For some people, insight strikes like a bolt of lightning. Their minds constantly work and worry at a problem until a solution appears before them out of whole cloth. They might be standing in the shower one day, idly letting their thoughts wander when inspiration strikes out of the blue and they postulate a revelatory scientific theory or create an invention that shakes the world.

My mind has never worked that way. Compared to people like that, my thought processes sedately plod along. I think processively, building my ideas brick by brick, always trying to base my reasoning on the strong foundation of everything I have lived and learned. Prior to that day, it had never really bothered me. It was just how my thoughts worked. A person can’t wish their mind into working in a different way any more effectively than they can wish their way to being a professional musician. Talent is like that. Some people have it and some people don’t. Of course, even the people with talent have to work very hard to perfect and maximize their abilities, but I am starting to digress and I need to get to the point.

The problem with my painstaking reasoning is an old one – garbage in, garbage out. If I based my reasoning on bad information, then the end result would be invariably flawed. Perhaps that’s what I had been doing when I considered my affinity to light. I had been applying a scientific approach to magic, which by its very nature was not a scientific endeavor. During my meditations, I had wracked my brain for everything I had learned about light. I pondered photons and the electromagnetic spectrum. I thought about rods and cones, the photoreceptors in our eyes that allow us to see. I considered my connection to all of these concepts long and hard and I had come up empty. All of the scant progress that I had made was through brute force rather than insight. I had spent my time thinking literally, pondering the physical aspects of light. That’s how I was trained to think. But what if that empirical approach was all wrong?

Aleyda had given me a lot to consider. Was affinity more a matter of character than anything else? There were certainly hints along the way. Thinking back to the essence crystal vision of the older woman whose indomitable will would not allow her to be moved, I realized that I had been trying to learn magic incorrectly. What had she said? Something about knowing the essence of what defines you and that connection allowing that essence to manifest in the world around you? I had spent my time meditating on the frequencies of each color of the rainbow instead of thinking about what made me who I was as a person.

I think that is understandable if you consider how uncomfortable that level of self-examination can be. Here’s a fact to consider. I didn’t like myself very much. Self-loathing had become reflexive for me because I had methodically manipulated and destroyed every real relationship I ever had when I was using meth. I alienated my family and used and discarded lifelong friends. Everything, everybody was just a means to an end. That end was feeding my addiction and staying with Sara. Those were the only two things that mattered. So, I shit on people who loved and cared for me without remorse, or at least without remorse at the time. There was plenty of it now that I couldn’t go back and make amends. I was not proud of how I had acted. The easy cop out would be to blame the drugs but I didn’t see things that way. All addiction does is remove inhibition. The parts of my character that had allowed me to act like that, they were always inside of me waiting to be released.

I believed that redemption existed but only for other people. Me, I was irredeemably flawed. I knew how I acted when little things like scruples and morality got in the way of the things I truly cared about. I had the ample track record of my past as evidence of the steps that I would take to pursue my obsessions.

When Aleyda told me that I was their light in the darkness, I immediately opened my mouth to protest.

“I don’t think that’s true at all,” I said. “It’s not like I am not getting something out of the arrangement. I get friends who support me and a comfortable place to live. In a world that offers little good to people like us, I get a decent life with people I care about.”

“Then, why aren’t we back there enjoying our life or making plans to plunder that bunker out in the badlands instead of sitting on this island fighting creatures from my nightmares?” Bowen asked with a laugh.

“That’s really how you view yourself?” Aleyda interjected. “That you are doing all of this to ensure your comfort? I don’t know how you got yourself so twisted up. Actually, given what you just told us, I think I do know. Stop being a martyr. You are not the only person who has done things that he is not proud of. I am haunted by some of the things I have done. Some of those things I did willingly, and others were because I was ordered to do them. Following orders doesn’t excuse anything. I still had free will. I could still choose. Yet, you treat me well. Why won’t you see what’s so abundantly clear to the rest of us? None of us care what happened before. The past cannot be changed. It’s how you act in the future that matters. James, you are a good person. You demonstrate that every day in how you treat others, including that woman over there that we just met. Time after time you risk yourself so that others might benefit. You are not some unfeeling monster.”

“I know I have feelings,” I responded. “I know the difference between right and wrong, but in the past I have landed too often on the wrong side of the equation. How can you trust me, knowing what you do now?”

“I can’t judge you by what you did before we ever met,” Bowen said. “I can only talk about the person standing before me now. When we first met, I had two plans. The first was to cut and run if I didn’t like how things were going. Then, I started seeing this world. Really seeing it. I realized that am poorly prepared to make my way here on my own. I don’t speak the language very well and didn’t at all when we first met. You helped change that as you have many things. Although I can fight and I am one mean and vicious bastard when I have to be, I can’t fight everyone I meet. I remember what you told Helvia when she was pouting after being whipped. That she would end up dead somewhere or working in a mine or a brothel. That stuck with me because I believe it to be true. Except, given my ugly mug, I don’t think any brothel would have me. I would either be dead or be worked to death without you. My second plan was to test you for weakness and see whether I could take your money, take control. But, as I started looking for opportunities I realized something. If I were in control, none of those truths about the world would change. I would still end up dead or enslaved. I would just have a little bit more fun before it happened. Here’s the thing, and its something that’s damn hard for me to admit. I don’t do very well with needing someone. I am shit at trusting other people. And if you repeat this to anyone, I’ll make you pay. But James, I see you working every day to give me and the others hope. Hope for a real life, not free from worry because there is worry in every life. I don’t see anyone else working for our people like you do, worrying like you do. I don’t know that I would have liked you at all had we met during your bad times, but these aren’t those times.”

