F. PLUS ULTRA

This short stories present in this collection are works of fiction. Any similarities to real people or events are purely coincidental.

surface tension

plague

redlined

fiori

on jelly

???

“Yes, as everyone knows, meditation and water are wedded for ever.”

— Herman Melville

A steady current was tugging me away at my feet, absorbing wet sand where swash dissolved into misty foam. The stone slipped freely through my fingers and weaved them in a slow pattern. The beach was much louder than I had expected. I found myself breathing along with waves crashing onto the shore; inhaling when they pulled back to take form and exhaling upon impact. Aside from the tide set against the still moon, as far as I knew, I was alone here.

There was a phrase repeated by the people in town, stating that for every drop of water in the ocean there was a star in the universe to go along with it. The phrase would strike me on occasion throughout adulthood, long after I moved away from our hometown. It was only recently when I settled on it being a meaningless expression. I felt partly responsible in giving it a real meaning instead of the bleak catchphrase for the locals it came to be, as a debt to the victims involved.

Learning to live with the fatalities being out of my control was easier said than done. There was another phrase I overheard in passing. “Those afraid of deep water are not expecting what lies below, but what does not.” It alluded to the anticipation, and how it manifested into something greater as an idea rather than a perceivable threat. A rosy sentiment was made to soften the blow, informing the town that, ultimately, nothing should be held accountable for what was going on.

I knew the talks surrounding the beach to be dismissive. Wishful thinking, at best. Any amount of trauma kept concealed as the town secret was understandable. The same bottomless depths sparking our imagination, as incomprehensible as they were, harbored a massive amount of fear and grief for many in town. Dead bodies washed ashore were routinely being found. The beach would be crowded with the town residents once the sun was out, as if no one cared.

Various signs placed out in the water blended in with the horizon. Each of them listed the dangers of night swimming in small print, shimmering on the surface. Direct moonlight rendered them nearly invisible at this hour. It made sense to us that most casualties were happening overnight. There was also the possibility of beachgoers in the day mistaking their morbid curiosity for excitement, creating a cycle of new thrill-seekers. Maybe the stories drove them to try it for themselves and they insisted there would be a different outcome. Another part of me was almost certain that high tide wasn’t to blame here. There would be enough witnesses around in the morning to set that theory aside. The questions stayed with me. If we left the beach tonight having done nothing, I was grateful to at least get some rest when this was over.

We agreed on this exact spot ten years ago. It was almost midnight now. I waited longer.

After giving it more thought, a childish pact between us might not have been enough to get the group back together. The meeting was brought up nonchalantly over the years, and remained a priority for them, if I remembered correctly. We haven’t talked in over a month. I revised our messages for any details I may have missed, but nothing we spoke about suggested they would have abandoned the idea. Would I even be aware if they forgot about tonight? We had also arranged it around being able to step away from our regular lives. What if something happened to them? Violent bursts of cold air brushed against my skin and the steady water flow beneath me. They were probably out waiting.

“I’m sorry.” A deep, hollow voice was speaking from just behind me.

My chest sank. I froze in place, slowly realizing I was watching the waves for far too long. The voice was silent now. We shared that quiet tension between us for a moment. The person waited just as I was, presumably for any sudden movement or response. I told myself I was calm. When I felt the words wouldn’t come, I carefully turned my head to look behind me and saw no one.

Ten years ago, down to the exact day, I wasn’t thinking of much besides how I was going to get home. They outnumbered me in a majority rule and settled on sneaking out. Sneaking back inside was the real test, essentially making you perform the act twice. Leaving home in the middle of the night implied having to do it later in reverse. I was standing on the dock by the beach parking lot, hoping everything was done without a trace. My family had seen enough. News of the infested waters that broke through our small television lived on for months in my household. I needed to make it home before anyone noticed I was out here.

Deb wore a hooded jacket that only revealed her face in the pouring rain, watching me fidget and holding in her laughter. “Don’t tell me you believe the rumors.”

“I don’t think they’re rumors,” I said.

“Not the bodies,” she clarified. “And you can stop being weird, I’m not going to push you in if that’s what you think. Not in this weather.”

A stray lightning bolt lit the sky in a flash, revealing Nate and Isabella approaching the dock from the main road. The pair were trailed by slow rolling thunder above. Their idea to meet in the rain after dark was unnecessary but not unexpected.

“It’s getting cold,” Isabella said. She wore a gray bucket hat and Nate’s black leather jacket draped over her shoulders, streams of rain sliding down the arms. “We should make this quick.”

“What’s this about?” Deb interrupted.

“Out there,” Nate said, getting in closer. He lifted a finger and motioned to the water splashing the far end of the dock. “Just about every week now someone new’s gone missing.”

“How do we know it’s not just one person doing this as the rumors say?” Deb suggested.

“You think this is all because of one person?” Isabella asked.

“Why not?” I asked. “It seems like everyone knows now, and nothing is being done about it. Maybe it’s someone people know but are afraid of turning in.”

“Look around,” Nate said, turning his head to the street behind him. “No one’s here.”

“Maybe it’s a town secret the four of us just aren’t in on. If there is more than one person behind this, I suppose that would make sense,” Deb said. “No hard feelings, right? We weren’t planning on sticking around here for too long anyway,” she smiled.

“I hope this doesn’t lead to us accusing one another while the real victims are still caught in this mess,” Isabella shivered.

Deb shook her head. “That’s not what I’m saying. None of you would have been my first guess anyway. Nobody here is really capable.”

“I want us to be the ones who figure this thing out,” Nate said firmly.

“How do you expect to solve a murder in time before the next one?” Deb asked.

Nate paused. “It’s not possible. And it’s not possible this is the work of just one person,” he persuaded. “We’re too quick to believe this is one big accident.”

“It could just be some aggressive fish. Maybe we’re too close to a family of whales or something,” I suggested.

“They shut that theory down a long time ago. Most victims were found fully intact with no open wounds, presumably drowned. Some go missing completely. A family of fish doesn’t fit the bill. This is the work of a giant sea monster, an unknown species, so it cannot be categorized. I think it waits at the bottom of the ocean where nothing can prove its existence, only ascending when it sees us, specks of meat breaking moonlight on the surface.” Nate said.

“All of that sounds very unlikely, and if you believe it then I’m a little concerned,” Deb remarked.

“My guess is as good as yours. Why should it be someone in town and not something lurking in the water? Anyway, none of what I said explains why it happens so often,” he pondered.

“It doesn’t explain anything because it’s the fever dream of a child,” Deb replied.

“It probably just knows where to find a consistent meal,” Nate said, finishing his thought.

“Is this why you bring us out here so late?” Isabella muttered beside him.

“I love trading conspiracies and I have no problem doing that all night, but it's not safe out here,” I said.

Nate shot us a frustrated look, then reached into his back pocket. He produced four identical stones the size of golf balls, rounded and smooth from erosion, and passed them out individually.

