Lorraine and Abby had gone to sleep, I kept on trying to make a portal, finally it stabilized, it only took me eight hours of non-stop trying.

Funk jumped out of the portal and landed with a face plant, amazed, I looked at him, “Huh, you’re not dead. Abby? Lorraine!?”

Funk slowly got up, “No, I am not dead.”

Lorraine and Abby slowly came out of their tents while I pointed and happily remarked my achievement, “Look, I saved Funk.”

He looked at me, “Yeah, thanks for that.”

Lorraine scratched her head, “What, how?”

“I have no clue, I made a portal, finally, and Funk jumps out.”

Abby tilted her head and looked at Funk, “For real?”

Funk nodded, “I saw this portal open up, and I just went for it.”

Lorraine leaned on my shoulder, “And where did you go?”

Funk chuckled, “Some kind of realm with void monsters, I had to fight my way through them. I think, my strength has been boosted by fighting with them. Thanks, Steve, for the save.”

Abby smiled at me, “Yeah, good job, you do need to master your portal technique, now he had time, but if we are in a pinch, we can’t wait eight hours.”

Lorraine looked at Abby, “You have a good point there. However, Steve has just learned how to make portals, it is a very useful ability, it might take some time to master, who knows how high tier he can make his portals. Perhaps, he could even make wormholes in the future, or reality portals.”

Abby gasped, “Like, one that will take us home? If we had a home to go back to.”

I sighed, “We can rebuild it.”

Funk held up his hand, “There is one thing, I heard the void monsters talk in the mist. You heard the worm talk, right?” All three of us nodded. Funk smiled, “All of them can talk, they kept repeating the same thing over and over.”

Lorraine sighed, “They are trying to find Micheal?”

Funk nodded, “How did you know?”

Lorraine grunted as she crossed her arms, “Just a lucky guess.”

Lorraine looked at me, “We need to talk.”

“Alright, with or without them?”

Lorraine looked at Abby and Funk, “Without them.”

Abby walked over to Funk, “Tell me more about the battles you fought.”

Lorraine took me to the edge of the world, I had been busy with making a portal, I had not taken a gander yet. It looked spectacular, the black abyss did scare me a bit, I could smell the abyss, and it was a smell I had never experienced before, or could even describe it.

Lorraine sat down on the edge of the world, letting her feet hang over the edge, I sat down next to her and looked down. She handed me an apple, I took a bite, I enjoyed the sweet taste of this apple, then I looked down, “Do you think, there is something else on the other side of this world?”

Lorraine laughed, “I don’t think so.”

I smiled, “What do you want to tell me, Lorraine?”

“Alright, when our race was still in the Fairy Kingdom, and I was younger, much younger, a man came to visit our village, it seemed some wolf people had gone to another reality, to hunt people down. They never came back, this man, he had golden armor, I don’t know what kind. This also happened very long ago. He had golden wings, but his right arm, it looked, demonic.”

“Wait, what? Like, an actual demon arm?”

Lorraine nodded, “Yes, but more horrific, I remember the blue claws dripping with blood, blood of our kin. My dad, the leader of our village, went to speak with him. He never told us what his name was, but he said, the wolf people threatened a person named Micheal while he was on some kind of retreat. Even if they did not intend to harm Micheal, he could not risk Micheal getting hurt. This man slaughtered all fifteen wolf people who had gone on this incursion to another reality. And do you know the scary part?”

I scratched my head, “That is not scary enough?”

Lorraine let out an awkward chuckle, “He had not a single scratch on him.”

I sighed as I took another bite of my apple, “You are telling me that Micheal is on some kind of retreat? Chances are that he is still on this retreat? And that if people bother him, a man in golden armor with a demonic claw comes to kill you?”

Lorraine nodded, “That is right. People started spreading rumors, everyone wants to know who Micheal is. No one dares to actually look for him, scared that the man in golden armor comes looking for them. It has actually become a bedtime story for the wolf people, a tale of caution and keeping your rage and emotions in check. Hunting and pleasure is not worth your life. The fairies also tried tracking down Micheal, curious as to what, or who, he is, the fairies believe he is an archangel.”

I coughed a few times, “Hold up, angels are real!?”

Lorraine nodded, “They are, how do you say it? Shy. They don’t tend to show themselves often, and most of them are dumb. I met one once, a smart one. I asked her about Micheal, she laughed her ass off. She told me I should stop asking questions because the man named Micheal blows people up. And not just people, but planets.”

I looked into the abyss, “Holy fuck, and Abby met him?”

Lorraine nodded, “I think people are exaggerating his stories, since no one can find him.”

I looked at Lorraine, “What happened to the fairies?”

She smiled, “The king had sent a force of a thousand fairies to the same world the wolf people went too. The same man in golden armor came back, this time with a woman by his side, she wore green armor. They told the king to back off, or they were going to kill everyone. The king has a wizard by his side, he actually gave the order to the king to back off and let Micheal go.”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Wow, if Micheal has people like that protecting him, then how strong is Micheal?”

