The late-morning sunshine found me lying on a carpet of flattened grass; all around me were flowers of all description, not to mention myriad beetles and other creepy crawlies. Not like they bothered me; on the contrary, I was happy to be alive to experience them. It was the erstwhile movements of one of those creepy-crawlies that made me awake with a jerk. Mistaking my ear for a flower, a bee had flown very close to getting inside when I woke up and drove it off with a wave of my hand. I sat up and gazed around, the field had transformed from the day before. What was especially interesting was the tunnel cave-in we had gone down in the day before was now nowhere to be seen.
I sat up, taking in the expanse of the field and saw Casca coming out of the cavern we had hidden in the day before. I stood up, shaking the flowers out of my hair (not to mention one or two tiny critters) and walked over to her. Her arms were full of fruits she had nicked from a nearby orchard. She wasn’t looking too happy with the results of her exploit, but I knew she was as open to risky exploits as any of us were. I asked her casually where X was.
“Last I heard of him, he went down to the stream. I think he said something about meditating”, she replied. One thing that I learned about X is that he needed to meditate for a half hour per day in order to function in a ‘normal’ fashion (normal being used in the loosest sense of the word). I found out directions for where the stream was and set off in that direction, estimating that X should be done meditating by the time I got there.
I was right; X was just standing up when I got there, his face filled with that calm look. His chest was bare, and the tattoo of the dragon I had done for him was standing out very well on his left bicep. His mother almost killed us for that when she found out. Parents are strange sometimes, I swear. He stretched out and I saw him deliver a yawn. I always wondered how much actual meditating he was doing and how much of it was sleep.
“Hey X, what’s new man?” I asked him.
He turned upon seeing me and smiled that old X smile of his. The one he saved for the private moments he had with his friends. “Just been to see the floaty-dude”, he replied to me. That, coincidentally, was exactly what I was going to find him to find out about.
“This ‘floaty-dude’ you keep talking about man…can we trust him?” I asked earnestly.
“Well everything he’s told me so far has come through, he’s like, psychic” X finished up.
“But what is he like, does he feel trustworthy? And remember you only started seeing him after we met those two down the road and they knocked you out. What if you’re imagining him?” I was trying to see if he actually believed what he was telling us about this mysterious “floaty dude”.
“I trust him man, he’s like, seen it all. He’s up there man, I swear”, he looked me directly in the eye and said, in an alarmingly not-high tone of voice: “I believe in the floaty-dude man. Trust me.”
Whether I believed or not, I trusted X. Now back home a lot of people would try to tell you that trusting X wasn’t necessarily a good thing. We almost got busted for some of our evening exploits just because I chose to trust him. This was on a whole new level though; this is what X would call “epic”. I had to trust him, and to be honest I did too.
Casca came down to join us at the streambed, along with whatever minimal possessions we had and some fruits and berries she had gathered for breakfast. As far as I could tell it was a long time past mid-morning, getting on to lunch, so we weren’t actually having breakfast, it was more like a late brunch.
“So what does the floaty-dude say we do now X?” asked Casca. She was using his nickname, which usually meant all was forgiven. I reckon X knew this too, because he flashed her a winning smile before he began his answer.
“Floaty-dude says we’re almost to the ‘sanctuary’ as he calls it. He told me that Woz-man should try to read the book now, he might be able to understand some of it”, he looked towards me. “Have you even looked into it since we looked that first time man?”
“I haven’t had the chance, I’ve been running for my life since then, remember?” I answered sheepishly.
“Oh yeah…right”, he replied. “How about tying it now man, it might be something important?”
I eyed the keystone. Maybe it was worth a try, there might be something in it I could actually understand. I moved my hand up to the cover and felt the design on the cover, tracing it with my fingers. Whoever had done it definitely had a lot of skill. Gingerly, I snapped open the latch keeping it closed and opened the page to the engraved frontispiece. Almost immediately, I noticed a change. The letters on the cover page frontispiece became readable, yet it’s message was unclear:
The World and the One
The Moon and the Sun
Three paths must be Run
Before the battle Won
For the one has become born
And the two find him at dawn
Trinity, Allegiance sworn
Before the veils are torn
I looked through the poem again, my mind trying to comprehend what my eyes saw. I scratched my head and read it over again. Obviously by the look of puzzlement on both of my comrades’ faces, they could not see what I could. It seemed as though the old guy with the van was right. I was the only person able to decipher the script in the book and translate it into readable English. I got out a pen and some paper from inside my jeans pocket (strange the things you find in your jeans sometimes) and took down the poem, then showed it to the two of them.
“What does it mean by ‘the One’?” asked Casca. “Does that mean you Woz?”
“I’ll be knackered if I know”, I responded truthfully. This was more of a puzzle than anything else. I turned to the book for solutions, not more problems. This seemed hopeless. Every time we figured out one thing, ten more questions would replace that one. It was like that old magician’s trick with the coloured scarf chain that never ended. It was a totally circular mystery. And it was slowly getting me obtuse.
“I think I know”, X said, and we both looked at him, expecting a revelation. “The One is you Woz-man. The World is the three worlds. The Moon and the Sun are you and I Casca. We’re the guardians on both sides of the World, which is the symbolism for The One. The three paths are probably three things we have to accomplish, or the three veils Woz-man has to guard or something. I dunno that part. All the rest I’m as knackered as you are”, he finished, turning to me.
“Well, that was certainly some explanation”, I said, thoroughly impressed. “Where did you get the idea for the World and The One from?”
“Floaty-dude keeps calling you The One. And he Kept calling me Sol, which he says is the sun, and he asks about my compatriot, Eluna, the Moon, which I assume means Casca. Hence The World and the One, the Moon and the sun”, X finished, taking a deep breath.
“I suppose all of this will make sense once Woz figures out more of the words”, Casca said, but by the look on her face, I could tell she was secretly impressed with X’s speech. I was too, not just because he was proving his worth, but also because he actually proved the usefulness of his friend the “Floaty-dude”. I suspect the latter was inadvertent, but nonetheless it was effective.
“What I think we do now is find the Sanctuary place that X’s friend is talking about”, I said to the two of them. They both nodded, and we stood up, setting off in the direction indicated by X (after some long concentration).
The road X indicated led into a deeply forested area, and so we started following the rutted track, stopping every now and then for X to consult whatever compass he had spinning in his head. Casca hiked right behind X, and I took the rear end, watching the back of our ragtag procession. It was like a march of the invalids since after the first hour’s walk or so; the only person who was still unfazed was Casca.
The hours melted by as first we walked, then stumbled, then trudged through an ever-changing kaleidoscope of colours in the forest. The little forested growth at the start of the trail had become a full-fledged forest by the time the sun had begun hovering near the horizon. We did not have beds or any bedding to speak of, nor did we have much camping supplies and equipment. I could have kicked myself for not insisting we get camping supplies before we tried finding this place. Now another night had caught us out on the trail and we had no means of protecting ourselves.
The sun slunk low on the edge of our perspective, and we set about finding a clearing where we could bed down for the night, arranging watches between X and myself. We had an agreement that both him and I would split up the watch to five hours apiece, so we could get enough sleep to continue the journey. I was to take the first shift, because X said he would probably fall asleep on the guard. I set up my vantage point where I could see a wide expanse of area in case anything moved. There I lay in wait for whatever would chance to disturb our security.
Hours passed, and not even a blade of grass stirred the sleepy silence. On two occasions I found myself drifting into a reverie of sleep, but I caught myself just before falling into the arms of the brother of death. Only once did anything disturb us. A fox, no doubt lured by the curiously new smell of human, came to take a glimpse at us, but promptly vanished, leaving behind a shaking leaf and some faint rustlings as the only evidence of his visit.
I woke X for his turn at the watch and his yawn made me think that maybe he’d be doing more sleeping than watching. I fell back into the warm grassy comfort of the makeshift dry-straw bed we had thrown together for our night in the forest. It wasn’t as good as a feather bed, but it was from the worst thing around.
It was as if I had just fallen asleep when I was being shaken roughly. I awoke to hands of steel around my neck. In the shadowy moonlight of the trees a rough harsh voice came to my ear: “We have your number gatekeeper.” A sharp pain came from behind my left ear and I knew no more for a while.
I sat up, taking in the expanse of the field and saw Casca coming out of the cavern we had hidden in the day before. I stood up, shaking the flowers out of my hair (not to mention one or two tiny critters) and walked over to her. Her arms were full of fruits she had nicked from a nearby orchard. She wasn’t looking too happy with the results of her exploit, but I knew she was as open to risky exploits as any of us were. I asked her casually where X was.
“Last I heard of him, he went down to the stream. I think he said something about meditating”, she replied. One thing that I learned about X is that he needed to meditate for a half hour per day in order to function in a ‘normal’ fashion (normal being used in the loosest sense of the word). I found out directions for where the stream was and set off in that direction, estimating that X should be done meditating by the time I got there.
I was right; X was just standing up when I got there, his face filled with that calm look. His chest was bare, and the tattoo of the dragon I had done for him was standing out very well on his left bicep. His mother almost killed us for that when she found out. Parents are strange sometimes, I swear. He stretched out and I saw him deliver a yawn. I always wondered how much actual meditating he was doing and how much of it was sleep.
“Hey X, what’s new man?” I asked him.
He turned upon seeing me and smiled that old X smile of his. The one he saved for the private moments he had with his friends. “Just been to see the floaty-dude”, he replied to me. That, coincidentally, was exactly what I was going to find him to find out about.
“This ‘floaty-dude’ you keep talking about man…can we trust him?” I asked earnestly.
“Well everything he’s told me so far has come through, he’s like, psychic” X finished up.
“But what is he like, does he feel trustworthy? And remember you only started seeing him after we met those two down the road and they knocked you out. What if you’re imagining him?” I was trying to see if he actually believed what he was telling us about this mysterious “floaty dude”.
“I trust him man, he’s like, seen it all. He’s up there man, I swear”, he looked me directly in the eye and said, in an alarmingly not-high tone of voice: “I believe in the floaty-dude man. Trust me.”