“It took me two weeks to gather these.” His voice grew louder over the wind swaying our clothes and the persistent rain. “No one believes I found them here, on the sand. It all began when I asked myself, ‘What are the odds of the people losing their lives every week, in a beach town with nothing special about it?’ It was expected now. I thought it had to be the same odds of finding two rocks I couldn’t tell apart.”

After holding the stone in my palm closer for inspection, there was nothing distinguishable between mine and the rest. Nate was telling the truth.

“I found these before I stopped myself from looking for any more,” Nate said. “I think I’m meant to find out what’s going on.”

“This has nothing to do with us, Nate,” Deb hissed. “We’re meant to do something remarkable with our lives. And to stay away from the beach at night hours.”

“I want you all to keep these stones safe, and promise that the next time any of us step foot on this beach, it’ll be to solve this mystery. Even if it takes us a lifetime,” Nate said. “We can’t keep standing around like everyone else.”

“There are professionals already on the case of the missing bodies. I appreciate the friendship rock but no one here knows what we’ll be doing a year, even a month from now.” Deb ran off back towards the main road, Isabella following closely behind her. “We should probably leave before the actual killer gets here. And not the fish,” she screamed out at us.

Isabella stopped in her track and turned to face us on the docks. “We’ll talk more about it later. The killer could be around,” she smiled before turning back around and following Deb out of the rain.

Nate watched them leave.

“Do you think someone else will stop this if we can’t?” He asked.

I shrugged. “It’s like Deb said, we just have to assume the right people are working on it. That saves us from going through the trouble.” My wet clothes felt heavy on my upper body. “We should get out of here,” I said.

They say remembering the same moment too many times fixes your reality. Soon, a moment you once thought to be true could not be further from what happened. That specific memory couldn’t be shaken. I lost no detail of that night, thinking about it the same way in the years leading up to our meeting. Sometimes I wondered what I should have been doing with that time instead.

Now, I was thinking about the scuba lessons I received for some reason, hoping to be a decent diver when the time came to take the plunge for ourselves. I wanted to be at least as good as the second-best diver in the group—that way I wouldn’t be considered the worst or the best. If I was the worst, they would wonder what I have been doing all this time instead of preparing. If they thought me to be the best, they would know I waited for this moment for ten years and came overprepared, which I secretly did. The several certificates I earned weren’t from special institutions. I just stacked them for what I thought to be an added survival rate.

“You need to stop making those noises.” The voice was talking to me again, though I couldn’t tell where it was coming from. My eyesight was nearly gone. The water swayed me. I was laying on my right shoulder inside of what felt like a small, inflated raft.

“You’re just waking up,” he said.

“Where are you?” My mind was fogged. What I meant to ask was either ‘who are you?’ or ‘where am I?’ but what came out was a fumbled combination of both. My motor abilities were still coming back to me, the bottom of my mouth stiff and numb. This can’t be real.

Both arms were tied behind my back, my wrists tightly bound together. The rubbery plastic bed of the boat resisted my fingernails when I tried scratching my way out. A weighted vest was somehow placed around my upper body keeping me locked in place. I couldn’t fight this. All that was in view was the starry sky above.

“It’s Nate.” The voice sounded burnt out. Had I not known we were the same age, I would have thought the voice to belong to an old man—the murderer we suspected a while back that spanned his actions across decades. “I’m just getting you set up here so you can be on your way. Sorry about your face.”

The sharp coldness of the breeze enhanced the pain. Giving my jaw a slight flex shot a writhing pain directly to my temples. I wanted to scream but resorted to hard breaths through my nose, remaining as still as possible to not repeat that lingering feeling. The impact of what struck me was instant. I am still not too sure what had just happened, I must have lost consciousness so fast.

He stood outside of the boat and took control hold of its inflatable edge when I would momentarily drift away with it. I couldn’t visualize what he was plotting. In the corner of my eye was the dock he was standing on, looking down at me like an operating table. I heard him shuffling something that sounded like a rope in his hands.

“Was this your plan all along? Was it you this whole time?” I asked clearly.

“I’m going to assume you kept the meeting a secret as we promised,” he said as if he repeated what he practiced. “Look, this whole thing is complicated. In short, I was chosen first. Then you three. The ones in charge of this whole affair say they like to keep things simple, but they don’t. I know they don’t. Then I found that it’s best to not question things and accept them as they come. Do you understand where I’m coming from?”

“Why us?” I sighed and accidentally thought aloud. I was shaking from the nerves now. This was going to be it for me.

“It’s not that they singled you out. They chose me, then three people in my life that needed to go.”

“You did this to Deb and Isabella too?” I asked without hesitation.

He tossed a tiny weighted object onto the raft that bumped near my head. “Isabella and I were married. I don’t know if you can see it there but that’s my ring. We had a happy marriage. Can you believe that?” Nate said. “We wanted to keep it a secret from you and Deb.”

“Did they suffer?”

“Sending Isabella out into the water was tough to bear witness. It was something I’ll always regret. I told her I loved her, and she understood. I did love her. She was calm when she accepted her fate, although a little saddened, and deeply betrayed by the whole thing.” He grunted, tugging on more rope. “Which I can empathize with. This is hard for me too. I don’t want to be the one to do this but if I ask the wrong person to help us we’d all end up dead. Deb didn’t understand that when she screamed for help. I said nobody would come and she didn’t believe me. No one came.”

“Why didn’t you just tell us we were being targeted?”

“I guess I could tell you now, because—you know,” Nate said, bouncing his hand on the boat. “I got lucky, in the sense that someone in this very situation came to me first looking for advice. He said he needed to bring three bodies out into the water or face unspeakable consequences, just like me. It was too coincidental. I needed to act casual. He heard it was a form of population control, and mentioned that when this is all over, we will have to obey their orders or we would all be tried for murder,” Nate said. “They covered their bases. The fear of facing the consequences will linger on long after this is finished. Many of us here will live with that, as we have been.”

He tossed in the rest of his rope onto my vest, then gave the small raft a final push with his foot. I felt that I was drifting now. I remained still. Any slight shift was felt immediately in my lower jaw.

“I’ll live with that,” he repeated. “It’s better to be on the docks than in the water right now, and I’ll know I made the right choice no matter what happens. They want us to believe that the ones in the water don’t matter in the grand scheme, but it’s not true.” I was trying to make out his words but lost most of them in between the sounds of the ocean. The wind became more resilient as I was drawn further out. “We finally figured it out. It was way over our heads,” Nate called out.

I was caught in the moment. My position on the raft was oddly relaxing. For the first time in years, I could lay back and enjoy the beach as well as the stars above it. The stone must have been separated from me along the way. I was so tied up in this meeting, I am relieved to know that it was finally over. It gave me satisfying closure, as I settled into a deep state of relaxation. My breaths took me away. It dawned on me that the only time it didn’t matter what was beneath the surface was after I found nothing, and laughed at that thought.

