Book One Chapter Two

# **Chapter II: A New Beginning**

"I don't blame you for being nervous. A new beginning is hard for anyone, but it's nothing too bad yet. I hope to not make you nervous, but I thought you should know that things *will* get worse, but don't let that stop you. You're doing great so far, and I'm proud of you. I know what it's like to be in your position, and know that I'm rooting for you. Go get 'em Corrie!"

-C.K

## Downtown Brandon, Stonemill, IZ 144/6/76, Tuesday, September 3, 2058, Kadori-Fray -Menacing Mike-

I've always thought life as a coronian was hard living in pandorian society, even being uncorrupted. I was hopeful things wouldn't be so bad when I started school seeing as Nomad and all of his friends who I had recently met would be there, but I still had sour feelings. When we got to Umbra Terramere High School, we had to go right to the main office and get assigned our classes.

Admittedly, it was a pretty stressful setup but I decided not to question it. It was good luck that we got to the school early, when the line wasn't too long. When I finally got to my class, I could see out the window that the line went out the front door. When I got to class 130A, our teacher Mr. Kiff greeted us. He spoke in a friendly tone, and I was one of the first people in the class. I noticed Nomad was in the class, and I went to go sit next to him.

There were a couple of others in the class, even one boy who was sitting to the right of Nomad. I sat to the left of Nomad, and he introduced me to Nick. There were only a few others in the class, and people were slowly starting to file in. In the meantime, Mr. Kiff started to explain about how the school worked. He told us how every teacher had to be qualified to instruct certain courses, and be able to teach things they didn't have enough knowledge on.

Teacher's College was 10 years long, and during the summer new teachers had to get a lay of the school. The building is huge, having multiple main offices and being four stories tall. This was because it was the only school in all of Stonemill, being conveniently located somewhat close to Fury Manor. There were a good number of people who came from all around the island, and even some who came from Klorin.

When almost the entire class was present, Mr Kiff explained how the room numbers worked. The numbers were named going from the Bottom-Right corner of the building looking from the top. The Number starts at 0 and currently goes up to 258. The letter beside the number represents the floor the room is on, A-D being floors 1-4, E being buildings detached from the buildings, and S being for the sub level, there being two.

When the full class was present, Mr. Kiff went into the class of the day, being the main class for the day. He started to explain history, and he started at the very beginning.

"Today class, we'll be talking about the history of the corruption. which started many, many years ago. Due to records, the corruption crystals were created around 3000 years before the year 0. Before that time, coronians were docile creatures and lived beside pandorians. When these were found in the year 0, the corruption was released. According to recorded history, it was two coronians and a pandorian who found these crystals at the same time, by some universal coincidence.

When the crystals were discovered, the corruption spread throughout the entire world and infected many coronians, but also some pandorians, although the discoverers, known as *Crystal Bearers* were spared from the corruption. Things weren't too bad until the Red Kingdom formed in the year 1200. From then, tensions began to rise between the Red Kingdom and the four main kingdoms, but mainly the Blue Kingdom, being the smallest but also the most powerful, containing Umbra Terramere, the leader of all pandorians.

For about three hundred years, tensions only escalated until the fateful year of 1541. On the third day of May, a high ranking official met with Umbra on one of the moons of Corallia, the main coronian planet. The contents of the meeting were unknown, but what happened afterwards is known. The officer attempted to murder Umbra, scratching a large gash over his right eye.

Umbra killed him in self defence, and left to the Blue Kingdom Capitol and gathered the three other kingdoms. They had finally decided to wage war against the Red Kingdom, which had grown a lot in size, being comprised of almost every coronian on Corallia, as at least 98% of the coronian population was corrupted. So, it was settled and a duel kicked off the battle.

In an unexpected act of violence, it is believed a Red Kingdom soldier shot down the platform it was taking place on, causing it to burst into flames and fall into a lake. We will go into more specifics about the specific battles of the Great Corona War, or GCW for short in future lessons, but this first lesson will be about how it ended, being the most important and also controversial part.

After seven hard years of fighting, on an October day, all of the 912 surviving pandorians were gathered on three ships and taken back to their home, but one stayed behind, that being Umbra. Even though they had lost the war, losing a lot of life for seemingly no reason, and having not captured much territory or caused much damage to the Red Kingdom.

Seeing only one option, he flew into space, and using the power of all of the souls of the fallen pandorians and coronians who fought under the four main kingdoms, he summoned a beam from his sword, and destroyed the planet. He started by individually destroying each of the moons one by one, leaving only one, said moon having an observatory on it. From there, he launched his attack.

From what has been said, he launched a volley of fireballs towards the planet, watched it burn, and then cut it in half. After that, he blasted it into oblivion, reducing what was one a huge planet into microscopic particles floating in the universe forever. Everyone on the ship saw him do it through the giant window located in the rear, and smaller windows on the side, but he didn't address it according to testimonies.

After the ship docked at the Blue Kingdom Headquarters, the survivors were blessed, or cursed depending on who you ask, with extended natural life. After that, they were transported back to their homes in their respective realities via wormholes. And that's about it for today's lesson, does anyone have any questions" he asked.

Several hands shot up in the air, possibly everyone in the class; even I had some questions, even Nomad had some questions and he told me he participated in it. I was correct to assume he didn't mention his involvement. Mr. Kiff went around and answered all of the questions that were given out, some being good while others being not so good.

A girl who sat in the back corner of the class had a decent question, asking "Why did Umbra have to kill every coronian? Weren't they just corrupted by the virus? Or was it the only way to win the war?"

"Well, I don't know for sure. Many think it was a last ditch effort to win the war, I personally think it was an effort to destroy the corruption, not knowing it had spread to other planets, but some think Umbra himself was corrupted," Mr. Kiff responded.

Nomad continued with saying that it wasn't really the coronians fault, and that he personally thought Umbra wasn't in a good head space when he destroyed the planet, continuing with his point that it wasn't the fault of the coronians for being corrupted and mostly forced to fight in a war that recent studies show some refused to fight in.

The girl questioned him on his knowledge, and he mentioned how his two brothers who adopted him fought in the war and told him stories about it. I heard a lot of gasps and awes, and a couple of people snickering, one being a boy named Mike. When the class fell mostly quiet, he posed his own question, and asked a pretty bold question.

"Wouldn't your brothers have killed Fray?" He looked right at me as he said it. I felt like a weight was being pushed onto me as his expression remained cold and his voice without emotion. Some people seemed to find it funny, but the girl in the back seemed offended, and so was Nick. I looked at Nomad who seemed pretty furious, and was about to speak before Mr. Kiff cut him off.

"I doubt that would have happened, seeing they only attacked corrupted coronians, and believe me, I can tell the difference between a corrupted one and an uncorrupted one. I don't appreciate you saying that kind of stuff."

I felt slightly relieved, and glad that this teacher wasn't going to put up with Mike's bullshit like a lot of other teachers would likely do. After that, he went around and answered the remaining questions. When he got to Nomad, he asked if he fought in the war himself. He was quite surprised by the question and mentioned that nobody asked him that before.

He explained how he was a pandoreal, and none were created before the GCW, so he didn't. He mentioned how he did fight for his rights in the Great Sides War, which happened in 1713, which was almost like a civil war against people who were for and against pandoreals being created, due to the nature of how they were created and how they could possibly be weaponized.

Mr. Kiff went on to answer more questions, and I didn't expect Nomad to lean close to me and whisper something in my ear. "He remembers me, dude." I was confused, and whispered back "How? He wouldn't have met you? He wasn't even created then?" and Nomad responded with "He's lying. I remember him. He wasn't in my platoon but he was in the next barracks over. I'm 100% sure it was him,"

I was slightly confused by this. Part of me thought Nomad's memories could be false, and I pointed it out, and he said he would ask his brothers to be sure. His brothers Zane and Leas apparently remember everyone who was in their platoons, as well as others so they might know him. If Nomad was right, and Mr. Kiff did take part in the GCW, then why would he lie about it? And why would he make such a risky lie to the face of someone who could easily ask someone about it and burst the lie completely?

From then on, I took everything he said with a bit more scrutiny, as well as questioning his information slightly. He seemed to dance around some topics, and say things that only someone who fought would know were "documented" or "according to the history books," I really wanted to trust him, but the fact he was lying made it harder.

After he answered the questions, he assigned basic work surrounding the topic. The questions were relatively basic, at least if you were paying attention to the long and drawn-out monologue that is, but there was a pretty big group of students asking questions that the answers to came from Mr. Kiff's mouth during the lecture.

At first, he humoured these, but after a while he said he only wanted to hear genuine questions, and the people who didn't listen stopped pestering him. I was able to finish the work pretty easily, and I even tried to race Nomad at finishing it first, but I didn't win. After the work, he sent dismissed us as it was lunch period. An automated bell sound rung over the loudspeakers and everyone left.

I walked with Nick and Nomad to the cafeteria, and I was surprised to see that everyone else was already in a giant group gathered together at a group of tables. Joey waved to us, and we sat down with them where there was space. Nick introduced himself to the group, and we all talked about how the day went. Nick asked Nomad and I if he could show them something cool, so we went with them.

As we walked through the halls, I wondered what it was, and he mentioned how he knew us better, so he wanted to show us alone. He walked through the building to one of the abandoned classrooms, and we went inside. I noted that the room felt warm, and there was a weird smell in the air. Nomad brought up how some people likely get to know each other better in these rooms, and I agreed.

He sat down on an old chair and pulled an object out of his pocket dimension. At first, I didn't know what it was, but then I realised it was an old and busted sword. He was excited to show it off, and he explained its significance. Apparently, it was an ancient sword forged many years ago, and it's been sent through time many many times, and the fact that it found Nick was special.

After that, he led us back with the group. As we walked through the halls, Nomad quietly told Nick about how Mr. Kiff lied to him. Nick didn't look too surprised, and he stated that there aren't too many people you can trust. He said he knew who to trust, and he knew he could trust us. We walked back into the cafeteria and sat down, not saying a word of what we'd just seen.

After a while of talking, I looked behind us and saw a giant group of people, but I couldn't tell what was happening. I pointed it out, and Nick stated that it was Mike and his gang. Apparently Mike lives near Nick, and he sees that type of thing a lot, where his gang choose to pick on people, and they're able to get away with it because Mike's dad is a corrupt leader of the police force in town.

When I heard the news, I felt a cold shock. It made everything feel more hopeless, and the fact that he mentioned it so nonchalantly made it seem like public knowledge. I asked how many people knew, and he said not too much, but enough that someone should do something. I asked him why he didn't, and he stated that there was no way he would mess with Mike.

Just as he was telling us of the stuff he was capable of and has done in the past, I heard a shout and saw blood on the floor. A bunch of teachers rushed in and broke everything up. There was a coronian lying on the floor, with a couple of stab wounds, who was subsequently taken out on a stretcher, presumably to hospital.

The sight of it made me want to throw up, but it also instilled a deep fear into my soul. Even as the teachers brought Mike and his gang to the office, the words he stated in class still reverberated in my head. In every passing second, it felt less like a strange joke and more like a serious threat. I didn't realise I was staring into space wearing a shocked expression until Nomad snapped me out of it.

He ensured me that if anything happened, I had him to protect him, as well as everyone else. I looked at the faces of my friends and smiled. I knew they were good people, and I repeated in my head Nick's line about knowing who to trust and who to not trust. I knew for sure I could trust these people. Even if they weren't the strongest, I knew they'd do anything to help me.

Not too long after that, we went back to class. When we did, the desks were arranged in groups of four and we were assigned group work. I had a brief moment of dread when Mike's name was read first, but luckily, he was in a group with his friends. I was put into a group with Nomad, Nick, and Kay, the girl who sat in the very back of the class.

As soon as we were assigned the work, Nomad started to fill it in. Nick and Kay took the opportunity to talk to each other, and I could tell Nick was into Kay. I joined the conversation, and so did Nomad. It was an off topic conversation, being about what our favourite places to eat were. After a what felt like a short time, Mr Kiff announced that the class would be ending soon, and asked everyone to get ready.

We got our bags and stuff collected, and then we headed out of the school. I noticed Mike and a couple of others slipped out of the class early, but I didn't think anything of it. We walked out of the school, and Nomad walked home with me. As we walked out of the school, we realised just how much people attended this school. We walked down the street and walked through the city.

As we walked through the town, I thought I saw mike and his gang running away from something. After a while they walked over to us, and shouted "If you speak a word of what you saw I'll follow you home and kill you," after that, he walled back to the other side of the street laughing with his friends. After that, we walked home and split up at the Yina crossroads, and I stood at the intersection and watched as Fray walked home.

When we came back the second day, it was rather uneventful. Nothing really happened, except Kagiri came into the class and asked if anyone wanted to join him on an expedition. Nobody was able to, so he went to the next class over. Other than that, it was a typical, normal day at the school. Although when I went to bed, I had a pretty strange dream, and it stuck with me due to how weird it was.