Whether I believed or not, I trusted X. Now back home a lot of people would try to tell you that trusting X wasn’t necessarily a good thing. We almost got busted for some of our evening exploits just because I chose to trust him. This was on a whole new level though; this is what X would call “epic”. I had to trust him, and to be honest I did too.
Casca came down to join us at the streambed, along with whatever minimal possessions we had and some fruits and berries she had gathered for breakfast. As far as I could tell it was a long time past mid-morning, getting on to lunch, so we weren’t actually having breakfast, it was more like a late brunch.
“So what does the floaty-dude say we do now X?” asked Casca. She was using his nickname, which usually meant all was forgiven. I reckon X knew this too, because he flashed her a winning smile before he began his answer.
“Floaty-dude says we’re almost to the ‘sanctuary’ as he calls it. He told me that Woz-man should try to read the book now, he might be able to understand some of it”, he looked towards me. “Have you even looked into it since we looked that first time man?”
“I haven’t had the chance, I’ve been running for my life since then, remember?” I answered sheepishly.
“Oh yeah…right”, he replied. “How about tying it now man, it might be something important?”
I eyed the keystone. Maybe it was worth a try, there might be something in it I could actually understand. I moved my hand up to the cover and felt the design on the cover, tracing it with my fingers. Whoever had done it definitely had a lot of skill. Gingerly, I snapped open the latch keeping it closed and opened the page to the engraved frontispiece. Almost immediately, I noticed a change. The letters on the cover page frontispiece became readable, yet it’s message was unclear:
The World and the One
The Moon and the Sun
Three paths must be Run
Before the battle Won
For the one has become born
And the two find him at dawn
Trinity, Allegiance sworn
Before the veils are torn
I looked through the poem again, my mind trying to comprehend what my eyes saw. I scratched my head and read it over again. Obviously by the look of puzzlement on both of my comrades’ faces, they could not see what I could. It seemed as though the old guy with the van was right. I was the only person able to decipher the script in the book and translate it into readable English. I got out a pen and some paper from inside my jeans pocket (strange the things you find in your jeans sometimes) and took down the poem, then showed it to the two of them.
“What does it mean by ‘the One’?” asked Casca. “Does that mean you Woz?”
“I’ll be knackered if I know”, I responded truthfully. This was more of a puzzle than anything else. I turned to the book for solutions, not more problems. This seemed hopeless. Every time we figured out one thing, ten more questions would replace that one. It was like that old magician’s trick with the coloured scarf chain that never ended. It was a totally circular mystery. And it was slowly getting me obtuse.
“I think I know”, X said, and we both looked at him, expecting a revelation. “The One is you Woz-man. The World is the three worlds. The Moon and the Sun are you and I Casca. We’re the guardians on both sides of the World, which is the symbolism for The One. The three paths are probably three things we have to accomplish, or the three veils Woz-man has to guard or something. I dunno that part. All the rest I’m as knackered as you are”, he finished, turning to me.
“Well, that was certainly some explanation”, I said, thoroughly impressed. “Where did you get the idea for the World and The One from?”
“Floaty-dude keeps calling you The One. And he Kept calling me Sol, which he says is the sun, and he asks about my compatriot, Eluna, the Moon, which I assume means Casca. Hence The World and the One, the Moon and the sun”, X finished, taking a deep breath.
“I suppose all of this will make sense once Woz figures out more of the words”, Casca said, but by the look on her face, I could tell she was secretly impressed with X’s speech. I was too, not just because he was proving his worth, but also because he actually proved the usefulness of his friend the “Floaty-dude”. I suspect the latter was inadvertent, but nonetheless it was effective.
“What I think we do now is find the Sanctuary place that X’s friend is talking about”, I said to the two of them. They both nodded, and we stood up, setting off in the direction indicated by X (after some long concentration).
The road X indicated led into a deeply forested area, and so we started following the rutted track, stopping every now and then for X to consult whatever compass he had spinning in his head. Casca hiked right behind X, and I took the rear end, watching the back of our ragtag procession. It was like a march of the invalids since after the first hour’s walk or so; the only person who was still unfazed was Casca.
The hours melted by as first we walked, then stumbled, then trudged through an ever-changing kaleidoscope of colours in the forest. The little forested growth at the start of the trail had become a full-fledged forest by the time the sun had begun hovering near the horizon. We did not have beds or any bedding to speak of, nor did we have much camping supplies and equipment. I could have kicked myself for not insisting we get camping supplies before we tried finding this place. Now another night had caught us out on the trail and we had no means of protecting ourselves.
The sun slunk low on the edge of our perspective, and we set about finding a clearing where we could bed down for the night, arranging watches between X and myself. We had an agreement that both him and I would split up the watch to five hours apiece, so we could get enough sleep to continue the journey. I was to take the first shift, because X said he would probably fall asleep on the guard. I set up my vantage point where I could see a wide expanse of area in case anything moved. There I lay in wait for whatever would chance to disturb our security.
Hours passed, and not even a blade of grass stirred the sleepy silence. On two occasions I found myself drifting into a reverie of sleep, but I caught myself just before falling into the arms of the brother of death. Only once did anything disturb us. A fox, no doubt lured by the curiously new smell of human, came to take a glimpse at us, but promptly vanished, leaving behind a shaking leaf and some faint rustlings as the only evidence of his visit.
I woke X for his turn at the watch and his yawn made me think that maybe he’d be doing more sleeping than watching. I fell back into the warm grassy comfort of the makeshift dry-straw bed we had thrown together for our night in the forest. It wasn’t as good as a feather bed, but it was from the worst thing around.
It was as if I had just fallen asleep when I was being shaken roughly. I awoke to hands of steel around my neck. In the shadowy moonlight of the trees a rough harsh voice came to my ear: “We have your number gatekeeper.” A sharp pain came from behind my left ear and I knew no more for a while.
“What the hell…?” started Casca, but X shushed her. I agreed with him. We didn’t know if her voice would carry over to the other side of the cave wall. I could hear shuffling and the movement of debris from the wall. It seemed like the strangers were investigating the wall thoroughly. I hoped dearly that it wasn’t thoroughly enough to draw the conclusion that we were behind the wall.
Almost as abruptly as it started, the tapping on the wall stopped. I felt around in the darkness and felt my hand touch someone. It was followed by a sharp jab in my ribs to which I exclaimed in shock. This was quickly followed by an appropriate shush from X. I heard the movement behind the wall cease for a few seconds. I held my breath. Voices were passing in unintelligible whispers, so I had no idea they were talking about. I could hear Casca’s breathing nearby. I could ascertain that it was probably her who had poked me, and I would ask her why, but not yet. There are times and places for asking questions like those.
We stood around in the darkness for what seemed like a lifetime. The dripping of water from the ceiling added a dreary background sonata to an already bleak day.
“I think they’re gone dude”, X said rather warily. I could hear from his voice that he too was a bit shaken.
“How do we get out of here”, Casca responded. From the way she said it, I could picture her brows furrowed in thought and worry.
“How did we get it closed in the first place?” I asked, answering her question with a question.
“I saw the shadows coming and thought that the wall should close up and it did”, she said.
“Well, how about thinking that the wall should open back up now?” I asked her, sounding thoroughly flippant. I could feel the withering stare she was directing at me, even in the complete darkness.
The next thing I knew we were once again in light, the fading spillage of which was flowing from the mouth of the cavern. Our visitors had left the cavern in the same state they had found it, mostly. Here and there were bits of broken rock where one or two of our visitors had gotten bored and broken off a stalagmite or two. Casca rushed to look out of the entrance to the cavern. Immediately I followed her, one thought on my mind: the safety of the keystone. We looked out into the grass where the keystone had been before we had rushed into hiding, but all we could see now was an empty tuft of grass.
“I thought you said it would still be there”, Casca shouted at X, who looked at her as if she were speaking some foreign language.
“I said it would be safe, not that it would still be there dude-mar, lighten up!” X responded, the fire coming into his eyes. I hated when these two fought, but it was happening more and more often these days.
“That’s enough you two”, I said, breaking it up before either of them built a grudge and did something they would regret. With these two live wires, life was never dull. “Let’s try to decide how we’re going to get the book back.”
“We have to find out who took it first man”, X said.
“That’s obvious”, Casca said, looking at X in an arrogant manner. “It was those monk people, who else could it be?”
“It could be someone passing after they went away you know”, X responded, recognising the challenge in her voice and rising to the location.
“And people regularly pick up strange looking packages wrapped in brown paper thinking them to be bombs they can use later, do they?” Casca responded in her most sarcastic manner.
“Shut it you two!” I shouted. X looked at me with his eyebrows raised and Casca turned around in a huff, heading back over to the wall. “We aren’t going to get anything done by fighting. We need to get out there and get some clues to work with.”
“Clues?” asked Casca. I felt another tirade coming on. “We aren’t the effing Scooby Doo detective agency you know.”
X narrowed his eyes, and his face started taking on a slack, empty look. This was strange, even for the Zone-Out king of Greenfield. I had never seen him look so out there, even when he was high. It was as if he was there but not, his eyes danced with a phantom light as his thoughts flowed out. If I gave him a pencil and paper at that moment, I have no doubt he would probably create a masterpiece.
“Dudes, I know where it is”, X said in a dreamy voice.
“Where is it?” Casca and I asked simultaneously, and then shocked by the synchronicity looked at each other. I noticed the tear stains along her cheeks and wondered when she had been crying.
“The floaty dude says it’s underground, right under the bushes where it was before. He doesn’t know how far down it is, but it went down into the ground” X finished, life draining back into his features and draining out of his eyes. The slack, vacant look left his face and he became more aware of everyone. I saw a smile touch his face as he turned to me “Man that is way cool!”
“What happened?” I asked him.
“The same thing that happened before when that weird dude tossed me and I landed on my head”, he responded.
“I always knew you ought to get your head examined Xavier, this is a good excuse for it”, Casca shot back in a jovial manner. The hatchet had been buried for a little while at least. On the bright side it hadn’t been buried in either of their heads.
