He looked out over the river and felt the fatigue, hunger and humiliation set in. He’d been so sure. The key was there somewhere, he just had to find it. This wasn’t like him. Ever since he’d stepped through that tornado he’d gone from failure to failure.

  He grabbed a rock and chucked it as hard as he could into the river. It made a splash and disappeared beneath the surface but his anger remained. If he was completely honest with himself, the failures had started even before the tornado. Or even before Finn disappeared. He should never have blamed Finn in the way he did. It wasn’t like Finn didn’t love their parents just as much as Isaac did.

  Something breached the surface of the water while Isaac watched it, brooding. Isaac jolted out of his misery. For a wild second he considered whether something was trying to throw the stone back up at him from the bottom of the river. Then another fish broached and dived back in.

  “Fish!”

  Isaac stood up. His stomach growled. Still he hesitated. Ah, what the hell, what did it matter, he was already soaked completely through anyways. Once again, having found something to focus his uneasy energy on, Isaac waded out into the river, set on catching a fish as if it were the last thing he would ever do.

  He waded out until he stood with the icy water to well over his knees. Then he peered down into the water until it cleared and watched in amazement as dark outlines fluttered by his legs and down the stream. So many! Isaac’s stomach rumbled once more. He bunched his coat up his arms and the fish scattered from the motion.

  He calmed himself and relaxed every muscle in his body as best he could. He stood poised to strike, hand held just above the surface with his fingers spread, ready to grasp and hold on for dear life. He waited for the perfect moment. One of them would slow down, maybe inspect his leg. That’s when he would strike.

  Something glittered beneath the surface. Probably fish scales reflecting the sun. His brow furrowed. But there were no dark outline of a fish around the sparkling light, and what sun?

  He gasped. The dots connecting faster than his brain could keep up. He dove for the light. The water splashed him in the face but he didn’t dare close his eyes. He felt something cold, long and thin among the sediment in his fist. He straightened up.

  He marveled at the sight in his palm. He held a silver key, sparkling and glittering as if a ghostly light he couldn’t see illuminated it. Immeasurable joy bubbled up inside him.

  “Yes!”

  He startled himself with his own outburst and he looked around him with weary eyes. Nothing moved.

  A whisper sounded from far away. Isaac froze, listening with all his might. Had someone heard him? The whisper grew louder. It came from every direction at once. Isaac recognized the voice. It was the young kid again.

  Without him meaning to, and even with his eyes open and standing upright in ice cold water, he slipped into the void.

  “Find the tower. Find the tower where it all began.”

  The voice boomed inside his head like a gong the size of a car. It was impossible to block out. His vision darkened, the sensation of the water and rain faded and instead was replaced with a sea of sound.

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  “Find the tower. Find the tower where it all began.”

  “I know! I know, please, I’ll find the tower just please stop,” he tried begging to the voice, if only he could just make it stop.

  The voice stopped.

  Isaac could feel himself blink, even though he saw nothing but darkness.

  “Eh, hello?” he tried.

  “Find the tower. Find the tower where it all began.”

  “Alright! Alright! I get it!”

  The voice fell silent. The contrast between the ear shattering booming and complete silence made Isaac uneasy. He dreaded engaging the voice again but it was clearly responding to him now and he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to learn more.

  “Who are you?”

  Nothing.

  “Why do I need to find this tower?”

  Still nothing.

  “Look, at least tell me whe—”

  The voice broke him off out of nowhere and it intoned out almost like a recitation.

  “Find the tower where the storms never go. Find the tower where the golden keys gather. Find the tower where the brother is lost. Find the tower where the survivor is resting. Find the tower.”

  The void cast him out and reality rushed back and Isaac stumbled from sudden vertigo. He gripped hard on the key in his hand as if it were a lifeline. He steadied himself but whirled around like he could spot the little kid somewhere in the river.

  “What do you mean ‘brother is lost’?”

  Not even bothering to go back to the shore he plopped himself into a sitting position right there in the water. He closed his eyes and chased the void.

  “Hey, I’m not done talking to you. What did you mean ‘brother’? Do you know where Finn is?”

  No answer. He shouted at the voice, attempting numerous angles of attack and approaches. But no matter how much he whined, antagonized or accused the voice of his key, it didn’t speak again.

  A deep cold in his body made him jump back out of the void and stand up. He shivered so hard water droplets flew off him for each shake. He brought the key up to his face and inspected it. It was made of silver and the emblem on it looked like a rock of some kind. The key had teeth on both sides of the shaft and they covered almost the entire length of it, right up to the handle.

  A diagonal line of empty space cut over the teeth from one side to the other across the center of the shaft. The line separated the teeth into two sections, one upper and one lower. It made Isaac think of duality, separation or something similar. Besides that, no other clues could be discerned from the appearance of the key.

  Isaac closed his hand and focused. Perhaps activating the key would make the voice more talkative. If the voice wouldn’t come to him, he would go to it.

  An extreme sense of vertigo hit him. It felt like his senses split in two, as if he occupied two points in space at the same time. His hand split open as the key itself grew in his hand. The curious sensation of splitting in half ceased and he opened his eyes. Something large and rocky bulged out of his palm, it didn’t look anything like a silver key anymore.

  It looked like a boiling rock. Bubbles of gray sludge bubbled along its surface and the air smelled of sulfur. Then the rock ballooned in size and a face formed on it, blinking back at him. Isaac screamed and threw the rock-like creature up in the air, trying to get it away from him. The awkward throw made him lose his balance and he toppled over backwards, watching the water splash up on either side of him and plunge back in on top of him as he sank to the bottom of the river.

  The rock-thing fell heavy on his chest as it came back down after him. Isaac swallowed water as the little air he had bubbled out of his mouth from the pressure. In full panic he struggled to slide the rock off him. It bulged out, at least larger than his head, still growing. His broken hand refused to grip anything and what little strength he had left couldn’t budge the stone. He lay trapped, two feet below the surface.