Daisuke jumps up again, but his senses aren’t focused. His foot slips at the bloody edge, and he somersaults off the side. In one last attempt to save himself, he grabs ahold of a loose rock. He dangles above the abyss while his foe towers over him. Without hesitation, Aurora drops her scythe, extending her hands, providing a lifeline to pull him up. My breath releases with an eased sigh. I smile, knowing that she doesn’t abandon those that need her. The last thing she wanted to do is kill this man. We won’t have blood on or hands. That’s what I hope. It’s all dashed in mere moments.
From my position, I see Daisuke’s lips move. Aurora stops moving, no longer reaching out to him. What is she doing? With slow, forceful movements, she stands up and picks up her scythe, raising it in the air. All the while, Daisuke’s lips keep moving. Her scythe positions itself to split his head open. My blood freezes. She can’t kill him. Yes, he’s the reason that we are in this situation, but we made him do what we wanted. Isn’t it fair to say that this is what we deserved?
Losing control of my senses, I spring up from my vantage point and race further down my path. There has to be a way down there. I can’t allow this to happen. This man can’t die. Each time my foot hits the ground, my mind flashes back to that terrible massacre. All of those bodies. The hopeful lives taken with no meaning. I can’t let another one be added to the pile.
My path comes to a dead-end, one that I crash against. Somehow, I remain on the path, though one of my arms slipped through an opening. In a daze, I redirect my gaze to my friend and her foe, only to watch something that I have no power to change. Her weapon trembles in the air. Daisuke looks up at her with some twisted sense of triumphant. No. Aurora lowers her scythe…but she doesn’t swing at Daisuke. Once again, she drops her weapon, reaching out to save him again. The bar over his head continues to drop due to the loss of blood. Daisuke’s eyes flare up with anger, and what happens next is over in an instant. His remaining hand slips from the path. “No,” I shout in horror, but I don’t hear my own cry. A far bloodier scream bursts through my ears, one of a woman. As Daisuke falls, Aurora bends all the way to the ground, her sorrowful cry reverberating through the cave.
Daisuke falls into the darkness, the very place he wanted to send us all. A speck of light flashes in that dark, before disappearing forever. Aurora drops to her knees. Her hair covers her face. Her blood-stained scythe lays discarded on the floor. She looks into her hands, but I don’t know what she’s looking at. I stammer, trying to think of what to do or say. How can I say anything after what happened? The horrid image of Daisuke’s arm flying and his plunge into the dark burn fresh in my mind. This indecision is cut short when I feel a rumble unlike anything before. The cave groans as if it was a beast awaking from its long sleep. We have to escape. In a panic, I scream her name.
She whips her head around, tears streaming down her face. We exchange a horrified gaze. The ground gives out from under her feet. Grabbing her scythe, Aurora springs to her feet and starts running. Her face is tight with terror, perhaps for the first time since I met her. Shaking off the last bits of my dazed state, I race back the way I came. Looking ahead, I see the cave exit moving around as if it were flying in the dark. With the guide dead, this cave will destroy everyone else. I hope that these roads will lead us up to the door because there’s no way back. The ground continues falling behind us.
The path trembles beneath me, threatening to give out underneath the weight of my next step. There has to be a way out of this. I think back to when Queen darted into the marsh and pulled Daisuke out. Is it possible that I could try something like that? Looking at Aurora, I realize that it’s worth a shot because I doubt that we’ll last much longer in here. Grabbing my staff, I focus the energy, or I wanted to. Every time I reach for that energy, I see the dead man’s terrified eyes. The energy slips from my grasp. In this state of mind, I have no mastery of my abilities.
It is only now that I come to a worse realization. All of a sudden, I feel nothing below my feet. Desperate to survive, I flail about, hoping to grab anything, but my hands and feet beat empty air. I’m going to die. My body pitches forward, and the exit vanishes from my view. The darkness below faces me, and I find myself plummeting into it. For a second, I believe that someone will grab me, but I keep falling. No one appears. I hold G.’s lamp as tightly as I can. It serves as my protection against the darkness that will soon consume me. The crafted dragon stares at me, being my only friend as I fall toward my death.
