He had to find her and warn her as soon as he could. Finding her was the main problem though. He could always wait by the tree until she came back, but the beast might try to get him while he was on the ground and he preferred to not deal with it again.
He figured he’d just have to go towards the lake and hope to find her. That’s where she had gone the first time.
The plan would have sounded a little better if he actually knew which way the lake was, but all this running about had confused him completely, and the mist was still covering the lower regions of the forest. Aimlessly running around was what got him into this mess in the first place, so that wasn't an option either.
He realized his best chance was to wait for a bit and hope that the mist cleared up. Of course that meant that the beast would be able to see much easier too, but he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. Taylor was his main priority right now. She seemed to have a pretty good idea of what was going on and he needed to be clued in.
He crawled across the branches, finding a cluster of intertwined ones above him that provided him a sort of cover for the time being.
He rested on the branch, leaned against the trunk of the tree and closed his eyes, hoping this was just a dream.
Boy what he’d give to make that one wish come true.
***
Q smiled to himself.
His patience had finally paid off.
Nearly an hour had passed and the mist had finally dissipated enough for him to climb down again. His eyes darted around, searching for the beast, and thankfully, the cat was nowhere in sight.
He wrapped his arm around one of the branches and leaned forward, trying to see a wider picture of the forest.
His viewpoint was quite high up so he expected to see the lake pretty easily, but the trees around him were just as tall as the one he was on, maybe even larger. So their branches and leaves were blocking his vision almost entirely.
But he could see a white orb of light very far away that was expanding and approaching, growing for a few seconds before converging into a thick beam of light that shot high into the air, the end of which was seemingly non-existent.
That had to be where Taylor was.
Now he had a location, so all he had to do was figure out a way to get there. The mist slowly rose up to just a few feet below him, and he scampered, wondering what he had to do.
He noticed the beast wasn't anywhere in the vicinity, which made him wonder what had actually happened. Maybe it had just tired itself out and left him alone.
His eyes scanned the ground, making sure it was safe for him to go back down. There weren’t any ‘purple eyes through the mist’ anywhere so it seemed okay.
He let go of the branches and slowly slid himself down the tall trunk, using the thicker branches as steps. His feet soon touched the ground and he sighed deeply, happy to be out of the dark canopy.
The mist still lingered about, clouding his vision a bit. But he still ran through the forest, swerving away from any trees that faded into sight. Soon there were no trees in his path and he charged on, wanting to reach the lake as quickly as he could.
His mind kept questioning what he was doing. Right now, he was running to a random beam of light, hoping that Taylor was somehow involved in it. It seemed weird and possibly stupid, but he strongly felt that she was involved and he had no clue why.
He wondered if he should call out to her. It seemed like a reasonable idea, but from morning to night, he’d faced a cat beast. Who knew what else was out there?
The last thing he wanted to do was turn himself into a human food-beacon.
He calmed down and just headed down the path. The silence around him seemed really spooky, and the spookiness went up a notch when he heard faint swishing noises all around.
He paused, trying to analyze the situation. The mist around him shifted, and for some reason he dropped to the ground, kneeling down and keeping quiet. He felt something slash past him, and a gust of wind followed.
Panic was finally starting to rise within him. Something was lurking in this unknown, misty place. And he had no idea what it was.
***
Q stood and backed up, his legs involuntarily making him shuffle around, his body tensed with nervousness and fear. The whooshing noises became louder, and more frequent.
Something pounded into his back and he flew across the ground, feeling like an eighteen-wheeler had just rolled over him. His lungs were still recovering when he felt something next to his leg. A dark rope-like object shot towards him. He jumped out of its path and picked himself up, his mind alert to any other attacks.
He could just about see the edge of the lake from here, and floating above the edge was a large dark blob with tentacles. On top of the blob was a humanoid figure. A shade of golden-yellow caught the dull sunlight through the mist and glowed radiantly.
Blond hair, he thought. Taylor.
The creature had her arms and legs completely wrapped up with its tentacles, making them appear pitch black. Her torso and face where the only parts left alone. Her face though looked completely different, the white of her eyes replaced by ominous shades of hazy darkness.
Q gritted his teeth. The one person whom he’d banked on to save him was being possessed by a creature that was probably banking on him to be its dinner. The tentacles shot towards him, and he instinctively headed deeper into the mist.
The whooshing increased, and he sensed the dark silhouettes of the tentacles as they shifted through the mist. And just when Q felt he was in the worst situation possible, the inevitable happened.
It got so much worse.
A low growl came from behind him and he didn't need to turn to see what it was. The beast had finally found him. At the worst possible time ever. He slowly twisted his head, trying not to make any sudden movements. Two bright purple eyes glowed through the mist, and the dark outline of a large beast walked towards him.
He was blocked in both directions, and he had to face twice the trouble. Not a great situation to be in.
