On March 12th, I awoke in a cold sweat. I looked around to see I was in my room. “Oh, thank god.” I said, as I let out a sigh of relief, thankful I was no longer in that strange dark space. I checked my phone and saw it was now seven thirty. Knowing that my mom was probably eating breakfast downstairs, I figured she would appreciate a better explanation than the hastily written note I had left for her. I quickly changed into my favorite red top, khaki shorts, Hawaiian socks, black sandals and my cozy puffer jacket. I grabbed Hachiko and the book and headed down the stairs. I saw my mother eating some noodles with a somewhat perturbed expression on her face. Noticing me coming down the stairs she looked up at me and spoke.
“Ink, what happened? The last thing I remember was closing the shop for the night. You came in here with a dog, it turned into wood and then I woke up in my bed.”
Having practiced my response a couple times before bed I told her. “I'm not sure what you're talking about mom. When I got back home, you fell asleep on the counter, so I closed the shop and brought you upstairs to your bed, wrote you that note and gave you a glass of water.”
“Thank you for that, it was very thoughtful of you.” She looked down at her bowl for a minute and then looked back at me as I poured my milk and cereal into a bowl.
“Thank you Ink. I think I've been a bit stressed trying to get everything ready for your father. It's been so long, and I want everything to be perfect.”
“Mom, you need to relax. You said it yourself he is going to be here in a couple weeks. We have plenty of time to get things ready for him. Plus, we always keep the house so clean, the only thing we will have to do is just some last-minute touch ups.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Mom, look around, literally the only thing out of place in the kitchen is us.”
She let out a small chuckle. “Yes, I suppose you're right. I don't have much to worry about now that I really stop and think about it. What are your plans for today? More adventures with your friends?”
“Yeah, I think I'm gonna hang out with them probably around noon.”
“Before I passed out, I remember we received an order for a couple of Muskoka chairs. Could I ask you to help me cut out all the parts for them so I can assemble them?”
“Of course.” Having finished my cereal just as she finished her noodles, we got up to put our dishes away and went downstairs, ready to get to work.
We worked for about an hour and a half. My mom would sketch the parts onto the wood while I used the table saw to cut them. Once that was done, I sent a quick text to Antonio. “I’ll help you meet me at Deep Seed Park 12:30.
“Thank you Ink, you won't regret this.” After that I texted the others.
“Ok guys, we’re meeting at the Deep Seed Park at 12:30.”
“I'll be watching you at a distance in case anything goes wrong.” Brad texted “Not in a creepy way”, he quickly added.
“Same here but in a creepy way.” Alex responded.
“Jump up and down if you're in trouble,” Tulip texted.
“I'll try.” I texted before beginning to work on my golem, working this time on refining one of the heads. When my mom offered to help, I was surprised but welcomed it. I worked on getting the detail of the mane just right, while she worked on getting the curve of the horns to look just right. After two more hours we had finished the sculpture.
“So, what do you plan to do with this now that it's done?" mom asked.
“I still want to add a coat of finish. After that, I might show it to my friends to see what they think.” I explained, none of it being a lie I was genuinely interested in what they would think.
“I'm sure they will think it's cool.”
“Yeah, I hope so" I said as I checked my phone.
“Crap, it's eleven thirty, I should get going. I don't want to be late.” I explained as I started to make my way out the door.
“Have fun,” my mother called out as I left the building.
Even though it was half an hour from the meeting, I still wanted to leave a bit earlier than necessary for two reasons. First, I wanted to get a bite to eat and second, I wanted to have some time to myself to think about what the Lady of Dreams had told me. How I would have to kill Tyrone and Guams.
I made my way down the street turning a corner, so I would be in the view of one of the best sandwich artists in the world. As I walked down the road, I saw Romeo making a sandwich. He saw me through the window and raised an eyebrow at me, to which I nodded, which he responded with a big thumbs up. We have perfected this exchange a hundred times before. As I entered the store, Romeo was just finishing ringing up someone I recognized. It was Tulip. She was wearing jeans and a long sleeve shirt and had a large black backpack that seemed to be bulging with several long pointy objects and her hair tied up in a bun. “Hey Tulip.” I called out. She turned her head and her face lit up.
“Oh, hey Ink, how's it going?” Tulip said.
“Good, good, just figured I get a quick bite to eat.”