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

‘Yeah,” I laughed. “When I first met you, I thought you might try something like that.”

“Things would not have gone well for you if you tried to take over,” Aleyda said, addressing Bowen.

“Oh, I realized that the first time we sparred,” Bowen replied.

“But, how do I just ignore the part of me that allowed me to do those things?” I asked.

“You don’t,” Aleyda responded. “You do what people have been doing since the very beginning. You learn from your mistakes.”

They had given me so much to think about. How was it that I had fallen into this crusade? I suppose it was like so many other things in life. Presented with a choice, you take one fork in the road. Then do the same with the next choice and the one after that. Fairly soon, you are in a place you never thought you would find yourself, doing things you never thought you would do. That’s certainly what happened when I was in the throes of addiction. But it’s also how I had acted since I had come to this world. In my wildest dreams, I never thought I would find myself building a home for a ragtag group of misfits drawn from the distant corners of multiple realities. Here I was, though. But, why? What was driving me to do this stuff? Was it just because I was so afraid of going it alone? Was I trying to make amends for my past behaviors? Or did it go deeper than that? Had I somehow become a true believer in a cause that I thought was worth fighting for, maybe dying for? My two friends had given me a lot to think about.

“Well, I think we need to wrap this up,” I said. “Bethany looks like she is starting to get nervous and lose her patience.” And she was. She sat away from us, getting more fidgety and agitated by the moment, clearly not understanding what was taking us so long to hash out.

We stood and walked back over to her.

“Sorry,” I said. “That took longer than expected.”

“I was starting to get worried,” Bethany responded.

“We just had to talk through a few things, but everything is fine. Or at least as fine as we can make it. How are your feet?”

“They feel a little better, but I don’t know how far I will be able to make it before I can’t walk at all,” she said.

“I didn’t plan very well for this. I should have brought some simple footwear. We will need to see what we can improvise to protect your feet. If we are staying together, you have a choice to make. We can take you back down to our company’s compound to allow you to rest. If we do that, you will be immediately be tossed into captivity and we will be headed back out so we won’t be around to insure that you are treated decently. I think you would be treated poorly but would be safe. The other option is that you stay with us while we head deeper into the forest. You already have had a hint of what the forest has to offer, and that is potential danger around every corner. Your living conditions will be a bit more humane but far less safe. You have to decide, it’s not a decision that we are willing to make for you.”

“If I go back to the company compound, will I be abused?” she asked.

“I don’t know for certain. I have no doubt that you will be denigrated, at least verbally. That seems to be one of the favorite sports around here. I don’t know whether you will be physically hurt or sexually assaulted. Like I said, we have to go back out in the forest to find others and gather resources. We won’t be there to protect you. But you need to decide whether that risk is worse to you than ending up torn apart by some monstrous creature. We can all fight, but there are only three of us and its not impossible that we find ourselves in over our heads, facing something that we don’t have the skill to handle.”

“So, you are telling me there are no good choices,” she said ruefully.

“That’s exactly right,” I replied. “Either way, there is the potential for injury and pain. You need to pick your poison.”

She sat there for several moments, silently contemplating the stark choices I had laid before her. I could see that she was vacillating back and forth in her mind trying to work out the best solution for her. Finally, she spoke.

“If I go stay with the company and you end up dead, what happens to me?”

“I suppose you get sold at auction, hopefully to someone with better intentions than most,” I said.

“Well, then the choice you offer me is really no choice at all,” she responded. “I would rather stay with all of you. At least if I die, hopefully it will be quick. I don’t think that I can sit down in the company compound being abused, wondering day after day whether I will ever see you again, whether anything you talked about will ever come to pass. I’d be better off alone, taking my chances in the forest.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “Let’s see how we can get your feet better protected.”

I had packed my brain with all kinds of useless knowledge over the years, but the crafting of primitive footwear in a survival situation was never something I had researched. I knew that the sandal was the most common thing worn in the ancient world, but that was about it.

“Do either of you have any good ideas?” I asked Aleyda and Bowen.

“Hell no,” Bowen replied. “I bought shoes off the shelf like everyone else.”

“I think I can make something that works,” Aleyda said. Of course she could. She seemed to have a bunch of different ways to make a guy feel inadequate. Well, this guy anyway.

Aleyda got to work. First, she cut a length of cloth from the bottom of one of our blankets and gently wrapped Bethany’s feet with it. Bethany complained that it was being wrapped too tightly, but, through me, Aleyda explained that if the wrap was too loose Bethany’s feet would slip inside the wrappings causing more damage. With a twist and a tuck, Aleyda deftly secured the wrappings. Then, she ventured briefly out into the forest to see what she could find. She returned with a bunch of smaller branches, which she quickly wove together into a pair of platforms. Cutting off a small bit of our rope, she fashioned a couple of crude sandals, primitive flip flops really.

“Tell her that she won’t be able to move quickly and that these will be somewhat slick so she needs to mind her step,” Aleyda commanded. So, I did.

After donning her sandals, Bethany practiced moving around on them.

“These aren’t great, but they are quite a bit better,” she proclaimed. “My feet still hurt but at least every rock or twig that I step on isn’t digging into them. Thank her for me.” I did that as well.

Then, we packed up our camp and started heading deeper into the forest and farther up the mountain. I hadn’t lied when I had said there was danger around every corner. I hoped that we were up to the challenge.