His hand reached down and picked up the first thing it found. A stick. A weak, half broken stick. The beast seemed to have noticed he’d picked up a weapon. Its growling became more aggressive, and the silhouette crouched low, ready to pounce.
Q heard a faint whooshing noise under all the growling that the beast was doing. He grinned. He’d found a way out.
His hand gripped the twig firmly and he arched back, mustering as much force as he could and throwing it straight at the beast. The stick hit right between the eyes and made it roar in fury. Q could see the eyes of the beast turn angrier. It sprang from the ground, straight at him.
He ducked down, and lay in the same spot. Same game, one more time, he thought.
The beast was bearing down on him like an assassin, and Q wasn't moving even an inch.
Some might call it suicidal. But he had one trick up his sleeve that the beast would have never expected.
A single, dark tentacle reached out from the lake, slicing through the air as it made its regular sweep. This time though, it latched onto the beast who was in mid-jump and wasted no time in wrapping around its leg, pulling it hard to the ground. In a second or so more than ten tentacles shot through the mist and wrapped themselves around the beast. It bellowed as the tentacles covered its face and froze its movements.
The dark arms swiftly dragged the cat beast along the muddy ground and into the lake. Q didn’t know what would happen to the beast, but he was sure it wouldn't be chasing him anymore. It was kind of scary to think about what the creature would do to the beast though.
A loud roar escaped through the dense air, and a series of yelps followed.
The beast, he thought.
Silence followed after that. The blob had probably finished it off.
He felt a little sorry, but then again, if he hadn’t done that he’d be the one lying dead. His mind focused back to the problem at hand. He had to break Taylor free from that dark blob.
; He ran back towards the lake, and sure enough, the creature was waiting there with all its tentacles flailing around. A white light pulsated deep within its dark body, making Q wonder what was going on in there.
In one single flow the tentacles shot towards him and wrapped around him, starting from his arms and legs, swiftly working their way up. His heart clenched with fear and his limbs shivered in fright.
This is exactly what had happened to the cat beast, and based on the cries he’d heard towards the end, he really didn’t want to experience the same thing. The dark membranes finally wrapped around his eyes. His body felt a certain numbness and then he lost all sensation.
The tentacles never dislodged from him, but the darkness around him somehow vanished.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t a good thing.
***
The scene before Q was more astonishing than anything he’d seen before, and saying that right after the situations he’d been in meant a lot.
He was on steady ground, but that wasn't the problem here. The air was filled with some sort of purple-pink fog that glowed like it was made of fluorescent versions of those colors. A few yards away from him stood a box. It was sleek and looked like it had been forged out of dark titanium. Shiny, silver-grey chains wrapped around it, binding it tightly.
Just as he walked toward the box, a cheap motel sign popped out from its surface.
Welcome, it said.
The box popped open and smoke rose from within it, mixing with the air.
A man walked out of all the chaos, dressed in a suit as dark as the box itself. His shirt was pure white, and so were the gloves that he wore. His face hid behind a weird looking mask. One side was white, with a black outline around the area for the eye, and the other side was black, with a white highlight around the eye. He flashed a smile through the slit for his mouth, showing Q all of his teeth in a deathly expression.
“Why hello there and welcome to the best game ever,” he spun around, pulling a black cane out of nowhere and twirling it in the air.
He used it to point to the ground next to him, and smoke materialized, dispersing to reveal a completely bound Taylor. She was tied down to a chair, her hands and legs secured with something that looked like the dark tentacles from before.
“Poor little girl,” the man said. “Tried to play with me and ended up being too weak for the task.”
He twirled his cane around nonchalantly, as though he were disappointed by the fact that he wasn't getting enough entertainment. His eyes changed expressions and he lunged towards Q, his smile even wider than before. “Maybe, you’d like to play?”
Q stood silently, wondering what he had to do. He had no information. He had no clue where he was or who this crazy guy in front him was.
His mind shifted his attention to Taylor. She seemed to be unconscious, hopefully uninjured.
“Uh, uh, uh,” the man wagged his finger at Q. “You don't get any analyzing time at all,” he said and brought his stick to the ground. The ground rumbled, throwing up mud into the air and trying to sweep Q’s feet from under him. He crouched, lowering his center of gravity to help keep himself steady.
“You’re no fun,” the masked man grumbled. “Let’s spice things up a bit shall we?”
He put both hands to his stick and twirled it around over his head, making it spin faster and faster. Q could feel the wind around him get sucked towards the man in a sort of mini-hurricane.
The man stopped mid-twist, and the winds died down. He chuckled. “Ah, he’s come for you,” he said, and a faint smile shone through his mask. “Let’s have fun some other time eh?”
He vanished with a poof, causing smoke to fill the space that he occupied just seconds ago.
Everything around Q sank into the darkness. His body went numb.
Frozen.
Lifeless.