We stole out of the cavern entrance. The sun had gone down while we were having our little spat-discussion and the early twilight gave perfect cover to three teenagers moving like phantoms in the dewy early evening. A soft haze of mist hung a few inches off the ground, barely disturbed by our sneakers as we ran along the unworn path to the bushes where it was supposed that our book was hidden or buried. Or something. We really weren’t sure exactly what we were going to find, but we dived into it with the enthusiasm of a small child at Christmastime.
We finally got to the little bush-covered mound that housed the keystone (according to X) inside its bowels. We stood around the mound in a loose circle. I was beginning to feel stupid, standing there and doing nothing.
“The floaty-dude said ‘under’ it”, X said. “I think we have to dig”, he announced, his arms folded, one of his hands stroking his chin. This was the pose he usually adopted when stating something obvious, yet distasteful.
“Well no duh genius”, Casca said. “Where do we get shovels though?”
“How about the shack? I suggested.
“And trip off another wire, I don’t think so”, Casca said and shuddered involuntarily.
It happened in a split second, the earth shifted below our feet and immediately we fell, falling through I don’t know how many metres and coming to land on a small pile of dried grass. I heard shuffling and muffled sounds of confusion, then distinctly the voice of X spouting expletives.
“Watch your mouth, there are ladies among us” I warned him.
“Where?” he asked earnestly.
Casca cleared her throat and X murmured a small “oh”, but didn’t bother to apologise. I was looking around at our surroundings to see what we had gotten ourselves into this time. We were in a room, dimly lit by the soft light falling in from the caved-in ceiling. It didn’t feel much like a trap, there would have been spikes instead of grass at the bottom. Instead it felt more like a carved out hollow that caved in. But the grass was still unexplained; it was as if someone or something was expecting us.
Along the walls I could see strange formations of rock leading off at odd angles in between the flat wall. These seemed like rudimentary spikes. I feared the worst; one of those spikes would pass through a body, but the force it would take to do it would be something massive. I shuddered while considering the possibilities.
I touched the side of the tunnel, because it was a tunnel as far as I could have seen, in order to help myself off the grass and back unto solid ground. X followed me and both out hands touched the wall at the same time. We both pulled back our hands at the same time, giving each other a glance which said “what now?”
Casca recognised the glance and wrinkled her nose. “Can we please get out of here, this grass is not good for my nose. I think I’m allergic”, she said, and sneezed.
“Should we tell her?” I whispered to X, and he nodded his head. I didn’t want to worry her, but she should know what we felt when we touched the wall. It might be of importance.
“Casca”, I started, pausing for her to sneeze again. “When me and X touched the wall just now, we felt it vibrating.”
“You felt it what?” she said, sniffling a bit.
“Vibrating dude. Like when a truck’s coming your way on the highway”, X repeated. “There’s something coming this way, and whatever it is, it’s something big man.”
“We really should get out of here”, I reiterated.
“They keystone!” Casca suddenly shouted. “It’s what we came for, we can’t leave here without it.”
“Well we had better search fast”, I said. “Whatever’s coming is not going to stop for us while we search.”
Hurriedly we began digging in the grass, the silence punctuated by sneezes from Casca’s direction. We had been digging around the grass for about ten minutes before a triumphant cry flew into the air from X’s general direction.
“I found it dude! It’s right here man!” X was almost dancing with his glee. I had to admit I was pretty happy to find the book back. Even thought I considered it the key to all our worries, it might also be the key to our salvation.
“Good, now we got to get out of here before whatever’s making the walls to vibrate gets here”, I said.
X placed his hand on the wall and drew it back as if shocked. “It’s gotten closer”, he said, his voice barely audible.
Casca turned as pale as a sheet. “We need to go now”, she said in a strangled, scream-like whisper. We looked around, and there were exits at both ends of the tunnel, as well as open air above us. The stone spikes in the wall made me think of an idea.
“Why don’t we try climbing those spikes and see if we can get back to the top?” I asked, half expecting the idea to be shot down.
“Not like we got much choices dude-mar”, X said reluctantly after thinking about it for a moment. “I’ll go first and help you two when I get to the top. Party man!” he finished by yelling and diving on the wall. His scaling was easy and pretty soon he was at the top, looking down at us.
I motioned for Casca to go next and she literally leapt on the wall, scaling it like an expert mountaineer. She wasn’t the most active of us for no reason; she knew her stuff. I went on right after her, keeping close enough to her to grab her in case she fell (which wasn’t as likely as me falling. I slipped once or twice on that single climb, it’s a lucky thing I have good reflexes, or else I’d have been tunnel-pizza). In less than five minutes we were out of the tunnel, my energy spent, I flopped down on the ground. My heart was going as fast as one of those trans-continental freight trains. You know the ones hobos hook rides on. Anyway, I lay down on the dewy grass, catching my breath. I remembered hearing whispered conversation between X and Casca, but it didn’t seem too important. At least we got back the book.
The night air was full of scents. I could detect distinct smells of lavender, and a slight hint of pine. I heard the call of the crickets and felt sleep overcoming me. The sounds and smells of the night enveloped me and I entered into a dream. This had been one very weird day.
Almost as abruptly as it started, the tapping on the wall stopped. I felt around in the darkness and felt my hand touch someone. It was followed by a sharp jab in my ribs to which I exclaimed in shock. This was quickly followed by an appropriate shush from X. I heard the movement behind the wall cease for a few seconds. I held my breath. Voices were passing in unintelligible whispers, so I had no idea they were talking about. I could hear Casca’s breathing nearby. I could ascertain that it was probably her who had poked me, and I would ask her why, but not yet. There are times and places for asking questions like those.
We stood around in the darkness for what seemed like a lifetime. The dripping of water from the ceiling added a dreary background sonata to an already bleak day.
“I think they’re gone dude”, X said rather warily. I could hear from his voice that he too was a bit shaken.
“How do we get out of here”, Casca responded. From the way she said it, I could picture her brows furrowed in thought and worry.
“How did we get it closed in the first place?” I asked, answering her question with a question.
“I saw the shadows coming and thought that the wall should close up and it did”, she said.
“Well, how about thinking that the wall should open back up now?” I asked her, sounding thoroughly flippant. I could feel the withering stare she was directing at me, even in the complete darkness.
The next thing I knew we were once again in light, the fading spillage of which was flowing from the mouth of the cavern. Our visitors had left the cavern in the same state they had found it, mostly. Here and there were bits of broken rock where one or two of our visitors had gotten bored and broken off a stalagmite or two. Casca rushed to look out of the entrance to the cavern. Immediately I followed her, one thought on my mind: the safety of the keystone. We looked out into the grass where the keystone had been before we had rushed into hiding, but all we could see now was an empty tuft of grass.
“I thought you said it would still be there”, Casca shouted at X, who looked at her as if she were speaking some foreign language.
“I said it would be safe, not that it would still be there dude-mar, lighten up!” X responded, the fire coming into his eyes. I hated when these two fought, but it was happening more and more often these days.
“That’s enough you two”, I said, breaking it up before either of them built a grudge and did something they would regret. With these two live wires, life was never dull. “Let’s try to decide how we’re going to get the book back.”
“We have to find out who took it first man”, X said.
“That’s obvious”, Casca said, looking at X in an arrogant manner. “It was those monk people, who else could it be?”
“It could be someone passing after they went away you know”, X responded, recognising the challenge in her voice and rising to the location.
“And people regularly pick up strange looking packages wrapped in brown paper thinking them to be bombs they can use later, do they?” Casca responded in her most sarcastic manner.
“Shut it you two!” I shouted. X looked at me with his eyebrows raised and Casca turned around in a huff, heading back over to the wall. “We aren’t going to get anything done by fighting. We need to get out there and get some clues to work with.”
“Clues?” asked Casca. I felt another tirade coming on. “We aren’t the effing Scooby Doo detective agency you know.”
X narrowed his eyes, and his face started taking on a slack, empty look. This was strange, even for the Zone-Out king of Greenfield. I had never seen him look so out there, even when he was high. It was as if he was there but not, his eyes danced with a phantom light as his thoughts flowed out. If I gave him a pencil and paper at that moment, I have no doubt he would probably create a masterpiece.
“Dudes, I know where it is”, X said in a dreamy voice.
“Where is it?” Casca and I asked simultaneously, and then shocked by the synchronicity looked at each other. I noticed the tear stains along her cheeks and wondered when she had been crying.
“The floaty dude says it’s underground, right under the bushes where it was before. He doesn’t know how far down it is, but it went down into the ground” X finished, life draining back into his features and draining out of his eyes. The slack, vacant look left his face and he became more aware of everyone. I saw a smile touch his face as he turned to me “Man that is way cool!”
“What happened?” I asked him.
“The same thing that happened before when that weird dude tossed me and I landed on my head”, he responded.
“I always knew you ought to get your head examined Xavier, this is a good excuse for it”, Casca shot back in a jovial manner. The hatchet had been buried for a little while at least. On the bright side it hadn’t been buried in either of their heads.
We stole out of the cavern entrance. The sun had gone down while we were having our little spat-discussion and the early twilight gave perfect cover to three teenagers moving like phantoms in the dewy early evening. A soft haze of mist hung a few inches off the ground, barely disturbed by our sneakers as we ran along the unworn path to the bushes where it was supposed that our book was hidden or buried. Or something. We really weren’t sure exactly what we were going to find, but we dived into it with the enthusiasm of a small child at Christmastime.
We finally got to the little bush-covered mound that housed the keystone (according to X) inside its bowels. We stood around the mound in a loose circle. I was beginning to feel stupid, standing there and doing nothing.
“The floaty-dude said ‘under’ it”, X said. “I think we have to dig”, he announced, his arms folded, one of his hands stroking his chin. This was the pose he usually adopted when stating something obvious, yet distasteful.
“Well no duh genius”, Casca said. “Where do we get shovels though?”
“How about the shack? I suggested.
“And trip off another wire, I don’t think so”, Casca said and shuddered involuntarily.
