As the door squeakily crept open, Addie remained on high alert, scanning for any possible dangers. And yet, those eyes she expected to see never appeared. She looked behind the now open front door, only to see the grass plains just as normal as ever. One thing she did notice was how far across the sky the binary had moved, they’d been away from their bodies a long time.
No longer on high alert scanning for danger, Addie relaxed slightly. As she did, she couldn’t help but take in her surroundings again— her eyes drawn to the features she’d looked over earlier. Something about them seemed... off. Like, just not quite right. At first, she didn’t know why, but soon her eyes began to pick out strange details.
For example, why was the fireplace in the middle of the cabin? Usually, fireplaces are placed on a wall, surrounded by bricks, and have a chimney above. This one did not have any of those things.
The table in the eating area was slanted, not level with the ground. Each leg of the table had a different height from the others, making each unique in an unsettling way, causing the table to lean unnaturally. The table didn’t have any chairs to go with it, either.
A couch lay sprawled out across the floor diagonally, right next to a wardrobe also in the middle of the floor plan. It was like someone had come up with a list of things that needed to be in a cabin, and then arranged everything to be skiwampus on purpose.
The worst part was the roof. In some places, it came all the way down to Addie’s head height, with long grooves and curves making it taller in seemingly random places. It was like... like someone had the idea of a log cabin explained to them in words, without ever truly understanding what a house should be like.
Addie couldn’t get out of here fast enough. She immediately grabbed onto Nettal’s hand, eager to drag everyone back outside and return to their bodies. They started floating forward.
Being away from her physical body for so long made Addie feel deeply uncomfortable, like she’d lost something precious and she desperately needed to go looking for it. She hadn’t really noticed it too much during the maze, but maybe that was because she’d been distracted. The more she noticed her discomfort, the worse it got, growing with each moment.
When they got to the open door, Addie was ready to barrel right forward and start flying as fast as she could back to her body. With a jerk, Nettal forced them to a stop, Addie’s ethereal arm stretching unnaturally for a moment before bouncing her back like a spring.
She shot her cousin a scandalized look, but Nettal just rolled her eyes. Nettal pointed around the edges of the doorway and mimed scanning out. She wanted to be careful, Addie realized. Maybe look for possible enemies.
After Nettal had spent some time checking around the outside of the door, with Addie helping on the other side, they finally got to leave the strange cabin. With one last glance behind her, Addie stared at the knocker on the door, it really did resemble Ember— a soul hunter in the shape of a door knocker, its metal eyes seeming to gleam as Addie stared at it. Just as she went to turn back around, she saw the door begin to close all on its own out of the corner of her eye.
“Do you remember how to get back?” Addie asked Squishy.
He tilted his head up at her, his eyes twinkling as he replied, “Of course, my lady. Follow me.”
Nettal and Lotty also followed close behind. Just like the last time she’d traveled this fast in ethereal form, the world seemed to move around her, rather than Addie moving herself.
They reached their bodies without issue, all four of them clumped together in one big snuggle. However, Addie realized that both her and Nettal’s uncovered faces were red. But, Addie’s pale, freckled face was far worse off, and she just knew that she’d have a terrible binary-burn when she woke up.
Actually, floating up here above her body like this... Addie came to a terrible realization; she didn’t remember how to get back inside her body. Did she just, float back into herself? How come this hadn’t ever been a problem in the past? Maybe she was just overthinking it. Following her initial instinct, she floated near her body before diving right in.
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Addie woke up with a deep, calm breath. Something warm and heavy sat upon her chest, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. She angled her chin to get a better look, just to see her Squishy. He blinked slowly, languidly back at her.
“You cat,” she declared, her throat sounding dry and raspy, making her want to drink something. Luckily, they were right next to a stream.
Something began moving to her left before she heard loud coughing next to her. Addie began to sit up, Squishy sliding down into her lap as she did so. She looked to her side, Nettal coughing into her elbow.
The events from their ethereal adventure were still in the back of Addie’s mind, but they felt strangely distant. She remembered everything that had happened, of course, but it felt like the events had happened as part of a dream. It felt to Addie like the adventure was almost without substance somehow like it wasn’t quite real.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
But the proof was in her new magical technique. The things she learned in the books on the pedestals didn’t give her new powers, they just taught her different ways to use her already existing magic— how to shape it in the case of her soul flames.
She could see the new ability swimming around in her mind even now. Whereas the last two had been ways to shape her fire, this ability had something to do with her ability to become ethereal— the second half of her powers she got from Ember.
The teachings from the book also felt distant, as if half-remembered from a dream. She could almost feel how it worked, like it was at the tip of her tongue, or like she’d remember any moment. Mostly, it felt like if she began the motions, the rest would all fill in the blanks on their own.
For now, she discarded the thought; right now what they needed the most was water and to more generally recover their bodies from sitting out in the sun so long. She felt sticky with sweat, even though the weather was mostly cold. The binary had been beating down on them the entire time, and Squishy’s black scales practically turned him into a furnace right above her.
