I can be dramatic sometimes. It turns out the hole in the world wasn’t infinite. There was a bottom, and I hit it with a medium thud. At least the darkness through which I was falling slowed my fall a little. It was brighter than I thought it would be down here. As I laid there, I looked up and saw that light was streaming through like you’d see at the bottom of a pool of water. Light briefly skimmed across the bottom and lit up what it could.
With a groan I forced myself up to my feet, heartbeats pounded in my ears and panic was winding it’s way through my stomach. I was lost, scared, and completely confused.
The bottom of the hole was a forest. Or at least a few small trees, it was all the same as at the lake. Same trees, same ground. Only it was smothered in a darkness I’d never seen before. There was always light where I came from, now my eyes were struggling to process the barely lit space around me.
“Hello?” I called. The sound actually left my mouth and bounced about the trees. The liquid seemed to be gone. I was moving about normally, like I would on the surface. There was no resistance now, faint as it had been. The air down here was cold, and smelled salty.
I moved forward a bit, passing by a few trees, and then I saw the edge. The space I was in wasn’t that big at all, only the size of a pond. It’s like a whole chunk of the forest had fallen through the floor and landed perfectly intact down here. Beyond that there was nothing, just darkness. The light that was drifting from above wouldn’t even touch those boarders. It’s like there was a small halo of light that was separating this chunk of land from a vast nothingness.
Only it was something. As I stared into the abyss a pair of golden eyes blinked open. They were pure gold, there was no detail to them at all other than they were round, and came in pairs. First it was one pair, and then two. Pretty soon I had a whole audience, and my stomach dropped.
I took a step back, and any hope I had that the things beyond the border of the light would stay there were crushed. A spindly black hand landed on the forest floor, and pulled the rest of it’s body behind it. A creature that appeared to be made of the darkness beyond inched towards me. It had a human head, but no face. Only those cartoonish eyes, it was like a mask, there were no details only the implication of a face. It had human hands, and arms, and torso, beyond that it’s body faded away into a whisp of smoke that slithered about like a snake’s tail. It inched forward and the next shadow behind it paced its hand on the head of the lead shadow and pulled itself closer to me. Then another shadow did the same to him. They were crawling over themselves to get to me!
“Ah!” I panicked and wheeled backwards. I turned my head for a place to run, but the boarders of my little island did not extend far. Beyond that there was a great sea of terror I knew nothing about. I wasn’t looking where I was going and quickly collided with a tree. It was a head first hit, and I nearly knocked myself out. Whatever will to fight or run I had died there, I just kind of slid down the three holding my head in horror, and waited to die.
From above me there came a great whoop. Next thing I knew a man crashed through the canopy, landing in front of me. As he hit the ground he slammed some kind of hammer down. Spikes of earth burst forth from his hammer and in waves drove forward impaling the shadows with little effort. The moment they took damage they just seemed to fade away like ink in water. The hammer man looked down at me, more annoyed than anything else. “You see a puddle of darkness in front of you, and you bend down to touch it?”
“I…”
“Shut up!” He reached down grabbed me by the neck of my shirt, and pulled me to my feet. “Guardian Circle, Two Stars!” he touched the shaft of his hammer down on the ground. Light burst up from the ground. Some kind of pattern backlit by a yellow light surrounded the two of us in a perfect circle. Sigils of some kind, stuff I didn’t recognize swirled in between two thick yellow bands that denoted the perimeter of the circle. “Whatever you do, not leave the circle.”
“What’s going on?” I asked. My head felt hot, like it was flooding with chemicals I’d never felt before.
“No questions!” He swung his hammer and obliterated another shadow who came his way.
I became aware that while I’d only see shadows attacking me from one place, when they’d been encroaching from all sides of the island. One near me, lunged forward to do I don’t know what to me. Just a moment before it’s witchy hands could wrap around my throat, an image of the hammer man seemed to fly out of his body, and strike the beast down. Then it was gone. It was like I’d imagined the whole thing, the image and the shadow were both wisps of nothing a moment later. The hammer man made no sign of effort. I’d thought my mind was playing tricks on me, but another shadow lunged at me, and the same thing happened. A second man wielding a hammer shot forth and ripped the thing apart with a single hit. “How are you doing that?”