“Oh, you know her? I have never seen her here before.” Romeo questioned”
“Yeah, she's a friend.” I answered.
“Yeah, I'm not normally in this area but Ink mentioned this place a couple days ago. Since I was in the area, I figured I might as well check it out.” Tulip explained.
“Well Ink, thank you for advertising this place. It's always nice meeting a new customer,” as he finished making my sandwich and began to ring me up. I walked over and handed him a twenty dollar bill.
“No problem. I love this place.” I exclaimed. As I took my sandwich.
“Wait, you didn't even order? How did you already get a sandwich?” Tulip questioned flabbergasted.
“Oh, I'm a regular here.” I chuckled.
“How regular?”
“He's been here at least once a week for the last six years.” Romeo chimed in.
“And he's ordered the exact same thing every time?” She asked almost in disbelief.
“Thanks Romeo," A tad miffed at being called out. “And you’ve seen me do weirder stuff. Ordering the same thing for six years without change isn't the worst of them.”
She chuckled as I said this. “Yeah, I guess that's true. Hey, do you want to walk to the park together?”
“Sure, I was going to go over there anyways.”
“Great, let's go!” She said with a smile and slight blush as we walked out the door.
We walked and ate our sandwiches. While we did, I couldn't help but think about what the Lady of Dreams had told me. About how dangerous the book was. The fact that the only way to stop this, is to kill Tyrone and Guams. It was a lot to take in. I mean I know I hate them, the coward and the killer. But did I really want to kill them? Did I really have what it takes to take the life of another human being, let alone two? Was there a solution where I didn't have to kill anyone. The more I thought about it, the more her words seem like the only option, just like she said but can I even tru– “Hey Ink, you okay?” I turned my head to see Tulip looking at me with a concerned look on her face. “You look a bit stressed.”
“Not really, I--- we have lot to think about and to discuss with the others.” I answered not looking forward in the slightest about what the dream or what The Lady had told me to do.
“Did something happen last night?”
“Yeah, I had a bad dream or more like a horrifying message I guess.”
“What?”
“When I went to sleep, I was contacted in my dreams by a woman. She called herself The Lady of Dreams and she knew a lot more about magic than anyone. It turns out the book is a lot more dangerous than we first thought, like destroying-the-world, kind of dangerous.”
“What?”
“Yeah, apparently the book is responsible for every natural disaster that has ever happened. And the only way to stop it is by killing Tyrone and Guams.”
“Wait, are you sure she was telling the truth? I mean this could all be just a weird dream. Or she could've been lying. Do you have any way to know if she was telling the truth?”
I thought about it for a moment and considered everything she had told me and everything she had shown me, and I realized something. “Yeah, I have one way.”
“What is it?”
“The way she contacted me. While I was dreaming, she made me see some of my and other people's memories. Even if I wasn't around when these moments were happening, I could still see them.”
“So, if you ask a question about one of the memories you weren't around for you can tell if it was real or not?”
“Exactly.”
“Wait, what's the question going to be?”
I stayed silent for a moment debating if I wanted to tell her exactly which memories I saw. After realizing that I would have to tell everyone eventually I relented and said. “She showed me what happened when my sculpture was destroyed. I was always under the impression that both Brad and Tyrone destroyed it. If the memories are to be believed, then it was only Tyrone. So, if I ask Antonio who destroyed it and he answers it was Tyrone, that's the most concrete proof I'm we will be able to get that I’m not being screwed with.” I explained, letting out a heavy sigh.
“Even if it isn’t real, I know this isn't what you want to hear, but there is a very good chance we'll have to kill them regardless.” Tulip explained.
I sighed, knowing the truth in the words she spoke. “Yeah, I know.”
As she checked her phone. “I should probably find a good place to hide. It's getting close to the time. Where do you think you're gonna go?”
“The place where we saw it happen.” I pointed to a bench in front of the now destroyed convenience store.
“Hey Ink?”
“Yeah?”
“Please be careful. I don't know how strong he is, but I don't want anything to happen to you.” Tulip said nervously.
“Of course. Plus I got Hachiko and you guys if things go wrong.” I tried to reassure her.
“Good luck and remember we need him as an ally.” I nodded as I finished my sandwich. I headed towards the bench and sat down. I looked at my phone to see it was twelve twenty two. I received a couple texts from the others confirming they were in position but then I received a private message from Brad.