Once Nettal quit coughing, Addie asked, “Are you okay?” Her voice still came out raspy, but her mouth had started to wet itself again.
“Yeah, just thirsty,” Nettal replied quietly.
Standing up, Addie picked Squishy up, causing his legs to dangle before she put him back on the ground. He perked up immediately, following along on all fours.
“To the stream?”
“To the stream,” Addie confirmed aloud. And goodness, did it feel good to be able to talk out loud again!
When she got there, Addie dunked her whole entire head into the stream at once. She regretted it immediately, accidentally going too far down and getting the bottom mud into her mouth. That even ruined the area for drinking slightly, since she kicked up all kinds of gunk into the water.
She pulled her head out of the water, her hair now soaking wet and flinging water everywhere. Squishy began doing his strange chortle sound, the silly creature laughing at her. So, as just revenge, Addie began stalking forward with her arms out to her front.
“Come here, Squishy,” Addie asked politely.
“You are going to throw me into the stream,” he said, resigned.
“I was going to, but now you’ve taken all the fun out of it,” she pouted. “Ugh, fine.”
She began to walk further up the stream, to an area where the water was still clear when she stopped suddenly. “Do you want me to throw you in the stream?”
“Not particularly.”
“Okay, I won’t.” And she meant it, too. If he was going to be that serious about it, she didn’t actually want to hurt his feelings. Maybe he’d be in a more teasing mood later, anyway.
Addie finally got a decent drink of water, this time being a lot more careful not to push her whole head into the stream. Instead, she just slurped from the top. The water was cool and refreshing, easing her raspy throat and dry mouth. Her face stung too, a combination of the cold from the water and her dry, binary-burnt skin.
“Are you burned at all?” Addie asked Squishy.
“I think not. My scales do not burn, really. Though, I can feel overly hot, at which point I can pant to lower my body temperature. The cool air and wind kept me mostly fine this time, though.”
“I wish my skin couldn’t burn...” Addie grumbled. She’d always burned easily, her pale freckled skin soaking up sunlight like crazy.
With one hand, Addie began wringing out her hair when she noticed Nettal and Lotty walking toward the stream, too.
“Why is your hair so wet?” Nettal asked, confused. “It’s dripped all down your back and onto your poncho.”
“Yeah... but the water’s really good!” Addie exclaimed.
Nettal just sighed for some reason. Then, she went to the stream and cupped her hands to bring water to her mouth. That was the moment Addie realized she hadn’t ever needed to dunk her head into the water, she could have just done what Nettal was doing now... but she had wanted to dunk her whole head in the water.
“Can you heal my face?” Addie asked once Nettal was done drinking.
Nettal opened her eyes wide, only seemingly now noticing how burnt Addie was.
“Of course!” She hurried over, and with a flash of glowing green eyes, Addie’s face no longer stung.
“Um, you’re actually burnt too.” Addie helpfully informed Nettal. She must not have realized.
“Oh, thanks, Addie.” Nettal beamed at her in appreciation.
After everyone took some time to recover by the stream, with Nettal also giving Squishy and Lotty a round of healing just in case, Addie and Nettal had to decide what to do next.
It looked like evening already, with where the binary was in the sky. And, everyone was hungry, so they decided to just eat and camp here for the night. Tomorrow, they’d return to the city briefly to check if the glowing stone changed colors, and then they’d go to the final ruin site.
While they were eating, the girls talked about the trial they’d been in, Nettal even explained how the maze worked! Apparently, there were eight rotating rooms, all of them moving counter-clockwise when they moved to the third room. Also, the reason they’d been starting over at the first room so many times was because not all of the doors actually led to a room all the time. If the door led to somewhere other than a connecting room, the maze would just put them right back at the beginning.
Well, anyway, Addie didn’t want to think about the maze that much. What she did want to think about was her new ability, so she spent the rest of the night trying to wrap her head around it. It just wouldn’t work, no matter how hard she tried. The more she thought about it, the more it seemed to slip away.
Since she felt stuck, Addie decided to ask Squishy about it.
“Since this ruin site was all about becoming ethereal, I suppose your new ability must require being ethereal, too.”
After that advice, everything clicked right into place! Just as they were heading to sleep, Addie pulled herself out of her body again. This time, she tried to use the new ability, and it worked on the first try. It wasn’t something she did by thinking about it, rather, she felt it out more— the ability just sorta ‘working’. The dream-like feeling of being ethereal helped a lot to make it work, too, since everything felt more intuitive while dreaming, at least for Addie.
When she willed it to happen, Addie could detect other souls closeby. The way it worked was simple, she saw a colored outline around whatever she looked at. Squishy had a blue outline—the color of his magic and soul. Similarly, Nettal and Lotty had green outlines around them. For now, she had to be really close to someone to make the ability work, but in the future and with some practice, Addie thought it could work at long range, too.
For now, though, she decided to get some proper sleep. Even if being ethereal felt ‘dreamy’, she still felt mentally tired. So, she returned to her body, allowing real sleep to come, and real dreams to follow.