It happened in a split second, the earth shifted below our feet and immediately we fell, falling through I don’t know how many metres and coming to land on a small pile of dried grass. I heard shuffling and muffled sounds of confusion, then distinctly the voice of X spouting expletives.
“Watch your mouth, there are ladies among us” I warned him.
“Where?” he asked earnestly.
Casca cleared her throat and X murmured a small “oh”, but didn’t bother to apologise. I was looking around at our surroundings to see what we had gotten ourselves into this time. We were in a room, dimly lit by the soft light falling in from the caved-in ceiling. It didn’t feel much like a trap, there would have been spikes instead of grass at the bottom. Instead it felt more like a carved out hollow that caved in. But the grass was still unexplained; it was as if someone or something was expecting us.
Along the walls I could see strange formations of rock leading off at odd angles in between the flat wall. These seemed like rudimentary spikes. I feared the worst; one of those spikes would pass through a body, but the force it would take to do it would be something massive. I shuddered while considering the possibilities.
I touched the side of the tunnel, because it was a tunnel as far as I could have seen, in order to help myself off the grass and back unto solid ground. X followed me and both out hands touched the wall at the same time. We both pulled back our hands at the same time, giving each other a glance which said “what now?”
Casca recognised the glance and wrinkled her nose. “Can we please get out of here, this grass is not good for my nose. I think I’m allergic”, she said, and sneezed.
“Should we tell her?” I whispered to X, and he nodded his head. I didn’t want to worry her, but she should know what we felt when we touched the wall. It might be of importance.
“Casca”, I started, pausing for her to sneeze again. “When me and X touched the wall just now, we felt it vibrating.”
“You felt it what?” she said, sniffling a bit.
“Vibrating dude. Like when a truck’s coming your way on the highway”, X repeated. “There’s something coming this way, and whatever it is, it’s something big man.”
“We really should get out of here”, I reiterated.
“They keystone!” Casca suddenly shouted. “It’s what we came for, we can’t leave here without it.”
“Well we had better search fast”, I said. “Whatever’s coming is not going to stop for us while we search.”
Hurriedly we began digging in the grass, the silence punctuated by sneezes from Casca’s direction. We had been digging around the grass for about ten minutes before a triumphant cry flew into the air from X’s general direction.
“I found it dude! It’s right here man!” X was almost dancing with his glee. I had to admit I was pretty happy to find the book back. Even thought I considered it the key to all our worries, it might also be the key to our salvation.
“Good, now we got to get out of here before whatever’s making the walls to vibrate gets here”, I said.
X placed his hand on the wall and drew it back as if shocked. “It’s gotten closer”, he said, his voice barely audible.
Casca turned as pale as a sheet. “We need to go now”, she said in a strangled, scream-like whisper. We looked around, and there were exits at both ends of the tunnel, as well as open air above us. The stone spikes in the wall made me think of an idea.
“Why don’t we try climbing those spikes and see if we can get back to the top?” I asked, half expecting the idea to be shot down.
“Not like we got much choices dude-mar”, X said reluctantly after thinking about it for a moment. “I’ll go first and help you two when I get to the top. Party man!” he finished by yelling and diving on the wall. His scaling was easy and pretty soon he was at the top, looking down at us.
I motioned for Casca to go next and she literally leapt on the wall, scaling it like an expert mountaineer. She wasn’t the most active of us for no reason; she knew her stuff. I went on right after her, keeping close enough to her to grab her in case she fell (which wasn’t as likely as me falling. I slipped once or twice on that single climb, it’s a lucky thing I have good reflexes, or else I’d have been tunnel-pizza). In less than five minutes we were out of the tunnel, my energy spent, I flopped down on the ground. My heart was going as fast as one of those trans-continental freight trains. You know the ones hobos hook rides on. Anyway, I lay down on the dewy grass, catching my breath. I remembered hearing whispered conversation between X and Casca, but it didn’t seem too important. At least we got back the book.
The night air was full of scents. I could detect distinct smells of lavender, and a slight hint of pine. I heard the call of the crickets and felt sleep overcoming me. The sounds and smells of the night enveloped me and I entered into a dream. This had been one very weird day.
X, Casca and I stood stock still. The voice seemed to come out of thin air. I looked at the two of them. They shrugged back at me. As far as the three of us could see, there was nothing ahead of us or behind us or in any direction from us. This did not look good.
“Would you please discard whatever weapons you may be carrying both within and without your person? We will know if you have not complied.” The voice sounded haughty and I couldn’t help picturing an old, grand-uncle type character. Since we weren’t carrying anything, we didn’t have anything to discard.
“Um, excuse us, dude, but we can’t see where you are”, X said, surprising both Casca and myself to gawp at him in an open-mouthed fashion.
“Prisoners are not to speak unless spoken to”, the voice said, hardening, changing from the old uncle-like character I had associated it with to something like a dictatorial boarding school principal kind of voice. Suddenly, X dropped to his knees as though someone had punched him in the stomach.
“Hey! That was uncalled for!” I heard myself exclaim as Casca dropped to her knees to see if X was alright.
“You storm into our sanctum, our sacred gathering place and deign to ask us questions? We should kill you for being that impertinent!” the voice continued. The owner seemed to be frothing at the intrusion into what he called their “inner sanctum”.
“That’s enough Alfred”, said a second voice, this one belonging to a woman. It seemed no softer than Alfred’s voice, but her voice was less tinged with malice. I hoped for our sakes that she would be able to calm down Alfred before he had the time and the opportunity to kill one of us.
“Quiet Sakura! Have they not put you through pain as well, these monsters calling themselves Monks? Holy order my ass!”
“We’re not Monks! We swear it.” Apparently we had been mistaken for monks, which meant that these people were watchers, and this was the watchers’ sanctum that we were looking for. “I’m supposed to be the gatekeeper’s apprentice. We’re supposed to be looking for the watchers.”
“We sent someone very capable to retrieve the Gatekeeper’s apprentice. If he could not fulfil his duty he would have informed one of us. You lie child. And for that you shall pay.” The air shimmered and all of a sudden a million points of heat laced across my back, bringing me wincing down to my knees. I screamed out in the pain of it.
“Alfred; that is quite enough!” shouted the woman’s voice. The lances of pain ceased and I slumped down on my stomach, my face buried in the hot sand of the roadway. I coughed and felt Casca’s hand slip into mine and hold it. She was comforting me the way we did when we were kids. This, however, wasn’t another playground bully. This time it seemed like this guy was playing for keeps.
“Stand up children”, the woman’s voice said. The area in front of us shimmered and the woman emerged from the very air. The reality around her seemed to blur and melt and she stepped into the place that was once occupied by nothing a few seconds ago. Her face was kind and although her voice sounded old, her face betrayed that she could be no more than twenty-five. Her long brown hair had been tied back into a ponytail that hung along her back. Her eyes were piercing blue, much bluer than anything I had ever seen. Her skin was porcelain-white, and she seemed to make her own radiance. She had me and X totally entranced by her movements. So entranced that we didn’t see when Alfred shed his cloak and became visible. Casca saw him and she poked me in my ribs in order to make me notice.
I hadn’t seen Alfred materialise, but there he was, large as life and twice as mean, standing right in front of me. He looked like a twenty-five year old pretty-boy, complete with long, middle parted hair, and flawless skin. I sneered. I hated pretty boys; to me they were all the same, useless and cruel. These people moved (or to be more specific, floated, since they didn’t exactly touch the ground) towards us, and stopped short of Casca, X and myself as we nursed our wounds.
“If you are indeed the gatekeeper’s chosen”, the woman who Alfred had called Sakura, “you will have the Keystone. Show us the key and we shall believe you. Fail to produce the key and we shall kill you where you stand.”
“I’ll show you the Keystone if you so insist to see it”, I said, hoping that it would be enough to convince them that we weren’t their enemies. “It’s inside the van, but I can’t get out of the barrier. I’ll send my friend to get it, since she can pass through your barrier easily, and when she comes back you’ll see we are who we say we are.”
I turned to Casca and she nodded, but looked at the two strangers warily as she stepped outside the barrier and ran up to the van, quickly recovering the Keystone from inside the glove compartment, where it had lain ever since we hopped into the van. She snatched it up and hastily returned to the scene where both me and X were on our knees, slowly recovering from whatever was done to us.
“Here it is”, she called over to the two strangers. She held the keystone aloft and the sun scattered off its gilded cover. I looked up and noticed the hungry look come into both of the strangers’ eyes.
“I cannot notice if it is the real thing from here”, Sakura said to Casca. “Bring it over to me so I can see it properly.”
“Don’t do it Casca!” I shouted to her. This was feeling very fishy all of a sudden. I didn’t like the look on their faces.
Casca turned to me, a puzzled look on her face, but stopped walking nonetheless. I breathed a sigh, but almost immediately as the breath had left my lungs, I felt the sharp return of a million pinpoints of extreme pain. I squirmed and cried out, it had totally taken me by surprise, and I think it was more the surprise in it than the actual pain that had me in agony.
“Give us the keystone child, or else I will stipple the organs out of thy friend”, said Alfred, a greedy light dancing in his eyes. His features had changed; his face seemed more animalistic, his nose more like the beak of some cruel bird. His lips were locked in a grim smile which spread across his countenance. He was thoroughly enjoying this.
“If I hand you the keystone, you’ll let us go?” Casca asked. Her worry was evident in her tone. I could see she didn’t want any of us to die. I tried to scream to her that the keystone was more important than any of us, but all I could get out was a choked sob. Casca heard the sob and looked concernedly towards me and fixed her gaze on Sakura. “Do you promise to let us go if you get the keystone?” she repeated.
“That all depends”, said Sakura, eyeing Casca back airily. “You may live if we so choose it. As it stands, you have two choices. Give us the book and maybe get out of this alive, or not give us the book and die for certain. What is your choice Guardian?”