“Hey, why were you and Tulip walking together ;)?”
“We ran into each other at The Old Sliced Bread.”
“Did anything happen?”
“We got sandwiches, why?”
There were ellipses for a long while before Brad responded with a simple “nvm”
“Huh weird,” I muttered to myself. As I continued to wait, anxious for Antonios arrival.
After a couple minutes, Antonio arrived and sat next to me. We stayed silent, not making eye contact with each other. Neither one of us wanted to say something in fear of what the other would do. I was scared he would hurt me again and he was scared I would leave him, forcing him to deal with this by himself. We stayed like that for a while until he eventually spoke. “Why this place?”
“I wanted to see if you regretted what happened here." I answered still not turning to face him.
“Of course, I do, I'm not heartless.” He looked at me his face went from a look of hatred to a look of sadness before he turned back to the wreckage. “I don't know how it got to this point, I mean when we first found the book it was just a stupid treasure hunt from a map Tyrone got off Reddit. It was a desperate attempt to get us to stop drifting apart, it was never supposed to be a way for us to take over the world.” He said looking at me with regret and remorse in his eyes. “I don't know what I'm trying to say but I guess just thank you for agreeing to help me.”
“I would have helped you stop them regardless, look at what you've done after all with the power after a couple days.” I said gesturing to the wrecked parking lot. “But to know what I'm going to have to do to help you, I need you to answer one question for me.”
“Of course.” Antonio sighed with relief.
“I am asking this because it is my only way of knowing how far I'll have to go to help you. It is not because of what it cost me or what it did to me. So please I need to know, people’s lives are on the line.” I took a deep breath mustering up the courage to ask him. “Who destroyed the statue?”
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He looked at me confused and stared at me for a moment before answering. “I'm not sure. When it broke it, all happened so fast I don't really remember who did it.”
“Dammit!” I grumbled as I buried my face in my hands.
“Why? What happens now?”
“I'm gonna have to ask Brad," I sighed annoyed. “Come on,” I said standing up reaching my hand forward, “Let's go.” I said melancholy already suspecting the answer Brad was going to give me. At the very least I knew I could trust Antonio he seemed a lot more stable than yesterday a bit less chokey.
“Wait where?”
“Alex's house," I said with a cheeky smile.
“Wait, why?”
“She's been helping me take you and the others down.”
“Wow, three against two should really help out a lot." as he grabbed my hand, hoisting himself up.
“Yep, just got to send a quick text to the group chat first.” I sent a message that read, “Antonio’s good now, heading to Alexs's house.”
“Wait, so Alex was on your side before I came to ask for your help, and did you say group chat as in more than you two?”
“Yeah, I teamed up with her a couple days ago actually the same day you guys did that.” I gestured to the wrecked convenience store, “And yeah group chat, there's a couple people helping me.”
Antonio gave me a blank stare. “Why didn't you tell me when I asked for your help you jerk!”
I stopped in my tracks and turned to Antonio. “First off, when you came to my home, I assumed you were there to kill me. Because I was going off that assumption, I thought if you knew anyone else involved in this you would kill them too. And considering your reaction to the fact that I already knew you could use magic, I think not telling you was pretty fair call. Now you can either accept that or–” I was interrupted by Antonio punching me in the gut. He looked at me with black eyes, angrier than I’ve ever seen him before.
Panicking, I threw out Hachiko yelling “Crescite et confortamini, Crescite et confortamini!” Causing Hachiko to grow into the size of a large wolf. Antonio responded by creating streams of water that spiraled around his arms. As his black eyes met my blue both wondering who would make the next move, a bright red stop sign materialized in front of us. We heard footsteps quickly approaching us. We turned our heads to see Brad and Tulip running towards us, with Alex running too a little while back.
Brad got to us first and started to yell. “Look, I don’t care what happened, both of you shut up!” We looked at him shocked by his tone. “We cannot afford to fight with each other right now. If we are too busy tearing each other's heads off, we won't be able to stop the others.”
Tulip ran in from behind and looked at the both of us. “We do not need to attract a crowd, we're lucky there's no cameras in the park but you guys shouldn’t be showing off your magic," she said, annoyed.
Realizing she was right I turned to Hachiko. “Revertere ad me eqyym meum,” causing Hachiko to shrink and rocket into my hand.