***
1-4
Q woke up to the sound of birds chirping away joyfully. He looked out the window to see the last ray of light go below the horizon.
The door creaked open and his brother popped in, “Looks like you’re back to normal,” he said.
Q turned, “You came out of your study,” he mumbled.
“Ugh. Yes I did.”
“Wait, this is a dream isn’t it?” he said and dropped back to his bed.
His brother pulled his blanket away from him, “I’m real you idiot. Now get up”
“No way. This is too preposterous.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Yes it-” Q’s face got serious. “Wait. Last night. Something very strange happened.”
“Ah, so you remembered,” Carlos’ face went dark. “Damn. What a pain.”
“It’s a pain that I remember all that?”
“You weren’t supposed to know about any of that.”
The memory of the dark blob shot through Q’s mind. His eyes widened.
“Taylor!” he yelled. “What happened to Taylor?”
Carlos’ stood up, “Follow me,” he led Q out of the room and into his study.
He walked towards the library, and explained bits and pieces as he went along. “The day you and Taylor explored the forest you were taken out by some mysterious creature, and you lost all your memories of the incident. Taylor brought you back and returned there to find out what it was,” he said. “You, on the other hand, apparently got into my underground base and went face to face with a Felinera, which is that cat-like beast with amazing nocturnal predatory abilities.”
Uh oh, Q thought.
Carlos actually knew about his little adventure to the cavern. Q didn’t know if he should speak up and redeem himself, or if it was better to keep quiet.
His brother led him to the center of the bookshelves, and kept his end of the conversation going. “I had shut down the system’s alert sequence for maintenance, so I only found out about your adventure much, much later. By the time I did, both you and the Felinera had disappeared from the base. I tried to track you down, but something was hiding you well. When I finally found you guys the Phalatopian had already affected both of you.”
“A Phala-what?”
“A Phalatopian. That’s what the tentacle creature is called. It’s quite mysterious actually. It can mess up a lot of the signals in your brain. In fact I think that’s the thing that attacked you the first time. Its annoying mist making ability messes everyone up big time.”
That’s where the mist came from, Q thought.
But something else struck him about what Carlos said. “So that masked guy wasn’t real?”
“He probably wasn’t. I never saw any masked guy when I found you.”
“There was this guy who said ‘He’s come for you’.”
“I wouldn’t worry about it too much. It was just a hallucination. Your mind was playing tricks on you.”
“What about everything else that happened?”
“It was all real. It’s not something that I wanted you to see this early in life, but yes, they were all real.”
Q walked quietly while his mind tried to analyze the information he just received. Everything that he’d seen was real.
Carlos walked up to the bookcase and pulled out one of the books. The floor beneath them opened up and they landed hard on the floor below.
“Need to build an elevator,” Carlos muttered.
Duh, Q thought. What was the point of a high tech base when you can’t make a cool entrance?
“Welcome sir,” the feminine voice said, as the underground cavern lit up.
Carlos walked up to a computer embedded in the wall and gestured Q to come closer to him.
“Take us down,” he said.
“Processing transfer...Initializing floor lock-down...Beginning transport sequence.”
A large part of the surface that they were standing on broke off from the rest and sank into the floor. Oh sure, he remembers to build an elevator here, he thought.
Walls of metal surrounded them as the platform headed down into the Earth.
“Where does this go?” Q asked.
“You’ll have to wait a bit to find out,” Carlos smiled. The platform came to a stop, jerking Q off balance.
“Opening doors,” the voice said and the metal wall in front of them slid apart.
Carlos walked through unfazed, but Q was quite reluctant to follow. This was uncharted territory and he didn't want to discover something stranger than what he’d just experienced.
“Well?” Carlos turned to him. “Don’t stand there all day, we have work to do.”
“We?”
“Just get in here already.”
Q hurried through the opening without wasting any more time. Carlos seemed to be getting more irritated by the second. Was this how his brother really was? He couldn't remember. It had been quite a long time since he’d spent time with his brother. Maybe his personality had changed a lot.
They were in some sort of room, a hemisphere of transparent green covering the center portions. He tried to look into it but everything just seemed blurry.
“Deactivate force field,” Carlos said.
“Summoning energy barrier protocols….Initiating destabilization….Shutting down Force field.”
The green hemisphere broke off at the top and dissolved into nothing.
“Force field deactivated.”
Q could see everything much clearer after this force field - which he hadn't asked Carlos about - had been shut down.
At the center of the room was a glass box placed on a solid metal table. The box’s two ends were curved like it was some sort of human capsule.
Carlos walked towards it and the top automatically slid open, sending a mechanical hiss into the air.
“Analyze bio-sensory data,” Carlos said.
A 3D hologram opened up from a machine fixed to the ceiling and displayed some complex images and numbers that Q didn't understand. All he recognized was one image that seemed to relate to a brain scan.
The Quest Saga Collection: Books 1 - 5 Page 4