While all this was going on, the two strangers had neglected to notice the wounded X getting to his feet and testing the strength of his legs. He eyed the two of them with hatred in his eyes. X wasn’t someone to hate people, so feeling hate was new for him. He looked at them both, and decided that the easier target would have been Alfred. Standing now, he lunged at Alfred.
Alfred had been totally involved in what he termed “stippling” me. If you could have felt those points of heat, you’d think that that was an appropriate name for whatever he was doing to me. When X charged him, his concentration broke and he shifted his gaze to X, who was caught mid leap and thrown backwards, yelling. He hit the dirt and bounced then slid back, coming to rest with his arm at an awkward angle. I couldn’t see him breathing from where I lay.
I’ve read about times when Adrenaline kicks in and people end up doing superhuman things. I think that’s what happened. I got up off the ground before I even realised what I was doing and charged Alfred. I suppose he couldn’t recover to do the same thing to me as he did to X, but whatever the reason, he didn’t fire anything off, and I succeeded in tacking him and taking him down. He fell, and I heard a sharp crack as his back hit the ground. I could see his face twist in agony then he disappeared. His body was no longer there.
I stood up to run to X, but I think that’s where my adrenaline rush ran out and I collapsed into a heap. As I fell I glanced at Casca and she had overcome Sakura, who was seemingly unconscious. She noticed me as well, and came over to see if I was okay, then went over to X after I had convinced her that I was okay. X was in much worse shape than I was. His face was swollen and he had marks along his back and sides where he had slid along the ground. His left eye was trickling blood. I couldn’t make out much from where I was but I couldn’t see him breathing.
I could see Casca’s eyes leaking tears, and I felt the same as she did. X was the best male friend I ever had in the world. I don’t know what I would do without him. Casca had picked up the keystone after she had overwhelmed Sakura, but now it lay forgotten in the dust as her tears coursed down her face. Watching the two of them, I couldn’t let a few tears streak my dust-covered face as well. I crawled onward towards them, letting the last of my strength drag me towards my comrade.
“What’s with the crying dudes?” X said, his eyes opening slightly. Casca sobbed and then looked down at him angrily.
“Why didn’t you say anything before you jerk?” she asked him, sobbing and sniffling as she held back the tears. “I thought you were dead”, she finished lamely.
“I did too, X man, that was not funny and totally uncool”, I chimed in.
“Dudes, I wasn’t dead, but I wasn’t here either. I was talking to this floaty-dude; he told me where we’re supposed to be headed. We’re on the right track.”
“Wait, wait, wait”, I said, confusion filling me. “A floaty dude you say?”
“Yeah man, he was all floaty. It was cool to see him just floating on there. He looked like I feel after a few shots from the old hash pipe”, X said, his eyes gaining a faraway, dream-like expression. Casca snapped her fingers and he looked around as if rudely awakened from some wonderful fantasy.
“I guess we ought to get back in the van...” I began but X cut me off.
“No can do bro”, he said. “The floaty dude expressly said we can’t bring the van. It’s a dead giveaway he said. Makes us too easy to follow. It’s because of the van that we got caught by those two weirdoes”, he said, jerking his head to indicate the now-unconscious Sakura.
“So, we walk?” Casca said. She was probably the fittest of the three of us. She would have no problem making the walk, no matter how many miles. X and I, however, were in much worse condition. The last time we had a workout was a long, long time ago. X still played football on the weekends, but the most I had done in so many years was probably wash the family car. Don’t let my lithe stature fool you; I could loaf with the best of them.
I shrugged resignedly. Not like anything I was going to say would make a difference to the outcome of this. We couldn’t drive into there and we had no other forms of transport other than our wheels (which technically wasn’t expressly ours), and our legs. It seemed like it would be a long afternoon.
Casca looked up the canyon we had come to. The shining points of light that had entranced me when I had just entered the canyon seemed much brighter now. I heard that after escaping near death experiences, everything seemed brighter and happier. It seems like that little titbit was true.
We had progressed a little way up the canyon, following the erstwhile directions of dear X. It felt like we were progressing steadily into something way too big for us. At least that’s how it felt to me. It had had this feeling for a while now, and the fact that we were following the wise words of advice (coming from a dream nonetheless) from the least mentally stable of the three us made me feel slightly uneasy, if you get where I’m coming from.
The sun falling on the rock face became more unbearable the longer we stayed out in the open. It didn’t look like we would have to put up with it for much longer. Conversation among us had come to a halt, mainly because the safest way to conserve energy was to not use it up with useless banter. It was quite interesting to see what the sun did to us. I could feel the energy draining away from me. Glancing at Casca, I saw her head in a droop that I came to associate with being fed up with something. She always had that head drooping like that when she was depressed. X was chipper at the beginning of the trek, but with a couple hours arduous walking and relentless sun, his face told a story of hardship and suffering. You could have sworn he’d been out in the sun for days, the way he was acting.
I wasn’t much better. All I could get done was concentrating to put one foot in front of the next. Many times I almost felt like it would be the last step, then came another. And another. And another again. It was like wanting to give up, but refusing to consider it. Ah the paradox of human will. It was interesting to note the way my mind had started off thinking about earlier treks into the wilderness, early childhood hikes and the like, changing to thoughts about things like dying in strange places, and going unnoticed for years, possibly even decades. It was a bit too much for me. Yet when the last of my conscious thinking energy had been depleted, I felt a sense of security as well as a sense of relief, not having to fill my head with such nonsense. I had bigger fish to fry.
Coincidental as it may seem, at that point in time, I smelt the unmistakable scent of the sea, and the wafting scent of frying fish. X had scented it too; the dead look in his eyes being replaced by a hungry light. To be honest, I preferred his living dead look. It was a lot nicer to look at. Casca didn’t seem to realise that her compatriots were smelling something good cooking, and it didn’t seem like she particularly cared about eating anything either.
As we rounded the corner, we almost fell into the yard of a small cottage, nestled deep in the mountains. It looked very homey, from my point of view. From X’s point of view, I could almost literally see him thinking about free eats. Ah, good old X, forever thinking of his stomach. Casca had adopted a pensive look, which was typical. She was always curious, but strangely enough was always wary about new things that she discovered. One could say it was a character flaw.
Personally, I thought we had found the long sought after “safe place”. I hoped so; all this walking without water or food was definitely getting to me. It was probably the most hardship I had faced in all my 18 years. I stifled a chuckle as I thought about the rest of my high-school class trying to attempt what we did. Probably less than a quarter would have made it as far as we did.
“I don’t like this place”, Casca announced, her eyes narrowed in a look of utter distaste. Whether I was blinded for a second, or just seeing what I wanted to see, the place I had mistaken for a safe haven was now revealed for what it really was. The windows were broken in, as though the ravages of years had taken its toll upon the body of the poor chalet. The rafters hung loose and dust clung from the eaves in vast, webbed networks. The spiders were definitely not idle in the broken shell of the house. I could see that, if given proper care and attention, the house had the potential for great beauty, but in its current state, it was no better than the broken and used skin of an old snake.
X’s face twisted in a strange manner and he looked at me questioningly. I looked back, just as puzzled as he was. He sniffed the air warily. Something in the air changed and his face showed it plainly. I sniffed and a smell that was a cross between the rotten innards of some animal mixed with the remains of rotted eggs came across. I almost threw up. Retching I turned away. It seemed that was the invitation that X needed, since he too started retching uncontrollably.
Casca looked at us and shrugged, then continued walking towards the door of the house. We hurried to catch up to her, keeping our heaving stomachs at bay with sheer willpower. In his hurry to get back near to Casca, X tripped a wire that lay close to the surface of the shale floor of the canyon. He tripped and went over, making Casca turn around abruptly, and making me step over to help him back up. X looked frightened, and as Casca approached us he started to speak.
“Dude we have to get out of here man”, he said, the fear draining fear from his face.
“What do you mean man?” I asked him. I was curious as to why he was suddenly eager to get away from here.
“The floaty-dude, he said we’d meet something like this, right before he showed me the poem thingy”, he replied. His eyes started darting around rapidly. “Dude we need to GO!”
“Calm down Xavier”, Casca said, looking around. She had the air of a mother bear scenting the woods for danger. She stopped as if she had gotten something and frowned. “I don’t get this”, she said.
“Get what?” I asked her, not taking my eyes off X. His eyes were darting around now, not taking in one thing for more than a few seconds.
“I think X is right, we should get out of here”, she said, suddenly looking alarmed.
I wasn’t going to argue about Casca’s choices, her split second decision had saved my life after all. I took X up and we started moving away from the house. I looked sideways at Casca, wondering what exactly she didn’t get. I made a mental note to ask her about it later.
We half-walked, half-ran to a nearby cave in the shale-and-limestone canyon; making good time at it as well. We didn’t know exactly how much time we had, but according to X’s frantic reaction it wasn’t very much. We bundled into the cavern, the coolness of the air in the cave giving us relief and respite from the blistering sun outside. At the back of the cavern was a small pool of water. It looked as though the water had eaten this cave into the limestone interior of the hills, and ended up down at the pool in this cave after its weathering work was done.
X rushed up to the pool and dipped both hands into it, sinking his arms down until the elbows into the cool, fresh water. He splashed himself with the water and smiled as it flowed down his face, which shone eerily with the shafts of light coming in from the holes near the roof of the cavern. He looked as if he was a walking corpse.
From outside, we could hear the sounds of frenzied movement. Being closest to the entrance, both Casca and I looked out. From our vantage point at the mouth of the cave, we could see the approach to the house and part of the western edge of the house.
All around the front and west of the house were figures dressed in a weird variety of clothes. The only thing they had all in common was the conspicuous hood that covered their heads. The hood was of a scarlet colour; one could even call it blood red. The wind that drifted along the cavern brushed the hoods but never once did any of them drop off to reveal the people beneath the hoods. I shuddered. Their attire resembled the monks from the Keystone…
The Keystone! I felt around for it, and then I remembered that I dropped it when I ran over to help X off the ground. It was still out there, meaning that it was close to being discovered by the people out in front the house. I looked at Casca and she saw the fear in my eyes and asked me what was up. I told her about the keystone and winced as the colour drained out of her face. Her face became pinched and small, a mixture of fear and anger.
