Written By: Pillowyspu

Edited By: Epicstu Wyyvernwriter

After the child appeared to fall into a deep sleep, the Woman lit a lantern and made her way up a narrow set of stairs in search for dry clothes for both her and the boy. Upstairs, two small bedrooms were tucked into the gables of the attic. Pounding rain assaulted the pine-shingled roof and shadows danced to the flickering light of her lantern, which created an unnerving atmosphere and she couldn’t help but feel she was being watched. Without wasting any time, she found the child’s room and perused through his dresser drawers, picking out a dry outfit for the boy. Then she approached the door to the master bedroom and stopped herself for a moment before entering the room. This felt wrong; these people were just killed before her eyes and she was about to scavenge their belongings to find a set of their clean clothes to cover her own back. However, her body still shivered and she realized that even though every fiber of her moral being wishes she could bring back the family, there was nothing she could do at this point.

            She entered the bedroom and found a wardrobe stuffed with plain, patchy, and frayed outfits. They were made of some kind of burlap material and most of them had holes in them, which offered very little protection from the elements. It was obvious these people were living in abject poverty but as the Woman held up one of the threadbare summer dresses, she noticed an intricate floral pattern had been meticulously hand sewn on the skirt of the dress. They may not have been able to afford new clothes but they still made damn sure they cared about the few possessions they had. She painted an idea in her mind that these folks were good parents to the boy and it made it more difficult to accept they had been gunned down only hours ago by the Leon Aventis who practically raised the Woman. She respectfully slipped the handmade dress over her quivering body and looked in the mirror. It was beautiful.

            The Woman slipped on a pair of dry shoes and found another pair to offer Nid along with another frayed burlap dress. As she headed back downstairs, she noticed the child was still asleep in front of the fireplace. The boy didn’t notice the Woman slip off his soiled clothes and change him into the dry set of pajamas. He was peaceful and the Woman tried her hardest not to wake him in fear of what Nid might do to him if he starts crying again. She covered him with a blanket before tiptoeing out of the foyer and into the living room.

            Nid was still hunched over her makeshift workbench in the living room working on the portal gun. The Woman offered her the change of clothing and Nid put down her tools for a moment and slipped into the dress. She looked down at the frayed cloth with disgust but didn’t bother complaining. The Woman couldn’t help but notice the odd shape of Nid’s feet as she crammed her foot into the shoes. She brushed it off but a nagging sense that something was wrong still lingered. Nid mumbled an insincere “thank you” before returning to her work.

            “What’s wrong with the portal gun?” The Woman carefully questioned Nid.

            “It’s the NEC-MotherChip. It shorted out as a result of crossed transmissions from another intercepting PortalWave.”

            “Okay. That doesn’t sound too bad. How do we fix this, then?”

            Nid sighed, “The last time this happened, we spent four months trying to track down the rare component that’s needed to fix this. Unfortunately, Flufonium powers the NEC-MotherChip. I doubt there are Flufonium mines anywhere in this realm and if there was, it’s not going to come cheap. This mineral is worth a hundred times the price of gold.” 

            “Nid,” fear entered the Woman’s voice, “We don’t have four months. I don’t even know if we have four hours before he finds us again.”

            “I know. There’s one other way.”

            Nid paused; building the anticipation that seemingly sucked the oxygen from the room. The Woman looked back at the child who was still curled in front of the fireplace and feared she was about to be thrust into a situation that was probably not going to end well for her or the child. “Go on,” the Woman reluctantly forced those words.

            “If we can track down Barinium, we can get the portal gun to work one last time. It’s denser and more conductive than Flufonium so it will likely fry every other internal component and render the portal gun useless but it will do the job one last time.”

            “Where do we get Barinium?”

            Nid stepped up to the window and watched the storm intensify, “That stream near the fishing cabin.”

            The Woman remained silent.