I was determined to ride into this apocalypse alone. Not for personal gain or any kind of reward, but to save those who weren’t going to save themselves. Distant factory pipes spewed clouds of black fog. They worked together and intertwined, even growing in size if you stared at them long enough. I liked to believe they would come to life one day. A violent monster of machinery could steamroll this side of town and put a certain end to this. The only piece of its bleak existence that made it over to this side was the faint smell of car exhaust, traveling in a slow crawl. This was their reminder.

It was high noon and the entire neighborhood fell silent. Countless blocks were constructed to look exactly like the ones beside them. I stopped riding my tricycle only to stare in disgust from afar. White fences lined the front lawns of pastel-colored structures they called homes; the slight differences between them unnoticeable to anyone still sound of mind—the uninfected. I needed to find those people.

Surely it could have been worse, but I was here to make sure it never got to that point. I pedaled further down the sidewalk with tunnel vision. All I heard in the few minutes were the pebbles caught under my plastic wheels, followed by the lines in the cement sounding off in rhythmic bumps.

Maybe the people were feeding off their surroundings. That had to be it. As far I could tell, none of this was being published anywhere, yet the signs were present. I knew what their real plan was. It was death to individuality. There was truly no justice here. I had to move fast.

I buckled the strap of my bright red helmet under my chin. My plasma gun was loaded and holstered under my shirt with the few rounds I had left. The binoculars I received for my fifth birthday last year weren’t real binoculars and made my vision fuzzy. I was saving for a new pair.

The twins’ lemonade stand around the block and two streets away was funneling my allowance regularly. Filling up a piggy bank to the snout with quarters and dimes proved to be a waste of time. I found myself taking out more than I was putting in. I didn’t know what to call this, so I settled on being too young to understand.

I still paid them well. They were good kids who made an effort; too young to mean any harm but too naive to make decent allies in this fight. They told me I was making this my problem and that their parents said it’s not up to any of us here how the world goes sometimes. They were still partly unsure at only four years old, but they were letting all of this slide. I couldn't fully put my trust in them, and their questioning wouldn’t be done until later.

I was alarmed by the abrupt slamming of a car door across the street. A man was exiting a parked car in his driveway. I must have missed him while surveying the area and doing recon. I needed to think fast and face the problem with force. Coming unprepared left me with no other option. I rolled up on the sidewalk and met his turned back.

“Excuse me,” I said.

The man turned to me and possessed an eager smile. Sunglasses were folded into the collar of his long-sleeved buttoned shirt, over some dark slacks and dress shoes. I knew this appearance they engaged in with one another to be the one they called business casual. He was happy to see me, yet I didn’t know this strange man. I couldn’t take any chances. I let go of the handlebars and reached for my weapon at my side.

“What’s up, big guy?” He asked. The man was fast and unthreatened and approached calmly

It was deeply concerning. I panicked. The plasma gun felt heavy in my hand when fueled up with ammunition. I had him steady in my line of sight now, carefully aiming for his vitals. He crouched down and put out a fist, as an invitation to respond with my own. It had to be one of the tricks they learned after being infected.

“Sir, are you aware that we are taking part in a war of the mind and only of the mind?” I asked politely.

“That’s a cool toy,” he laughed. The man slowly retracted his hand. I thought him to be feeling disarmed, but the man stood and smiled once again in his previous form, most likely to prepare for his next move.

“Sir, if you could please just answer the—”

“When I was your age we played cops and robbers,” he interrupted. “And that was only when we weren’t playing cowboys and Indians. Do you know cowboys and Indians?”

As odd as it may have sounded, it was still sincere. I sensed that the man may have been disturbed. I was falling for his diversion, under pressure with what could be my only shot at him.

“I’m very sorry about that,” I said.

“Does anyone know you’re here right now, little one?”

“Sir, are you aware that being willfully ignorant to the infection makes you complicit in said war?” I fired back, dodging his question now.

“Alright,” the man said. “I don’t have much to offer you, so we should probably just get you home.”

“I’m doing this to help you,” I whispered into the air.

I shielded my eyes with my offhand before firing. In one pull of the trigger, the man’s body instantly vanished in thin air, then crumbled at my wheels. I never saw what the weapon did. I could only take in the outcome. The pile of dust that remained was already being swept into the wind before I had the chance to reholster.

Maybe it was a lost cause. I wasn't quite sure how to classify this virus anymore. Feeling more defeated by the day, I was beginning to think that the work could not be undone and all hope was lost. I shouldn’t have ruled out that it was probably just the way things were around here. In just the handful of years that I’ve been present, I noticed that some people tended to be blind to their shortcomings, something I could only assume was true since the beginning of time. It seemed accurate to think that there was genuinely nothing new under the sun. What was the real meaning of this? And how much damage had been done here? I kept riding, hoping someone would one day understand.

September 30, 1990

My life is up in the air. I don’t need this. My caseworker said I do, but I don’t. I put myself in a bad position. Losing my athletic scholarship made me realize that this is all my fault. I will forever be known as the kid who threw his life away during high school over a fight. I’m not stuck writing lines in a journal for doing something wrong, I’m here because someone that thought I did claimed they caught me red-handed. What will haunt me forever is that it all could have been avoided. I still lose sleep over it.

October 6, 1990

I was told by my caseworker that I should be more descriptive in this journal. As I write this, I feel ashamed of my actions. I’m not too remorseful, though. The team was picking on the new kid, and I moronically chose to be a hero because no one else would. I didn’t realize he was the one taking them on until he got to me. Given the opportunity to right my wrongs, I would probably make the same decision to stand up for him, whether he realized it or not. This made me feel better. I don’t aspire for a life of doing the wrong thing but I don’t think anyone is benefiting from this writing either. The crime I committed was defending some poor guy on school property. It sounds pathetic and offensive to real criminals everywhere. My caseworker also said I should end these entries on a more positive note. One day this will all be behind me.

March 13, 1991

For future reference, I am beginning this entry as a reminder that it was my idea to continue. I will be starting fresh from today. Ben didn’t mind churning out daily entries in exchange for rides for the remainder of my community service. I went on to memorize them before every meeting with the caseworker just in case. After months of uneventful experiences, I finally had a good enough reason to start writing these.

Kate grabbed my hand and pulled me deeper into the cave. Ben was there. He turned out to be more than just the person writing my journal for me. He was good at editing them too. I trusted him with what we discovered down there. They’re the closest thing I have to real partners in crime.

Andy waited for us there. We talked beforehand about how I lost my scholarship trying to save him and he apologized for putting some of the team in intensive care. He suggested that it was destiny that brought us together, and there was something we had to see. It was my first non-violent encounter with him, and he proved to be slightly on edge, but he was telling the truth.