With a pained groan, I can’t believe that this is how everything ends for me. Is this what I get after all I tried to accomplish? In so short a time, I gained enough strength to stand against my enemies. If I lived long enough, perhaps I could save all of my companions from the strongest monsters alive. That will never happen now. All of this power is meaningless. It can’t save me now. With no other options, I close my eyes and embrace whatever fate awaits me at the bottom.
When my eyes open again, I find myself within a dream. I didn’t know that this was possible, but maybe my current circumstances made it possible. That is the last thought I have about the waking world as a deep cold freezes my skin. Focusing on the dream, my arms grip my sides, rubbing up and down in quick, shaky succession. Opening my eyes reveals the world before me is white, and against this backdrop, white flakes fall from the sky. They drop on my skin, each sending little chills across my body. It’s so cold. The wind whips past me, and I pray that I don’t turn to ice. Glancing around, I struggle to see past a few feet. There are no indications of how I got out here, other than deep footprints in the snow that covers the ground. The thought I walked through all of this is insane. After only a few moments, I want to flee from this place and hide somewhere warm.
I am not alone. There is someone behind me. This shadow is much taller than I am. It carries a long weapon, but doesn’t make any hostile movements. A sword hangs from my waist. The scabbard is black, traced with red and yellow lines, with the hilt coming to a sharp point. When did I have a sword? I wonder if I should draw it and fight this towering figure at first, but my hand doesn’t move toward the blade. Despite his looming figure, I sense no hostility from him. “We need to keep moving,” the shadow says in a male voice. He doesn’t give the slightest hint of aggression; instead, his voice has a hint of comradery. I wonder if I’ve met him in one of my earlier dreams. I don’t know why we’re out here, but he’s right. We need to move.
We trudge through the snow. Neither of us speaks, which I’m glad for. My teeth chatter so fast that I doubt I could form over two words at a time if that. Besides, what could I talk with this stranger about? Rubbing my hands together, I hope to keep the feeling in them. It’s a matter of instinct. Warm hands can hold a weapon. Out here, who knows what could attack us? To my surprise, but not too unexpected, more shadowy figures appear. At first, I hope that they are more people that I need to talk to, but they waste no time with words.
They draw their weapons, and, in answer, I draw my own. My companion leaps to my side, ready for whatever would face us. There is no time to think as the battle begins. It all blurs as if the dream itself doesn’t care what is happening. While my eyes do not see the fight, my body feels every blow. They do not scratch me, but all of my attacks strike true. Muffled cries fill my ears. When my vision returns, the battle is over.
With my foes vanquished, I smile to myself, though I do not know why we fought at all. I have this feeling that if I had my memories back, I’d know who they were and why our encounter ended this way. My companion stands with his head bowed. I breathe on my hands, warming them. A voice calls my name. Not Felix, but my real name. In a flash, strange emotions well up inside of me, swirling about in confusion. This voice, it’s one that I hoped I hadn’t mistaken for another.
Hesitant, I turn and find a new small cluster of shadows. At first, my hand trembles, anticipating another fight. One shadow steps out of the group. Though I do not know why, I know this person. A tear wells up to my eye. The voice is female. She
calls my true name again. The tear falls. She races over to me, throwing her arms around me. At first, I cannot return the embrace. There’s something wrong about hugging this person, but at last, I give in.
We hold each other and my gaze redirects to the others shadows. Among them, a familiar bespectacled figure stares at me. Dragoman. “Wake up,” he commands. No, anything but that. I found this person again. Don’t separate us again. I try to remain in the dream, but it’s too late. In this place, the Dragoman’s commands are powerful. The world vanishes at his order. I grip the shadow tighter, hoping that she won’t disappear.
She says my name once more. “We’re all waiting.” Have I heard that before? I can’t remember. With that, she bursts into nothingness and I am alone in an abyss of nothingness. For a moment, I wish I could remain here forever. There’s nothing here to hurt me. I can’t lose anything here. Nothing matters here. In the distance, I see the white void. One second it looks like a single orb. The next it resembles two eyes. Regardless, it is so inviting. What would happen if I went inside it?