            “The portals tend to open near large sources of Barinium. It also fluctuates the gravity around it so it’s likely the reason you almost drowned in those waters and why it was so hard to walk. It’s a blue crystal material that tends to present itself near small streams and large cave systems.” Nid turned her attention away from her workbench and looked back at the child, “Only one of us can risk going back to collect it.”

            “Alright, I’ll stay here with him.” The Woman said as she pointed to the child, but Nid didn’t seem to agree with that plan. The Woman continued, “Well you seem to know what it looks like!”

            “I still have to modify the portal device to accept the Barinium which will take a few hours. We don’t have that kind of time – you’re the only one that can do it.”

“Fine. But I’m taking him with me.”

            A flash of lighting flickered followed by an intense and everlasting rumble of thunder. Nid faced the Woman and the Woman studied her glassy vacant eyes. Nid’s expression spoke volumes to the Woman but she remained silent; she was in a daze and waited for Nid to finally say the unthinkable; “We can’t afford to keep him alive. You realize this, right?”

            “Then we’re at an impasse,” the Woman insisted.

            “If he wakes up again and starts crying for any reason, Noah Miller will find us. That’s a given. You can’t take him with you because he’ll give away your location and you know that.” The Woman saw Nid’s logic but didn’t want to believe it. She feared what Nid would say next, “I can make his death quick and painless and you don’t even have to watch.”

            This was highly disturbing to the Woman. She never imagined Nid would say something so horrifying and she felt her stomach drop. The Woman always figured Nid would fight to the bitter end and bring down vengeance to those who wronged her but never harm an innocent child – especially after what she had done to the boy’s parents. This confirmed the Woman’s suspicions that must have changed in Nid when the Portal gun malfunctioned and the Woman was realizing that Nid could no longer be trusted, “You’re a fucking monster.”

Nid grabbed her hunting knife and charged towards the foyer. The Woman took a few steps back and leaned against the doorframe of the living room, blocking Nid from entering, “What happened to you, Nid?”

            Nid postured at the Woman, “I don’t want Noah to end this. We’re close to finding what you’re looking for and I can help you but you need to trust me.”

            “What do you care? You don’t even know what I’m after.”

            “Then tell me! I can keep secrets from the original Leon Aventis; I’ve done it before!” Nid shouted at the Woman and she took a step back from the enraged Leon Aventis. The Woman knew she was lying which made it that much harder to trust her.

            “It’s not worth it. We’ve already crossed a line. When are you going to realize this?!” the Woman now raised her voice in frustration. She looked back at the child to see if he was still sleeping but the commotion had awakened him and he standing in the center of the foyer, holding his blanket in his right hand and offering them an innocuous stare. The Woman kneeled down to his level and whispered, “Go back to sleep, kid.”

            He rubbed his eyes and walked into the kitchen where he stepped up to the table, pulled back a wooden chair thrice his size and sat upon it’s lofty seat like a king assuming his throne. He’s hungry, the woman thought.

            She swiftly made her way to the kitchen and opened one of the cupboards, assembling a makeshift dinner that consisted of flatbread, a dark blue jam, and some kind of dried vegetable chips she didn’t recognize. She offered it to the child who immediately began to devour it. He looked back at the Woman and smiled before saying a few incoherent words in a foreign language that the Woman assumed meant, “Thank you.”

            Nid entered the kitchen and the Woman continued to stand guard, blocking her view of the boy, “If it really means this much to you, I’ll keep the child alive while you go and collect the Barinium,” Nid’s tone was far from trustworthy. The Woman turned her attention back to the child and ignored Nid. How could she possibly trust her at this point? She began to question again whether or not Nid even knew how to fix the device.

However, the more logical side of her conscious realized that they were running out of options and Nid wasn’t wrong. Noah will find them here and it’s only a matter of time. And she can’t risk taking the child along with her.

            “Understand this one thing. If you kill him, I kill you,” the Woman firmly stated. Nid nodded her head and confirmed this agreement before she walked back in the living room where she continued to work on modifying the portal gun. The Woman kissed the child’s forehead and grabbed her bow before entering the violent rainstorm on her journey back to the cabin.

