Chapter 15: Lying

Upon his return the next day, the old man checked the net. Within it, he found a much larger catch of fish than the day before. This made the old man whistle in appreciation as he showed off the catch to the youth. But the youth seemed bored and disinterested, choosing to draw lines in the dirt with a stick instead of examining the catch.

Last time, the youth was excited and involved with everything. Now, his face was sour with a flat, emotionless look, like a piece of limestone. Which left the old man stuck between a stone and a hard place emotionally. He tried his hardest to put two and two together to make a spark of interest in the youth, without crushing himself in the process.

Finally, the old man resorted to one of the best ways to make the boring seem interesting, lying. He brought the kid over and made him sit on his lap while lying non-stop. His face was stony as he forced himself to look serious after each lie. Fooling himself more in the process than the kid.

First, came lies about the rock. The rock changed from a simple net anchor stone into a good luck charm sent by the gods. Evident in its perfect smoothness and how the kid took notice of it last time. The rock wasn't sure how to respond to these compliments, choosing to simply let things run their course like the river rather than interrupt.

Second, came an explanation for the net. How the net provides food for their family and how it's seemingly alive. Responding to their desires for fish happily like a kind neighbor or relative. Making the net seem more like family than the death trap for fish it really is.

The lies worked, eroding the youth's mind slowly like a midsummer rain. Soon he was rubbing the rock and playing with the net like toys. Meanwhile, the old man looked satisfied with the outcome, the stony look on his face broke away, replaced with a jagged, rough smile.

The rock, on the other lack of hand, was tortured by the feeling of pride after being complimented for doing something against its will-or lack thereof. Or at least it would have been, if it wasn't just a rock.

Chapter 16: Back to the Present Past

The story about the rock’s past was interrupted by an action in the present, or, at least, a few seconds after the present. The story has been told in the past tense after all, and these events can only be told to other after they’ve happened. The narrator didn’t gain psychic powers in return for narrating this boring story.

Back to the rock, it had been sitting right where we had left it, lying next to an easel on the shore of the river. It was comforted by the presence of a few nearby harem members—err, pebbles and stones. Everything was peaceful after the confrontation with the painter, too quiet. It was just pitifully boring, which was why we were doing a flashback arc. But something interesting happened, so the flashback arc became unnecessary.

A group of armed men crossed the bridge from the other side of the river and headed towards the riverbank. There was about twenty of them, the only thing noteworthy about them was that they had weapons. They didn’t seem to be military as their clothes were mismatched and dirty. Plus, they lacked discipline. Three of them started gathering water with some bottles and buckets, two of them started examining the abandoned easel, while the rest wandered out of site.

The two men by the easel were right next to the rock; one of them even almost stepped on the rock. They should watch where they put their feet, lest the rock chooses to strike back like with the painter. The rock could… made them trip or stumble since it’s bigger than the other stones and pebbles that they have been standing on.

If it was a human, the rock would be tortured by the sight of his harem being stepped on and begging to be stepped on instead. Both to share and alleviate the pain of the others, and to give himself the chance for revenge. Nothing like that happened, as it’s just a rock, but one of the men did notice the rock.

Chapter 17: Lucky Rock

The man kneeled down on one leg and picked up the rock while moving it around in his hand. After wiping off some dirt from the bottom, he got back up and rubbed his hand over its curve. The other man jeered at him, most others would as well; wiping off the dirt was kind but the rubbing was just blatant sexual harassment.

The man holding the rock told off the other guy and explained that he came from an area where smooth rocks of this size—apple sized—were considered to be good luck. It didn’t stop the other guy from poking fun, so he walked towards the direction where the rest of the men left to. Just over a hill was a rudimentary camp composed of a recently chopped down tree, a fire, and a pile of sleeping bags. The other men were doing all sorts of chores around this camp and the two men soon joined in, the rock was placed next to the felled tree.

The fire was in somewhat of a pit with some gray ash underneath, so the men weren’t the first to camp there. Perhaps the reckless, stone-throwing man made camp here in the past. There were two stones resting by the fire, they were somewhat rough and covered in scratches. Those must’ve been the stones that the stone-thrower wanted to gather, what a cruel fate they had met. There was an imprint on the ground resembling the shape of the stones a little bit away; hinting at the fact that they’ve been moved, used, and abused recently. These men, seeing such victims, ruthlessly used them the way others did before instead of helping them, they cannot be good people.

Later that night, these ruthless men gathered and sat on the felled trees around the fire while eating some sort of broth or soup. They laughed and chatted about the day and recent events, minor things that we don’t care about. The rock sat beside one of these logs, the felled tree had been processed into the logs. Destroying nature just to have a place to place their butts, how crude. The only one of them with any sense was the one who found the rock to be lucky, but even he partook in the men’s debaucherous celebration, seeming to forget about the rock.