X had rejoined us by now, and he was still glowing lightly. It seemed that the glowing was coming from the water itself that he had almost bathed himself in. He stuck his hand into a shaft of sunlight and amazingly, it bounced off and nit a crag high up in the cavern. I looked at him stunned and confused at the same time, and then shook my head to clear it. We had more important things to think about.
“How are we going to get back the keystone?” Casca asked no one in particular. I suspected she was thinking aloud, she usually did that when the pressure was getting to her.
“I don’t know…” I began but X jumped in with his two cents.
“Dude, you lost the book?” he asked, looking at me.
“I dropped it when you tripped over that tripwire and called the guards in”, I returned acidly.
“If you dropped it where I fell it should be safe”, X said, thinking intently. “There’s a lotta grasses around there, and it’s still in that sand-coloured wrapping thingy, so it should be hard to see from there. Besides, they’re nowhere near the tripwire dude. I think they guess we’re inside the wrecked house.”
X’s observation did indeed carry weight. They were nowhere near to the bushes that X had tripped near. The wire seemed to be an advance-warning device that activated when X walked over it.
We watched as they combed the area around and inside the house. Agonizingly half an hour passed, and we watched as men in hoods came closer and closer to the bushes that hid the keystone.
X was surprisingly unconcerned with the whole affair. It was as thought he already knew what would happen. It was uncanny, seeing X so lackadaisical about being discovered.
“What is wrong with you?” asked Casca, visibly losing patience with X’s lack of interest. All he could do was shrug.
“I dunno how to explain it, but I just know that they won’t find the keystone”, he said
I wish I could have had his optimism, but to be honest, at that point in time, his constant look-for-the-best outlook was getting to my nerves. I was almost ready to deck him, almost ready to make him care.
X retreated to the back of the cavern, just in time to avoid me taking a swing at him. I was pretty close to the breaking point, what with all that had gone on from the moment my house blew up to when we (more specifically, I) lost the keystone. I was rapidly getting fed up of running around and hiding. I got up and went to take a drink of the water from the back of the cave, but partway there I remembered how it made X reflect light from his body after being immersed in it. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t water. At least not like any water I’d ever seen or heard of.
Casca remained at the mouth of the cave, looking out, her face pinched and lined in concentration, appealing to whatever deity would lend her an ear. I sincerely hoped that whatever deity she was petitioning would be sympathetic to her pleas.
“Hey guys, come check this out!” X called from over by a wall face. It seemed a bit of the wall had given way and there was a path behind the caved-in wall section. I watched as X disappeared down the small hole. I was rather surprised that he could fit. I think I wouldn’t have been able to fit into such a small hole. Then it changed.
As X entered the hole, the size of the entire thing changed. It shifted, moving about like moulding clay, forming a silhouette of him, then enlarging into a proper archway. I was amazed a bit scared to be honest. I turned to look at Casca, and she looked back at me. Her eyes were side and staring.
“Did I just see what I thought I saw?” she asked disbelievingly.
“I’m not sure”, I responded, turning back to look at the entrance, which reassumed the look of an unassuming cave face. “Want to go through it?”
“Um, I dunno”, she said, pausing in between the words, as if gauging how dangerous it might be to enter into a polymorphable rock face.
“I’m going”, I announced. “X is in there, he got through just fine.
“Hey dude, you have got to see it man, it’s like…wow, dude”, X’s voice came floating through the cave mouth, partially distorted due to the cavern-like nature of the cave itself I assumed. Whatever it was he was seeing, it was definitely something worth getting a glimpse of.
I headed for the cave mouth and almost immediately, as if sensing my motive, the cave mouth began to shift and twist. I felt a slight glow of something as I passed close to the mouth of the cave, and then nothing. I fitted through the entrance easily and looked back over my shoulder. Casca stood there, looking at me go. I could tell that she was struggling eternally to enter the cave or not. I saw a thought flicker across her face, and then, after a fleeting second, it was gone.
“Casca, you need to get in here before they discover this place”, I called to her. That seemed to bring her out of her reverie, as she half-walked, half-ran to the cave mouth. For the third time the cave mouth twisted, but after shimmering and glowing a brilliant blue for a few seconds, it remained the same. Luckily, Casca could have fitted through the cave mouth as it was, without any need for a change in its size. She dove headfirst into the cave as we heard voices, strangely accented voices, bounce around the cavern we had just left. The evening sun casting long and ominous shadows of the strangers as they entered the cavern, their voices adopting a strange haunting lilt with the echo from the cave. I was entranced by their voices, it had a strange, singsong quality, and not exactly the type of voices you would associate with large stevedore-type men, yet from the way their shadows looked, I could assume they were well built. They came closer, the shadows now spilling over the threshold of the cave opening. Then suddenly, the cave opening was there no more and we were plunged into darkness.
“Would you please discard whatever weapons you may be carrying both within and without your person? We will know if you have not complied.” The voice sounded haughty and I couldn’t help picturing an old, grand-uncle type character. Since we weren’t carrying anything, we didn’t have anything to discard.
“Um, excuse us, dude, but we can’t see where you are”, X said, surprising both Casca and myself to gawp at him in an open-mouthed fashion.
“Prisoners are not to speak unless spoken to”, the voice said, hardening, changing from the old uncle-like character I had associated it with to something like a dictatorial boarding school principal kind of voice. Suddenly, X dropped to his knees as though someone had punched him in the stomach.
“Hey! That was uncalled for!” I heard myself exclaim as Casca dropped to her knees to see if X was alright.
“You storm into our sanctum, our sacred gathering place and deign to ask us questions? We should kill you for being that impertinent!” the voice continued. The owner seemed to be frothing at the intrusion into what he called their “inner sanctum”.
“That’s enough Alfred”, said a second voice, this one belonging to a woman. It seemed no softer than Alfred’s voice, but her voice was less tinged with malice. I hoped for our sakes that she would be able to calm down Alfred before he had the time and the opportunity to kill one of us.
“Quiet Sakura! Have they not put you through pain as well, these monsters calling themselves Monks? Holy order my ass!”
“We’re not Monks! We swear it.” Apparently we had been mistaken for monks, which meant that these people were watchers, and this was the watchers’ sanctum that we were looking for. “I’m supposed to be the gatekeeper’s apprentice. We’re supposed to be looking for the watchers.”
“We sent someone very capable to retrieve the Gatekeeper’s apprentice. If he could not fulfil his duty he would have informed one of us. You lie child. And for that you shall pay.” The air shimmered and all of a sudden a million points of heat laced across my back, bringing me wincing down to my knees. I screamed out in the pain of it.
“Alfred; that is quite enough!” shouted the woman’s voice. The lances of pain ceased and I slumped down on my stomach, my face buried in the hot sand of the roadway. I coughed and felt Casca’s hand slip into mine and hold it. She was comforting me the way we did when we were kids. This, however, wasn’t another playground bully. This time it seemed like this guy was playing for keeps.
“Stand up children”, the woman’s voice said. The area in front of us shimmered and the woman emerged from the very air. The reality around her seemed to blur and melt and she stepped into the place that was once occupied by nothing a few seconds ago. Her face was kind and although her voice sounded old, her face betrayed that she could be no more than twenty-five. Her long brown hair had been tied back into a ponytail that hung along her back. Her eyes were piercing blue, much bluer than anything I had ever seen. Her skin was porcelain-white, and she seemed to make her own radiance. She had me and X totally entranced by her movements. So entranced that we didn’t see when Alfred shed his cloak and became visible. Casca saw him and she poked me in my ribs in order to make me notice.
I hadn’t seen Alfred materialise, but there he was, large as life and twice as mean, standing right in front of me. He looked like a twenty-five year old pretty-boy, complete with long, middle parted hair, and flawless skin. I sneered. I hated pretty boys; to me they were all the same, useless and cruel. These people moved (or to be more specific, floated, since they didn’t exactly touch the ground) towards us, and stopped short of Casca, X and myself as we nursed our wounds.
“If you are indeed the gatekeeper’s chosen”, the woman who Alfred had called Sakura, “you will have the Keystone. Show us the key and we shall believe you. Fail to produce the key and we shall kill you where you stand.”
“I’ll show you the Keystone if you so insist to see it”, I said, hoping that it would be enough to convince them that we weren’t their enemies. “It’s inside the van, but I can’t get out of the barrier. I’ll send my friend to get it, since she can pass through your barrier easily, and when she comes back you’ll see we are who we say we are.”
I turned to Casca and she nodded, but looked at the two strangers warily as she stepped outside the barrier and ran up to the van, quickly recovering the Keystone from inside the glove compartment, where it had lain ever since we hopped into the van. She snatched it up and hastily returned to the scene where both me and X were on our knees, slowly recovering from whatever was done to us.
“Here it is”, she called over to the two strangers. She held the keystone aloft and the sun scattered off its gilded cover. I looked up and noticed the hungry look come into both of the strangers’ eyes.
“I cannot notice if it is the real thing from here”, Sakura said to Casca. “Bring it over to me so I can see it properly.”
“Don’t do it Casca!” I shouted to her. This was feeling very fishy all of a sudden. I didn’t like the look on their faces.
Casca turned to me, a puzzled look on her face, but stopped walking nonetheless. I breathed a sigh, but almost immediately as the breath had left my lungs, I felt the sharp return of a million pinpoints of extreme pain. I squirmed and cried out, it had totally taken me by surprise, and I think it was more the surprise in it than the actual pain that had me in agony.
“Give us the keystone child, or else I will stipple the organs out of thy friend”, said Alfred, a greedy light dancing in his eyes. His features had changed; his face seemed more animalistic, his nose more like the beak of some cruel bird. His lips were locked in a grim smile which spread across his countenance. He was thoroughly enjoying this.
“If I hand you the keystone, you’ll let us go?” Casca asked. Her worry was evident in her tone. I could see she didn’t want any of us to die. I tried to scream to her that the keystone was more important than any of us, but all I could get out was a choked sob. Casca heard the sob and looked concernedly towards me and fixed her gaze on Sakura. “Do you promise to let us go if you get the keystone?” she repeated.