“No questions!” He barked back. “Seriously, the more you know the harder it’ll be to get you back home.”
“What?”
That he ignored as he focused on his work. All I could do was stand behind him and cower as the shadows crept in behind us. They would have a hard time reaching their mark. That after image would always strike them down as they did. It had to do something with the circle he’d put down. It was only once a shadow crossed it that the after image came to destroy them.
I focused on that. Something was happening and there was a rule to it. That I could understand. Even if there was nothing else about this I could comprehend. I could understand that. I could spot a shadow crossing the circle and know that before I blinked it’d be gone. Whatever he was doing it was impressive, but not perfect.
The after image happened fast, but not instantaneously. If two shadows passed through the circle at the same time the image would have to destroy one, vanish and then destroy the other. I found this out the hard way. A hand from a shadow raked me across my chest before it was destroyed. It ripped my shirt open, but didn’t break my skin. It should have though. The thing threw its whole weight behind its attack and it just felt like I’d been punched. There was something else at play. “There’s too many of them!”
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“You don’t know that.” He grunted.
“They’re getting through.”
“You could always help!”
With what? I looked around for a branch or something but there was nothing. Was he really expecting me to fist fight the monsters?
Lucky I didn’t have to find out.
“Border Expansion, 1 Star.” A woman’s voice called out. The perimeter of our protective circle suddenly expanded outwards doubling area of protection it offered. Which also meant it double the range the image would start destroying them. “Border Enforcement Slow, 1 Star.” The voice repeated. Another line of glyphs was added to the circle barrier, these ones were blue and still illegible to me. Their effect, however, was obvious. It was like the shadows had all taken horse tranquilizers. Their movements were suddenly sluggish, slow. Slow enough even I was able to dodge an attack that had made it through.
My friend’s ability went to work. Those copies of him rapidly shot out to return any shadow still inside the yellow light of his ability back to the darkness. “It’s about time.” He said wearily.
Two figures joined us in the perimeter. A woman with a blue and gold hood thrown over her head, and a tall man in a sharp looking white uniform. He was a stark contrast with all the black that’d been whirling around us. The strangest thing of all he had Victoria in his hands, bridal style. She was out cold, dangling there like a rag doll.
“Hey!” I growled and moved towards him.
“She’s fine.” Said the man in the white uniform. “And you shouldn’t be here.”
“So much for guarding the entrance.” The woman in the hood sighed. She was holding her hands together as if in prayer. Two rings of light danced about her hands, in a pattern I couldn’t discern.
“So much for finding the boss.” Hammer man growled.
“It must be a natural break.” The man in the white suit said. “We looked all around and couldn’t find anything.”
“At least that means I can close it.” The woman said. “I’m going to be useless for the rest of the mission though.”
“Praying another break doesn’t happen.”
“Is she okay?” As confusing as their conversation was, I had bigger concerns. What was Victoria doing down here, and why did they have her?
“They took their share of her, but she’ll recover.”
“No more talk.” Hammer man grunted. “I’m running real low here.”
The woman smirked. “Yes, but think of the experience you’re gaining.”
The man in the suit nodded at me. “Hey bud, hold this for a sec will you?” He passed Victoria off into my arms. He was making it look a lot easier than it was. I nearly dropped her, but with everything that was happening at the moment I decided to man up and lift with me knees.
The man reached into his pocket, and produced a whistle… a train whistle. He blew it, and waited a few moments. Soon all our ears were pierced by the honking of an actual train. There was the undeniable chug of an engine, and the screeching of brakes as The Ghost Train plowed into the hoard of shadows and pulled up next to us. “Is that…?”
“No time!” The man in the suit escorted me to the train where the passenger car opened its door and let me inside. As unnerving as I’d found it this morning, this place was a million times worse. I lifted Victoria with all my strength and got us inside. The man in the suit, followed by the woman, and Hammer man all followed. The train was already lunging forward by the time hammer man closed the door behind him. Shadows threw themselves at the windows, but bounced off of it. They didn’t leave so much as a mark.