Lorraine smiled at me, “Strong enough to safe this reality without breaking a sweat. But, he is not here, and we are; thus, we need to save this reality.”

I threw the apple core into the abyss, Lorraine actually seemed to be proud of telling this story, I am not sure why. It also feels as if she is leaving out certain key elements, but at least now I know, this Micheal fellow is no good.

I heard a voice in my head, “You got that right, sonny!” I looked at Lorraine, and around me, but that voice definitely came out of my head, or in my head. Let's just hope it does not keep talking, or I might think I have gone insane.

Lorraine and I looked at the apple core still falling down, it exploded and the earth shook. Lorraine looked at me, “It might be best to not throw things into the abyss anymore.”

I chuckled, trying to let some of these uneasy feelings out, “That might be wise.”

Abby came over with some kind of chicken, no, that was a dodo, “Hello, Abby, what are you doing with that dodo?”

She shrugged, “I found it, perhaps I am going to keep it.”

Funk walked over, “You can’t keep a wild animal.”

Abby looked at her, “You can’t say that to Square.”

Lorraine sighed, “I’ll regret asking this, why did you name it Square?”

Abby smiled, “Because it reminds me of an old game where the pixels looked like squares, and there was a dodo in it.”

“And what do you plan to do with Square, Abby?”

She smiled at me, “I am going to teach it to fight.”

I shook my head, “Where did you even find a dodo?”

She looked at the jungle near us, “Funk and I were talking, when I suddenly heard a sound as if a turkey got strangled. Then I saw Square entangled by some vines, he allowed me to save him. You know what, I am going to back away from the edge a bit.” Abby did a few steps backwards.

Lorraine looked at me, “Square is sitting calmly in her arms.”

I hung my head, “We have to take that thing everywhere we go, however, if we have no meat, and we get hungry.”

Funk looked at me, “There is no way she is going to let you eat Square, she will probably say we need to eat, Lorraine.”

She looked angry at Funk, “Hell no, you will be the first one to go, you most likely taste like some outstanding baked locusts.”

I coughed a few times, “How about we don’t eat any of our friends, but we rather starve to dead?”

Lorraine smiled at me, “I can get on board with that.”

I looked at Abby going to her tent, probably to catch some sleep, she took Square with her. Funk also went back to his tent. I looked at Lorraine, “May I ask you something very strange?”

She shrugged, “You may.”

“How do wolf people give birth?”

She started to laugh, “That is strange indeed, we have normal villages, or we used to. A village for giving birth was referred to as a den, these villages also had extra protection. When a female of our race gets pregnant, it takes nine months to give birth to a baby. When a baby is born, he or she already has a tail, and pointy ears, some of them have more fur, and others barely have fur. The females usually have more fur.”

I nodded, “That seems quite similar to a normal baby, what about food?”

“The babies drink milk from their mom, until they can eat normal food. Raw and cooked. We learn to crawl first, then walk on four legs, before we get taught how to walk around like people.”

I nodded, “It sounds pretty normal, do you also get pregnant like a normal woman, or can you have a baby with another species?”

Lorraine blushed, “Is there a reason you are asking these questions, Steve?”

I blushed, “Oh, I did not mean it like that, I am just curious.”

Lorraine smiled and giggled, “Yes, we can have babies with other species, but wolf people DNA usually takes over. Meaning, if a female of our race had a baby with a human, it would still look like a baby of our race. However, it is frowned upon to have a relationship with anyone of the Werejaguar race. But we wolf people can have babies with many species, interspecies breeding is what helped our race grow to a large number in a short time.”

I nodded, “Fascinating. Have you ever thought about babies?”

Lorraine chuckled, “Not really, before meeting you, it was even a dream to meet a man who was interested in me, and for the feeling to be mutual, it sounded like a mad woman’s dreams.” She leaned on me, “Have you ever thought about babies?”

“Yes, I would like a baby.”

Lorraine suddenly looked at me, “Even with me?”

I laughed, “Who knows what the future holds? But this reality needs to be safe, I think your mom would be stoked.”

Lorraine had a grin on her face I could not decipher, “I think my mom would kill you.”

“Yeah, with how she treated me, I think you have a fair point.”

We both stared at the abyss for a while, I wondered, is this Lorraine woman, the one for me, am I settling? She gives me these fuzzy feelings inside, the only thing keeping me from going all in right now, is those secrets she is keeping from me. Are they big secrets, small secrets? Or maybe even, life shattering secrets? With every word she speaks, I feel that undertone of, something is fishy. I've always felt this presence in my head, guiding me, telling me what the right thing is to do, fight the shadow man, go through the portal, fight. But all I hear now from that drive that feeds me is, eerie silence.