As they sat on the stones that Amity and Kaiya had helped to bring into a circle, the discussion had already begun.
“We’re gonna go in a circle, and unload whatever is wrong right now. Katie, you’re first.”
She thought. Nothing had… actually happened to her. Besides getting stuck here with her friends, nothing really worried her. So she said as such. “I can’t really think of anything… too bad. I really miss my family, but that’s not quite unique to me.”
Amity commented, “Are you sure?”
She remembered a few instances of her getting massively injured, the scar of one of which still run along her side. But it didn’t really hurt her anymore. It was an injury, but only really physically, “yes.”
The girl who sat at the head of the circle designated Raleigh to go next.
“Well, I don’t really know what…”Memories of helping the wounded mess that was Katie on their first time in a Broken Divine facility, and watching Amity plummet to what was surely her death but keeping it inside him, and even though it wasn’t it still hurt, and when Kaiya did die and he sobbed for her, and-”
“Raleigh, are you alright?”
“Shit- yeah, sorry. I’m trying to… trying to formulate my words. I still, I remember when Katie got slammed into the wall when we were in that first facility, and the blood on her shirt and mine, and the floor. And the fact she had to stand after getting nearly ripped in half.”
A tear started to roll down his face. “And you guys all keep dying, Amity nearly did, and Kaiya, you DIED. I’m sorry, this is selfish, but I’m not over that.”
“Sorry…” escaped Kaiya’s mouth, herself curling away from the interaction.
“We… I’m not sure how to help. Sorry for putting you through that. I know I could’ve stayed somehow and not had to have you deal with her, and I could’ve been more careful. Maybe if I was there when Kaiya died, she wouldn’t have had to.”
There was an awkward silence, before Kaiya started speaking.
“I didn’t… mean to die. That’s really fucked up, but I didn’t mean to die in that facility, man.”
“Not blaming you, I-”
“It’s alright.”
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“Kaiya, would you like to say anything?”
She pondered, like the two before her.
“I… already said everything I need to before. My only real struggle, is that I died. It shouldn’t really hurt anymore, though, because I’m alive!”
A weak smile scrawled itself across her face, and she tried to keep it up, but couldn’t for too long. The reason wasn’t quite her emotional state, though, but rather the shock of what she felt tap her shoulder.
The rough skin that reached through the rip in the fabric covering her shoulder didn’t make it immediately obvious who it was, but when everyone got a look of recognition on their face, it was clear as day.
“Hello, Cornet.”
Kaiya couldn’t recall where the name was from earlier, along the stairway that brought her back to the planet, but she knew now.
“Hello, young girl. I’ve gotten word of the success you’ve had in ridding us of that Winter girl… Might I say, a clean job! You left no traces, beyond the ice you used to get into her cell in the first place. Mighty fine.”Everyone tried to hide their grimace towards him.
“As promised, here is your reward, a brand new active medium.” The shard of black rock he handed towards Amity felt heavier and a lot colder than any other medium she’d had.
“What does this one do..?”
“Well, you’ll have to see yourself. I really must be going now, au revoir!”
The man simply vanished, leaving yet another pile of sand in his place, although hard to notice with the fact it was left the vast desert. Everyone looked at each-other, nervously.
“This… can’t be good.” The girl with the rock in her hand glanced around again.
“No shit. We should finish what we were doing before this, then we can figure it out.” Raleigh sighed.
Himiko went next.
“Well, I haven’t gone through much… I’ve felt kinda guilty about all this,” she gestured at all of her friends, “and it’s been so long since we came here. I’m the one who made the portal.”
“Himiko, we’ve been over this, this isn’t your fault. We went in fully recklessly, and should’ve been a lot more careful.” Amity put her hand on her shoulder.
“I get that consciously, but its hard to like, internalize.”
“Y’know what, I get it. Have we gone over everyone?”
Amity pointed at each person and made sure they got to speak, before standing up.
“Alright, let me see the rock. I know how to figure out what it does.”
The nearly entirely black rock was placed in her hand, and she grabbed a piece of loose-leaf from her pocket. Water formed in the air, the red rock being held with her neck like a phone, and a bit of the blue rock chipped into it along with the black. The water reduced until it was a sludge. Since Amity was getting a lot better with her magic, the sludge was still able to remain airborne under her passive control. She traced the circle, and the same blinding light that had been brought forth weeks prior spun around the circle. This time, she didn’t have a way to record it, but something else was different too. This time, the light left a bare trail across the paper, just enough to draw with the remainder of the sludge.
She did just that, and managed to finish it somewhat quickly, handing it off to Katie to tap.
“I can’t activate this because I already have magic - you’ll need to do it. Unless Raleigh wants to?”
“Nah, she can do it.”
Katie simply shrugged, acknowledging her duty. She placed it on the sand in-front of her, tapping the very center of the shockingly simple design, before darting away. Everyone else was already at a reasonable distance, so they just stared as the paper lifted itself from the ground, forming a sickly aurora of light, the surroundings seeming to darken around them as the bright, disorienting beacon focused their attention. The spare squirrel or two in the far distance glared at it, entrancing themselves in its magnificence.
A writhing mass seemed to form from it, crawling its way up from the paper, snapping its oozing limbs into the air, but bringing them into shape.
A familiar one, too.
It was a door frame.