Morning had come and everyone had stepped inside of me. They all asked me what went down last night. After telling them during our morning coffee, they all went to work in their rooms. Captain remained in the command center. Eris had put down the fridge that Lory told her she should use. It is black with white stripes, that thing is ugly as hell.
Funk seemed to be preparing to go home. I had not told him yet. Lory barely slept last night. Our daughter is going on her own adventure, to save the family we lost. As for my other personalities, It feels good that everyone is inside of me again. It made me happy, knowing they are on standby while working on their projects. If I need input, or their power, all of them would be ready to help me.
When I crawled out of the tent, I saw Melin looking around, she immediately came over towards me, “Where is your daughter?”
I scratched the back of my head, “Look, Melin, there is something I need to tell you.”
She came very close, “I don’t care what form you are in Steve, where is Haley?”
Funk walked over, “What is going on?”
I held up my hand, then I noticed, Rose has fairly small hands. “Lory will be here soon.” The next five minutes were silent, and the tension could be cut with a knife.
Lory walked over and immediately noticed, “Well, the tension is building up.”
Melin crossed her arms, “Haley?”
I grabbed a letter out of my inventory. “She asked me to give this to you.”
Melin grasped it out of my hand. She opened it, “I am going to read it out loud, I have some common decency.”
I nodded, “That is your right.”
Melin cleared her throat, “Dear Melin, I am sorry for leaving like this, I had to forge my own path. Do not think I leave with a clear mind, my heart is heavy. I have left to track down Valentine and Riley. Do not worry about me, I have Bella and Abby with me. Together, we have traveled to the underworld, I believe this is your home. I have no idea what is going to await me down there, but I am expecting to return to the land of the living, once I have reached Purgatory and found my friends.”
Funk barely reacted, as if he had expected it, we shared a look before Melin went on with reading the letter.
“Do not get me wrong, I would rather not leave you. But despite my short time with Shirley, she is still on my mind. I don’t want you to be my rebound, I like you too much for that. I also don’t want you to be with me because you are feeling lonely. Whatever you do, you are on my mind. There is no easy way of contacting you, I am hoping Lisa’s form is going to help me down there. I hope to see you soon Melin, I have no clue what I am supposed to write at the end, greetings from Haley? I am not sure, for now, goodbye Melin.”
Melin looked at me, “You let her go?”
“Yes, I had too.”
Melin smiled at me and hugged me. “You are a good dad, but I am going to chase her. Charon will be ferrying them.” She made a portal and left through it.
Funk looked at me, “And then, there were only three of us left. Are we alright, Steve?”
“Yeah, we are fine, I am guessing the three of us need to go to the shadow world, while Haley is in the underworld.”
Lory sighed and nodded, “We should go back to Brickton,” she took my hand. “You have small hands, Steve.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
Funk sighed, “We should head back to Brickton and tell people what happened here.”
We started walking, and I heard Eris in my mind, “You have many doubts about Haley leaving, it is alright, she will be fine.”
It did not take long for us to get back to Brickton. Talia and Paul were waiting for us. Talia looked around, “where is Haley, and the others?”
I sighed, “Plenty of things happened. Paul, please prepare to open up a portal to the shadow world, Bella told me before she left, you would be able to do that.”
Paul nodded, he looked at me, “This womanly form is better.” Then he walked away.
Lory looked at me, “How did you even do that with getting a bra on when you were gone?”
I chuckled, “What do you think? I was free in the nature, no bra needed. But, this morning, I put it on myself. Within an hour.”
Talia let out a small smile, “That is a tiny victory for mankind.”
Funk walked closer, “Allow me to explain what happened, these two might need some private time.”
“Thanks, Funk,” Lory and I went to our home to pack some items.
When we got home, I sat down, “It feels good to be here, but I am sad Haley is not here.”
Lory let out a wry smile, “The last week has been lonely for me. And now, Haley left, but this time it is different. She will be waiting for us. The shadow world will be another journey for us. There will only be three of us this time around, and I don’t think there will be many people there.” Lory grabbed some items and looked at me. “I am not looking forward to this journey but knowing that Haley is waiting for us at the end, that is making me more motivated.”