I was inside some weird children's centre in a place I was unfamiliar with. The place was a giant entertainment centre with attractions, gift shops, and restaurants. As I walked through, there was an eerie feeling in the air. I walked through it into a main area with an employee only door. I looked through the window and saw seven shadowy figures sitting around a table, discussing something but I couldn't hear what they were saying.

It was either that or I didn't want to know what they were saying. I decided to walk around the place to explore, and then I heard the door opening. I felt a sudden rush of horror, and I hid behind a short wall covered in shadows. When I looked at the group, one was missing and five of the six had red eyes, but the rest of their bodies were completely blacked out, even though they were in direct light.

By the silhouettes, I could tell they were coronians, but most of them seemed evil except the one that didn't seem to have eyes. I stood up, and they walked towards me, and then my dream ended, or so I thought. I woke up in Fury Manor, and I walked down the main staircase into one of the side lounge rooms. When I walked into it, there was someone I didn't recognise standing there.

He turned around and faced me, with a cold expression in his eyes. He smiled, and brandished a knife. Before I knew what was going on, he cut his own throat open. I was shocked, and he dropped to the ground. As he did, I woke up in a cold sweat, wondering what the fuck just happened. It was a weird dream, something that wasn't too uncommon for me, but this was different. It felt much more real than others, as if I was living someone else's experiences.

## Windswept Valley, Stonemill, IZ 144/6/76, Saturday, September 28, 2058, Pollux Petoraka -Artificial Feelings-

I snapped out of my trance. I was staring off to the west again. Where was I again? I was on one of the old Brandon Watch Towers. 8 of these were built a long time ago, when Brandon was a lot smaller and served as a safe house for pandoreals, as well as defence for Fort Yina. I was in the Yina tower, meant to watch the area of Old Yina and The Coronara Mountain Region for incoming pandorian forces.

Due to the nature of how I was given my powers, I don't need to sleep. It makes me similar to a pandoreal, but not exactly. It's complicated to explain and I'd rather not think about it. I was made as a defensive measure created for the Sides War, and used again during the War for Pandora in 1949, where I used to man the very towers I was sleeping in. I'd rather not remember the past, because it was time to think about the present, and that's how I've always viewed life.

I realised I had never been to the fort, and I decided I wanted to go. I pulled myself together, and walked down the tower and down to the small concrete courtyard at the base of the towers. There was a road that connected to the main entrances to the fort. I gathered everything in my backpack, and got on my bike. I still had a lot of time before school would start, so I decided to visit the fort.

The fort wasn’t a hard trip by bike. I arrived at one of the two entrances to the fort, specifically the Awsh entrance. The fort is bordered by two suburbs, being named the Awsh and Cile. The Awsh entrance was closer than the Cile entrance, so I chose to take it. I saw a piece of wood laying on the ground and decided to carve the message “Pollux was here” into it as a little fun joke.

As I rode into the fort, the ethereal glow was almost overpowering. I walked around the rows of buildings, in various states of collapse. some of them were almost intact, some were battered, and some were piles of rubble, but they all had a constant, the lanterns. I walked up to one and threw a stone at it, seeing if it would break. The rock surprisingly bounced off the glass at a high speed and sharp angle.

I tried various things to break one of the lanterns, but I just couldn’t break it. That would explain why the lanterns lasted so long, because they're unbreakable. The only thing that I’m still wondering is why and how the lanterns are unbreakable. I ventured through all the endless rows of buildings regardless of that. It was interesting to see all of the broken buildings, and how some looked so different from another. The entire place had this weird vibe.

I kept going until I saw nothing more left. I walked towards it and it surely, it was a giant space with no more buildings. I saw a nearby map, and it showed that there was just an empty space in the middle of the fort. There were buildings on the sides surrounding the empty space, and I assumed this space would be for an arena. I walked around the fort exploring until sunrise, when I started heading to school.

I saw someone laying on the grass. I didn’t recognise them, but I knew they went to my school. I sat down beside them and said hi.

“You have? I never really saw you.” I said

“Well, I'm surprised. I’ve earned myself quite an unwanted title,” he said. He told me his name and we started to talk.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well for most of my live, I’ve been corrupted.” he said. “It’s only fleeting moments like this, where for an hour once every month, the corruption recedes, and I am on my own. Living with the corruption is awful. It’s like watching an ultra-sensory movie; you can taste, feel, smell, hear, see the world around you, but you’re a pilot on a horrible journey, watching yourself do horrible things.”

“I can’t imagine how horrible that is,”

"My Father is a real villain though, and I feel like my entire family is evil, and that I'm the only one. I didn't ask for this and I hate the people the corruption forces me around. I've seen you at the watchtowers when I come here to watch the clouds. I see that your life might not be so easy too huh?"

"Yea, I was pretty much created to be a scout and spy for the pandorians during the wars. I guess we're not too different after all."

We talked a bit more, until it was about an hour before school started. "You should probably stay away from me if you see me. I don't want my corrupted self to hurt you, you seem pretty nice. If you see me here, know that I'm uncorrupted, and I really appreciate the chat." I said goodbye to Mike, and I decided to leave. If I was just standing around in the middle of the valley like an idiot I would either be late to school or killed, or both.

As I rode into town, I began to think a lot about myself, like I normally do, spinning out into an internal monologue. Being Omniscient is a curse. You know everything that is going to happen, but there are some things you cannot stop. There are just things that you can keep prolonging, but they can’t be stopped. These things that cannot be stopped are major points or events in a pandorian’s ‘journey’.

Every pandorian has a journey, so to speak, which is their life. There are different points and events that are important to their personal journey and these cannot be stopped. Even if the pandorian is worlds away from their destination, they can still make it there, through wormholes. Most of the time, wormholes are created by the universe to help a pandorian on their journey, but that is not always the case.

Very few have been able to harness the power of the wormholes for themselves, and the first was one called Six. Six studied how wormholes worked, delved into deep wormhole theory, and managed to create his own wormholes.  He was a brilliant coronian scientist, and he seemed to have done a lot of research on wormholes, and had a lot of his own knowledge from experience.

He figured out that wormholes have two components: The L gate and the D gate. The L or location gate is the gate that appears in your immediate range. Six figured out they don’t appear farther than 12 meters away from a given person. The D or destination gate is your destination. This gate appears at your destination, and without a D gate, the link of the wormholes cannot be completed.

When you go through a D gate, it becomes an A or action gate, and the new A gate can do one of three things: Stay an A gate thus causing the link to be unable to be completed, turn into a D gate allowing one to hop back and forth between wormholes repeatedly, or it can turn into a D gate but move elsewhere, yet remaining in the same link, causing what could theoretically be an infinite link of wormholes.

Six figured out how to control whether it stays an A, turns into a D and stays in place, or turns into a D and moves. Using all this knowledge, he wrote a journal of how to control the wormholes and passed his teachings to some. I would have loved to meet him, but sadly him and his research were destroyed when Corallia went up in flames, or so many people think.

I have a hunch he escaped with his research. So many people follow the blind idea that one who could control wormholes at will was killed and unable to escape while they watched their planet getting destroyed. It just doesn’t make sense, so I believe he’s out there somewhere. Maybe just living amongst the public, living hiding, still going through a chain of wormholes, or possibly somewhere in between.

Not much is known about that place, as nobody has been recorded to come out of it, alive or otherwise. What we do know is that not much can escape from it, but one thing that can is radio waves. It hasn’t ever been tested, but there is a hypothesis that radio waves might be able to escape from it and interfere with radio stations in our world, which would be able to explain strange calls being recorded from seemingly nowhere.

When I got to school, I was very early, which is quite a bit later than usual. Normally I just start walking when the sun starts rising, bit I waited a bit and talked with Mike earlier. Still, I was far too early and just walked around the school like I had been for the past days. I greeted Mr. Kiff at the door, and he let me in like he normally does.

“You’re late!” he said in a joking tone.

“yea I left a bit earlier and I talked with Mike. He said he was corrupted, but he wasn’t when I talked to him.” I said.

“yea he’s in my class, and I feel like I’m the only one who notices that faint red glint in his eyes. I try not to instigate him, but he keeps attacking students.” he told me. As we walked around, I saw a coronian walk in.

“Hey Zero. How was your week?” Mr. Kiff asked.

“Pretty average, much better than last week. Thankfully it wasn’t that serious.” he said. As we walked through the school, he responded to what I said earlier. "Also did you say you were talking with Mike? he was being nice? Really?"

"Yea, I'm sure it was him. He's just been corrupted. I honestly feel bad for him. He seems like a nice guy, but his life was ruined by his corrupted family. I guess I can relate because my life is prety bad too. My memory is crap and it's been failing me lately."

We decided to walk through the school, because according to Mr. Kiff, there were secrets. He mentioned sealed rooms, some that had been open recently, but he wanted to uncover all of the secrets of the school, and so did we. As we walked through the school, we scanned the walls for anything that could be one of these sealed or hidden rooms. There were a lot of abandoned classrooms that weren't being used, some having not seen use in many years.

After a long time of looking, we finally found one hidden in one of the back corners of the building. It appeared to be a time capsule, but it didn't look like one. It was supposed to be opened 39 years ago, so it seemed like it was just a facade. Upon closer inspection, it seemed pretty obvious that there was a door, but there wasn't a handle, and it was sealed shut, almost like a box.

It took a while, but we managed to get the steel door open. We were excited to open it, and what we found shocked us. The room was quite small and had some strange contraptions on the walls. The floor was the same marble as the rest of the school, but it was stained and covered in dust. The walls were different too, with brass baseboard and brick walls, as appose to the wooden base boards and painted brick of the rest of the building.

The bricks were worn and the brass was tarnished. There was a single overhead oil rag lamp that illuminated the room. In the middle of the room, and a girl sleeping in the centre of the room. She had a giant sword stuck through her abdomen. We all were stunned, as she woke up. As she opened her eyes, she froze. The entire building was completely silent for an entire minute, and then she got up.

We were all frozen with utter shock, especially Mr. Kiff. It appeared the secrets of this school ran a lot deeper than any of us expected. She finally spoke to break the eerie silence. “Am I dreaming?” she asked.

"I don't even know at this point," I replied with.

“Can you take me to a hospital?” she asked in a weak voice.

We rushed her into Mr. Kiff's car, trying to not be seen, as well as trying to not move or remove the blade stuck in her chest. Mr. Kiff drove off to the hospital, while we stayed behind. He had instructed us to stay behind and stay in his class. When he came back from the hospital almost forty-five minutes later, the girl was in the car with him as well, and she stepped out, appearing to be fine.

It turned out she had insisted to come back with him and she wanted to thank us for saving her. She told us her name was Pluto, and that some time ago, presumably being locked inside there when the date was written on the time capsule sign. She said that she was given water and food via the weird contraption on the wall. Pluto explained how she didn't know why she was chosen, and that she couldn't tell who locked her inside and for what reason.

Pluto told us how she can vividly remember the day. She was chased into the school by a hooded figure, chased into the time capsule room, and then stabbed in the chest. The door was locked and sealed, as well as the door knob removed. Pluto saw that the machine was in there to begin with, and she presumed that whoever put her in there slapped the sign on as soon as the door was locked.

The rest of the day was pretty average. Classes were boring. I understood the maths we were learning and it kinda just became a part of my day that I didn't think about, only snapping back into reality when I was asked to answer questions. Class was boring to me because I was pretty good with the material, and all I could think about the whole day was the whole incident that happened on the morning.

The day was normal until lunch, where Zero and I came into Mr. Kiff’s class. There were already others there, who seemed familiar to me. “Hey Pollux! Funny meeting you again!” one of them called. Nomad introduced me to Fray, Kay, and Nick. I also noticed that Pluto was in there explaining everything that happened that morning. She waved to me when I came in, and I joined in on the current conversation.

Pluto had a pretty interesting past and origin, and I was really interested to hear about it. She mentioned how she came from another reality, and that she was part of an elite group of fighters, who protected the leader of pandorians in her reality. She mentioned how she was part of the Blue Kingdom, which was pretty impressive. The Blue Kingdom is only made up of those who are deemed worthy by Umbra himself, who oversees the three below him, who oversee their realities.

Most interestingly to me, she said she was able to harness wormhole energy. I asked her how she figured it out, and she told me that the legendary Six passed his powers to her because she did a favour for her. It might have seemed complicated to others, but not to me as I’ve studied wormholes and their energy for many years of my life. Researching wormholes was part of my free time for a long time, and I was interested in learning more.

Mr. Kiff then told us that Pluto was going to be teaching in our class for a lesson about wormholes. It was a Saturday, and I knew Mr. Kiff does a lesson that is sort of related to the week’s topic on the Saturday and continues it on the Sunday back from the weekend. When I learned about this, I offered to assist in teaching it with Pluto, and she accepted it, knowing I had researched it for a long time.

We talked about how the lesson would go, and Pluto and I went over what we would be going over, seeing if what we were going to go over was good for his lesson. He was pleased with it, as it was much more than what the instructional guide was telling. We went over what we were going to teach for the first half of lunch, and then for the second half we ate our lunches and prepared for the lesson.