“That all depends”, said Sakura, eyeing Casca back airily. “You may live if we so choose it. As it stands, you have two choices. Give us the book and maybe get out of this alive, or not give us the book and die for certain. What is your choice Guardian?”
While all this was going on, the two strangers had neglected to notice the wounded X getting to his feet and testing the strength of his legs. He eyed the two of them with hatred in his eyes. X wasn’t someone to hate people, so feeling hate was new for him. He looked at them both, and decided that the easier target would have been Alfred. Standing now, he lunged at Alfred.
Alfred had been totally involved in what he termed “stippling” me. If you could have felt those points of heat, you’d think that that was an appropriate name for whatever he was doing to me. When X charged him, his concentration broke and he shifted his gaze to X, who was caught mid leap and thrown backwards, yelling. He hit the dirt and bounced then slid back, coming to rest with his arm at an awkward angle. I couldn’t see him breathing from where I lay.
I’ve read about times when Adrenaline kicks in and people end up doing superhuman things. I think that’s what happened. I got up off the ground before I even realised what I was doing and charged Alfred. I suppose he couldn’t recover to do the same thing to me as he did to X, but whatever the reason, he didn’t fire anything off, and I succeeded in tacking him and taking him down. He fell, and I heard a sharp crack as his back hit the ground. I could see his face twist in agony then he disappeared. His body was no longer there.
I stood up to run to X, but I think that’s where my adrenaline rush ran out and I collapsed into a heap. As I fell I glanced at Casca and she had overcome Sakura, who was seemingly unconscious. She noticed me as well, and came over to see if I was okay, then went over to X after I had convinced her that I was okay. X was in much worse shape than I was. His face was swollen and he had marks along his back and sides where he had slid along the ground. His left eye was trickling blood. I couldn’t make out much from where I was but I couldn’t see him breathing.
I could see Casca’s eyes leaking tears, and I felt the same as she did. X was the best male friend I ever had in the world. I don’t know what I would do without him. Casca had picked up the keystone after she had overwhelmed Sakura, but now it lay forgotten in the dust as her tears coursed down her face. Watching the two of them, I couldn’t let a few tears streak my dust-covered face as well. I crawled onward towards them, letting the last of my strength drag me towards my comrade.
“What’s with the crying dudes?” X said, his eyes opening slightly. Casca sobbed and then looked down at him angrily.
“Why didn’t you say anything before you jerk?” she asked him, sobbing and sniffling as she held back the tears. “I thought you were dead”, she finished lamely.
“I did too, X man, that was not funny and totally uncool”, I chimed in.
“Dudes, I wasn’t dead, but I wasn’t here either. I was talking to this floaty-dude; he told me where we’re supposed to be headed. We’re on the right track.”
“Wait, wait, wait”, I said, confusion filling me. “A floaty dude you say?”
“Yeah man, he was all floaty. It was cool to see him just floating on there. He looked like I feel after a few shots from the old hash pipe”, X said, his eyes gaining a faraway, dream-like expression. Casca snapped her fingers and he looked around as if rudely awakened from some wonderful fantasy.
“I guess we ought to get back in the van...” I began but X cut me off.
“No can do bro”, he said. “The floaty dude expressly said we can’t bring the van. It’s a dead giveaway he said. Makes us too easy to follow. It’s because of the van that we got caught by those two weirdoes”, he said, jerking his head to indicate the now-unconscious Sakura.
“So, we walk?” Casca said. She was probably the fittest of the three of us. She would have no problem making the walk, no matter how many miles. X and I, however, were in much worse condition. The last time we had a workout was a long, long time ago. X still played football on the weekends, but the most I had done in so many years was probably wash the family car. Don’t let my lithe stature fool you; I could loaf with the best of them.
I shrugged resignedly. Not like anything I was going to say would make a difference to the outcome of this. We couldn’t drive into there and we had no other forms of transport other than our wheels (which technically wasn’t expressly ours), and our legs. It seemed like it would be a long afternoon.
Casca looked up the canyon we had come to. The shining points of light that had entranced me when I had just entered the canyon seemed much brighter now. I heard that after escaping near death experiences, everything seemed brighter and happier. It seems like that little titbit was true.
We had progressed a little way up the canyon, following the erstwhile directions of dear X. It felt like we were progressing steadily into something way too big for us. At least that’s how it felt to me. It had had this feeling for a while now, and the fact that we were following the wise words of advice (coming from a dream nonetheless) from the least mentally stable of the three us made me feel slightly uneasy, if you get where I’m coming from.
The sun falling on the rock face became more unbearable the longer we stayed out in the open. It didn’t look like we would have to put up with it for much longer. Conversation among us had come to a halt, mainly because the safest way to conserve energy was to not use it up with useless banter. It was quite interesting to see what the sun did to us. I could feel the energy draining away from me. Glancing at Casca, I saw her head in a droop that I came to associate with being fed up with something. She always had that head drooping like that when she was depressed. X was chipper at the beginning of the trek, but with a couple hours arduous walking and relentless sun, his face told a story of hardship and suffering. You could have sworn he’d been out in the sun for days, the way he was acting.
I wasn’t much better. All I could get done was concentrating to put one foot in front of the next. Many times I almost felt like it would be the last step, then came another. And another. And another again. It was like wanting to give up, but refusing to consider it. Ah the paradox of human will. It was interesting to note the way my mind had started off thinking about earlier treks into the wilderness, early childhood hikes and the like, changing to thoughts about things like dying in strange places, and going unnoticed for years, possibly even decades. It was a bit too much for me. Yet when the last of my conscious thinking energy had been depleted, I felt a sense of security as well as a sense of relief, not having to fill my head with such nonsense. I had bigger fish to fry.
Coincidental as it may seem, at that point in time, I smelt the unmistakable scent of the sea, and the wafting scent of frying fish. X had scented it too; the dead look in his eyes being replaced by a hungry light. To be honest, I preferred his living dead look. It was a lot nicer to look at. Casca didn’t seem to realise that her compatriots were smelling something good cooking, and it didn’t seem like she particularly cared about eating anything either.
As we rounded the corner, we almost fell into the yard of a small cottage, nestled deep in the mountains. It looked very homey, from my point of view. From X’s point of view, I could almost literally see him thinking about free eats. Ah, good old X, forever thinking of his stomach. Casca had adopted a pensive look, which was typical. She was always curious, but strangely enough was always wary about new things that she discovered. One could say it was a character flaw.
Personally, I thought we had found the long sought after “safe place”. I hoped so; all this walking without water or food was definitely getting to me. It was probably the most hardship I had faced in all my 18 years. I stifled a chuckle as I thought about the rest of my high-school class trying to attempt what we did. Probably less than a quarter would have made it as far as we did.
“I don’t like this place”, Casca announced, her eyes narrowed in a look of utter distaste. Whether I was blinded for a second, or just seeing what I wanted to see, the place I had mistaken for a safe haven was now revealed for what it really was. The windows were broken in, as though the ravages of years had taken its toll upon the body of the poor chalet. The rafters hung loose and dust clung from the eaves in vast, webbed networks. The spiders were definitely not idle in the broken shell of the house. I could see that, if given proper care and attention, the house had the potential for great beauty, but in its current state, it was no better than the broken and used skin of an old snake.
X’s face twisted in a strange manner and he looked at me questioningly. I looked back, just as puzzled as he was. He sniffed the air warily. Something in the air changed and his face showed it plainly. I sniffed and a smell that was a cross between the rotten innards of some animal mixed with the remains of rotted eggs came across. I almost threw up. Retching I turned away. It seemed that was the invitation that X needed, since he too started retching uncontrollably.
Casca looked at us and shrugged, then continued walking towards the door of the house. We hurried to catch up to her, keeping our heaving stomachs at bay with sheer willpower. In his hurry to get back near to Casca, X tripped a wire that lay close to the surface of the shale floor of the canyon. He tripped and went over, making Casca turn around abruptly, and making me step over to help him back up. X looked frightened, and as Casca approached us he started to speak.
“Dude we have to get out of here man”, he said, the fear draining fear from his face.
“What do you mean man?” I asked him. I was curious as to why he was suddenly eager to get away from here.
“The floaty-dude, he said we’d meet something like this, right before he showed me the poem thingy”, he replied. His eyes started darting around rapidly. “Dude we need to GO!”
“Calm down Xavier”, Casca said, looking around. She had the air of a mother bear scenting the woods for danger. She stopped as if she had gotten something and frowned. “I don’t get this”, she said.
“Get what?” I asked her, not taking my eyes off X. His eyes were darting around now, not taking in one thing for more than a few seconds.
“I think X is right, we should get out of here”, she said, suddenly looking alarmed.
I wasn’t going to argue about Casca’s choices, her split second decision had saved my life after all. I took X up and we started moving away from the house. I looked sideways at Casca, wondering what exactly she didn’t get. I made a mental note to ask her about it later.
We half-walked, half-ran to a nearby cave in the shale-and-limestone canyon; making good time at it as well. We didn’t know exactly how much time we had, but according to X’s frantic reaction it wasn’t very much. We bundled into the cavern, the coolness of the air in the cave giving us relief and respite from the blistering sun outside. At the back of the cavern was a small pool of water. It looked as though the water had eaten this cave into the limestone interior of the hills, and ended up down at the pool in this cave after its weathering work was done.
X rushed up to the pool and dipped both hands into it, sinking his arms down until the elbows into the cool, fresh water. He splashed himself with the water and smiled as it flowed down his face, which shone eerily with the shafts of light coming in from the holes near the roof of the cavern. He looked as if he was a walking corpse.
From outside, we could hear the sounds of frenzied movement. Being closest to the entrance, both Casca and I looked out. From our vantage point at the mouth of the cave, we could see the approach to the house and part of the western edge of the house.