Chapter 18: Blunt Revenge

It was another man, the one that jeered at the sensible man, who remembered the rock first. Picking it up and showing it off to the other men in the camp. The sensible man turned as red as an iron deposit when he realized that this man brought the rock out simply to make fun of him. The other men seemed confused as they were unable to see the rock’s true glory. They asked him about what was special about the rock, how sad that they even needed to ask.

The jeering man called the rock a “lucky charm” then tossed it to another one of the men. Let’s call him the other man and call that guy who found the rock to be lucky, the lucky man. The other man caught the rock and took a look at the rock then passed over to another man who was missing an arm. They just kept passing the rock along, losing interest in each pass; wondering why the jeering man even brought it out. The jeering man looked over to the lucky man with a smile that built upwards like a stalactite. The lucky man, on the other hand, was feeling not so lucky and was silently fuming like a pent-up volcano.

The rock on the other found its way into the hands of the oldest person in this group of men. He examined the rock closely and stated that it was a normal rock, without a trace of emotion in his voice. The rock wasn’t amused by being called "normal," and mimicked the old man’s emotionlessness. The jeering man immediately attached himself to the old man like a piece magnetite to a nail. But this nail was the one in his coffin.

The old man demanded to know what this situation was, so the jeering man explained the situation about the lucky man finding the rock to be lucky. So the old man bashed the jeering man in the face with the rock and told him to go clean the blood off the rock and return it to the lucky man. Then the old man stood up and made a boring speech about needing all the luck and bla bla bla.

Back to the rock, it was covered with blood from the jeering man’s broken nose. Not sure if it was a good thing that the rock got revenge against the jeering man’s disrespect or a bad thing that it was used barbarically as a blunt weapon. The rock was not damaged by the impact, so it's counted as a win. Take the old man out of the picture and it would have been a moving fight between the living and nonliving.

Chapter 19: Changing One’s Opinion

As per the old man’s orders, the no-longer-jeering man picked up the rock and headed towards the river. It was pitch dark out with only flickers of light travelling over the hill. The night was chilly and the air seemed to cut into the man’s skin like the invisible phantoms of his disappointed ancestors scolding him. The rock was even colder to the touch and was damp from resting on the dirt for awhile.

The jeering man kept sniffing, trying to stop his nosebleed caused by the rock introducing itself to his nose. After being hit by the rock, he should feel lucky that he got away with mineral injuries. If the rock was a human, it'd probably hit the man until his face became abstract due to his rude treatment. Anyone who tossed around the rock and then makes fun of its believers must be insane, he might’ve hurt the rock by it hitting someone after being tossed.

Luckily the rock was unscathed and retained its smooth texture. Next time it meets a human, it might not be as lucky.

When the jeering man reached the riverside, he set the rock down on the shore and rubbed his hands for warmth. The rock had been returned to its people, the pebbles and stones. The not-so-jeering man should just go back to the camp and leave the rock there. But it was not to be so, as the man picked up the rock and stood up. He readied the rock at his shoulder and seemed ready to throw the rock into the river.

Seriously, what's with the obsession that humans have had for throwing things. It might have been a good thing if he had thrown the rock into the river. The rock would be able to retain its smooth texture and become more well-rounded, ironically losing weight in the process rather than gaining; like a woman gaining fat in all the right places. Also, the rock would be able to avoid these barbaric albeit interesting humans. On the other hand, the rock would be separated from the stones and pebbles. Plus, the story about the past would be resumed as there'd be nothing better to be narrated.

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Alas, the not-so-jeering man became the gutless man. As he lowered his throwing stance, bent down, and obediently washed the rock. His hands either shook from rage or the coldness as a result of his hands being wet. To sate his rage, the gutless man took it out on another nearby inanimate object, the painter’s easel. He punched a hole through the canvas then kicked each of the legs holding up the easel in half.

Once he returned to the camp, he seemed to feel much better from the fire’s warmth and destroying an innocent easel. The old man passed a handkerchief to the gutless man. Which the gutless man raised to his face, earning him a scolding until he used it to dry off the rock and returned it to the lucky man. This old man was better than most humans, truly a great role model.

Or not, since the old man had just tossed a pebble into the fire and laughed as it exploded from the heat.

Chapter 20: Sensitivity

The rock was surrounded by darkness. In the morning, the group of bad-natured men had packed up camp and left. The rock had naturally been considered luggage rather than a companion and was shoved carelessly into a pouch. A drawstring prevented most light from flowing into the pouch, making it so if the rock had eyes, it would be unable to see much.

The only thing visible from inside the pouch, was the pouch itself. A brownish color stained with a few dark spots. Brown, brown, brown everywhere one could look.