We ate lunch in the classroom, everyone having either sandwiches or leftover dinners, except for Nick, who boasted about having fast good. He got up to use the restroom at some point, so we snatched a bunch of his fries. He came back and somehow didn’t notice that half of his fries were missing. It was a funny joke, and we were sure he would find it funny, as he normally doesn’t eat all his fries anyway.

When everyone came back in after lunch, Mr. Kiff explained what was going on. Zero was considered a guest and got a seat in an empty desk at the back of the class, and offered encouragement when I delivered my parts of the lesson. When Pluto started explaining, I was surely listening. Even though I had already known most of what she was saying, I wrote it down anyways. Almost everything was old information, but there were a couple of concepts, facts, and information which I hadn’t known about before.

Pluto told us about how every pandorian has a single set of wormholes. How it works, is that one is an A-Gate, and one is a B-Gate, and the gate identification switches every time. This means that if one were to go through multiple, they would really be going through one; it’s not a trip through wormholes, it’s a trip through the wormhole, being the individual’s wormhole.

I also learned that there is no period between when a wormhole switches gates and locations rapidly, so they just close to open in the next available spot. When I learned of Corrie’s story, I thought about these two things but wasn’t sure, but now I knew for sure. It was quite interesting looking back on that and knowing how it happened, and wondering how scary it must have felt to have to experience that.

There was another type of wormhole though, being called a C or collective Gate. These can have both A and B Gates, which can make things a bit more confusing, but not too much. They aren’t much different from normal wormholes, other than the fact that their event horizon to the portal like opening is orange instead of the usual tarnished bronze colour. Another quality of these is that they can carry items with them.

When an item goes through an CA Gate, it can be held between the wormholes, in a sort of negative space, while it waits for the CB Gate to appear. One may go through a series of A and B repeating wormholes, or an AB sequence, and it’s possible for an A Gate to be replaced with a CA Gate somewhere in the chain. When the chain ends, the ending gate will always be a CB Gate, as to dispense the item, or items trapped in the negative space if a CB Gate never opens.

The most important takeaway was that only very few will be able to harness the power of the wormholes. This caused a student to ask a question of why it was being taught anyway. “The reason we’re teaching you this is just in case.” Mr. Kiff said, looking at Nick. “If any of you want to become a teacher, I want you guys to be able to teach more people about the use of wormholes. Not many people are using them, so they are starting to grow out of control. That’s why I wanted to teach you this.”

The class went silent. The way he said that, with a sense of desperation and sadness in his voice, it made us think we did something wrong. It was dead silent for about a minute, until he gave the students the work. Like other lessons, it wouldn't be too difficult if you were paying attention to the lesson, yet people still asked questions that I had to go around and help students answer.

There were some difficult questions asked, but I was able to answer all of them. I was still intrigued of the limits of wormholes, so I asked Pluto thinking she would be able to answer. “is there a limit to how large an object going through a C Gate can be?” “Great Question. That depends on the side of it,” Pluto responded. “C Gates come in a variety of sizes, and obviously if an object is too big to fit, it just won’t go in. There are some huge sizes for C-Gates, so there is not really a limit to what could be sent through.

Now if you want to know where these objects go, it gets a bit more complicated. The AC and AB gates can be further divided into ACA Gates, ACB Gates, BCA Gates, and BCB Gates. ACA and ACB Gates function like normal gates, obviously being able to have varying sizes and the ability to pick up items. BCA and BCB Gates on the other hand act similarly, but with one key difference.

BCB Gates always lead to set places, regardless of journey or input. These locations are usually planets that don’t house much sentient life, but sometimes they break and can drop these items anywhere. The designated planets are known as BCB Planets, or dump planets. In the past, C Gates were rare on their own, but natural BCA or BCB Gates used to be much more rare, although they seem to be more frequent in recent years.

Although most of the time, the BCB-Gates dump on any random place on a dump planet, there is a very small chance that they will break dump somewhere else. There were a couple of famous cases of entire buildings being dumped elsewhere on the planet, but these were obviously very rare and far between. Studies have shown that these types of wormholes have been more common recently, and nobody knows why, and that’s all I really have to say."

After the day was over, I was surprised to see that Mike and his hooligan friends weren’t waiting for someone to slip up at the door like they normally do. I knew they were up to something immediately. I prepared myself to attack if I had to, but surprisingly I didn’t need to.  I expected them to be hiding around a corner somewhere, but I didn’t see them anywhere. I did see someone else I recognise. It was Nomad and Fray from class. Pluto was also walking with me, as she didn’t really have a place to go. I walked and talked with them, and they asked me where my house was.

I just sleep near Fort Yina; I don’t really have a home.” They told me about a huge house that their friends live in and invited me and Pluto over as well. We both agreed and went to see the house. The place was huge, and both Pluto and I were pretty amazed to see it. I didn't expect the place to be *that* big. When we walked inside with Nomad, the place looked even bigger.

Dinner was amazing, and afterwards we watched a movie. It was a horror movie "based on true events" and it seemed similar to an event that I knew of happened, but the events in the movie were very, very different from what actually happened. I've always enjoyed movies, but I prefer when they're accurate to what they're based on or what they're trying to portray.

After the movie, I chose a room and went to sleep. Normally, I don't sleep often, but sometimes I choose to and it's always a surreal experience. I was bored, and I had nothing else to do, so I decided to dream. It didn't take too long for me to fall asleep, and when I did I was thrown right into the dream. Normally my dreams are quite surreal, but this felt much more real than the others.

It took my eyes to adjust to the sky, which was a brilliant blue despite the moon being high in the sky. I was in an unfamiliar landscape, seemingly being somewhere in Rosedell. I walked down a paved street and passed by a large mansion. There was a large tree out front that had top hats of various colours hanging down from its branches. The mansion was built from various types of wood, most painted dark to complement the green painted wood of most of the building.

The mansion looked old, and so did everything else here. The top hats on the tree had lost their vibrancy and some had moss on them. The exterior planks on the mansion were discoloured, some being in worse shape than others, appearing as if the planks had been attempted to be replaced multiple times over the course of history, but the last time this place was visited was probably a very long time ago.

As I stood in front of it, I felt like I belonged there. I walked inside, and the place was a mess. Windows were broken, furniture was everywhere, plants and dust covered the floor in a green and grey blanket. The floor was slightly sticky, and the air felt heavy. What was left of the paint that once coated the interior walls was on the floor, and the wallpaper was peeling all over the place.

Everything was incredibly silent, and it made me extremely uncomfortable. As I walked through the house, a very faint ticking noise. I explored around the house, trying to find the source of the noise. Before long, I realised it was coming from the upstairs. As I walked up the winding staircase in the main foyer to the second level, a giant mirror came into view. It seemed out of place in its spot on the wall above the landing before the stairs split.

I kept going through the second floor, and eventually found the stairs that led up to the third floor, where the sound was a lot louder. The third floor was mainly a large hallway, which I decided to walk down, in search of the source of the ticking sound. I could make out something in front of a door at the end of the hallway, so I kept going on down the hall to investigate, not paying attention to the other doors.

It felt as the hallway got longer with every step, as the ticking grew louder and louder. It seemed to be impossibly loud as I began to get close to the small box. When I finally reached the door, I opened up the box I found it was a small metronome making the ticking noise. I picked up and placed it to the side after turning it off, and then I hesitated. This all felt very strange, even for one of my dreams, but I went ahead and opened the door after the brief pause.

I could hardly make out anything at first, as harsh daylight flooded into the dark house. I could make out something on a bed against the window, so I got closer and then realised it was some*one*. I got even closer this time, seeing that they were sleeping. I thought they were dead at first, but I reached out my hand towards them. As I did, they woke up with a start, their heart beating fast and loudly.

"Who are you, and why are you here?" he said. I explained how I was Pollux, but he didn't know who I was. I explained how I was simply walking down the road and then I saw the mansion, and that I decided to explore it. He didn't say anything for a moment, but then he asked me to follow him. I was a bit confused at first, but I followed him as he walked back down the hallway and out of the house.

I didn't realise it at first, but from the moment he woke up and as we walked out of the house, the entire building started getting brighter and brighter, being as bright as it was outside by the time we were on the second floor. After that, it stopped getting brighter and stayed that way. I wanted to comment on it, but it felt like my words were carried away as I tried to speak.

He didn't stop walking, not saying a single word. He led me away from the house and across the countryside road to a little path going into the short, grassy hillscape that lined the area around the mansion. It led out of the hill to a dirt path lined with cypress trees, that led down a steep hill. As I walked down the hill, I could make out a sign at the bottom of the hill, but it was covered in the same thick vegetation that covered everything that surrounded that path area.

As we kept going down the broken path, A whole destroyed town claimed by the forest came into view over the jungle-like hillside. Wind swept through the empty, cracked streets covered in plants and sprouting trees that spread around the town like cracks in a piece of glass. Homes were broken, their residents long gone, and what they left behind was destroyed by nature.

He mentioned how it was as if the people disappeared into thin air one day. Just normal life, and then Bam! everyone is gone. As we went deeper into the heart of the city, I began to develop a feeling that I wasn't supposed to be here. Many were falling apart, and missing parts of their structure. I’m not sure why, but it made me sad. Sad for the people who lived here, even though they probably left on their own terms to a better place.

As I walked through the torn-up town, sun-bleached stones and tattered bricks lined the broken paths that led people through a once thriving city. This feeling... maybe this is my home? Maybe this was my home? It was confusing. Life is often confusing. Was this feeling a warning about this place, or was it a deep dark nostalgia for something bedded deep into my mind and deep into forgotten memory.

As we walked further through, I began to think very existential thoughts. The universe is confusing in the ways it functions. It decides the unfortunate journey of myself and those I know. We are friends, but is it as if the universe had chosen us specifically to be tortured, but for what in the end? What is the reward waiting at the end of the tunnel of suffering? Why is it all happening? Why was I having this mess of a dream in the first place? With or without reason.

I realised I was spouting my thoughts out loud, but I didn’t stop. We’ve been chosen, but what is our fate? What is our reward? Is there a reward? Of course there is. Or is there? It was all too confusing, and in flurry of existential thoughts flooding my mind like a rushing tsunami, I woke up. I had sworn I saw a flash of light as I did. Part of myself felt glad that was over, but I also wanted to be back there, and wonder why he took me there.

The dream made me feel many things, but I'm not even sure what exactly I did feel. This one felt more real than any other dream I ever had, which only made it confusing, but I could tell it was for a reason, at least I hoped it had a reason. It had to have reason, right? I've always felt like my dreams had *some* reason, as if they were trying to tell me something, and I definitely wasn't the only one who thought the same thing.

As I went down to breakfast, I noticed I was the only one awake. Obviously, one would sleep in on a weekend, but I didn’t realise the time. It was 9:24, or around 6 AM in earth time. I always compare the current time to earth time in my head, for no particular reason. I'd always been like this, hadn't I? Why was my memory fading? I used to know so much but I don't know how much I've forgotten since then.

I had breakfast and looked outside. The late September winds blew through the trees of the forest out back. I decided to explore them, because why not? I wrote a quick note about where I was going, to show some decency to alert the others of my departure. It was another random habit I had developed at some point in time and it's become almost a second wind and just another part of my routine.

I opened the back door and ran out into the forest. The warm morning air felt good on my skin. I felt free running through the early morning forest. The trees seemed to run past me as I ran through the forest. It made me feel alive. As I kept running, I saw something off in the distance that I hadn't seen before. It appeared to be a statue of some kind. I went up to it and investigated. It was a large bronze statue of someone, with an inscription on the bottom.

“Here lies Toriys Annokie, the fallen warrior. Toriys had saved the world from many horrid men from their corruption and led for an uprising of warriors who came to fight against the corruption. May his deeds never be forgotten, and may he rest in eternal peace, at this point, his favourite point in his favourite forest.” The inscription was tattered and covered in vines, and the bronze was tarnished. The statue depicted him in a fighting stance holding out his staff weapon, apparently known as the Fusion Staff of Zarokka, according to a barely visible inscription.

I didn't know from where, but the name Zarokka awakened something deep inside my memory. As I walked through the forest, the tragic story of Toriys haunted me. The plaque reminded me that I had heard that story before, somewhere but I can’t remember where. It also awakened the same feeling, but I couldn't tell what my mind was trying to tell me. I couldn't stop thinking about it.

I was walking for so long, that it was about midday when I decided to turn around and head back to Fury Manor. When I got back it was pretty dark outside, and everyone was eating dinner inside. After I had dinner, I decided to attempt to continue the dream from last night, in search of answers. It took me longer to fall asleep this time, because I was still trying to process what that statue meant, but I began to dream after a while.

When I entered the dream, I was right where I had been last night. I saw the man I was with last night approaching me. “I’ve been waiting for you to show up again.” he said in a friendly tone.

Almost not thinking, I asked “Do you know the tale of Toriys? I've been thinking about it a lot today,”

“Yes, I do. Quite a tragic tale. I think about it a lot too.” he said in a grieving tone.

“Where even are we right now? Do you know?”