I don’t find the answer to that question. A voice fills my ears. “Felix,” it calls over and over again. It’s so familiar that hope surges in my heart. The void beckons me, but it’s too late. Opening my eyes, I blink in the sudden brightness of G.’s lantern. The dragon’s eyes stare at me, as if questioning where I went. That’s a good question. The voice, a female voice, calls again and I look up to see the welcoming sight of a hand reaching through the light. “Grab on,” she pleads. Without any hesitation, I clasp the helping hand. It jerks me to a stop. “Don’t move,” Aurora yells, her voice thick with pain. Aurora used Floral Ladder, the Voice says. Turning my head, I find her holding a vine ladder, with flowers sprouting from it, in her other hand. The ladder stretches from her grip to the exit, which floats high above our heads. At her silent bidding, the plants retract, pulling us toward our freedom. When we reach the top, the ladder whips around and hurls us through. I find myself in the open world again. Looking back, I watch the exit seal shut. Made it. We crash to the ground, landing in a heap. Breathing heavy, everything that happened in that cave surges back into my memory. I take in a short, horrified breath. Daisuke is dead. We let him die. It is then that I hear Aurora’s broken voice repeating one phrase over and over.
“I’m sorry.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The Mountains
12
Squish. Slosh. “Gah.” I grunt as my feet trudge through the muddy road. From my knees to my ankles, patches of the earthen sludge cover my pants. All around me, I hear the same squishing noises from the rest of our party. Only a few days ago, we were at the border with a clear sky overhead. Now, we are somewhere in a mountain range with a hard rain falling. The skies crack with distant white lightning and loud thunder sends faint rumblings through the earth. he rain hasn’t stopped once, so it’s not as if we can wait it out. We have no choice but to continue on our way.
“How much longer until we find a town?” Queen asks for the fifth time today, spitting through the rain. “I’d love to get something else to wear, anything.” She looks at her wet, ragged clothes, which were not much better back when I first met her. She smiles to herself. “I’d settle just to get dry. Aurora, do you still have that cloak? That’d make a great umbrella.”
Aurora giggles at Queen’s foolishness, but the laugh isn’t genuine. It sounds as if she practiced it. “I wouldn’t recommend it. Cloaks aren’t too warm by themselves, and I’d give you an hour until the tail flapping against your legs irritates you to no end.” As her head turns my way the slightest bit, I dart my eyes away. A week passed since the tunnel incident, and we haven’t talked since. How can I? Whenever I look at her, I see Daisuke plummeting into the dark without an arm as she hunkers down, screaming in horror. What am I supposed to say to her?
After surviving the tunnel, we rejoined the other. The Golem had disappeared. Only a pile of dirt, mud, rocks, and bones remained of its body. G. and David didn’t have the faintest idea about what killed that Golem. No matter what they did, it kept getting back up, coming back more dangerous and terrifying than before, even when they were sure that they killed it. During their explanation, Aurora looked at the ground, not meeting anyone’s eyes. Neither of us told them what happened to Daisuke.
“He got away,” I concluded, which sent G. and Queen into a burning fury. They forgot about it, knowing that we had more to do. Not waiting for Zero, G. led everyone away from the wall. Our zealous warrior companion would find us again in his own time, just as he always has. We ran deeper into the Rakan territory, leaving the border behind. A day later, Zero reappeared. He was battle-worn and wounded, but alive. Aurora worked hard to help him recover, and now it was as if he wasn’t injured in the first place.
Zero took his time retelling of his exploits, bragging about how he took on countless foes all on his own. No one interrupted him or discredited his actions. Despite his annoying behaviors, he had held off the border guards. We owe him for his bravery. I just hope he will keep fighting alongside us. He can do what he wants now that we’re free from the forest’s trap. For now, he seems to remain close at hand. Well, as close as Zero is willing to be. Trudging through the rain, I wonder if Zero’s flying over the storm while we have to endure it. Since the wall, he went back to his usual antics of distancing himself from everyone. He stops by for meals and that’s all. It’s just like before. We aren’t training at the moment. Even with my map, I doubt I could find him in this rain.