“Fine,” Antonio grunted, causing the swirling water to recede back into himself. He shook his head, the black to fade from his eyes and turn back into their normal brown. “Look, Ink, I'm sorry about the punch. It's harder to control myself when the book is open.” He said grasping his head.
“Wait, you can tell when Nature's Pandemonium is open?”
“Yeah, it's hard to explain but it's just something I know.”
“Wait, Ink.” Brad spoke up. “How did you know the name of the book?”
“Have you been talking to Tyrone or Guams? I never told you the name and there's no record of it anywhere online?” Antonio asked glaring at me.
“Long story, that like Tulip pointed out, shouldn't be talked about in the open. Let’s go to Alex's place where we can discuss it in private.” I pleaded just as Alex caught up to us, panting for breath.
“You, okay?” Brad asked, I couldn't help but notice that Tulip looked completely unconcerned for her friend.
“NO, I'M NOT USED TO RUNNING. I MAKE WEIRD GADGETS AND GIZMOS NOT CARDIO!” She gasped barely getting the words out. Which we all couldn't help but laugh.
As we continued to make our way to Alex's place, I went over to Brad and asked the question. That depending on his answer would either fill me with dread or hope. “Hey Brad?”
“Yeah Ink?”
“I'm not asking this for the reason you think, but because it will determine if we need to take lives or not.”
“Ok?” His voice taking a tone of concern.
“Did my sculpture break because Tyrone elbowed it while he was talking about how he was going to be stuck in his Dad’s Auto shop for the rest of his life or was it literally anything else?” Brad looked at me with utter shock. “Please say it was anything else, I'm begging you.”
“How did you know?”
“Dammit," I mumbled.
“Wait, how did you find out? Is that why you and Antonio were fighting?”
“No, it's just more magic stuff we have to deal with now.” I explained with a mix of frustration and dread. As I sighed, my pace started to slow until I found myself next to Tulip. Where I saw something I had failed to notice when she was scolding me and Antonio. Her arms had several large silver bracelets, what looked to be four daggers attached to her calves and there seemed to be a longsword strapped to her back. She was holding an empty backpack, which I guessed was where she was storing her many accessories. “Hey Tulip, what's with all the blades?”
“Well since we're not working on the side of the law, I can’t use a gun because then they could use the shell casing to track me down. So swords just made sense, I already knew how to use a sword and throw daggers.”
“Wait, you know how to use a sword?”
“Yeah, I've been learning since I was about seven," Tulip said, a bit embarrassed, rubbing the back of her head.
“That's awesome!”
“Really because most people think that it's weird.”
“I don't think that way at all, you took time to practice a skill that you genuinely enjoy and have passion for, that's Incredible.” I enthused causing her to smile. “Plus I get it my dad trained me on how to use a bow and arrow, parents are weird, and we have to suffer because of it.” Tulip stared at me before bursting into laughter which I couldn't help but join in providing temporary alleviation to my plight.
“Hey guys, my house is like forty minutes away. Let’s just go into the alleyway.” Alex said pointing to an alleyway across the street.
“Wait, what?” I asked, confused.
“Let's go into the alleyway and we can go to my house.” Alex explained.
“Is she high?” I Antonio whisper to Brad.
“No, I don't think s---Wait a minute, your coins!” Brad exclaimed, snapping his fingers in realization.
“Finally, it's like I'm the only one who's paying attention.” She exclaimed as she started to cross the street with Brad.
“Wait, what does that mean?” Antonio asked, very confused.
“I'll explain once we go through the coin." I said, as I followed Alex and Tulip across the street.
“Ok, I guess?” Antonio said defeatedly, accepting the nonsense that was happening around him as he walked with me and Brad across the street. As we walked into the alleyway, careful no one was looking at us and we would not be in the view of any security cameras. Alex threw one of her coins into the street causing the center of the coin to disappear and the rim to stretch and bend outwards. Showing an image of a foldable table with five seats around it, Alex's garage.
As we walked through the portal and took our seats, Brad spoke up. “Ok, who should go first?
“I think Ink should talk first since he somehow knows a bunch of information, I know for a fact, Tyrone would have never told you?” Antonio said growing more and more frustrated with every word.
“No, I think you should explain some things first so we know we can trust you.” Alex fired back with an intensity and annoyance that was equal to his.
“Fine I'll go first but I want an explanation on how you knew the name of the book and anything else I should know about.” Antonio demanded clearly, getting fed up with our secrets.