The temperature had dropped to near freezing which made the hike back to the cabin a miserable journey. She didn’t want to trust Nid with the boy’s life for any longer than she had to so she began to sprint through the thick vegetation. She figured if she kept a decent pace, she should be able to make it to the cabin in twenty minutes and should be back at the hollow within the hour. Even though everything that happened that day wore away her already bruised and battered frame, she pushed on like a soldier and weathered the storm while she cried and screamed in anguish. She never thought she had this kind of strength but she thought about that boy.

            The forest was pitch black and the only time she could see anything was with the occasional flash of lightning. She slid down ravines, into stagnant mud puddles, and tripped over countless boulders and tree branches but every time she fell, she got right back up and continued onward. She feared she had taken a wrong turn at some point and wondered if she was just running in circles around the hollow but that didn’t stop her. The shoes she had scavenged had already disintegrated and the dress was coming apart at the seams; her feet bled and blistered, she was soaked to the bone and on the verge of becoming hypothermic but she didn’t care.

            She had already been running for what seemed like hours and hadn’t even made it to the stream. After tripping over another tree branch and being launched face first into a pool of mud, she felt her body finally give out. She spit out a quart of mud and cursed this relentless Hell but when she looked ahead, she saw the fishing cabin on the banks of the stream and memories of this afternoon flashed in front her vision.

            The Woman entered the cabin and took refuge for a moment. She flew open the door and attempted to close it behind her but the howling wind forced it open. The cabin wasn’t much of an asylum from the storm; water continued to seep through holes in the roof and the floor was waterlogged and rancid from the sharp scent of black mold. However, it felt heavenly to have even just a moment where the brutal, icy winds were not assaulting her battered limbs.

After taking a moment to catch her breath, she found a small matchbook, tore the tattered skirt with the meticulous floral pattern and wrapped the strip of burlap around a dry piece of firewood. She searched the cabin a bit more and found a canister of some strongly scented oily substance she assumed was flammable, poured it over her homemade torch and used a match to light it. As soon as it lit, the cabins shiplap walls were illuminated so bright, her eyes needed a moment to adjust.

            She leaned against the back wall and lowered herself to the floor as an emotional torrent bubbled just below her sternum. She took a few breaths and tried push down those troubling feelings but lost that battle and she started crying again. The Woman thought about the child; she never felt so close to someone in her life, much less someone she’s only known for a few hours from a realm that she didn’t previously had known existed. She pictured Nid back at the homestead using that old rifle to send that defenseless youth to an early grave. This fucking cabin is where it all started; had they not found this pile of waste, Nid would have never found that damn rifle and that boy’s parents would have still been alive. It needs to die.

            She screeched like a maddened animal and began pouring the rest of oily substance on the floor of the cabin. As toxic fumes filled the room, the Woman laughed maniacally and a heave of anger and resentment brought her blood to a boil. She lit another match but before she dropped the match and sent this wretched cabin to a fiery Hell, she looked down at the floorboards one more time and stared in utter fear at the muddy footprints that covered the room. She looked down at one in particular – a four-toed footprint that was pear shaped and certainly didn’t look elven. Those footprints didn’t belong to Nid.

            After sentencing the cabin to death, she sprinted away from the blazing ruins and waded through the stream. She could feel her ankles weighted down by gravitational forces as she ran her fingers below the surface of the water and sifted through rocky silt. The memory of nearly drowning in these waters haunted her and she remembered Nid’s hand reaching below the surface of the water to save her. She couldn’t believe she was currently questioning everything she knew about the woman who had just saved her life earlier today. She had gone from putting all of her faith into the Leon Aventis to doubting every moral fiber that made up Nid’s malevolent soul. She continued to question whether or not the woman back at the cabin was the real Nid.

It didn’t take her long to find the blue crystal substance and she collected as much of it as she could before she sprinted back upstream towards the homestead hoping she wasn’t too late.