“I believe this is Old Downtown Rosedell, built over 500 years ago, and abandoned after the end of The Sides War. I didn’t thank you for saving me in that mansion yesterday, by the way, so thank you.”

“What are we even doing here?”

“I guess nothing. I guess we’re waiting. Waiting for someone else to come here. We’re the only ones right now who are in this place, you come sometimes and then disappear. It's quite strange.”

“Life is strange. You often find yourself questioning things, but no answer is given, such is the order of the universe.” I spoke. We walked around the town, and went back to where we came from, that mansion. We walked down that road, out of the neighbourhood, and to a flatter area. The land was open, and you could see a city far in the distance, the buildings barely poking above the horizon. There didn’t seem to be much far in the distance, even though many people live in Rosedell, or so I’ve heard.

As we walked down the road, seemingly for ages, I saw two homes beside each other. They both looked like they were part of a group of houses, but the ones around and in between were removed. They stood apart, starkly jutting out into the sky amongst small piles of rubble that sat between and beside the buildings, the only proof that other homes existed there at some point in time.

The one on the right looked very modified, with small rooms built around it, and a path between the two houses, which looked to be around 30 meters apart, but it was hard to tell from the street which was rather far away. We kept walking down the road, and I noticed how we saw no other people or cars. It felt lonely, and there was almost no wind. There weren't even clouds in the sky, only warm air.

After what felt like ages, I saw the docks in the distance. We ran down to the docks and rode in his boat. We charted a course for Stonemill and got there surprisingly quickly. I never realised how close Stonemill and Rosedell are, especially going from the North of Rosedell to the South of Stonemill. That area should only be an hour ahead of Stonemill, so it didn't make sense why the sky was so bright. After we docked, he told me something. “Come to the Rekuma Docks, I’ll be waiting here for you.”

And then, I woke up. Again, the dream felt real. The warm air, the water flying at my face from the boat, it all seemed *too* real. So, I did what I did yesterday, and left the house in the early morning. I caught a cab to Rekuma City to meet him at the docks if he was real. Although I thought it would probably be pointless, there's no reason not to try, and even if there wasn't anything there, it might be a fun journey.

The man driving the cab felt familiar in some way, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. He drove me to the North Side of Rekuma City, and I walked the rest of the way, as it was an exceptionally nice day. I remembered that I had only been to Rekuma once, but the story isn’t my favourite. For a minute, I couldn't remember why but my mind decided to stop repressing it as I walked through the main road of the city as day broke.

It was an overcast autumn day, and I went to Rekuma for reasons I do not remember. That day I met someone who was nice to me. She told me her name was Nepherata. We talked about many things and weren't too different. We had fun talking together and just goofing around, but later that day, she told me to wait outside as she went into her apartment which was in a nearby building.

Nepherata walked in, and a couple of seconds later, the entire building blew up. I was horrified. It was probably the most awful thing I had experienced. Not the most, but up there. It was such a shock, and it was so random. There was no warning. She just walked into the building, waving to me as she did, and then it blew up. For a while, I thought she did it, but something in my mind doubts it.

Just as I was thinking about it, I realised I was near the site of the explosion. The burnt remains of the apartment building still stand after 10 years, surprisingly not demolished or used for real estate. I walked up to it and I noticed something sitting atop the rubble. There was an envelope, addressed to a Pollux P. The Note was fresh, and was delivered that morning according to the stamp.

I opened it, as it was from a Nep, which I assumed to be short for Nepherata, so I opened it. There was a single, crispy piece of paper stuck inside the envelope, and all that was on the piece of paper were two words, being "I’m sorry" I kept the note in my pocket dimension and kept walking down the road towards the docks. As I arrived, I was surprised to see him standing there on the pier. Was I dreaming? I asked out loud. He turned around and greeted me.

“You were never dreaming.” he said. I was shocked. I must have been teleported to the mansion and Old Downtown Rosedell. It all clicked on why it felt so real. Something about it felt strange though.  "It probably felt strange to you because you thought you were dreaming. I heard you mention something about it getting brighter in the house while we exited, so you were probably seeing the colours in reverse, bright being dark in reality,"

“That’s quite strange,”

“Life is strange. You often find yourself questioning things, but no answer is given, such is the order of the universe.”

“Do you have a home?”

"No, I don't" The question seemed to pain him. He said he didn't have a home, or at least he said he couldn't remember where it was. He told me he was trapped for a long time in that mansion for as long as he could remember. He asked what year it was, and I said it was 2058. He looked pretty shocked to hear that, and he said that he a captured in the year 2019, which was really surprising.

He said he was looking for something, and I asked if it was the crystal maps. and he said yes. I mentioned how I knew a couple of others, and I thought I knew a good place to start looking. I called another cab, and the same driver came and picked us up. He dropped us off near Grassy Trail drive near Downtown Brandon, and we walked through it. I remember Kosa mentioning to me it was where she lived in a conversation about the maps, so I decided to start looking here.

When we got there, I was surprised to see Alpha, Kagiri, Kosa, and Yomaho already there doing the same thing. I greeted them and introduced my friend, but he didn't give a name. Alpha seemed to know him, and addressed him by Stardust. He mentioned how he didn't have a real name, so he went by Stardust named after the Alloy he discovered which he made weapons out of, and shared his discovery with only a few others.

As we started looking, Kosa started to talk to me. “They were always talking about the maps, and I knew nothing about it. I always felt like an outcast.”

“If they were that involved, maybe there might be something in the rubble?” I responded. The others looked around, farther from the homes, but Kosa and I looked through the rubble. There wasn’t much in the first two homes, but something at the back of my mind told me that, “If we were going to find something, it would be in the third home,” We kept searching through the rubble, and finished digging through the first two broken buildings with no luck.

As we got to the third house, Kosa said “I have a feeling if we’re going to find anything, it will be here.” she said. “This was Zak’s house; he was the most secretive. It’s strange how they died, they never found a cause for the fire. I feel like it was intentional, like only they were meant to be killed, and not me. I always thought I was spared because I wasn't really involved in the search for the maps, but now I'm really interested in them"

“I’ve always felt the same.” I said to her. “I remember one day stepping outside to watch the sunset, and when I looked behind me, my house was in ruins. I remember standing in the charred remains of my home for hours, crying to the universe. That was probably the worst day of my life, I lost my family that night.” I could tell the words that she spoke weighed heavy on her.

“I mean, at least us people who’ve lost everything have each other,” she said with a smile. We began to look through the rubble, and originally weren't having any luck. We turned every stone and went much deeper than the other homes, but as we searched the burnt remains of a once cherished home, I saw a burnt piece of paper. I picked it up and screamed when I realised what it was.

It was A MAP! Although most of the useful parts of it were burnt, the legend at the bottom of the front side, a couple of spots on the main part of the map, and pretty much the entire back of the map were untouched by the flames and remained intact. Unfortunately every other part was completely charred and unusable. Everyone came over to see what happened, and we shared in the excitement of the find.

Most of the map that was intact was just forest, but two red letter Xs were visible, which according to the legend, were locations of other maps or map stands. I was surprised we found a good lead so early on, but normally when that kind of thing happens, the trail goes dry for a long time, usually due to bad luck, something I've been known to have, so it was a nice surprise to actually find something.

Most of the sets of notes on the back were encoded in a series of symbols, which weren’t menofillian. I assumed this was done to hide whatever it was saying, the encoded messages likely being information that was personal or secret, or clues to the map kind of like the trail of clues Willow and I followed. There was only one note that was written in Latin characters, being the only one that wasn't encoded.

“*To whoever is reading this, please read this note. It is integral that you decode the other notes, using the second code language in the **Book of Crystals and Maps,** which should be in the drawer in any map stand. Another thing to note, if I do not make it, please return it to Kosa Kinnitari, at 13 Grassy Trail BLVD, just outside of Brandon, Stonemill.”*

"I didn’t write that,” Kosa said. We both realised Zak likely wrote it, and wanted it returned to her. “It’s like he knew I would be the only one with a house, maybe there’s something more here. Maybe, this was planned, or he knew about it. He wouldn’t burn down his own home, along with his brother and one of his sister’s though, this is all so confusing.” I agreed with her, that it was pretty confusing, but a thought appeared in my head.

“I assume he knew. You're right, he likely didn’t burn down his own and his sibling’s homes. I feel like he would have known better than that, that he would know some part of his plan wouldn’t work if he burned his house down. Something tells me it was someone else.” She looked at me and asked me how I knew that.

“I’m not sure how, I just did. This has been happening to me all my life, where information just pops into my head, and I don’t even know how it happens, sometimes in a dream or sometimes just from the depths of my memory.”

"Well Zak said that he had a similar problem, he just kind of learned information randomly, like it just existed in his head when it was needed and never seen before or after. Maybe you two were related in some sense. None of us knew how old he was, so possibly you were both part of the same project? I could very well be wrong, but It's one of the only solutions my mind could think of."

When everyone was shown the only useful parts of the map, we began to form a plan. We had some map stand locations to work with, and we just needed to get to them sometime. There was faint red paint around a charred area, and Kagiri recognised to be around where he would be staying during his camping trip that was coming up in a couple of days, so he obliged to look there when he could.

We headed back to Fury Manor and told the others about our finds. Most of them didn’t really know what we were talking about, but some offered praise and congratulations. It was a good day for us, as we got a great lead on our first trip looking for the maps. Although we got lucky, I suspected we wouldn’t get as strong a lead for a long time. I decided to analyse the document as best I could.

I realised not only was the Menofillian written in an older variation, specifically known as Beta Menofillian, which would make it harder to decode, as even normal menofillian to SGT scripts are hard to find due to menofillian being not used often anymore as appose to the easier to write and understand SGT, but it still has its linguistic flaws. In my opinion, menofillian is easier to speak because it isn't as quirky as English is.

Not only would it be hard to decode the letters, once I did find a conversion sheet three days later, I began to realise it was double encoded. The letters were jumbled and there were many numbers mixed in, so I assumed it could be written in Base 64, a code written for computers and the like, which mainly consists of letters and numbers, but then again it could be a more complex code, but I decided to start with it.

It was a long and gruelling process, but eventually, I was able to translate it all, and now I had to decode the mess I had just translated. It would be another couple of days before I could find a book in the library to decode Base 64 for me, and when it was all done and decoded, I wrote all the letters down and realised they were scrambled. After a minor breakdown, I did my best to unscramble the words and thankfully, there were space characters included.

I decided to take a break from trying to crack that code, as I had been going at it for a week straight, pulling two all-nighters trying to crack this stupid code. It was long and hard work fuelled by coffee and determination, and finally, after all that time, I found out it couldn't be Base 64 but rather a number substitution cipher. I was tired enough and decided to rest for a bit and have another go at it the next day.

When I looked at it with a fresh mind and a normal night’s rest, I was able to see the words were jumbled, and some letters were substituted for numbers that resembled the letters. At that point, it was a simple word scramble. I just had to rearrange the letters to make the words. Some of the words had the old Capital Letter mark under it, which made things easier most of the time. It was funny to see numbers that were technically uppercase.

After the words individually were scrambled, I had to rearrange the words into sentences to make sense of what the note was telling me. When I finally typed the entire thing out on my computer, I called over Kosa and asked if she wanted to see. She came over, and I asked her if she wanted me to read the note aloud, but she said she wanted to read it in her head. The text on the computer read:

*To whomever finds this note, I hope you will use this Map for Good, and Not for the purposes of trying to unleash something else. If you found this map, please return it to me, or Kosa Kinnitari at the address listed above. It is of the utmost importance that she gets this map, in any state that it is in, so that she may read the following note: Dear Kosa, I am sorry I had to leave. You may not understand why now, but don’t cry for me. Don’t cry for the others either, as the truth may not be what you think of their fates. As for me, I had to sacrifice myself in order to keep the secrets I hold from falling into the wrong hands. I believe in you Kosa, that you or someone else were able to decode this note, and know that I have always loved you, and that I’m sorry for keeping these secrets. It was only for the best interest of you that the secrets don’t fall on your ears yet, but somday you will read this note, and know that I'm rooting for you. Go get 'em, Kosa!*

*Sincerely, Zak.*

I could tell she was sad, and I tried to comfort her. I could never understand how she felt, knowing that she was right, that she was being kept out of secrets but in her best interest, and she knew that Zak didn’t start the fire. She also knew that the others survived but Zak died. Kosa always had that feeling but the note outright confirmed it. After wiping her eyes with her sleeve, she looked at me and spoke in a shaky voice.

"I want to find them. I want to find Kaylie and Jackie. I'd assume they've changed their appearances at least, or maybe their names. It might be hard, but will you help me?"

"Of course I will. We'll do it for Zak..."

***-to be continued-***

## Sarnian Woods, Brandon, Stonemill, IZ 144/6/76, Selkaday, September 40, 2058, Kagiri Shay -Dan's Compromise-

A warm late afternoon breeze blew through the windows of the car. Fury was driving me to the drop-off area for the camping trip, and Joey, Maximus, Kiri, and Nomad came in the car for whatever reason, I assumed it was just to get a nice view, or just for the hell of it, but it didn't really matter and I didn't mind them coming along in the car ride. Nomad said he wanted to take photos of the area, so that’s why he was there. Everyone else just came to say bye to me, or to listen to the radio.