“You’re right,” Queen admits, laughing. Aurora joins in, but I sense that same hollowness as before.
“Finding a village is the next matter at hand,” David agrees. Queen glares at him but nods her approval. The mistrust between them is getting better. “We need some fresh supplies, clothing, and weapons. Perhaps, we could sell a few pelts. Either way, we need a place to stay throughout the winter.”
“What?” I exclaim, breaking my silence. This was the first they mentioned this. “We might stay in one place for months?” They can’t be serious.
“Rakan weather is unpredictable,” David explains. “It’s hard enough traveling through the normal months with this rain. Winter will be impossible. Mr. G. and I tried it once. Never again.” His words have finality, bringing the discussion to an end. I give up, knowing that I can’t win an argument with him.
We march through the rain for another week. They are some of the worst days I think any of us have had to go through, and that includes the monsters we faced. The rain never stops, falling on us as if the skies wish to drown us. Small streams run along the mountain trail, falling off the sides. I stay away from the edge of the path, knowing that steep drops wait for me. Mucky grass, sparse trees, and sharp rocks decorate the sides of the mountain. I have no interest in getting better acquainted with them. After the tunnel, I’m not interested in falling with no destination in sight.
Every now and then, we find a cleft of rocks to shelter us from the rain. They never have enough space for eight people. Within moments of finding one, Queen and G. are already getting on each other’s nerves. The arguments vary on the day. Most times, Queen argues that there had to be a way we could’ve avoided this whole situation. G. yells that going through the mountains is unavoidable since Raka has plenty of mountainous areas. Going around all of them would be too time-consuming.
Most tune out these conversations as best as they can. The weather is taking a toll on our morale. Maris is the only one who didn’t seem too inhibited by the severe weather, almost seeming invigorated by the entire ordeal. She sneaks away from the cave, appearing hours later, drenched, but with a warm smile on her face. Sometimes, she brings back a filled water skin and a fresh piece of game.
Sadly, cooking in such a compact space is miserable. Finding dry wood is impossible, and when we attempted to make a broth from a rabbit, so much smoke filled our hiding place, we all ran outside, soaking ourselves to the bone. From that day on, we live on our provisions from earlier me
als, saving Maris’ bounty for less rainy days.
When the initial arguments cool down, we spend our time in silence. Sometimes, someone would try to strike up a conversation, but fighting would start breaking out again, and then we would return to silence. That is for the best. Until this point, we had spent the last month in monotonous marches with little to break up the routine of: wake up, train, break camp, eat, walk, make light conversation, eat, walk, set up camp, eat, and sleep. Perhaps it’s best to allow the rain to lull us into a more secluded state.
“We’ll find a village at some point,” G. assures us for the second time today. “Everyone be on the lookout.” He looks up at the sky, his eyes cautious. “Perhaps the gods will have favor on us and give a clear sky.” Whoever these gods are, they don’t show us any favor, and the rain continues.
The mountain path becomes harder as my feet sink ankle-deep in mud. Each step feels a little more difficult when I have to keep pulling my feet out of the gunk beneath me. Out of the corners of my eyes, I can see each of us struggling in our own ways, except for Maris. I couldn’t wait for the mutual agreement to stop our march a little early. When the first cleft appears, we do. Queen plops down on the driest spot she can find. “I can’t wait to find a town,” she whines. “I need another bath.” She shutters at her gross clothes.
“Um…do I need to remind you about the place I found you?” I interject, remembering the filth that she called her home.
“What about it?” she retorts, glaring at me. Just as I’m about to open my mouth, I can see a glint in her eye. One that said, ‘Continue this conversation at your own risk.’ I sigh, looking away, letting the topic drop harder than the day’s rain. It’s not worth arguing.
Mind's Journey 2: Of Monsters and Men (A Gamelit Fantasy Adventure - Book 2) Page 16
