TF Chapter 6 Uncertainty

"Shut up, Bora!" I shouted at her. I was about to rage on Danny boy about dumping her responsibility onto me, yet she just had to interfere at this time?

"Didn't you get the memo? You were the cause of why we failed! Me and Danny boy here had a good thing going, yet you just had to bombard us with those feelings. Why were you trying to be hasty? Where does the impatience come from? And why were there feelings of frustration?"

My bombardment caused her to shut up, though not out of shame or reflection...no no no...there was something she didn't want to tell us. I could see it in those purple petaled pupils of hers. What could she be so eager to hide that it would place our entire partnership in jeopardy?

I released the most heavy sigh I had ever released since coming here and leaned myself further into the wall with the thought that I wanted it to swallow me whole. Why hadn't I accumulated enough the previous year and appeared before this whole shit of having to work as partners?

I looked to the ceiling for answers I knew I wouldn't find. It looks like I am going to have to buckle down and work with these youngsters. I could tell, even Bora's age was below mine.

"If this mind meld thing is to work, we have to be on the same page. Whatever skeletons you are hiding within those minds of yours should be locked away deeper." I moved my gaze between the two, especially lingering upon Danny boy...or you could say, mysterious boy.

"Let's rest for a while and try this again later." I said, then proceeded to close my eyes, with that action causing all the fatigue to crash down upon me. I drifted off, without a care whether the others had followed my advice.

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I yawned, with a vague recollection of having had a dream where I was inside Musana city...not like this, but during its heyday. Was I really excited to the point that my mind was creating dreams which weren't true?

I didn't open my eyes right away, instead proceeding to crack my bones, the sensation of hunger absent from my mind. It looked like the energy sac within me was doing its job, and it was going to keep providing me energy for the next five years. They had assured me that it would last even if I drove my body hard everyday with heavy duty work.

I tilted my neck, a cracking sound entering my ears. I still didn't want to open my eyes as I didn't want to look Danny boy and Kim Bora in the face. My temper might have gotten the best of me...I must have been right...but that didn't stop me from feeling embarrassed about it, or wondering how I was going to interact with them now.

I continued closing my eyes pretending to perform some minor body check or other until a voice entered my ears.

"Nat senior, are you actually embarasssed?"

Of course Danny boy just had to hit the nail on the head! Couldn't he have been subtle about it or kept quiet?!

"Yes, I admit that I am a bit embarrassed about my earlier words...now, I don't know how I am going to interact with you both moving forward." I opened my eyes and spoke as calmly as possible without averting my gaze from Danny boy's. I couldn't show any sign of weakness!

"Its okay, you were right. It took some convincing, but Bora too got around."

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"Oh!" I couldn't help the sound from leaking out of my lips before moving my gaze towards the woman only to catch the faint bobbing of her head. It looks like she was asleep, something that caused me to breathe out a sigh of relief, but also worried me. I had thought that I would only have to show my embarrassment once, but it appeared I would still have trouble interacting with her.

"What-no, how did you get her to...you know, become convinced?" I asked, my voice coming out as a whisper. It would be better if she got all the sleep that she could after all. Interupting a woman's beauty sleep wasn't something I would advise of anyone as I could still remember what had happened when I had done so to my cousin.

"Nothing much...just told her that all she needed was to push her intense feelings inwards...and she accepted."

"Just like that?!" My voice came out in a higher octave before I caught myself and threw a gaze over to the sleeping princess only to see that I hadn't woken her.

"Just like that."

For some reason, I really wanted to crack open Danny boy's skull and see what was really going on inside that head of his!

I took a breath, deciding to drop the questioning as it wouldn't get me anywhere. Now...what was I supposed to occupy my time with before the princess woke up? Should I go back to sleep?

"Nat senior, can we pull off the mind meld?"

Now, this was something I would have never expected in a million miles from Danny boy. He was always so confident, so what gives?

I wondered as the guy scooted over to lean on the same wall by my side. It looks like I won't be able to go back to sleep...I lamented inwardly.

"I don't know...you should know that this is my first time doing anything of the sort." I had to lay down the truth. Sugarcoating things would only bring problems to me, like complaints if it failed later. I, Nathaniel Bosingwa hate such things the most!

"Ah! I had forgotten! Anyway, Nat senior...you should try to be a bit soft on her. She...is shouldering a lot."

With those parting words, Danny boy scooted away and leaned against another wall, his posture suggesting that he was about to knock off.

Shouldering a lot...my dream has always been to come here and take my chance upon this path. Aren't I too, shouldering a lot, like my hopes and dreams?

I wondered even as I gazed within the stream of molten metal. The light coming from it wasn't as eyepeircing as I expected, giving off a very dreamy feeling instead.

Responsibility...many of us who decided to step into this city, on this path, each shouldered something. If I have to put up with a stuck up rich girl just because Danny boy said she's shouldering a lot, then, what about me? Or the rest of the crowd? Not to mention that I suspect that Danny boy is also shouldering something. Could it be that Kim Bora's burden is heavier than that of ours?

I pulled up a watch from my nano suit and gazed at the time, seeing that it was now night in the state of Uganda, 8:34pm. The only close person I missed and wondered what she was up to was my cousin. She was married with four kids always giving her a headache. I wondered whether she was looking at the sun in the metaverse, wondering what I was doing up here.

I was born a lone child with my parents having passed away when I had been on my first job. It had hit hard at the time, and she had been the only one there. She had known about my dream and one time, she had asked me a question, which until now I still lacked an answer to.

'What if one day we meet and am about to die while you are still in the prime of your life? Will you be okay?'

I felt something wrench my heart at the question. I had come up with an idea that maybe, I will save up for two, but that had been implausible, because then, she would have to abandon her children.

What those novelists said that if a person achieved immortality then even his dog would, were utter lies. Reality was cruel! I couldn't really muscle her away from her attachments just because I wanted her to follow me on this path, now could I? Not to mention, that she or I, might fail and then have to live in the shadow of the one who keeps ascending higher. How would she or I feel?

So, now my thoughts always loop back to that question. The moment I had imagined that moment, I knew right away that I would cry, yet lack a solution. Even if I knew an elixir of immortality or something, I had the hunch that she would never accept it.

With that heavy feeling, sleep once again decided to envelop me, the soft warm light from the flowing molten metal having lulled me sleep.

Something cold ran down my cheeks but I was too drowsy to notice.

We mortals have very many worries, and I doubt even those superhumans the forgers are aloof from them. Maybe one day, I might find my own way to deal with these things, but right now, all I could do was cry, and silently pray that everything turned out well.