Speaking on the radio was a very popular TV and radio personality named Tori Ariev. He's a good comedian and he's known for having an uncanny knowledge of some random things. He was doing a segment where he takes in calls from random people who give him random topics to give his opinion on, or just talk about, when something really strange happened. The screen in the car faded to static, and the noise went out completely, followed by loud static.

A transmission was barely audible through the loud static, and I had a weird thought to get out my pencil and notepad to write it down. "*To whoever is hearing this, I’m trapped. I don’t know where I am or when, but I need help. I’m sending this transmission through a powerful radio I was able to create with parts I found around this place. I hope whoever is reading this can **hear** me, can **help me.** I’m trapped in this hellhole of infinite rooms and harsh yellow light. Please, someone, anyone. My coordinates are 56-"*

As the voice was speaking, the transmission came back, and the screen returned to normal. “That was odd, it looks like someone broke through the signal,” Tori only offered a small comment on what had just happened and went back to what he was talking about prior to the disturbance. I later learned that for the whole duration of that transmission, he never said anything else about it.

It was an overall strange experience, and I’m the type of guy who takes coincidences very seriously and over-analyses things. I have severe paranoia due to things that happened so long ago, I can't even remember what happened. All I do know is that something bad happened in my past which made me this way, and I've been trying to figure out what happened to me ever since.

I’ve always interpreted spooky things happening right before a big event as harbingers of doom, and the strange part is most of the time I'm right. I can never be certain, but I’ve observed it to happen many times before. I was a bit worried about the trip due to that, but I quickly calmed down when I got dropped off at the meeting point. It was in the middle of nowhere, where an endless crop field met a thick forest, known as the Sarnian Woods.

Many have told legends of strange happenings in these woods, and most people chalk it up to coincidence, but I’ve had a minor paranoid fear of that. People on my street always told rumours about the forest when we played at the local park on nice days. A lot of people would call them out on their bullshit, but I was always that one kid who believed everything. It always creeped me out, and I’m not sure why.

As we waited for the bus to arrive to take us to the campgrounds deeper into the woods via a forest road, the organiser of the trip, Mr. Taron put us all into groups. I was grouped with another boy named Dan, while all of the other groups were of three. We were both quite shy, but I made the first move and introduced myself. We talked quite a bit and got along quite well together.

When we got onto the bus to head to our camping spot, we sat together and spent the whole time talking about what we saw outside the bus. The bus had no roof, almost like a giant Safari car, so it gave us a great view of the surrounding landscape. I had never been to these woods, but I can see why it's a popular tourist destination. It's full of cliffs, hills, and a very diverse ecosystem.

As we got to our campgrounds, the instructors highlighted an area with red rope, which was to be our tent area. It was getting dark when we started to set up our tents, but we were given flashlights to see what we were doing. Each of us were given an individual tent, so we had to work with what we had. We both decided to go to the very edge, farthest from the instructors' tents to an area where the stars were the most visible.

We helped each other set up our tent, and once were done turned off our flashlights to watch the stars through the mesh roof of our tent. The nighttime view here was amazing, being much better than the view I was used to in the light-polluted skies of Downtown Brandon. I don't think I'd ever seen the night sky this far away from the big city before, and I was glad I was able to see this.

“Hey, just letting you know, if I ever just stop talking, it’s probably me feinting. I have some weird medical condition that makes me feint a lot, so just a heads up.” he said.

"Don't worry about it, I'll look out for you,"

“Thanks, I really appreciate it. Nobody ever really talked to me. Not the people on my street, not the people at school, heck, not even my family most of the time. I’ve always felt alienated, but I finally have someone to talk to.”

"Really?"

"Yea, I'm not sure why. A lot of the time people act as if I don't exist,"

"I’ve felt similar too, people have always made fun of how my voice is so monotone, a lot of people would mock me, or think it was deliberate. I’ve always tried to tell people it was a condition with my voice, but for some reason, everyone believed I was faking it.”

"People are quite odd. People can be mean for no reason. Beats me as to why though.” We talked through the night until he mentioned that he was getting tired, and that we should probably head to sleep. I stared up at the sky as I began to fall asleep, keeping my eyes on the stars. Something felt familiar about this view, but I didn't know exactly what about it felt so nostalgic.

When I woke up, I couldn’t remember my dream, which is quite an uncommon occurrence. I’ve always been an avid lucid dreamer, and it would eventually become a hobby which I would do almost every time I went to sleep. It didn’t matter if I didn’t get much sleep, as I’ve noticed that doesn’t affect me as much as others. My paranoid mind held on to that, even though I tried to ignore it and enjoy the camping trip.

It had always struck me as odd when I couldn’t remember a dream, and most of the time, it wasn’t a good sign, but on a few occasions, I didn’t notice any side effects. I had always noticed such small coincidences, and really took them as signals of *something*, even if most of the time it was nothing, or at least nothing that effected me or anyone I knew. I knew it was probably a coincidence, but part of my mind wanted to believe it was a sign.

Once everyone got up and gathered in the main meeting area, we got ready to eat our breakfast. We had to eat MREs, which are basically meals sealed in pouches, which can be eaten when heated up in boiling water. They are made to be easily preservable, so they can be heated up and eaten even when they've been sitting in a box for years. We also got a side package, which consisted of some snacks to eat either then or save for later.

After we finished our breakfast, we lined up into the groups that we were assigned yesterday, and were given group names. While we were waiting, I realised just how much people there were gathered here. Our group was given the name of 'Lambent', the term referring to a flickering light, typically a flame. I felt like they just chose random words from a giant list, but Dan gave it meaning to us, which I admired.

“It represents our Fiery Passion and Burning Fury!” he said. I didn’t know how he could be so enthusiastic, even in the most depressing of situations. It was quite amazing it was almost as if he was simply an optimist. After our groups of two were named, we were given an orienteering activity, where we had to find points scattered around the trail in the forest. We were given a map and compass and were sent on our way.

The path was long, but in the end we did quite well. At the end of the games when all the groups were together, we found out that we placed second out of all thirty two, and even though we didn’t place first, we were still proud of our accomplishment. After that, we had a late lunch. We ate it together, but something felt off to me. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I brushed it off and ate my lunch.

After lunch, we had another activity. We had to expand the trails out from where they ended off. We were given equipment and were all assigned different routes. It was hard work, and we hadn’t gotten too far my time dinner came, but we had gotten farther than a lot of other groups. To me it felt like needless work, and I was kind of annoyed by it, but I was willing to help expand the forest paths, because this place deserves to be explored.

After dinner, we had to do a couple of icebreaker games, and then we we were dismissed to our free time, and after that was over we headed to sleep. It was quite a hard day, but the night sky was rewarding. It was even more beautiful tonight, being able to see part of the galaxy in the sky. The stars shone brightly, and I couldn't stop myself from staring up at then through the roof of our tent.

The next day was full of hard work, as we expanded the pathways for all the time we could on that day. As it got dark, we learned about using furnaces for warmth. Every group got one, and we put it near our tents. We learned how to use them, and we were able to keep it going outside the tent while we talked. It was a cooler night so having the furnace going was nice.

“Do you know why your voice is like that? I don’t mean to offend you; I am just wondering if you know”

"I don’t take any offence from that, in fact, nobody has ever asked me that question. I always remember my sister saying it wasn’t always like that, but I always thought she was remembering wrong.”

“That’s quite interesting, maybe I can help you find out? I’ve always been good at that kind of thing.”

“Well, I don’t really remember much about my childhood, in fact, I can barely remember any of that. It feels as if my brain is *trying* to suppress the memories for some reason. I’ve always wondered why it’s like that.”

At some point, he went outside the tent to take a leak, but he was outside for a really long time. I called out to him a few times, but there was no response.I assumed he had feinted like he said he did, so I decided to check on him. As I walked outside of the tent, a warm blast of air hit me from the heater. It looked like it was still on, I thought I had turned it off earlier in the night.

It took a minute for my eyes to adjust to the darkness of the night, and when they did, I couldn't see him. When he stepped out earlier he said he wouldn't go too far, but I was really starting to doubt how far he went. After a while, I started to a bit deeper into the woods. Everything was silent, and I could feel the hairs on my back standing up. I turned around, expecting something to be there, but there was nothing there, except the trees of the surrounding woods.

was getting really creeped out, because Dan was completely missing and I was now alone in a dark forest with no protection. I made sure to try and stay as close to the tent so I didn't get lost, but I began to get worried that he must have gone really far and deep into the woods. I kept telling myself that he was probably using one of the outhouses in the main area, but something told me not to go there.

I looked around the area for something I could use as a weapon, and I grabbed a nearby tent pole that wasn't being used and stood my ground. I felt sweat began to drip down my neck, but I tried my best to calm myself down. I went over the red tape line, but after looking around a bit more, I went back towards the tent. The forest felt darker then, and slightly colder. I felt a shiver travel its way up my spine.

That wasn’t a shiver of cold though, it was still quite warm outside, and the sky was rather clear earlier, but it was overcast now. It was a shiver out of fear. I circled the tent and decided to move a bit farther out again, heading back to the red barrier tape. I scanned the tree line for any sign of Dan, but the visibility was already low due to it being so dark out, but a dense fog was starting to form at that point.

I felt myself panicking again, and I tried to calm myself down. My breathing slowed down and I felt my heart beat slower, but my breath still came out shaky, and I was sweating all over. I stalked the area next to the red tape barrier for any signs of Dan, but still nothing. I was about to walk back to the main area to alert someone else, but then I felt the hairs on my back stand up again.

It was like when lightning is about to strike, and your hair begins to stand up due to the static charge in the air, but this time there was no rain. I turned around, but only the trees of the forest greeted me. "This couldn’t be right" I thought, what was going on? Was I going insane? At this point I was hyperventilating and I couldn't calm down, I knew for sure that something was wrong, but I couldn't see what it was.

I stood there, trying to calm myself the hell down. I closed my eyes for a couple of seconds and took slow and deep breaths, and tried to reassure myself that he was fine and that I was ok. *He’s just using the restroom, He’s just using the restroom, He’s just using the restroom,* I kept repeating in my head, hoping it would somehow eliminate the fear that was pulsing through me.

I kept repeating the same phrase in my head repeatedly in an attempt to calm myself down, as well as trying to pay attention to the silence of the forest. Everything was dead silent, but then I heard a crack behind me. There was something else out there. I didn’t want to turn around, I didn't want to see what it was, I was too scared. It felt as if my heart was about to burst right out of my chest how fast it was beating in that moment.

“Dan,” I said hoping it was him.

“Dan, can you say something?”

“Dan I’m scared is that you?”

“Dan. . .”

“Dan?”

It took a lot of courage, but I felt like I had to turn around. What if it was him, and what if he couldn’t speak for some reason? Or what if he was sleepwalking? Or what if that crunch was him feinting? Or. . . what if it wasn’t Dan? I turned around quickly, almost tossing my body in that direction. As I looked up, it wasn’t quite what I expected. I saw a coronian standing there. It had brown and yellow fur, and short horns on top of its head. It was holding Dan in its arms.

“Wait, don-” it said. Just as the sound entered the darkness of night, I whipped around to see another coronian there. This one had blue and black fur and seemed to be a lot taller. I let out a low whimper. Words couldn’t describe the feelings of that moment. Time had seemingly frozen, thoughts racing through my mind, outcomes rushing past me like flood waves, but then it seemed to resume as if a switch was flipped.

It kicked me and I flew back into a tree. It had a devilish grin as it opened the furnace, stuck my arm into the door and jammed it shut. It covered my mouth when I tried to scream into the blackness of the night, and I felt myself being silenced. It was as if it just took away my ability to scream, as if it had taken the screams out of my mouth and stole them from the deep silence of the forest.

It punched me in the face. It was a hard punch, but I was somehow still conscious. It picked me up and slumped my limp body over his back. Both coronians began walking and talking to each other.

“Why did you have to do that?” the yellow one spoke in a shaky voice, clearly being nervous.

“I had to knock him out,”

“You didn’t have to be that brutal,”

“Yea, yea I know, you’re squeamish, but I had to."

“One punch was enough to do the job, why not just that?”

“So, what, it’s your first day on this job here, you got the easy part. All you had to do was pick him up off the ground. He was out cold."

“I’m just not really on board with this whole thing, why do we have to do it anyways?”

“Well, the boss said we needed that Dan kid, and if possible, the black-haired one too, so I guess we’re just following orders.”

"..."

"How did you even get this job? What's so special about you that I don't have? You aren't corrupted,"

"I'm not even sure. I'm not that special after all,"

I felt them walking for quite a while, and I had to squint my eyes as to look as if I was still unconscious from when he punched me. I had seen endless trees go by as they took me through the forest. I had no idea how long we would be walking, and I didn't even know where they were taking me. It was taking forever, and it appeared to be starting to become morning as we kept walking.