Andy sprinted into the narrow pathway as if he had the route previously memorized. Kate was trailing him, still pulling my arm away from my body through the shadowy maze. Hidden sharp points scraped my sides at every turn. Ben was last to reach the bottom, probably studying the rocks with his flashlight. Kate gave me one final pull into an open area where Andy stood with his flashlight out. The ground was a giant hole in the shape of a star, and five dirt platforms at every corner of the hole stored a precious gem. Andy was already at one of the far corners, his hand placed over the gem. Ben and Kate were expressionless as it pulsed a deep yellow light that bounced off the walls. It radiated and glowed then stopped once he removed his hand. The gem was back to its translucent, milky shade of gray.

Andy explained how they all emitted a different color after being touched. Something about them was otherworldly. The platforms could not have been crafted by hand but it was hard to believe they formed naturally. It was unsettling to think the ground went further down within the hole of the star. More importantly, Andy deduced that the gems on every point of the star might react differently with five people in total.

June 25, 1991

We were visiting the cave daily now, reducing the time it took each of us to descend the path to an average of one minute and three seconds. None of us could get a three-to-one vote on who would be brought in as our fifth person. A debate that lasted weeks forced our hand when we finally settled on our favorite teacher, Mr. Roman. Ben and I were rather indifferent, figuring he might have been able to explain why the hole went further down anyway. Andy was new at school and desperate to know what the gems were long before he led us down there. He rarely disagreed with any of our suggestions for a fifth member. Kate was still hesitant about letting Mr. Roman around. If he joined us down in the cave, we weren’t sure if he would keep it a secret upon discovery.

We grew impatient and stopped playing with the gems knowing it amounted to nothing more than creating rays of light. Together, in complete silence, we sat at four corners of the star and stared into the vast darkness below. We needed to know what those gems were there for.

As a presentation after school, we persuaded Mr. Roman to join in on our project. It was about the archeological finding of a lifetime, playing to his interests. He didn’t buy it. Four teens luring him into a cave regarding some hole in the ground were not in his plans. He was only willing to do so on two conditions: we were to be home before dark, and the expedition was to take place when the school year was over.

June 27, 1991

I’m home from what may be our last time in the cave. Ben yelled out to anyone that might have been around for help but we were unheard so far down. There was no time to save us anyway. Mr. Roman was frozen in a state of shock. We got him out of there and made a break for it when we saw them, getting out with no time to spare. Without exchanging words and with no intentions of meeting up again, the five of us separated.

Before it all went south, Mr. Roman was running late. The equipment he had forgotten at home and went back for—which we assured were unnecessary for what we were showing him—was clearly for mining and prospecting. At the bottom, Andy waited for us impatiently. He trusted that we had the right five and guided us to our platforms around the star shape. Mr. Roman was hesitant to place a hand on his gem, only led to do so by the lights jumping off of our gems. The inclusion of a fifth person was all that was needed for them to come to life.

The ground began to rumble. Creatures were materializing out of the hard gems. They broke out of their confinement like embalmed cocoons. Each of them took the shape of a different animal and glared intensely. What began as a light tremble gradually sent dust and small rocks from the ceiling onto us straight down into the hole. We didn’t think to save the creatures from the wreck. I’m still not sure what to think of them. There were no talks of returning, even though we had good reason to both stay out and head back in.

June 30, 1991

We spent the next few days trying to contact Mr. Roman. The first weeks of summer break were approaching rapidly and he was nowhere to be found. The school administration wouldn’t reveal his address to students. He couldn’t have gone away so soon. We figured he must have reached out to the authorities by now.

Leaving us with no other plan, our curiosity took us back to the cave. We did the usual pass through the initial pathway shortly before arriving at our platforms. The gem creatures were already making use of the space surrounding the star, their shadows stretched along the cave walls.

Mr. Roman was with them in their den, in the same attire he wore three days ago. His utility belt and helmet light were gaining their interest and he managed to find out quite a lot about them. Crouching low at his far corner of the star, he had them classified and noted with etchings sprawled out on the cave floor. He said the creatures were connected and behaved like infants when interacting with one another. He also passively mentioned that if so many of us weren’t involved there might be a chance to breed them. We were beginning to regret bringing him on.

July 3, 1991

Trips to visit the newfound creatures grew uncomfortable. Mr. Roman sat there with them when the four of us arrived as well as when we left. He obsessed over the creatures, taking over the cave as his place of gem research.

Kate called for a regroup. We needed a way to get Mr. Roman out, unsure if we were all on the same page for what needed to be done. We were hardly ever in contact with Andy before encountering the early pathways. That was my biggest regret. We made the mistake of getting Andy’s attention before sneaking away to come up with a strategy. He knew the caves best. We missed him already.

We never saw Andy again. Mr. Roman claimed he ran off. Andy had been convincing him to force the rest of us down into the hole and keep the gems for themselves, now that they were free from their solid form. He mumbled the same inaudible sentence repeatedly, appearing sickly and frail when stepping over his papers and approaching our aimed flashlights. He fixed his posture and said there was no logic in interfering with the exceptional work being done these past few days, and anyone that disagrees should be greeted by the abyss. Andy’s gem, a beetle glowing a soft gold, was still crawling along the floor with the others. Something happened after their encounter.

Ben was already in position. He ran out from behind Mr. Roman and we charged from opposite sides, striking him down. His gem had become a colorless silhouette in the form of a dragonfly, shading the light of the others. Mr. Roman grabbed a hold of it on his way down the hole, and his screams finally stopped after a long unsettling minute. Not a sound or thud followed. We waited for any sign of him but were met with nothing in return. The other creatures sat by and watched. I didn’t know if Ben and Kate felt it, but the dragonfly gem communicated with us. It was something indescribable; as if it expressed feelings of loss and confusion. I believed the creature was trying to say goodbye.

July 16, 1991

Two weeks was supposed to be enough time to lay low before heading back to the cave. It had to have been labeled a crime scene. We were probably wanted by now for the missing bodies of Andy and Mr. Roman.

Many of our nights up until then were spent together trying to think our way out. It was Andy who dragged us into this mess and suddenly he was gone. The same thing could be said about us for Mr. Roman. It was our invitation that drove him mad, eventually taking his life, and most likely Andy’s.

We should have left it there. The three of us agreed that we all felt it. Constant exposure to the gems must have been what led them to signal us. Our mistake was trying to piece several of them together at once.

The creatures reverted to their original state on the five platforms. Endless sheets of artwork and detailed descriptions remained on the cave floor collecting thick dust. From what was legible, they seemed to have gone back into some form of hibernation. I tried to make sense of Mr. Roman’s free hand. His lines of notes were written directly over his other texts, presumably to claim it as his own and throw off someone like me making sense of it.

We thought their signals meant they were still roaming around. Our touch did nothing besides extracting their colors again when we tried bringing them back to life. I learned the hard way that the star requires five people for five gems. It was Ben’s idea to gather Andy’s gem and place it onto his side of the star,  putting both hands on them at once. The two colors met somewhere in the middle and converged in an instant, causing Ben to disappear within the stretches of light.