“Sure, I'll explain everything after.” I promised.
“Ok, their next move is to destroy Birchville High.”
“Why school?” Alex asked, confused.
“Yeah, I mean I'm not complaining about no more tests, but I figured that they would’ve tried to rob a bank or something, not get out of doing homework.” Brad questioned equally confused.
“Yeah, plus wouldn't it draw more attention to them and narrow down any possible suspects if you guys hit the same place twice?” Tulip pointed out.
“That's why they want to destroy the school, because we are pretty sure that when we set the textbooks on fire it might've been caught on camera.” Antonio explained.
“Wait, but magic can’t be seen by cameras, so what's the point.” Alex pointed out.
“Yeah, that's true, in fact for a reason I'm the only one of the three of us that can see magic, when its on the screen. But It only started after I read the book.”
“Yeah, I only started to see the auras after I first did my blood ritual to create Hachiko. Maybe you can only see magic when you activate a magic time.” I theorized.
“I'm sorry, the BLOOD RITUAL!” Antonio questioned.
“I'll explain later but please continue.” I reassured.
“Fine, so you know how magic doesn't show up on camera, right? That's also true for whoever is using magic, they just disappear. It's weird. But when we stop using magic we reappear on camera. So, we're worried they will use the cameras to figure out we started the fire and robbed the convenience store.” Antonio explained.
“Do you know when they plan to do this?” Alex asked, almost sounding impressed. By their plan.
“Yeah, we or I guess they plan to strike next Wednesday at around eleven. They want me to hack into the security feeds.”
“You can do that?” Tulip asked almost sounding impressed.
“I don't know but if it turns out I can't, we plan to destroy every computer in the building until it's ash and dust. From there we go to every building that the data could have gotten backed up to and destroy it over March Break. Now Ink, why do you know the name of the book? I never told you that, Guams can't pronounce the word Pandemonium and Tyrone only figured out the translation yesterday. Because it was in some weird variant of Latin. So how do you know its name?”
“Would you like me to start at the dream realm or the very beginning.” I asked.
“I'm sorry, the dream realm!” Alex said dumbfounded.
“Why haven't you told any of us this?” Brad asked.
“I told Tulip, and this literally happened to me last night when I went to sleep.”
“Why did Tulip get to know before anyone else?” Alex asked, raising an eyebrow and looking at Tulip who responded by blushing and saying.
“We just ran into each other at a sandwich shop.”
“Oh” she said she seemed disappointed by the answer for some reason.
“You know just to cover all our bases; can we just start from the beginning." pleaded a thoroughly confused Antonio.
“Ok then, so here's the story from the beginning.”
I explained everything, leaving out the part were I spied on him and called the cops fearing his reaction. I explained about every magical item and their properties. Occasionally, I would have to answer a couple of Antonio's questions, but a lot less than Tulip and Alex. When I got to the dream realm, I was asked a lot of questions I couldn't really answer. Like where was this, could I access any memory I could think of, how far back and accurate were these, what's yellow magic and so on and so on. Then we got to the part I was dreading.
“The Lady of Dreams told me that to stop this for good, we will have to kill them. And if we can do that and grab the book, they can seal it away.”
“Wait, who's they?” Asked Alex.
“I'm not completely sure. I'm guessing The Lady of Dreams alongside The Guardian and The Sovereign Yellow.”
“Are you sure she meant for you to kill them?” Antonio asked concern.
“She was very clear in her instructions.”
“Wait, are we sure this was even real or if it could it just be a dream?” Brad asked nervously.
“That's why I asked who killed the statue. Because it would mean at the very least the memories, they showed me were real.”
“I don't want to kill them." Antonio interjected.
“Yeah, I mean I just wanted to stop them, knock them out, not kill them.” Brad said.
“I mean it sounds cruel and the last thing any of us want to do is kill someone, but at a certain point we're gonna run out of options.” Tulip chimed in.
“Then, let's wait till we run out of options.” Alex said.
“My contact with the Lady might mean we have run out of options.”
“No, it doesn't, the Lady of Dreams wasn't even one hundred percent sure if we could trust Antonio. Based on your explanation, it doesn't seem like she's all knowing. She might be wrong, when the fight happens, let's just knock them out, unless we absolutely have to kill them. We can just knock them out, tie them up, seal away the book and then see if they're too far gone or not.” Alex explained.
