink shoes at home, or used funny voices to quote lines from a movie that something I’d said reminded her of.

  Grinding my teeth so hard I thought they’d turn to dust, I swatted the memories from my mind. Thinking about Hannah wouldn’t bring her back. Finding her would.

  I kept my mind carefully blank after that and began to look for the deer in earnest.

  I found a trail. I followed it. I killed one buck, then an hour later, another. It was heavy work, hauling two grown two-hundred-fifty-pound animals back to camp one after another. But I managed.

  I was about to go back in for the last when Piper ordered me to sit down. She literally pushed me down when I tried to deny her. And I laughed, accepting defeat. I could spare five minutes to rest.

  Piper brought some boiled and cooled river water from the cooking pot, and I gulped it down as if it were the first water I’d tasted in my entire life. Megan handed me a half a pound of berries she’d picked along the way. “You need some sugar if you’re going to get the last deer without it goring you through with its antlers.”

  They were right. Once I’d rested for a few hours, helping Piper twist fibers and popping some berries and dried hare meat into my mouth, I felt good as new.

  The sun was setting. I’d have to hurry if I was going to see well enough to find another deer.

  I set back out while Megan attempted her first skinning of an animal ever. A task the other girls besides Hannah had strictly avoided until now.

  I smiled at the determination of the girls to get Hannah back. Willing to push past their comfort zones to do what needed done. I was proud of them and commended their strength.

  Of all the girls I could have been stranded on this island with, I couldn’t have handpicked anyone better than Layla, Hannah, Piper, and Megan. I was the luckiest man in the world, I reckoned.

  With a stupid grin on my face, I tracked the final buck, running full out to keep up when it heard me coming and took off through the gnarled thickets and into an open field.

  One might ask how I could manage to take down a buck with my bare hands by myself. Well the answer was that obviously I couldn’t without the crystal’s changes to my body. Now however, it was manageable if I was careful.

  With Hannah’s help I would have had this tagged and bagged in thirty minutes.

  Shit, I was even thinking in Hannah’s accent.

  I pushed myself faster, sweat pouring down my face and chest like a waterfall. I took heavy gasping breaths as I cornered the deer at a boulder.

  My legs shaking with my exertion, I faced the beast. Its brown eyes were angry and ready for a fight. It lowered its head and charged.

  The trick was to grab a hold of its antlers and twist hard enough to snap its neck without getting a hoof to the face or being speared through with multiple points.

  Stopping a two-hundred-fifty-pound ball of raging animal was not an easy task.

  I wish I could say I’d done it with ease, but I most certainly didn’t. The antlers hit me like a runaway freight train. They didn’t pierce anything, but fuck me if I didn’t have bruises all over my entire torso tomorrow. I yanked my legs up and twisted them around the deer’s thick, warm neck.

  This made it stop running blindly and attempt to buck me off instead. My sweaty, slick grip started to slip from the antlers. I squeezed my thighs together with all I was worth—which did jack all except make the buck more frantic.

  “Argh! Stop fighting me you overgrown blanket. Hold still and accept your fate!”

  At this point, I had two choices. One, drop and let the hooves trample me before trying again. Two, attempt to get on the animal’s back so I could snap its neck from above.

  I knew which one sounded less fatal.

  The buck stopped fighting, head lowered slightly with the weight of my body. I
heard its wild panting and felt its shuddering muscles. This was it, finally, it was almost over.

  Don’t worry fella. It will be quick and painless.

  While all the beast’s hooves were planted firmly on the ground, I took my chance. Powerful, crystal-enhanced muscles gave me the boost I needed to swing myself up onto the animal’s back.

  I grasped its antlers and prepared myself for the final move. Only once it took a moment to do that, I realized why the buck had stopped in the first place.

  Black mist swirled around the animal’s legs and up its flank. So fast I didn’t even get to blink, the mist slipped over the buck’s hide and straight into my body.

  Fuck.

  Twenty-One

  My mind went fuzzy with dark power. To say that it encompassed me by force was a lie. I hadn’t felt it with the mouse because it was so small, but along with the dark transfer of power came a feeling of euphoria that I couldn’t put into words if I tried.

  The dark serenaded me. Invited me in. Told me it would give me everything I ever wanted.

  How easy it would have been to just let go.

  Raising a hand, I slapped myself in the face and got several precious moments of a clear head. Acting quickly, I grappled with the antlers and gave the final hard twist. The animal dropped like a stone and rolled onto its side, crushing one of my legs.

  Still, I managed to grab the crystal and push the cleansing blue-white light through my body into the animal’s, which was almost fully black now.

  So quick.

  It was a battle of the wills. And I was already so exhausted from the nerve-wracking loss and heavy labors of the day.

  Had more of the darkness enveloped me, I can’t be sure I wouldn’t have been taken over completely. But by some miracle, it hadn't, therefore I hadn't. Every bit of my anger and determination went into a final push.