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
I nodded while deep in thought, this devil inside me, if Captain is this strong, and he still needed help from everyone to lock him up, then how strong is this Micheal person? What would Lory think? “Hey, Lory?”
“Yes?”
“Do you remember when we talked about this Micheal person?”
Lory suddenly perked up and gave me full attention, “Yes, I do, why do you bring it up?”
I wondered, “If he were to show up, what would you do?”
Lory tilted her head and remained silent for a moment, “I think we can talk to him, he will probably not be as bad as people say.”
Just by looking at her face, I could see it, she does not fear Micheal like I do, she thinks it would be lovely to chat him up, I shook my head, “Never mind about that.”
She smiled, “If you ever learn about where he is, please let me know.”
I ignored that comment and decided to move on to another subject, “Talia will probably explain to us what we need to do in the shadow world. My personalities are all in working order, and with you Lory, I can do anything!”
She came over and kissed me with conviction, “I think I am ready, and I mean it, oh, and if you learn more about Micheal I need, no I want to know.”
I continued ignoring her about the Micheal part, it is clear she is hiding something, and I am not in the mood to probe for information. “Yes, me too, I am unsure where Paul is expecting us, but I am guessing the shack would be a good place to start looking for him.”
Lory nodded and opened the door, “We should hope he has everything ready by now.”
I followed her, and she took my hand, we walked over to the shack where Paul and Funk were waiting. Some kind of circle had been drawn around the shack that seemed to almost explode. Paul smiled, “Are you ready? Once I break this circle, this thing is going to suck you up like a black hole. There are seven gems inside this shadow world. Bella told me they have been broken.”
“Great, what do we with these gems?”
He handed me some kind of tube with salve. “Just put this on the gems, it will fix them.” He handed me a necklace, “This is a one-time use necklace to escape. If you use it to escape, it will break. Bella is not sure if you can muster enough strength to escape through your portal.”
I nodded, “It seems simple, get in there, fix the gems, escape.”
Paul chuckled, “There are many dangers that Bella wanted to tell you about. Things you need to look out for. She was very adamant about warning you about things, but she was not specific on what kind of things.”
Funk chuckled, “Well, things sounds very dangerous. Steve is right, we get in there, kick some ass and fix those gems.”
Paul nodded, “The stirring shadow world is also what is making the void element go wild. Closing the shadow world, will slow down the void enough, then you need to have a final confrontation with what whatever is stirring up the void. Bella was very vague about this thing.”
Paul handed me a map, it was much bigger than I had expected. He started pointing. “One of the gems is in Sector 07. The second gem is in Poluma. The third gem can be found in Boluga. The fourth gem is on Stratos Isle, Bella tells me it should be on the ground in the shadow world, if not, you are resourceful. The fifth gem should be in the void city, where we were in the void library. Then the sixth one is in Goldia. Once all of those gems have been fixed, the seventh one in Brickton should become visible. This is also where you will start your quest.”
All I could say was, “Goddammit.”
Paul grinned, “This means you need to travel quite a lot. There are roads to travel, deserts to traverse, and volcanos to conquer. This will not be a stroll on the beach, Steve.”
Lory looked at the map, “Alright, thanks for dashing my hope we could fix this in no time, Paul. If I look at this map, I think, this might take weeks.”
Paul nodded, “It might, not everything in the shadow world is what it seems. Things from the past might haunt you, things from the future might haunt you, and just things hunting you. That is what Bella told me.”
Funk shook his head, “Bella is an odd duck, but I wonder why she kept talking about things. Could she have been a little bit more specific about what we were going to face?”
Lory sighed, “Haley trusted us to handle this. She is in the underworld doing god knows what.”
I crossed my arms, “Well, meeting gods is probably what she is doing. She has Bella to warn her about dangers, and Abby to handle them. Not that I think that Haley cannot handle herself, but it feels good she has people backing her up.”
Paul stepped backwards, “Have fun with meeting the Things,” he threw a stone and the circle broke. The shack exploded, and I felt myself getting sucked up through the portal. All I could hear in my mind, is Eris and Khione screaming as if they were on a rollercoaster. Captain seemed to be keeping an eye on the command center, the others did not even bother to react. Meaning, I can let myself get sucked through this dark wormhole without panicking.