“What if they are too far gone?” I asked, unsure of her plan. “What happens if they went to the point of no return where they just become mass murders who are a threat to everyone around them.
“We don't have to kill them, we can just get the Masters of Magic to do it. We are children and they are adults. They shouldn't be having a bunch of teenagers doing their dirty work anyways.” Alex tried to reassure me in her strange snarky way.
“That's still sentencing someone to their death, just because we wouldn't be firing the gun doesn't mean we wouldn't be loading it!” I argued having heard that argument far too many times.
“Well, what if we made an agreement, to not kill unless absolutely necessary.” Alex suggested, “we can just knock them out take the book and see if that fixes things.” The others nodded their head solemnly at this idea.
“I wish it didn't have to end in violence, but I guess this is the next best thing.” I said, hating the idea of all of this, I left China to get away from senseless violence, violence that would only fuel the goals and ambitions of some authority figure, would I be betraying everything i stood for, everything I left for by doing this.
“Well now that that's figured out what should we do while we wait for Wednesday," Tulip asked.
“Train of course!” Brad exclaimed.
“How come?” Alex asked.
“Because we need to get better and faster. Plus, I doubt any of our fighting styles mesh well with our magic.” Brad explained.
“I mean, the shield stuff works well with my sword and daggers,” Tulip said.
“I don't really fight people, I just send Hachiko to do it.” I explained still feeling conflicted.
“Yeah, I don’t fight people either. I just build weird stuff. But I could hack into the security system to delete any evidence including what will happen that night.” Alex offered.
“Really?” Brad asked.
“Yeah, I recognize the security system. It's pretty easy if you know what you're doing.” Alex explained nonchantly.
“Why do you know how to do that?” I asked.
“Trust me Ink. You don't want to know.” Tulip said as she put a hand on my shoulder.
“Wait but–You don't want to know.” Tulip ominously interrupted.
“Okay?” Still very confused by Alex's statement.
After that we started to train. Alex was working on something to help her use her coins. I was working on some masks for us to use so Tyrone and Guams wouldn't recognize us. Tulip was sparring with Brad and Antonio, where she would practice creating her shields while they would try to strike her with their bare hands or Antoino shooting blasts of water. As we trained more and more, it became later and later until around five in the afternoon. I decided to head back home, so I could finish a couple of things there.
“This has been fun, but I should probably get going soon, so I can do the blood ritual on my new golem and finish carving the runes.”
“Oh yeah, what is its name?" Tulip asked.
“Oh, I've been thinking about the name Malg.”
“Why that name?” Antonio asked.
“Yeah, I don't think that's an actual name.” Brad said.
“Trust me guys it will make more sense when you guys see it.” Not wanting to ruin the surprise. I headed out of the garage to walk down the street.
It was not even a couple minutes before I heard. “Hey Ink, wait up!”
I turned my head to see Brad with Antonio following behind him. I stopped walking and waited for them to catch up. “Mind if we walk with you?” Antonio asked.
“Eh sure," I said shrugging my shoulders.
The first few minutes we stayed quiet until Brad broke the silence. “Hey Ink?” I stopped, hearing the seriousness in his voice. “We need to talk to you.”
“About what?” I asked hoping to God they weren't about to convince me to be more on board with killing.
“Both Antonio and I realized something when you were talking about the memories you saw while you were in the dream realm.”
Antonio answered with guilt in his voice. “We never apologized. We made excuses about how it was an accident, but we never apologized.”
“So, we are sorry for everything. Sorry for the opportunity we took away from you.”
“We were idiots. There's no other way of looking at it.” Brad said.
“We know we are a couple months late, but we'd feel like a couple of jerks if you died, and we never apologized.” Antonio explained.
I looked at them and even though they were only saying this to clear their own conscious and basically guilt tipping me into forgiving them I answered with no malice but a calm understanding. “I've had a lot of time to think about what happened and what I said to you guys. I don't think I'll ever be able to fully forgive you guys, however, I want to move past this and just maybe be okay again.”
Brad nodded and spoke. “It hasn't been the same without you Ink.”
“Yeah, same here. I've missed having you around, Ink.” Antonio said with a smile on his face. We laughed and joked as we walked home. I went to bed not even bothering to do the blood ritual that night. I felt something I had not experienced in a long time where for the first time in three months, I felt truly rested.