After who knows how long, they finally stopped. I heard the yellow one pulling out a piece of paper, and then the sound of buttons being pushed followed by a heavy door opening, and being met with white lights. They had entered some kind of underground facility, and they put me and Dan into separate rooms. The blue coronian slammed me down on a bed and then left the room and locked the door.

I felt myself drifting to sleep, as I was tired enough, and needed some rest. Again, it didn’t take long for me to fall asleep, and when I woke up, I immediately started hatching a plan on how to escape. As I looked around the room, there was a breakfast meal laying on the table next to me, which I reluctantly ate. The room was painted white, with a dim yellow light overhead casting light scarcely across the strange room.

There were a lot of cabinets and tables, filled with notebooks and testing equipment. I didn’t know why they wanted me here, and I wasn’t planning on sticking around to find out. First, I tried the door. Still locked from the outside, as it had been last night. On the front wall of the room, beside the door was a large window out into the hallway. I could see other coronians walking up and down the hallway, some wearing lab coats, and some holding notebooks, as well as some with construction gear.

This place had given me the creeps from the hostile design of the place to the imminent danger lurking all around. I could make out red streaks in every one of their eyes and calculated my chances of escape, being pretty low. If I wanted to get out I would have to get either really lucky, or if I got some inside help. I looked around the room for anything that could help, but there was nothing. While looking around, I also noticed that there was a pocket dimension jammer somewhere.

I then remembered the yellow coronian. He was clearly clean, and it made me wonder if there were any others like him, who were lurking around the place but were not corrupted like all the others. The thought gave me hope, and I continued to look for possible ways out, or possible means of defence just in case anyone came in and I needed to fight one of them off.

I found myself watching the coronians go up and down the hall, pondering if any of them would come in and do whatever they were going to do to me. I wondered what they were going to do to me, and what that blue coronian meant about their boss wanting Dan and I to be brought in to the facility, and I wondered about why they needed me. What was so special about me? I decided to go back on the bed and try to get some sleep.

Not too long after, two coronians walked into the room. One was wearing a lab coat, and the other had a notepad. The one with the notepad started writing notes about something, but I couldn’t see what. They hooked me up to a machine and started running diagnostics. One put me through, while the other operated the computer nearby, and wrote something down on his notepad, being quite surprised by it.

“Hmm, that’s interesting” It called the other one over to the computer and pointed a couple of things out, but they whispered it, clearly not wanting me to hear what it was. After typing a couple of things on the computer, they had a small conversation, and then they put me through an X-ray machine. I was very confused as to what was going on, and they wouldn’t tell me anything.

After they put me through the machine, one of them got the results while the other went on the computer and typed a couple of other things. After the images were set, one of them picked them up and put them into a folder with my name on it. They whispered to each other about something, and then left the room, closing the door behind them. It locked with a click. I was confused. What had happened? What were the results? Why wouldn’t they tell me?

The place had a strange aura. One of danger and one of secrecy, my feelings not being helped by the behaviours of the coronians who examined me. It kept me wondering the entire day, and I wondered if I would ever get answers. I went back to observing the coronians walking through the hall and counted how many I saw. I even saw the two that came in again, and they were coming back, but with a third coronian.

The third was completely black and white, and his clothes reflected it. He had a mask that covered his mouth and nose, but his eyes were still exposed. He looked pretty important from his weird getup, but I was more confused than scared. A lot of the other coronians had weird senses of fashion, but this one struck me as odd. When he came into the room, he seemed pretty interested in me.

They came in and showed their results to the third coronian. The third one seemed to have clean eyes, while the others had red streaks. They also seemed really surprised to see the results, and whispered something to them in astonishment. It gave me a ray of hope, that not everyone here was dangerous. It was a good feeling, but they didn’t share the results of the tests with me either.

They got me to stand up, and he inspected me thoroughly. He gave me a look, which I interpreted as a non-verbal apology. He wrote a couple things on a notepad and winked to me on his way out. “We’re done with you, but I’ll get a few more doctors to look at you. I can’t tell you your results, but they’re really odd.” the one in a lab coat said before closing the door with a click.

I was even more confused now. So, nobody could tell me my results? What was the test? Why were my results *odd*? Every time someone came in and out, I would check the door, with the same results. It seemed to lock automatically every time it was closed, having to me opened with a key card that all the coronians had with them. I had more and more questions for every time someone came in.

Another two groups of coronians came in, using special cameras, sensors, and strange technology. They gave strange looks and looked confused seeing their results. Finally, during the fifth test, I asked why they couldn’t share my results. “I would tell you if I could, these results are interesting, but our boss told us not to tell you, not sure why.” It seemed like it was their boss that wanted it to be hidden.

After a while, the same uncorrupted coronian from earlier came in and did a couple more tests. I asked the same question and got the same results, but then I thought of a response for him.

"Well, he isn’t here right now, is he?”

“You might think that, but there are cameras everywhere. They even have microphones, so **don’t say anything stupid**, ok?"

“Seems like common sense, but alright.” After he left, I didn’t know what to do. I decided to look around the room again for anything that might be of use. Perhaps any left behind notebooks or images that I could see to finally find out what was going on, or at least get some hint or some idea to point me in the right direction as to what was going on with me.

After a dozen or so came in and out, one of them said they were the last for the day. I felt a sigh of relief, as I was getting a break from everything. Although that was true, I still had questions on my mind. Who was their boss that they had been referring to? Why doesn’t he want me knowing my results? Why is everyone here so secretive? I began to think about everything, and I remembered that coronian who winked at me.

He was clearly uncorrupted, and something about him felt familiar. I didn’t know what, but there was *something.* I just took it as another strange coincidence brought about by this trip. I had seen the signs but brushed them off as nothing. I just have an irrational fear of random coincidences, something that people would always give me flack for. My life growing up had always felt strange, but I was never sure why.

As I was lying in my bed, passing the time by singing songs, I heard the door unlock and open. I felt an immediate sense of annoyance, thinking it would be another coronian with a lab coat or notepad who would run the same series of tests on me, only for them to come back with “Strange results” and never tell me what they are because their boss told them so. But it wasn’t that.

“What is it this time? Another couple tests with the same results?” I said without looking. “No, actually, I’m not supposed to be here.” said the coronian. I got up and realized it was the yellow one from yesterday.

“Hey, I saw you last night, you were all nervous and uneasy”

“You were awake? He punched you pretty hard.”

“I don’t know how, but I guess I stayed barely awake.”

“Yea. I’m sorry about that.”

“I noticed you weren’t corrupted, unlike pretty much everyone here,”

“Pretty much, but did you say that there are others?”

“I saw another earlier without a red streak in his eyes, so I guess yes, unless I was wrong,”

“Well, coronians can’t hide corruption, that’s a telltale sign of being infected, and most people just assume that’s how they normally look, or don’t pay mind to it.”

“Do you know why the doctors aren’t sharing my results?”

They do that with everyone they take here, no matter the results. They say it makes them stay, so they'll try to learn their results, or something like that.”

“Well, I don’t really care about the results now, I just want to leave.”

“To do that, you’re going to have to wait a couple days, I’m sorry”

“Why is that?”

“Today’s Tuesday, which means there are going to be more coronians here. On Friday, there should be a lot less. Still a decent amount of them here, but there should be the smallest amount from what I've seen, unless there's an event.”

"Then it’s a deal,”

“I’ll also tell Dan, don’t worry.” After that, he didn’t have anything else to say, so he left the room, which automatically locked. As he closed the door, he looked back with sorry eyes. All night, all I could think about was our escape. The next days went by slowly, as all I could do was anticipate. Nothing really happened between those days, just me reading books to pass the time in my room.

When Friday finally came, he came and gave us a time that we would leave. When he left the room, he made sure it didn't lock. I went to Dan’s room, where we waited for the time to come. We were told to go straight out into the open, and just run. "Run as fast and as far as you can," I could remember him saying. When he left, we waited for a bit to make sure everything worked out.

We left the room but snuck through the halls, being as quiet as possible. There were a lot of coronians, a lot more than I expected. Having a few very close calls, we only had a little bit of space left between us and the final stretch to the exit. As we hid behind an indent in the wall, we formed the rest of the plan. A lot of coronians were coming in, so we'd have to be very quick and sneaky.

As we did, I heard coronians yelling from down the hall. As that happened, I began to worry. Have they realised we were gone that quickly?  “That’s not for us,” Dan said. Just as he did, another coronian ran and snuck behind the same wall we were behind.

“Don’t say a word, I’m on your side.”

“Jeez I nearly had a heart attack I said.”

“Just shut up and listen for a second, you were lied to, but it isn’t his fault. They’re after me because I tried to stop them. Just run down the hall. Take a right, and then a left, and you’re out.”

What is go-”

“I’ll explain everything to you later if I make it out, now GO!” Dan and I ran down the hall and went right out the door. As we did, we were surrounded by coronians.

"You thought you could get away,” I heard a voice call from the crowd. A Pandorian stepped forward, with black hair and a red streak in his eye. “You thought you could get away from us, but you’ll soon learn you can’t."

“What do you want from us?” Dan shouted.

“You should know, Dan. Your friend was also useful to us, but I knew you’d run. It helps that your little spy gave us a date.”

"What? Why would he do that?” I shouted.

"People tend to do things you want them to when you threaten their lives. It’s a cool trick really, you should try it sometime.”

“Let us go!” Dan shouted.

“Never! We need you. You don’t understand, both of you are invaluable to us.”

“I’d never stay with you. You’d make us live in this hellhole. I have a family to go home to, I also have friends. I am NOT staying with you!”

“You can run, but you’ll never truly escape. No matter where you go, what you do, I will find you. And you’re not the only one. I need to check on him.”

We stood there shocked, and surrounded by coronians, armed to the teeth. The situation was quite dire, and I began to worry, but when the man went down a corner, I saw someone running down the hall. At first, I didn’t know who it was, but I recognised him as he came closer. I smiled as I saw him, and the coronians around looked really confused, as they didn’t see him coming.

When he got to the end of the hallway, Nick jumped into one of the coronians, and when the others tried to attach them, he knocked them all out. We both stared down at his mess. As all three of us stood there about to make our escape, I saw the boss walking down the hallway towards us. As he walked down the hall, more armed coronians walked behind him. I felt my heart drop. There was no time to run, as he had already made it to the end of the hall by the time the thought crossed my mind.

“So, you thought you could escape.” it said. On his command, the guards surrounded us, with guns pointed at our heads. I felt scared, but there was a sense of doubt, and I called them out on them.

“You won’t shoot, you just said you needed is.”

“Really,” he said, and pointed to one of the guards. He gave an evil look, and the coronian shot me right through the arm.

I fell to the ground, and held my hand, and I saw Nick step forward, drawing his sword. As he did, another one shot his arm. Things weren’t looking good, and I didn’t want to go back, but I knew we likely couldn’t escape.

“Stop it!” Dan shouted.

“What?” the replied said.

“Don’t hurt them, let them go.” he said. “I’ll give myself for them, just let them go.”

“Don’t do it,” I said.

“I have to, we’ll meet again, I promise.” he said. I felt tears well up in my eyes as they took him away. All the guards walked back in behind him and slammed the door on us. I was unsure of what to do at that point. I bandaged our wounds as best as I could, and we started heading back to the only place I knew directions to. I pulled out my map and compass, and before long we were on route to the campsite.

As we walked through the forest, I felt a sense of dread. Although we had escaped an imminent threat, there was still something there. As we walked through the woods, I noticed it wasn’t cool at all, like it had been in days prior. In fact, it was quite hot out. The morning sun shone through the canopy of trees above our heads and traced dancing patterns of golden light on the forest floor.

I also noticed it was very quiet. The only sound was our occasional voices, as well as the sound of leaves and twigs crunching beneath our feet. The forest floor was rather level, which seemed odd to me for some reason. After a while of walking, I finally could make out some unnatural shapes in the distance through the tall trees. We both ran across the long dead leaves and forest vegetation to get to the campsite, but when we got there, we couldn’t believe what we saw. . .

***-to be continued-***

## Fury Manor, Brandon, Stonemill, IZ 144/6/76, Wednesday, October 4, 2058, Pollux Petoraka -Brother?-

Although Kosa and I had cracked every possible code on what was left on the map, we still couldn’t find any leads to where the stands or other maps could be. At that time, all we could do was wait until Kagiri would come back home on the tenth. Turns out it’s quite hard to find a map that is meant to be hidden. It felt like everything came to a halt, just as I had thought it would.

While half the house was out playing games outside, Kosa, Yomaho, Adries and I were trying to find anything we missed and went over all our notes three times that day. There was one small thing that could have been a lead which was a set of capital letters, some having dots next to them and one with a hyphen in front of it. It seemed obvious, and it was definitely another cipher.

Using these clues, it was obvious that it was a set of coordinates with the letters standing in for numbers, which was the easiest puzzle to solve out of all of them. All we had to do was go to the coordinates and hope a map was still there. We managed to convince Maximus, Nomad, Fray, Joey, Fury, Kiri and Alpha to come along with us, and then we went on our hiking trip.