August 2, 1991

I have no one to talk to anymore about Ben. It was going to be impossible to bring it up without explaining the disappearance of two others. Most of my time was spent alone down in the cave, afraid of the day I smelled a decomposing body. I was removing and placing the gems for hours in different positions, hoping Ben would reappear.

Kate has been keeping her distance. She was honest about not wanting to come back around ever since what happened to Ben. That was over two weeks ago. I still wonder how she would go on to talk about this in the future. The last thing Kate mentioned to me was how it was all one big accident and she should be looking for new ways to enjoy the rest of her summer. I agreed. Sometimes I regret not saying it first. Maybe there was still a chance for a lasting memory that ends well.

June 30, 1992

School’s been out for a couple of days now. I waited until my mind was clear to write the next entry. It’s been a long year. Before the summer break, I only found time to search for Ben on weekends and after school. I considered every possibility of Andy’s whereabouts. The equipment left behind was sufficient enough to descend into the hole, though I wasn’t sure what the conditions were like down there. He’ll come back on his own should he decide to. Kate and I haven’t talked since we parted ways. I took that as her being safe. I was glad that she didn’t make the effort to come back.

To my knowledge, there were only two gems left in existence. Ben took a pair along with him when he disappeared and Kate’s is still there beside mine. It wasn’t until months later that Mr. Roman’s creature found its way back up the hole. It had massively outgrown the others now at almost half my height. The creature was angry. Scars were left on my fingers to prove it when I contained its sharp wings. Mr. Roman’s dragonfly waits inside of a cage—more like a cell—by the entrance while the other two gems remain in stasis.

I don’t think anyone would be willing to connect with the dragonfly if I ever found a way to revert it to a gem. Finding three people for any of the gems might be my biggest challenge yet. Everything we just went through felt like it happened yesterday. I haven’t forgotten the risk of placing a hand on them.

Despite everything, I know I made the right decision in being led to the cave. I decided to spend the rest of my summer going deeper into Mr. Roman’s findings, continuing with his work instead of the journal from now on. He was more bent on using the gems for personal gain but I’ll be taking my time in giving his notes the attention it deserves, for the next group that finds their way down the cave. Together, with some guidance, they could use the gems for a greater purpose. I needed to help them find out what that was or they would surely suffer the same fate.

A steel briefcase was left open in his study. I was nearly finished with the last lines of my task list when I stumbled upon it. As always, they were written on a loose sheet of paper left out for me to retrieve in the laboratory: Check suit for blood. SLIGHTLY disassemble. Be careful. Wash suit. Scrub cape—wash blood and dry clean. Keep lab neat. This is easy. It must be done. NO. DUST. Sweep floors. Polish boots—use brush for blood. Be fast. Be efficient. Leave quickly. I see you—bad. You see me—BAD. They did not stray too far from yesterday’s requests.

The briefcase was not just laying out in the open. Admittedly, the reflective thing did need some adjusting. It was cold and heavier than it looked, but it needed to be set aside for further cleaning. One of the hinges was unlocked, and there was no way of getting around to clean the part of the table underneath it. That was what I would have said when questioned. I would not speak about the horrifying contents inside or how they risked the safety of the team.

They told me we were a team. I was granted access to the lair while they were out getting their hands dirty. My role of watching over the place was misinformed. I was moving over photos and action figures of them when I cleaned. They left me out of their public relations. How naive it was to think I was anything more than an employee.

I came to the chilling conclusion that their successes derived from a vial. The serum was set and fastened within a black cushion inside the briefcase. I didn’t know what I was thinking at the time of removing the top and drinking it all in one go. Before this, it felt as if I wasn’t thinking at all. It gave my body a boost it didn’t know it needed, like a sip of cold water when extremely thirsty, coursing easily through my body.

All of a sudden I didn’t question whether my thoughts were clear. It had to come from this green beverage he locked away. I did not know the serum was meant to be injected until after drinking the vial in its entirety. The instructions were displayed in such fine print on the glass vial that I was unable to notice them. These small letters would not have been visible to me only an hour ago. The heightened senses I received from consuming it were something I haven’t felt before. I knew this altered state was the power of the serum.

I lost track of time in my head, trying to make sense of it all. He might have administered the serum through a steady drip under his suit. But what problems, if any, were truly his? How much of the team’s accomplishments were due to his natural talent? The other members of the team were larger than life. Not one of them pretended to be someone they were not. That was not to take away from the genius required to concoct the mixture, but it did make me question the briefcase in its entirety at the time of cleaning.

It was odd he had been choosing to work in his laboratory over the lair as of late. The more antiquated technology was left for the team’s lair, used strictly when the team agreed the target posed a threat of global proportions. His recent work would be here in the lab. He may have forgotten the briefcase here but the items he placed inside it were too impactful and served a purpose. Along with the vial was a disposable tape player and a cassette, preloaded inside.

Did he inject the serum and then use those thought patterns to record the tape? I listened to it twice over to make sure I wasn't being deceived by this new feeling. It ran for the length of twenty minutes, the bulk of it detailing the team’s weaknesses, including his own. He walked the listener through his plans to take out each member clearly and thoughtfully. I could not believe it for myself. If anyone else had heard it, there was no doubt they would relay that information. The tape was valuable intel and could determine the near future of the world if it were placed in the wrong hands.

Deity took on humanity’s greatest threats as his own. He would be there to work tirelessly against the fall of humankind. A world war ravaged his homeworld, and he was sent here as an infant against his will. Like Heiress, Deity soared the skies with no wings. He spent most of his time hovering still in outer space, watching over our tiny planet. The people he looked on from above would debate whether his abilities were his physical prowess, or the will to never falter and do the right thing. His strength and acts of kindness were recognized around the world. Although he would never admit to it, Deity maintained a subtle bitterness towards humans that he kept close to his heart. This part of the tape examined his psyche and stated that his good nature spawned from the guilt of losing his people. He feels that to this day if he fought in the war, he could have saved them as easily as he does the people here. Deity’s extermination would begin when the people turned their backs on him. It will prove to be a long process, but changing their perspective of him would make him resentful and look for a way back to his destroyed planet. With no way of going back, he would resort to the next best thing: self-exile.

It was said in the tape that Valiant was to meet his end first or the entire plan would collapse. He had the body and the mind of a young man in his mid-20s, known for moving at untraceable speeds. When his costume and his smile were put on, Valiant relished every photo-op for the team and was championed by the public as the team’s mascot. Much of his outgoing personality was mounted as a coverup for his more draining endeavors. His only goal when off-duty was reuniting with his family, mistakenly trapped somewhere in time. The tape suggests he may be much older due to his ability to travel through space and time at once. Valiant remained adamant about not using his more dangerous abilities beyond speed, due to losing loved ones at his expense. Upon realizing his work was all for nothing, Deity will have ignored Valiant’s warnings and made time travel his first choice in undoing his home planet's destruction.

He knew the risk factor when he made the tape. It was a way of getting rid of them to his liking and it needed to fall in place precisely. The order in which they needed to go was Valiant, Deity, then Heiress.