I brought Victoria to a plush seat, before collapsing into one myself. Despite putting in more work than I had the three others were only breathing heavily. “Well, that was a disaster.” The woman threw her hood off, and revealed a dark haired girl only a couple of years older than me. She had golden tattoos running from her eyes down her cheeks.
“Are we safe in here?” I asked. Outside the window golden eyes were all around use, blurred by the motion of the train.
“Absolutely.” The man in the suit said, kneeling in front of Victoria. He had bright blonde hair, greased back, with the sides of his head shaved. That and the uniform made for a severe look, but his eyes were brown and kind. “The train is a Five Star Artifact. Worrying about something damaging it is like worry about a meteor killing you. Yes it can happen, but what’s the use in fighting it at that point?” He looked at Victoria. “Not when we’ve got something in front of us to worry about.” He took her hand in his and gently said, “Heroic Spirit, Three Stars.”
Victoria glowed briefly, whimpered, then opened her eyes. I couldn’t imagine what that had done to her, but she looked better already. She looked around for a moment, and then opened her mouth to scream. He shushed her before she could.
“You’ve both had a traumatic event.” He said calmly, but sternly. “I understand every emotion you’re feeling right now, but we’re out of danger. Out of danger means me and my team are done answering questions.” Hammer guy didn’t answer a single one of my questions! “We’re going to drop you off at home, and I’m going to suggest you let yourselves forget about all of this.”
That was all he had to say.
Victoria and I tried to pry more information out of him, but he wouldn’t budge. They wouldn’t even talk to us anymore. We had so many questions. Who where they, what were those things, where were we, what were those powers?
Nothing.
Eventually we were forced to just sit in our seats and watch the ocean pass us by. The landscape outside shifted slowly from utter darkness to a familiar orange glow. Before long the train was sailing on familiar tracks and winding its way around The Twilight Islands. “We’re home.” I husked, not certain we’d ever left. Was there really a rail line that lead to… wherever that was? Was there some monster filled cavern beneath the islands that none of us knew about?
The train pulled into Cilla Station, as close to home as a train could get I supposed. “I’ll want to talk to you each individually.” Blonde said as the train came to a stop. He escorted Victoria towards the door and spoke with her briefly.
While he did Hammer Man stood next to me, like he was trying to keep me from running. No problem there. He was a big guy, wide as a barrel, with bright red hair, like a strawberry. His hair, his beard, even his eyebrows all seemed wild and thick. “He’s going to make it sound like you don’t have a choice.” He said quietly.
“Huh?” I dared look up at him, and saw sympathy staring back at me.
“If you don’t think you can go back, knowing what you know now. If you demand to go back with us, he can’t say no.”
What was he talking about? “What do I know?”
He looked at me seriously. “You know what you know. You have to decide if you can live with it.”
I knew there were monsters. I knew that the ground could just fall out beneath you and land you in some underground hell. I knew there were people who could use something that looked a little bit like magic.
Before I could say anything else, he nudged me towards the other man. Victoria had gotten off and was waiting for me on the platform.
“That was a lot to handle.” He said to me quietly. “But you afforded yourself well. You’re going to be safe, we’ll make sure of it. All we need is for you to trust us, and not tell anybody what you saw. Can you do that?”
My heart pounded. The first time I’d seen this train I sensed its otherworldliness and I was right. There was something more to all of this that I wasn’t seeing. There were monsters, and heroes and a greater truth than I ever could have imagined.
I could be part of it. I could demand a seat on the train, ride it to wherever it took me, and see for myself. No wonder I was so bored with school, and the island. There was a destiny waiting for me somewhere else.
“I’ll try to forget,” If there was a destiny like that, it couldn’t have been for me. I was a nobody, and no matter where I went I’d continue to be a nobody. If I joined them then it would mean more of today. More cowering while they slew monsters. Monsters and magic is fine if you’re a hero, but I wasn’t. I was just some slacker, and that’s all I was ever going to be.