The coordinates led to a wooded area in Rosedell, so we had to take a boat there. The boat ride wasn’t too long, just about 6 hours from the southern port of Stonemill at Torcalm Port, a small fishing town that only receives boats to and from Rosedell every couple of days, but it’s the fastest way to get there, about an hour closer than the port of Rekuma, although Rekuma is a much larger and much more popular port.

After we got there, we checked into a small hotel near Downtown Rosedell. After we checked in, we had dinner and then slept for the night. After we got up, we got ready to explore the area, and when we got there, we eventually found out it wasn’t wooded as the maps online had said, which was really odd. Why would the maps say the area was wooded, even though it wasn't?

It was quite far from Downtown Rosedell, and in the area commonly known as the Deleridge Shield, a series of ancient mountains that have been so eroded over hundreds of thousands of years, that they only seem to be strangely shaped hills. This area also contains a port which leads back to Rekuma with a paved road that leads back to Downtown Rosedell, but it’s the only paved road in the Deleridge area. Deleridge is considered a historic city.

Even though some do still live there, there are still quite a lot of unoccupied homes, which we passed a few of on our way to find the map. As we got closer, we found a path which seemed as if it led towards it. Due to this, we took the path and went on our way. Something interesting was that the path seemed very difficult to access from any of the main roads.

When we followed our GPS, we went through an alleyway between two homes and that’s where we found the path. The path was made of cobblestones, which had been claimed by small vegetation and moss. The path was lined with elegant cypress trees, seemingly trimmed recently even though the path was hard to access and invisible from the street.

As we took down the path, it went on an incline, similarly to how the Cile and Awsh paths lead to Fort Yina, entrances to the area via unconventional side paths. As we got to the bottom of the road, there was a forest surrounding the path. It didn't take too long for me to realise this was the same place that I visited in my 'dream' but I only now brought it up as we walked down the path.

When we got to the city, there was an archway above the town I didn't remember reading before. It read in both Menofillian and SGT, *Southern Giattand Corner, Deleridge Awsh-Cile Township.* There was a smaller sign hanging off the archway. The sign was barely legible, but it read *Deleridge Awsh-Cile S. Giattand Corner Market Sector* on the front side, and on the other side, it read *Deleridge Awsh-Cile S. Giattand Corner Suburbs*.

Judging by the sign, the area we entered from the path was the suburban area of the town, and we kept going on into the market sector. It was fun to explore all the different sections of the city, and it was interesting to see how plants had claimed the city over the years it was abandoned. We went much deeper than Stardust and I did, probably because I woke up and was somehow teleported back home.

I wanted to find out when the city was abandoned, so when we got to the centre of the city, I went in with Maximus to try and find dates or some other indicator of when the city was abandoned. Going inside the city hall was amazing, as most of the beautiful original wooden interior was still intact beyond the two front doors which were hard to open, due to them being so eroded.

It didn’t take long to find population records in the front desk, and due to it being at the back of the room, it didn’t receive as much of nature's assault as the rest of the building, because for some reason the windows were protected with some cover, that appeared to recently have fallen off, judging my the level of destruction around the entire room not being too severe.

According to the records in the rotting desk, the population was last recorded in 1859, when it was recorded to be just 223. It was so strange that the city was left abandoned for just under 200 years, and the date was August 26, being Maximus’ birthday and the KM Day, which made things very interesting. I suspected it had no particular reason and was just a coincidence, but he thought otherwise.

Although he thought there was something else behind it, I thought nothing really of it. Although he had a feeling it wasn't a coincidence, he couldn't think of any reason behind why the population would just vanish, seemingly overnight. There were weekly population counts for that year, apparently due to a population decline. It was like some random day that week, everyone just disappeared.

We kept looking around for anything else useful, but there wasn't any useful information pertaining the maps in there. After that, we looked around the city for anything else. The city was smaller than we thought, and it didn't take too much longer to finish searching the town. After we were done searching the area, I walked down the road all the way down the line, until there wasn't any road left.

At the end of the road, there was a high hill that overlooked a large ravine. The area was shaped almost like a triangle, but it was more like a heart shape. On the two sides at the right side of the canyon had two waterfalls that streamed down into a giant lake in the middle of the ravine. The hill area I walked up to was surrounded by trees that went right up to the edge of the cliff.

I sat down on the hard rock staring out into the sky. It was overcast and slightly cooler here than I'm used to. The canyon was stunning, seeing all the different layers of sediments that were exposed to the elements. I've heard of this place multiple times, but surprisingly I've never been here. I've heard many theories how this was a crater created by a giant meteorite, but I never really believed it because it seemed too steep of a cliff.

Although it was a pretty strange place, I still enjoyed sitting there and listening to the whistle of the wind as it blew through the canyon. I looked across the canyon, and looked at the trees on the other side. I found myself staring across the canyon, and I thought I saw something moving. I leaned closer, and I realised it was *someone*. At first I wasn't sure, but then they waved to me from the other side of the canyon.

Although I heard about the stories from the others meeting random people and them being corrupted, I felt like they were fine. I got up and walked across the ledge of the canyon and walked all the way to the other side. As I got closer, I began to make out more details about him. He looked a lot like Kagiri, except he had bleached hair and he dressed very differently.

I walked up to him and sat down beside him and watched the winds with him. I looked down at him, and he appeared to be made of metal. "Hi there," he said.

"Hello,"

"I see you enjoy this place too, huh?"

"It's actually my first time coming here. I visited the town trying to look for the maps,"

"I see, well funny thing is I was created for that very reason, but I've still never been able to find anything."

"Really?"

"I was made some time ago just to search for these maps. Even equipped with a computer in my head and all the known knowledge about the maps, I've still not been able to find them yet. Whoever hid them must have been pretty good at their job,"

"Well, I guess I could tell you that I found a burnt piece of one of the maps the other day in the ruins of a burnt house."

"Really? Am I able to see it or do you not have it with you." When he asked, I pulled out the map from my pocket. He held it carefully and scanned it with beams that came from his eyes. He turned it over and scanned the other side, and he ran a program to decipher the codes written all over the back. It took him a minute, but he got the same results I did, which meant we did the cipher correctly.

He gave it back to me, and I put back into my pocket dimension. He said that he was able to cross-reference the intact areas of the maps with real maps of the northern areas of Stonemill. He pulled a map out of his pocket dimension, which surprised me as I didn't think robots could have pocket dimensions. I asked him about it but he didn't say anything about it.

He took out a marker and traced the outline of all of the burnt areas of the crystal map onto a clean map which featured a larger area. The borders of the crystal map fell just shy of the shores, and near the bottom of the map was Downtown Brandon. He pulled out a second map which showed the area under it, and pointed out the whole wooded area of Stonemill island, pointing out the Sarnian Woods which were south of Downtown Brandon.

"So this is interesting, one of these Xs lies in Downtown Brandon, and a couple are spread around the wooded regions above Downtown Brandon. Although this isn't all of that area, I doubt there are any maps on the shore, but there could be some in the mountains, although the whole top half of the map is charred, so we can't know for certain. We have five spots for sure, and two which were cut off by the burnt areas."

"I mean, it could be worse, at least we have something to work with."

"That is true, and if you were able to crack the codes on the back of the map you should be able to pinpoint these with relative ease, although you are going to have a large area to work with."

"If you want to, you could help us, I think we could make a pretty good team."

"You do have a good point. I have some classified knowledge with me, and you and your friends seem to have a decent lay of the land here, unlike I do. I also didn't think to come to the town to look for clues. Did you manage to find anything there?"

"No, we didn't, well at least nothing about the maps."

"Well what did you find?"

"We found out that the entire town's population seemed to decline a lot between the years of 1856 and 1859, and eventually one day between August 26 and August 36 of that year, the entire population of 223 people that was left just vanished one night, and we couldn't figure out if they disappeared or left."

"Really? I thought they just left because of the war. I just assumed it was during one of the smaller wars that happened in Rosedell. I didn't think that the entire population of the town just vanished over night,"

We talked for quite a while after that, and I messaged the others that I was going to stay and look through the valley for any clues, and Joey responded saying that they were on their way back to Fury Manor and were currently on their way back to the beach. I was alright with that because I enjoyed talking to this guy. He seemed really cool, but I wanted to learn more about how he was created.

Before I decided to ask about how he was created, he asked if I wanted to go down into the ravine with him, hearing me mention it on the phone with Joey. I agreed with it, and even though it was starting to get dark, I got out my flashlights, and we went in. He showed me how his eyes lit up like a flashlight, so he didn't need one. His eyes shone brighter than my flashlight, so I decided to let him lead the way.

He led me down the easiest route down into the ravine, and descended deep into the canyon. When we got to the bottom, we came across a cave near the giant lake. Before we went into the cave, he pulled out a futuristic looking gun before walking in. I asked him about it, and he said he thinks it's from the future too. He told me that one time he went into some weird facility and found it there.

Upon closer inspection, it was listed as an XPT268A3 HDMR, something I'd never seen before, and under the serial number was an inscription on the bolt that read '3997', which outright confirmed he had a future gun. He mentioned how he had to modify it to take different magazines. It originally took unique magazines chambered in .400 JET, a cartridge that didn't exist yet, so he had to use .408 CheyTac mags made for an Earth weapon.

It's really common to see Earth-made weapons being produced and sold here, in fact there aren't many that were patented and created by pandorians and coronians. M200 Interventions are pretty common to find magazines for, due to them being a common weapon for snipers, being either for military use, or simply for fun. A lot of people simply own guns because they enjoy shooting.

We walked into the cave together, trying to look for any clues. The cave was dark and damp, and there were small particles of dust floating through the air. The roof of the cave was covered in stalactites that hung down from the roof, occasionally dipping water onto the floor. When we walked deeper into the cave, the air felt more cold and wet, and eventually I began to hear rushing water.

We walked towards the source of the noise, and eventually came to an underground river. To the right of the area was a waterfall and the river led to the left and around a bend. Before I could ask if he wanted to ride the waves, he pulled out an inflatable raft and smacked it down onto the water. He hopped into the raft first, and I hopped onto it as it travelled down the river.

As we sailed down the river, I began to feel as if this cave was man-made, as it seemed pretty odd for the river to bend like this, not to mention the fact that underground rivers and waterfalls such as this are pretty uncommon. As we rode down the river, the boat went pretty fast, a lot faster than I would think. Although we were going pretty fast, it was fun as hell. I looked over to him, and he was clearly having fun too.

I noticed that the river was going downwards, which was probably why we were going so fast. Eventually, we got to another completely straight incline, and far up ahead I could see something at the end. It appeared to be a long line of pads which assumed was to stop the boat, and when we got to the end, it did a good job at slowing down the boat, and once it stopped, we got out of the boat, and he deflated it and put it away.

Once we got out, we entered this large hallway which had stone arches lining the walls. Not too far into it, he pulled out his gun again and after a second he continued down the hall. It was still dark, the only light being from his eyes. I looked up and saw lanterns hanging from the arches that lined the tunnel, but it seemed that they weren't on.

As we walked through, I began to get a feeling of dread. I noted it to him, and he said he felt it too. "Wait, if you're a robot, then how can you have emotions and a pocket dimension?"

"Well, . . . it's a bit more complicated than that. I don't really want to go into why, but I will say that my creator was forced to make and program me, but they did the rest."

"Who created you?"

"The thing about that is that I know his face, but I never knew his name. I've searched through databases multiple times, but I've never found a match,"

"I've never found my creator either, but I only saw them once a long time ago, but my memory could not be saved."

"Maybe we were part of the same project or experiment, or something like that."

"Well I'm not a robot,"

"How do you know? You could be a more advanced version of me, and that could be why I was abandoned."

"I guess I've never thought about that. I was apparently created during the Great Sides War, or so I've been told-"

"So you've been told? If I fought in a war I'd remember it, and I'm saying that because I did. I fought in the War for Pandora"

"Now that you say that, I don't have any memories before that. I've always thought it was my bad memory, but what if it was just lies?"

"I do remember come of the others they created, well they forced my creator to make. There were some I never saw, somehow being too secret for a secret being to see. The whole reason I look like this was so I couldn't fit into society because I wasn't meant to. I remember my creator saying he could make me look more normal, but the higher ups of the operation didn't allow it,"

"I think they wiped any memory I had of that, except for a fragment of a memory I still hold onto in my mind of my creator, but it's so faded and distant I can't even tell what he looks like anymore."

As we walked deeper down the tunnel, I thought it wouldn't end, but then I realised there was a wall at the end, painted to look like the tunnel kept going on and on forever. When we got to the end, we saw two small side paths that branched off in both directions which led to stairs which connected in the middle. We walked up the stairs and came across a giant steel door with giant handles on it.

When we tried the door, they surprisingly opened with ease. Inside the area seemed to be a giant room full of shelves and machine parts strewn about. As we walked through, it began to look more like a warehouse of some sort. At the very end of the room, there appeared to be someone sitting in a chair at a desk. He was humming to himself quietly a song I had never heard before.