As for the sense of smell, there was a distinct smell of sweaty humans who haven’t washed in awhile. In fact, the gutless man was probably the cleanest out of the bunch due to him cleaning the bloodstains off of the rock the previous day. The rock’s lack of smell is not a handicap in this situation, instead, it’s something to be envied.

Touch. The pouch was made of leather, so it was rough. Leather was used more out of convenience and durability over comfort. If the rock was human, it’d complain about the inside of the pouch chafing against its body. But the rock was… well, a rock. So given enough time, rather than the leather wearing down the rock, the rock would smooth out the rough parts. The reason why this chafing issue even existed was because the owner of the pouch, presumably the lucky man, was constantly moving, making the pouch shake frequently. Perhaps a human in this situation would get motion sickness.

Taste was skipped because reasons.

Finally, there was hearing. Which gave the most information out of all the senses. It was mostly boring conversations between the men and the occasional interesting snippet. They seemed to mention stuff about banditry and a nearby target. The rock’s intuition, the narrator, was correct about them seeming like bad people. They were bandits all along, undeserving of the rock’s presence. But there was nothing the rock could do except wait in the pouch and hope a chance crystallizes before him to escape or defeat these bandits.

Of course, the rock wasn’t always in the pouch. Sometimes the lucky bandit would take the rock out of his pouch during breaks in the bandit group’s journey. He would often rub the rock while mumbling incomprehensible things. If the rock was a human, it would be scared for the bandit’s mental health and angry about being felt up and imprisoned all the time. Nothing more to be said about the situation, so there’s a chance that the background story will be resumed.

Chapter 21:

Since nothing noteworthy happened in the pouch and around the bandit group, the backstory last mentioned six chapters ago has been resumed. The rock was kept as an anchor to keep a fishing net in a river up. While the humans that maintained the net lied to themselves and others to keep themselves going.

Situations like that became common as the old man continued to solidify his lies every time he came along with the youth. The youth grew excited at every tiny thing, from pebbles to grass, even if he had already examined them before. Though as a result, the rock was treated much better as the youth kept interested in it. The rock became an anchor for both the net and the youth’s interest in its surroundings.

Years passed like this, the youth became a young man while the rock found some moss growing upon it. The old man liked to joke about how both the young man and rock were starting to grow a beard. That would make for a good comparison, except beards don’t slowly eat away at you like a parasite. Though the rock managed to look quite slick with the river splashing tiny beads of water onto it and the moss every so often.

Also, down the river a bit, there was a few men that came along every so often; they never came at the same time as the young man or old man, though. Three to five men would come along and act suspiciously along the shoreline. But they were obviously good men as they simply lined this stick up against and never disrespected their surroundings. Unlike the ones we see later, they would pick up stones but set them down gently after examining them.

Looking back, they were probably the ones who built the bridge and road; which lead to all these humans appearing around the rock later on. Though there was no way to say for sure as the rock was in no shape to view them as moss spread over it and deformed it somewhat. Relief only came when the young man came along and threw the rock into the river and destroyed the net.

There was no rhyme or reason to this sudden change in the young man’s attitude nor the rock’s altitude. One day, the young man was happily enraptured with the rock and everything around him alongside the old man. The next day, he shows up without the old man and the whole situation is ruptured as the young man destroys everything.

This left the rock at the bottom of the river; since it was summer at the time, the water didn't sweep it downstream like before. Things became peaceful for awhile. It was boring but no humans came along to disrespect the rock. The only visitors the rock had was the fishes. I guess you could say the rock was sleeping with the fishes. Terrible jokes aside, the backstory has almost come to a close and the ending should only take an hour to appear. Fourth wall breaks aside, the rock cannot sleep as it is just a rock.

Chapter 22: Anticlimax

Being at the bottom of the river had some perks for the rock. The annoyances that had been eating away at him disappeared; the young and old man weren't around and the moss sorta died and got scraped off by the water. Plus, the net that had trapped him then was anchored by him was torn to shreds. All his worries and stress- or lack thereof- seemed to just wash away.

Its appearance changed as well; the rough features that had eroded his beauty during his time on the surface was eroded away in the water. Erosion truly is a force that can bring both great Beauty and ruin. The rock slimmed down like a supermodel before rounding out like he won second place in a beauty pageant.

Normally I would have skipped over these kinds of events; but the rock had undergone a great change. It went through a transition where it could be mistaken for either a boulder or a rock, to becoming something only describable as a rock. It became the rock we have known and kept reading about for some odd reason. Anyone who has endured this far must be quite unusual as not even the author could tolerate reading about a rock this much, even if it was the rock.