Her bloodline was shared with ancient gods. If the group thought themselves to be better than the world as a whole, she was the best of them. Heiress was well established as the voice of reason. More importantly, she was the ‘most trustworthy of them all.’ He had given no plan for Heiress. She needed to be last because she was to have her life taken by any means necessary. The tape continued on about three other members of the team I never knew existed before today.

Worldly Predator shared similar characteristics with Deity. His planet was home to giant insects, his natural body when he wasn’t utilizing his human state. The team used him as bait while in his anthropomorphic disguise at a villain hideout. There, they had him compromised in the middle of the mission, framing his death as the sole reason to invade the hideout themselves.

Sea Creature was tough to categorize. With the physique of a man and the head of a fish, Valiant deduced that he descends from a prehistoric species dwelling at both the bottom of the ocean and the tallest mountains. As said in the tape, that was what gave him the idea. Sea Creature was teleported to a volcanic desert region, where his body would not be able to adapt and eventually succumb to the dry climate should he desire to work his body to escape. He is stuck there slowly losing moisture until he’s gone.

Earthlight conjured a limitless number of tools that manifested based on his current level of resolve. The tape explained how this one was trickier than he hoped. His ability to survive conditions of outer space and be protected by his desire removed the chance of using tranquilizers or any sneak attacks. Earthlight was sent on a solo mission millions of light-years away. His resolve, the gauge for his power, would bring him there and back, but his mortality would not let him survive both trips. The tape played white noise for a moment.

His weaknesses were a smug, late addition: The Beast. He spoke continuously about his physique and mental fortitude; how it was peak human form and The Beast was the only way to release his gifts onto the world without revealing his identity. It was a character he created, and the sole name he gave himself over time. He thought of The Beast as an entity—a spirit he was able to summon at his leisure. A monster in his back pocket that he turned into sometimes if need be.

He was halfway completed with slaughtering his friends while they stood beside him. There were only three of them left to defeat to fulfill his plan. He was self-aware in his description and said that in actuality, as a group the four of them displayed vices rather than the virtues of real people. The arrogance, the greed, the anger. I found myself in agreement. I knew the patience of having to deal with them from day to day. The good nature it took to look them in the face and not see them for how despicable they were. It was inexcusable how simple-minded I was without the serum.

This power is fading, so this feeling of despair shouldn’t last forever. I feel my thoughts fleeting now, in the way they were before. The peak of this fleeting was clear. Further playbacks rendered me useless now that the serum was escaping me, delaying an opportunity to devise my plan. I should have been destroying the evidence rather than drinking it to the last drop. Dozens of cameras and a million other fail-safes would have made sure it lived on. He was probably watching me now. I was not mentioned in the tape once, but I knew that if I was not going to make one for myself, a plan would arrive for me soon.

Back at home, long before I found myself plunging into the world of the jelly folk, my name was Wayne Lewis. I was an author who tinkered around with short stories and sold them on occasion. I was never too eager to title a story. I handed over that responsibility to the ones who eventually owned them. Creating a title usually meant farewell to my works as I once knew them.

Here in this jelly world, they call me Brain Lewis. They weren’t so clever at hiding that I was being used. I tell myself that I am deep undercover as I travel here with these strangers, for what would eventually become a worthy story. They had already decided that I was to live the rest of my life here in their jelly world by their jelly terms, as the one I lived before warping through space was not as fruitful. It sounded reasonable. All of this was against my will, of course.

It derived from a short story I had written—the one about the parasitic humanoids utilizing a liquid with the texture of saliva to take over the world. The scale was quite ambitious. A jolt of creativity struck me entirely too late when I realized it was not meant to be a short story but a rather long one instead. I wrote the manuscript in three sittings, over four days. Had I known my mind was being transmitted these facts from another world, I would have tried to finish in two sittings at most.

The passion for the idea burned within me. That much was visible from its pages. Soon, after the first day or so, the manuscript would complete itself, seemingly on its own accord. It was the dawn of what I considered to be a new era for Wayne Lewis, the short story author. I finally completed a story that was a normal length. It was touching. I wept a few times reading it back to myself, as shameful as it was to admit. I knew it was meant to be shared.

And it was taken from me. The story I had worked so hard to finish was ripped from my hands and sold to the suits in Hollywood, in exchange for investor capital. I suppose that was the job of an agent. When the suits closed the deal, they offered to pay a sum they deemed unaffordable at the time. It was clear to me they had no idea that what was in their possession was priceless. Had they known the lengths to which the jelly folk went in search of it, the suits would have held the story up for ransom directly rather than indirectly in the way they were taught. Unbeknownst to all parties involved in the deal, the story would be a retelling of events in the world of the jelly folk before their civilization fell to chaos.

Here was the glaring misunderstanding: nothing in the story was based on anything real. I made all of it up with no prior outlining, a notion I repeated to them constantly in this spacecraft. It was no use. They rejected what I believed to be an example of raw creativity and said it was nothing more than a false transmission. Although the jellies that came along for the ride claimed to be generations removed from their parasitic nature, as well as the madness still engulfing their home planet, they received word their story was mistakenly given to a man on Earth and did what they had to.

A group of brave jellies fled their world in pursuit of it. They were after that story, as it contained the reasons for the consequences they were challenged with, day in and day out. My story about a jelly world was real. I was certain there was another story to be written here about this outing when I arrived back on Earth.

They were not hostile when they abducted me. An unexpected, crude attempt at my life would have been poetic since they found me working feverishly on another story. There was also some use for writing inspiration in a failed hit. It was not until they explained the situation that I realized it was simply an abduction. They did make it clear, though, that I had to do what they said. At the time, I was returning to the usual short story format instead of a long venture, so I had time to spare.

Once I settled myself in and the group explained the situation, I was withdrawn from any of my problems before this one—involving being the most valuable piece to a distant world. I was one with the jellies now as it was destined to be. They were as gelatinous as the story went, except the real jellies were pacifists. As a confirmation of their friendliness, one of them raised two fingers upon arrival to display the symbol of peace. Forward, not backward. That means war, I thought. I wasn’t sure if I had gotten that mixed up so I made a mental note to check back home.

I traveled light in this craft. I should have suspected the dank odor as I had written. Three other jellies floated around in their weightless bodies and occupied the same space. They were like rounded shapes of warping lava that escaped their lamps. It was probably rude to stare. I couldn’t help but study them for my story later. When they weren’t using their gooey tendrils to operate the ship’s controls or tune a device in their ears to stay on the language I spoke, I suspected them to be watching me in the same confusion. I wondered what stories they would tell about their space adventure that involved retrieving a human. The tale probably sounded boring to the other jellies but it drew from real experiences. It seemed like their inspiration could never run out.