As we got closer, something felt weirdly familiar about him. I had a thought, and I could tell he had the same thought. As we got closer, I had a thought that it could have been my creator, but hearing our footsteps, they turned around. It was surprisingly Mr. Kiff. He greeted us and asked what we were doing here. We said that we were just exploring the area, and asked what he was doing here.

He said that he was trying to research machinery, and told us to leave as he got back to his work. "I have to get back to work, but please do come back later," as he got back to work, we walked through the underground warehouse and found the stairs. The stairs led up to a long ladder which we climbed up, and ended up leading to a small building in the middle of nowhere. The river had taken us quite far from the cave, and once we had escaped, we decided to explore the landscape for more clues.

## Sarnian Woods, Brandon, Stonemill, IZ 144/6/76, Friday, October 6, 2058, Kagiri Shay -The Way Through-

When we got to the campsite, all the tents were torn up, and there were strange stains on the fragments of tent that survived. We looked at each other in horror, and we stopped for a minute, but still in shock, Nick walked forwards into the campgrounds. I followed behind him, but it only got worse. My worst fear had come true. I didn't think it could get worse but it did.

It was clear that someone came in here and, . . .well you can infer the rest. As we walked closer to the centre area, the tents were more destroyed and covered in blood. It looked like fresh blood, so it couldn't have been that long ago. I presumed it happened during the night. As we got to the centre of the campgrounds though, the mystery only cut deeper and my confusion and fear only grew.

On top of the giant concrete circle beside where the main cabin and outhouses stands was a giant ritual circle, drawn in chalk. The circle had strange symbols all around it and there were stains all around the circle. I looked to him and asked if he knew what this even was, but he had no idea either. We stood there in silence and decided to try and find a way out of the forest. We walked towards the path outside, but I began to hear a sound over the wind.

For a second, it was too distant to make out, but as it got closer, I could make it out to be gunshots. Nick knelt beside a tree, and I stood up beside him. "They're probably not coming for us, but I don't know what's happening here," I said. Just as I said that, a black blur flew past us, sending a gust of wind in its wake. As it passed, about twenty or so coronians with guns ran through the path, all shooting at the blur.

After they were gone and the sounds of gunfire became distant, they got louder for a moment and then it completely stopped. "Do you think they lost him?" Nick said.

"Maybe, but maybe they were killed," Just as I said that, the blur flashed through the trees and landed in front of us. He looked at us and then up to the sky, taking off his mask as he did. When we got a clear view of his face, I realised he was a very strange-looking coronian. Instead of being a common type, he appeared to be a dolphin. He put his blade in a holster at his waist and smiled at us.

"Hey, um what the fuck just happened?" Nick asked.

"Well I had to run from the base," it said.

"Why did you have to run? I know you said you were uprising against them and trying to take them down from the inside, is that it?" I asked.

"Well yea, that. I've been trying to take them down from the inside, but I also stole something from their boss."

"What did you steal?"

"Well I don't even know what it is for sure, but it looks cool," It pulled out a container with a glowing blue crystal floating inside. Nick and I got closer to look at it, and he held it out towards us. It looked strange, as it emitted a soft blue light and an audible hum. The crystal floated inside its glass jar and changed forms rapidly between a cube and a sphere, making a very quiet swooshing noise as it did.

As they showed it to us, they expressed an interest in seeing if it did anything. They wanted to hold it, and they asked if they should. I said that it probably wouldn't do anything, but Nick said that it might have a negative effect, but he wasn't sure. After a minute, they threw the jar on the ground, shattering it in the process, and then picking it up. As they picked it up, it changed into the form of a dart and floated slowly into his chest.

It made a weird noise and emitted a blue light as it did. "Woah, so that was weird. I don't really feel any different, and I still look the same." They patted their body all over, trying to feel if anything was different, but there wasn't anything different.

"Well that did nothing, so what was so important about it? I wonder. Well we should probably get out of here," They said. I showed them and Nick where the cars were parked. We got into the smaller car, and they asked me if I knew how to drive.

"Of course I do!" Nick responded. He took over and started up the car, and they went to the back. He got a mounted machine gun from his pocket dimension and stuck it to the back of the car. "Hey, what's your name, anyway? I'm gonna need something to call you by," He called.

"I'm Kagiri and his name is Nick," I said as Nick started up the car and began to drive off.

"I'm Zandako. Zandako-Lin, but you can call me just Lin."

"That's a cool name,"

"Thanks. I named myself after an old word for balance, because that's my purpose. I've always believed that my true purpose in this world is to restore balance, and I do that however is necessary,"

"Really? So is that why you had to attack the coronians straight from the heart?"

"Well yes, but it's in the name of balance, and currently the hand of the Red Kingdom has begun to tip the scales, just like it had in the past, when the three main wars were started, but it seems like a fourth one is imminent."

As we began to drive through the forest, I thought Lin was just being sure by putting a machine gun on the back of the Jeep. but after a while, he called out to us. "Hey, it looks like we got company Nick. There's a lot of 'em so keep driving." I looked up and saw a bunch of cars coming down the forest road towards us, and I felt a sudden wave of panic wash over me.

Lin pointed the machine gun at the cars and opened fire. As they fired upon the coronian vehicles, the cars swerved around the bullets, but were still hot on our tail, presumably trying to capture us or kill us. I knew they were going after us because of Lin, and that we were just tagging along because their Boss just let us go, without trying to send anyone to bring us back.

I was really confused, because that corrupted man and their boss said that Dan, Nick, and I were invaluable to them, which was why they captured us. I wondered why we were so special to them. As well as wondering what was so important about us that we were apparently 'invaluable' to them, and if we were all invaluable to them, then why would they let Nick and I go but keep only Dan?

I wondered this as we sped through the forest. There wasn't really anything I could do, other than to try to not get shot by returning gunfire, as well as having to hold onto the seat so I didn't fly out of the truck. As we gained more distance between the enemy, Lin managed to hit a lot more shots, and managed to destroy a few of the cars, hitting them in their gas tanks. The two at the front of the convoy exploded and knocked into the others behind them.

It looked like they were getting closer, having picked up speed, but Lin managed to keep up with the enemy, returning fire back on them and taking out the enemy vehicles as they got closer. I looked up ahead, and I noticed there was a giant split in the ground, shaped like a long and deep crevasse. "I DON'T THINK WE'RE GONNA MAKE IT, LIN," Nick shouted from the front seat.

"FIND A RAMP AND HOLD ONTO YOUR SEAT," Lin shouted back. As we rode, Lin hailed more bullets onto the enemy cars, striking more of the cars. Finally, Nick found a good spot, a part where the ground went up, almost like a ramp. He took a sharp turn and gassed it. I didn't think we were going to make it either, but to my surprise, the Jeep landed hard onto the other side of the ravine.

The whole car shook when we landed, and we all shouted in excitement. I looked back, and saw the whole line of cars stopped, not knowing what to do. Lin hopped back to the gun and lit them all up, going back and forth with constant fire, wrecking all of the vehicles that were stopped ahead that were visible from the other side of the cliff. We kept going, riding off into the forest road.

He slowed down the car, and Lin put away their machine gun. Lin mentioned that we should probably be quiet, but try to get as far from them as we possibly could. After a while, the sun began to set over the horizon, and Nick put on the headlights so we could see where we were going. As we rode slowly through the forest road, I asked if there was anything I could do if we got into another battle.

Lin thought for a moment, and reached into his pocket dimension and handed me a battle rifle. They took a bunch of box magazines out of their pocket dimension, probably at least twenty, which I transferred into my pocket dimension. I've fired guns before, even having fired the same gun that they handed to me, so I knew what to expect. They also handed me a high caliber pistol and a couple magazines for it as well.

It was odd to see twilight shining through the trees and seeing the stars through the canopy above me. Although I felt calm, I was still a bit shaken up from what happened earlier, the adrenaline still not having worn off. I reached into my pocket dimension and cleaned the few other guns I did have, Lin noting that a lot of them were older guns, and a few aren't even produced anymore.

Although some of them weren't produced anymore, I could still use them whenever I wanted, because they take common magazine types. I took two empty mags and played around reloading one of my rifles, just because there wasn't anything else to do. For most of the time we just talked as we drove through the forest road, deep into the night. I asked Lin if he knew where were going, and they said they did.

They noted that when they were taken to the facility a while ago, they were driven down this same road, but they took a right and went down a more secluded road, that road leading all the way to the complex. It was a really long road, but it went all the way down south, and connected to the Eastridge Bridge, one of the four bridges that connects the two islands of Stonemill and Rosedell.

Although Nick and I would have to go back up north by next week because of school, it's very easy to get a cab from any of the main cities in Rosedell which can take you all the way up north to Downtown Brandon, and from there it's easy to get back home, or to get back to Fury Manor which wasn't too much further north. We spoke about our final destination and our deadline, and Lin asked if we could take them to Rosedell.

We agreed to take them there, although they couldn't decide where they wanted to be dropped off once we got there. Lin explained how even though Stonemill has a lot more forested areas and mountains filled with caves one could hide in, Rosedell is much larger, having about 1.4 times the landmass of Stonemill island, and they also mentioned how it would be a lot harder for the enemy to go all the way down to Rosedell.

After a while, it felt like nothing was really happening, but then Lin told Nick to kill the lights and cut the engine. He did so, and we waited for a minute. I fully expected to be ambushed, but it wasn't. We heard rustling in the bushes, and saw someone run across the road and into the forest on the other side. They didn't seem to notice the car, they just kept running through the woods, completely ignoring it.

We waited about two minutes in absolute silence, then Lin said he could turn the lights on, but not the engine yet. We waited another couple of minutes in silence again, and then Lin gave Nick the go-ahead to turn on the engine again. He started the car, and we were back on the road. After about a minute of not talking, I asked Lin how they knew to turn off the headlights and kill the engine.

They explained how they didn't know, but they were somehow able to hear their footsteps tearing through the brush of the woods over the engine of the car. At first I assumed it could just have been built into their genetics, but they explained how they didn't always have good hearing, and that it surprised them too. I found it really odd, and so did Lin. At first I had no clue why, and then Nick said it could be related to that weird blue thing that got absorbed into his body.

They said it was probably the reason, but that only made things much more confusing. If that blue thing gave him better hearing, then what else could it do? We pondered it for a long while, even into the morning. After what seemed of ages of going through miles and miles of forest, there seemed to be less and less trees, and Lin said they thought they knew where we were.

Lin pulled out a map from their pocket dimension and showed me on the map where we were. There was a line of forest that runs down the east coast of Stonemill island, which begins to dissipate as it gets closer and closer to the southern edges of the island. As we went down the forest road for hours and hours, we finally got out of the forest and onto a main road, although it was rather late in the day at that point.

After stopping in a hotel for the night, we realised that we wouldn't be able to get to Rosedell and back due to Dan and Nick having to be back in Downtown Brandon for school in a day, so we made a plan. Nick called a cab to the hotel we were staying at, and we waved Lin goodbye as they took the Jeep from the campsite and drove south down the main road and down all the way to Rosedell. Nick and I got breakfast while the cab arrived at the hotel, and got in the cab. I looked out the window as we were driven back up to Downtown Brandon, finally being able to process everything that happened over the last couple of days.

I finally felt safe being in the cab. When night came, we were only about two thirds of the way up from near the coast and back up to Downtown Brandon. We got a room and stayed in a room at a random hotel. Although I slept well that night, I couldn't remember my dream. Although I would have normally taken that as a harbinger of something to come, but I just shrugged it off this time. On that Selkaday morning while we waited for another cab to take us the rest of the way up, I had felt good for once that week, although there was still something that lingered on my mind. What was going to happen to Dan? I tried to forget, but it was hard. There was clearly something deep going on here, and I was going to try by best to find out what, no matter how long it took.

That's the end of Chapter Two.

Chapter Three is available here.

"After that really weird dream, I looked around the internet to try and find that weird complex in my dreams. I remembered a giant sign on the front of the building that read StarWorld, but nothing came up when I searched it up. I tried looking for similar things, thinking I had just misspelt the name, but I was sure I had gotten the name right. I remembered it vividly.

I could still remember the area around it, though and I went through interactive city maps for days and days, until I found a match of where the area could be, although it was from 2056, and nothing was there. I booked a plane trip down to the city of Seamark, being weirdly named for being located in a landlocked part of Ironhall island. I didn't know anything about the city before the trip, so when I got there I was surprised to see it.

The city was really strange, and felt quite dirty. I could tell it was a lower income area, and the streets seemed cramped and dirty. I finally was able to track down a map and find my way to where this place was located. I walked to the outskirts of town where it was supposed to be, and I found a giant parking lot in front of me. I walked closer to where the building was supposed to be, but all that stood was a construction fence.

I walked closer to get a better look, and I stepped right up to the fence and looked down. Inside, it looked like they were building the basement for the building, but the workers were on break when I got there. I was sure it was here where the place in my dream was. I even replicated the same view, and it was exactly the same, except some plants looked a bit different from the dream."

- Fray