All around the front and west of the house were figures dressed in a weird variety of clothes. The only thing they had all in common was the conspicuous hood that covered their heads. The hood was of a scarlet colour; one could even call it blood red. The wind that drifted along the cavern brushed the hoods but never once did any of them drop off to reveal the people beneath the hoods. I shuddered. Their attire resembled the monks from the Keystone…
The Keystone! I felt around for it, and then I remembered that I dropped it when I ran over to help X off the ground. It was still out there, meaning that it was close to being discovered by the people out in front the house. I looked at Casca and she saw the fear in my eyes and asked me what was up. I told her about the keystone and winced as the colour drained out of her face. Her face became pinched and small, a mixture of fear and anger.
X had rejoined us by now, and he was still glowing lightly. It seemed that the glowing was coming from the water itself that he had almost bathed himself in. He stuck his hand into a shaft of sunlight and amazingly, it bounced off and nit a crag high up in the cavern. I looked at him stunned and confused at the same time, and then shook my head to clear it. We had more important things to think about.
“How are we going to get back the keystone?” Casca asked no one in particular. I suspected she was thinking aloud, she usually did that when the pressure was getting to her.
“I don’t know…” I began but X jumped in with his two cents.
“Dude, you lost the book?” he asked, looking at me.
“I dropped it when you tripped over that tripwire and called the guards in”, I returned acidly.
“If you dropped it where I fell it should be safe”, X said, thinking intently. “There’s a lotta grasses around there, and it’s still in that sand-coloured wrapping thingy, so it should be hard to see from there. Besides, they’re nowhere near the tripwire dude. I think they guess we’re inside the wrecked house.”
X’s observation did indeed carry weight. They were nowhere near to the bushes that X had tripped near. The wire seemed to be an advance-warning device that activated when X walked over it.
We watched as they combed the area around and inside the house. Agonizingly half an hour passed, and we watched as men in hoods came closer and closer to the bushes that hid the keystone.
X was surprisingly unconcerned with the whole affair. It was as thought he already knew what would happen. It was uncanny, seeing X so lackadaisical about being discovered.
“What is wrong with you?” asked Casca, visibly losing patience with X’s lack of interest. All he could do was shrug.
“I dunno how to explain it, but I just know that they won’t find the keystone”, he said
I wish I could have had his optimism, but to be honest, at that point in time, his constant look-for-the-best outlook was getting to my nerves. I was almost ready to deck him, almost ready to make him care.
X retreated to the back of the cavern, just in time to avoid me taking a swing at him. I was pretty close to the breaking point, what with all that had gone on from the moment my house blew up to when we (more specifically, I) lost the keystone. I was rapidly getting fed up of running around and hiding. I got up and went to take a drink of the water from the back of the cave, but partway there I remembered how it made X reflect light from his body after being immersed in it. Whatever it was, it certainly wasn’t water. At least not like any water I’d ever seen or heard of.
Casca remained at the mouth of the cave, looking out, her face pinched and lined in concentration, appealing to whatever deity would lend her an ear. I sincerely hoped that whatever deity she was petitioning would be sympathetic to her pleas.
“Hey guys, come check this out!” X called from over by a wall face. It seemed a bit of the wall had given way and there was a path behind the caved-in wall section. I watched as X disappeared down the small hole. I was rather surprised that he could fit. I think I wouldn’t have been able to fit into such a small hole. Then it changed.
As X entered the hole, the size of the entire thing changed. It shifted, moving about like moulding clay, forming a silhouette of him, then enlarging into a proper archway. I was amazed a bit scared to be honest. I turned to look at Casca, and she looked back at me. Her eyes were side and staring.
“Did I just see what I thought I saw?” she asked disbelievingly.
“I’m not sure”, I responded, turning back to look at the entrance, which reassumed the look of an unassuming cave face. “Want to go through it?”
“Um, I dunno”, she said, pausing in between the words, as if gauging how dangerous it might be to enter into a polymorphable rock face.
“I’m going”, I announced. “X is in there, he got through just fine.
“Hey dude, you have got to see it man, it’s like…wow, dude”, X’s voice came floating through the cave mouth, partially distorted due to the cavern-like nature of the cave itself I assumed. Whatever it was he was seeing, it was definitely something worth getting a glimpse of.
I headed for the cave mouth and almost immediately, as if sensing my motive, the cave mouth began to shift and twist. I felt a slight glow of something as I passed close to the mouth of the cave, and then nothing. I fitted through the entrance easily and looked back over my shoulder. Casca stood there, looking at me go. I could tell that she was struggling eternally to enter the cave or not. I saw a thought flicker across her face, and then, after a fleeting second, it was gone.
“Casca, you need to get in here before they discover this place”, I called to her. That seemed to bring her out of her reverie, as she half-walked, half-ran to the cave mouth. For the third time the cave mouth twisted, but after shimmering and glowing a brilliant blue for a few seconds, it remained the same. Luckily, Casca could have fitted through the cave mouth as it was, without any need for a change in its size. She dove headfirst into the cave as we heard voices, strangely accented voices, bounce around the cavern we had just left. The evening sun casting long and ominous shadows of the strangers as they entered the cavern, their voices adopting a strange haunting lilt with the echo from the cave. I was entranced by their voices, it had a strange, singsong quality, and not exactly the type of voices you would associate with large stevedore-type men, yet from the way their shadows looked, I could assume they were well built. They came closer, the shadows now spilling over the threshold of the cave opening. Then suddenly, the cave opening was there no more and we were plunged into darkness.
So I've gotten to the end of chapter 6. Working on a few things to drop in plotwise. Considering how to place the whole "safe haven" thing inside it. I'm envisioning like three "challenged" to "prove the mettle" of the guardians, but it seems slightly cliché. the whole "challenge" thing has been overdone. I have to figure out how to get the guardians to manifest their powers. I've already started dropping hints, but I need to hash out what powers they've been granted. I still don't see it in my mind. I have a prophecy upcoming too, and I almost have the right moment to infuse it.
The world and the one
The moon and the Sun
One path turns left one turns right
One path to day, one to night
The moon against the sun
The quartermaster the one
The monster inside reborn
The veil, it shall be torn
It sounds not yet perfect, but it's got work to be done on it as yet. Also, I wonder when they're going to take the fight back to the Monks. I've envisioned the monks as wearing normal clothes, but wearing red hoods that are only visible to those trained in "the sight" and of course the Guardians and The Gatekeeper. I believe I'm on the edge of an epiphany, I just wish it'd get here fast.
The world and the one
The moon and the Sun
One path turns left one turns right
One path to day, one to night
The moon against the sun
The quartermaster the one
The monster inside reborn
The veil, it shall be torn
It sounds not yet perfect, but it's got work to be done on it as yet. Also, I wonder when they're going to take the fight back to the Monks. I've envisioned the monks as wearing normal clothes, but wearing red hoods that are only visible to those trained in "the sight" and of course the Guardians and The Gatekeeper. I believe I'm on the edge of an epiphany, I just wish it'd get here fast.
Days start counting from the 1st of November. Until such time, I have a piecemeal thing going. I have Characters. I have Character Relations. I've even gone into depth about Character backgrounds.
The Characters
Suzahara Wozniak AKA Suzy or Woz: The Protagonist. A totally geek-influenced d00d with a somewhat downward look on life. His best friend's a man-whore and he's in love with his best female friend who he knew since kindergarten.
Casca Aris : Woz's best female friend. Has known him since kindergarten and likes him as a friend. Is very much interested in knitting and crocheting, and has a slight morbid streak.
Xavier Carr AKA "X" or Ecks: Best Male friend of Woz. Definitely not your usual friend. Somewhat reserved when it comes to men (Woz being the exception) but very outgoing towards women.
Inspector Shad Haverford: I've just come up with this dude, and he seems like a perfect candidate for the "misunderstood bad guy". He looks a bit like an "old uncle" type character, but with one small difference. He has an EVIL aura about him.
Plot
there is an organization called "The Watchers" whose job it is to keep the gate between worlds intact. The new Gatekeeper is supposed to be contacted on his 18th birthday but something has gone wrong.The Gatekeeper has been murdered before appointing his apprentice, and so the bloodline falls to Woz, the fate of all three worlds, The Overwords, Earth and the Underdark are in the hands of three teenagers
How ah talk? :P
The Characters
Suzahara Wozniak AKA Suzy or Woz: The Protagonist. A totally geek-influenced d00d with a somewhat downward look on life. His best friend's a man-whore and he's in love with his best female friend who he knew since kindergarten.
Casca Aris : Woz's best female friend. Has known him since kindergarten and likes him as a friend. Is very much interested in knitting and crocheting, and has a slight morbid streak.
Xavier Carr AKA "X" or Ecks: Best Male friend of Woz. Definitely not your usual friend. Somewhat reserved when it comes to men (Woz being the exception) but very outgoing towards women.
Inspector Shad Haverford: I've just come up with this dude, and he seems like a perfect candidate for the "misunderstood bad guy". He looks a bit like an "old uncle" type character, but with one small difference. He has an EVIL aura about him.
Plot
there is an organization called "The Watchers" whose job it is to keep the gate between worlds intact. The new Gatekeeper is supposed to be contacted on his 18th birthday but something has gone wrong.The Gatekeeper has been murdered before appointing his apprentice, and so the bloodline falls to Woz, the fate of all three worlds, The Overwords, Earth and the Underdark are in the hands of three teenagers
How ah talk? :P
Page Summary
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
fyre_foxx : Chapter 8 [+0] - fyre_foxx : Chapter 7 [+0]
- fyre_foxx : Chapter 6 [+0]
- fyre_foxx : Plotpoints [+1]
- fyre_foxx : Chapter 5 [+0]
- fyre_foxx : Day 4 - 7500 words - Chapter 4 [+0]
- fyre_foxx : Chapter 3 [+0]
- fyre_foxx : Day 3 - Chapter 2 - 5000 Words so far written (but not posted :P) [+0]
- fyre_foxx : Day 2 [+4]
- fyre_foxx : Day 0... [+0]
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fyrewrimo- Fyrefoxx's Take on NaNoWriMo
- Happiness Is