I wasn’t particularly talented, though I have been told the opposite for quite some time. Perhaps they were just harmless words of encouragement. The suits were nonchalant in the way they drained the enthusiasm from people like me. Most of their advice came through a system of what they called notes. I was not particularly fond of this system or the ways they leveraged it. I would turn in a draft, crisp and presumably final, and they requested a rewrite, over and over in a cycle that began once again. They were secretive with their motives from the start, so by the end what they commissioned is nowhere near the initial idea and breakthrough of the writer. They smiled about it. I know they did but I could not imagine their faces much, beyond their standard blank emotions. As I pictured them, each of them stuck out in my mind as an expressionless face in a faded, gray suit, around many others and smeared across one long conference table. I knew this came from the same idea that you do not remember what people did or said but how they made you feel. In this case, I couldn’t think of what they looked like. I mostly pitied them. They were simply doing a job, and they assured me that I was doing the same.

What else of the story could they find to dice up and make their own? I thought. The suits managed something much worse and put the story on ice—tucked deeply within a shelf, in one of their many offices with the other acquired assets. They bought my story, changed it before my eyes, and hid it in plain sight. I distinctly recall the last conversation we had about it. It was burned into my memory, after all. ‘These stories are nothing but words stacked on piles of sheets of paper. Every story in existence, if they were neatly organized together in a library, much like our company library, would be indistinguishable. Until we open them and use their messages none of them hold weight. So we’ll just keep this one closed and act as if it were another meaningless story.’ They also likened it to Frankenstein's monster and Pandora’s box—calling it a perverse cross between the two—set to the tune of manic rambling. The suits did not hold back.

They guaranteed they would court a star actor to attach to the story in an attempt to sell more at admission. Customers would rather the words come from a star. But there was very little to convey in my prose. This work in particular was not meant to be acted out. My story had depth, as it had been given to me by unknown forces at play.

The story was simple in structure but maintained riveting themes throughout. It was always tough to be my critic. Normally I was harder on myself. With this, I knew I had something special. I proclaimed it as my magnum opus, for lack of a better term. There weren’t many ways to make sense of the phrase. It sounded grand and fitting. My magnum opus did not concern the jelly world and its inhabitants at all, yet they treated it as the gospel I intended it to be. I could only dream of thinking up a story half as good as their real tragedies.

I kept it easy to follow so the suits would not feel intimidated while reading over the pages. The manuscript, as written, contained no protagonists. The antagonists were hiding in the bodies of Hollywood suits and grew stronger by preying on the general population at public events. My relationship with the suits was quite complicated. I should have guessed they would not go through with turning it into a picture. They buried it in notes after all.

The jelly was brought to existence by two teams of individuals calling themselves executives and creatives. As always, both teams would have their ideas on how to steer the ship. Carefully engineered through countless trials and test subjects, the jelly represented everything good in its creators as well as the malicious intent that brewed beneath the surface. The seed that eventually sprouted was groaned out as an afterthought during their many indifferent conferences, moving up an inexplicable food chain. The jelly was passed along like a secret note in class that contained precious intel. All of it remained hidden from those not on the inside.

‘What is the power of the jelly?’ was the suits’ initial reaction. ‘Did the stuff have a name?’ ‘Did this formless magic somehow slip the periodic table?’ ‘What about this jelly made the person embracing it feel larger than life?’ There had to be a way to use it for monetary gain. They were suits.

Conflicting strategies arose regarding the best way to maximize jelly profits. The question lingered in conference rooms until they decided on children. The suits knew they could introduce the jelly at a young age. If it were any success, they could rebrand it and prey on childhoods again by way of an echo chamber infused with nostalgia.

One year would pass in a jelly-filled blink of an eye when the jelly propaganda flashed on the screens of millions.  People standing in an entire coat, looking down at their hands and bodies. Kids they could relate to were being rewarded by being covered in it, overwhelmed by a newly acquired ecstasy. They had become one with the jelly. Due to it being featured everywhere, they had made it an instant classic. By this time, those glued to their screens didn’t know they needed it.

It was only a few weeks later when they found that the jelly was made of three to four over-the-counter items. Not only was this easily attainable for anyone internationally but it was done and overdone until there was no more magic. In an instant, the hypnosis was over. The millions of homes that wanted the jelly created it themselves. They realized in unison that the ones who advertised the jelly were to blame.

The suits ended the story there, on a cliffhanger. They suggested there would be room for a sequel that way. I knew their real goal was to not display suits and consumers in that light, even in what they thought was a fictional story. An ending they couldn’t note to death and stash in their library did not belong.

It was the moral of the story. The people affected by what they called the fake jelly crisis gathered outside of the suit’s offices. The suits would then consume all of the jelly fiends and default to their natural insect state. Upon transformation, they turned the rest of the world, the non-believers, into jelly folk. It was much like the cautionary tale of the boy who inherited the factory with the chocolate waterfall, only the space adventure, and shape-shifting alien species were not left out for the sequel. They were here and now.

I could not decide if it was peculiar that I was still alive and well here in this spacecraft. I was mid-thought about how I was going to outline this later. Perhaps I would focus more on the jellies’ kindness and tenacity instead of their rather gelatinous features. Maybe I wouldn’t write about those around me at all. More so, I questioned if the suits in the jelly world would appreciate stories from my point of view—or if they would teach me how to mentally transmit them.

prologue

The bench I sat and waited on felt rigid yet serene; new and familiar, all the same. Splinters pierced through the old wood rotting beneath its legs. I was comfortable in the delicate thing. My nerves were mostly under control at the thought of meeting Lord Overseer, or his thoughts on my early departure long ago. I was a different person in those days. My doubts regarding the academy being exploited were present both then and now. I also questioned my travel back to the academy being so quiet up to this point.

There was no single path nobler, surpassing that of even facing the fire than to be a wandering samurai alone in the world. In no time, I was faced with the reality of stepping away from the mountain I knew during my youth and venturing off. What awaited were harsh ashes invading your lungs like a vicious swarm and the ember trails that swallowed villages whole, all of which were surrounded by those self-taught with a blade, waiting patiently to find themselves engaging with formal samurai. One in training would have satisfied their craving even more so. I had been well acquainted with all of these over the years, on my occasions. It proved my invitation back to be worth the trouble of traveling for days. Still, many of the details were left behind a veil of uncertainty.

On the bench, I breathed real air for once. Out in the distance was the same view I took in as a hopeful student. The golden trees that reached above the foliage into the sky flowed beside the body of water at the base of the mountain. Looking at it from above reminded me of the forthcoming journey I once hoped for. I wished to see the world on my own one day and keep records of the experience. I took in the grand view matched by the breeze, sighing lightly as I got to my feet. My intuition told me that the academy I once knew was no longer.

“Timely arrival,” a deep voice snapped from out behind me. I glanced over my shoulder and was greeted by a towering figure in charcoal robes. A helmet in the shape of what appeared to be a bird was coming this way. Pondering my luck, I shuffled cautiously towards the one person I was hoping to not encounter today.

“Lord Raptor. It is my pleasure,” I said, lying through my teeth.