The end of this backstory arc was quite anticlimactic. After years at the bottom of the river, some old pervert dived into the water and grabbed the rock. Then this pervert brought the rock out of the water, pet the rock as if it was alive, then sat it down on a patch of dirt at the top of a hill. The old man simply left after that and a few days later a patch of grass sprouted around and beneath the rock.

Which loops back to the beginning of the story. There was basically nothing else to talk about in the past that's interesting; this we must go back to narrating about the present—or a few seconds after the present happens.

Chapter 23: Rising Tensions

Luckily, things started to become interesting with the group of bandits. Their journey to a “target village,” heard in a few tidbits of conversion, has finally ended. The group made camp an hour walk away from the village; they wanted to avoid detection while gaining some rest before the fight.

But this seemed to make things worse as everyone got tense. They all moved about like they had stones in their pockets, somewhat literally when it came to the lucky man. The rock was not confined to the pocket pouch at that time though; the lucky man needed all the luck he could get. It was still daylight out so the bandits had a hard time going to sleep.

Around this time, a shrill cry resounded throughout the area. Most of the bandits flinched at the sound and drew their weapons except for the leader of them and the lucky man. The lucky man froze up and gripped the rock tightly with both hands. It was as if he wanted to squeeze all the luck out of the rock. Then the grip loosened almost to the point of dropping the rock. For a man who believes the rock is a good luck charm, he isn't doing a very good job of taking care of it.

Once again a screech echoed around the area from above. There was a bird circling around the camp. It was hard to tell its size at this distance but it was brown and loud. It was some sort of bird of prey, like a falcon or eagle. Whatever it was, it unnerved the group of bandits.

The leader of the bandits did not share the shock and confusion of his subordinates. Instead, he pulled a bow and arrow out of some luggage and shot at the bird. But none of the arrows found their target as the bird flew away in the direction of the village.

This left the bandits even more tense than before. They couldn't tell if that bird was a tamed scout used by their enemies or just a wild, aggressive, and very territorial animal. Either way, the bandits weren't going to get any rest that night. Especially the lucky man, as he had lived up to his nickname; a stray arrow from the leader’s bow almost killed him, cutting his cheek and landing on the ground behind him.

Things were getting interesting with the bandits. A conflict was bound to occur eventually and every second increased the tension. Even the tiniest stimulation could make things explode like it was raining on top of a rocky hillside; any second action could come down like a rockfall or even worse, a mudslide.

Chapter 24: Back into the Pouch

Just when things were getting interesting with the bird and the tension, the lucky man put the rock back into the pouch. This situation was worse than going mining and finding a vein of fool’s gold. From then on, the narrator was forced to stipulate about the events from hearing alone; which would be okay if the lucky man stopped hyperventilating.

Trapped within the pouch, the rock’s only venue of confirming the outside world’s existence was sound. Insects were buzzing and chirping alongside the slapping noises of humans trying to kill them. Birds would fly overhead, singing with all their might, including the bird of prey from before. In response, there were the “twang” and “thump” noises of a bow being fired and objects being thrown; once again, the sounds of nature and humanity’s attempts to destroy it.

Eventually, the sounds stopped: The birds stopped flying overhead and the bird of prey stopped taunting the bandits; the insects seemed to lose interest and move elsewhere. This left behind the sounds of breathing; the bandits and then some.

A desperate struggle ensued with no way of the rock witnessing it. The pouch shook around as the lucky man began to move. One would expect a battle to make a lot of noise; but there was only the sound of metal hitting metal and heavy, desperate breathing.

Other than that, things were fairly boring and repetitive. If the rock was alive, it'd be disappointed that it couldn't watch the battle. Instead, it's the readers and narrator disappointed while the author is laughing in a sadistic manner. But it's just a rock, so this entire battle is almost irrelevant to it. Humans talk about fighting making them more steeled; for the rock, the blood from the battle might increase his iron content but he'd need a lot of heat to become a metal.

The lucky man, towards the end of the battle, even threw the rock away somewhere. I expected better from the lucky man. In any case,it's impossible to tell who won the battle. The rock was left on the ground, within a pouch. It might take years for the rock to escape this prison. The next few chapters might become reliant on auditory descriptions. Or maybe not, as the pouch was lifted up by someone or something.

Chapter 25: [title never chosen]

Voices of a group of men surrounded the pouch; they were unfamiliar so either the bandits got killed off or my memory is as fragile as glass. Their talks seemed to consist of whether or not the pouch contained something valuable, as one of their enemies—the lucky man most likely—desperately threw the rock away. It seems that this new group of men was much wiser than the previous. Then light began to leak into the pouched as it was opened. They should have feasted their eyes upon the sun hitting the rock then praised it.

Instead, they dropped the pouch after seeing the rock. How impelite and rudite of them. It’s understandable that finding the rock was too much for them to handle, but that doesn’t justify