His arms had a short reach and joined at broad shoulders, moving steadily as continued to march forward. “The pleasure is mine. Lord Overseer has spoken quite highly of you. I am still struggling to agree,” he laughed. “That was me filling the air, Lord— forgive me, what is your–-”

“Flint,” I interrupted. “I am no lord.” I looked on as the words between us met the air before being violently swept away in the wind, my robes billowing with them.

“My apologies, I have nothing to offer. You must be exhausted from traveling all the way here, and a name with such strength, one can only assume you chose it under the circumstances,” he said, tapping the blades at his waist with one hand. “If I may ask, was it forged in the fire?”

“Flint was my name before I was given a choice.”

“I see,” he said. In one motion, Lord Raptor removed his helmet and exhibited that permanent frown I could never quite forget. “I only allude to the new age of students and where they appear to place their values. There seems to have been a sort of change of the guard, as inevitable as it may be. And it happened right under our noses.”

He immediately stopped moving when he reached striking distance.

“Lord Overseer advocated for the perspective of an outsider so it is best you come to this realization sooner rather than later. There is a single truth that exists for all samurai, and those here in particular. As long as we are alive and at this institution, Flint, our common goal will always be to put out the fire. It must be accepted that we will come to that answer together or on our own, whether we agree or not. The fire carries on. You will come to know this in greater detail once you are welcomed in officially. Lord Overseer insists that inviting you would not only prove useful but necessary. I cannot say I recognize his angle of strategy.”

“I am only here for a meeting upon his request. The message I was given said nothing further,” I said.

“If that were the case, he would not have cut our time short for me to retrieve you. Now, that makes for almost a half dozen of us looking after a thousand students, more or less. A new instructor is far from what this academy needs, but I am sure it cannot hurt. I will not be the one to question the judgment of Lord Overseer. You were brought here for a reason,” he said unconvincingly, turning around and marching away in a slow stride.

I wanted to sit back down and sink into the bench that had already been falling apart, back when admiring the old view again was the only thought that crossed my mind.

Without warning, Lord Raptor looked up to the open air, letting out a wild, screeching whistle. The sounds of nature masked by the breeze quieted for a moment. He turned back to me.

“He is waiting in there,” said Raptor. He pointed toward a stone shelter that had been just beside us all along, a concealed dome overgrown in leaves and vines. “If you need me, look up,” he said facing the opposite direction. Lord Raptor continued heading off into nowhere.

“Thank you,” I said to his turned back. I hesitantly made my way to the dome.

The rounded space was decorated solely by a painting completed along the walls; a battlefield that sprawled outward and into itself to no end. A single line of steam arose from a mug in the hands of Lord Overseer. They shook slightly with age under his robes that draped entirely over his small body. The man seemed fragile and possessed no form of weapon. It was tough to imagine him as a master of the blade during his time, though he would likely disregard that notion.

“You are here,” he wheezed.

“Lord Overseer,” I acknowledged. Approaching him slowly, I removed the blades from my arsenal as a show of respect before bowing and placing them on the floor between us. “I had no way of responding to your request,” I said nervously. “As unsure as I may have been, I did not believe it would hurt to see myself.”

“I see you have not changed in that sense,” The Overseer remarked. He motioned to a flat plank by my feet. “Sit, please. Would you like some tea?”

I put a hand out respectfully in rejection. “I did not think I made such an impression during my studies. It has been more than a decade since I fled. Since then, I have worked as a guard under a different name. Had I known you would soon venture out and find me, I would have been more careful.”

“I know much of your recent endeavors, Flint. You were recommended to me by your seniors.” He paused for a moment. “There is a price to pay in two ways when we make a choice: the price of what is exchanged, and the price of what could have been, had you made a different choice. There were risks in bringing you back here, but there is much more to be gained.”

I almost felt relieved to know my wrongdoings were not forgotten. “Lord Raptor. Does he remember me? Moments ago during our greeting, he seemed to not recognize me, though it has been quite a while.”

“Lord Raptor is a bit inquisitive at times. Truthfully there is no way to know, is there?” He said, probably joking. “The man certainly has his methods.”

“When I was too young to study the blade, there was a round of recruitment in my home village. Lord Raptor represented the academy as a spokesman. The stories of heroic acts lured me in. He engaged with the people about what he learned as leader of a thousand of the strongest samurai, stampeding over the fire as one.”

“The 1001 Samurai, a series of events that shall not be forgotten,” Lord Overseer said somberly.

“What I am trying to convey is, he went around convincing scared people that The 1001 were still around, with him at the helm of it. It was not until I was admitted into the academy that I began to research the truth. Half of them perished in the fire and the other half separated into dispersed clans of immoral swordsmen.

“That is correct,” he said as he slowly lifted his tea and took a sip. “Few of The 1001 were left unaffected, but many of us never saw each other again.”

“Of course, I know your plight with the fire to be a part of history. I was too young and too easily influenced to see that Lord Raptor was unranked and had never been in a duel, let alone see the fire himself.”

Lord Overseer placed his steaming mug on the floor beside my sheathed blades. He took a long pause to gather himself, then sighed in his old age. “And the truth was not satisfying for you,” he stated. “Your thoughts were enough to guide your will and desire to take a trip alone, directly to the fire.”

“It was a selfish act. I reassured myself that it was the honorable thing to do at the time. I did not realize what I would find there and I went anyway.”

“And what did you find?” He asked gently.

“I slipped behind the overnight guard and left the academy when no samurai were patrolling, knowing I could not turn back. I arrived at the exact location of the fire that supposedly never went out, and found not a single trace of heat. That same night, a raging fire would be present at an entirely different location, engulfing my village in flames and reducing it to ash.”

“It was then that your village had been marginalized and, over time, so had you. Of course, the others residing in your village experienced the same fate. Did you lose anyone to the fire that night, Flint?”

“The familiar faces I grew to know and love were all lost in one night,” I trembled.

“And when you went back home that night instead of the academy, encountering a raging fire where your village once stood, was it then that you understood the fire and its capabilities?”

“I saw it, and still could not believe it myself. For years, I thought it was I that had triggered something along the way, leading the fire to my village in particular. Then I realized it was much simpler than that. The fire lives as we do,” I said, settling down.

Lord Overseer smiled in between sips. “Perhaps,” he suggested. “I will not be wasting any more of your time, Flint. As you are well aware of the fire and its importance, you must also know the true reason why the academy requires more instructors.”

The sound of it coming from Lord Overseer himself made my breathing irregular. I became queasy at the thought and dismissed it as a new sense of unfamiliar elevation while being on the mountain. A path as a youth samurai instructor, I thought, getting more accustomed to it.

“The way of the samurai is a dying art. Students today will be remembered as the Fifth Age, the last to include formal samurai as we know it. I see it with my own eyes. What comes naturally cannot be resisted but we cannot move on until the fire has been suppressed. We must ensure it is taken out for the safety of those around us that do not carry a blade. If the last samurai cannot put out the fire, the first would have lived for nothing.”