Maryanne wanted to help but she couldn’t let go of the bobbing cushion. Worse, if she touched the goopy stuff she would change, and if a leech got her? Buh-bye, Maryanne hello psycho, but Jack couldn’t handle everything himself either. This was also her job, so why wasn’t she given the ability to swim in the subconscious like Jack?
The green glow enveloped her, and she wondered if she could, here on Sapherine. Gold burst from her fingertips as she touched the tarry water. She sunk them in. Nothing. She tried her leg. Nothing again. Finally, she submerged her head and gasped as the sudden tarry substance seemed to swallow her whole and drag her under.
—---------------------
Jack faced the immature now crazy voice.
What a combination to have!
His sparking arms shot a beam at Lesley sending him several steps back, but Lesley simply disappeared.
“I hate that OP power,” he muttered as Lesley became visible and bit him. He yelled trying to pry Lesley off, but like an attack dog, Lesley hung on. He could feel the venom from those leeches leaking through.
He growled and smacked Lesley. “Get Off!”
I didn’t understand what was going on, my sudden abilities appearing and going nuts. For seconds, I disappeared which gave me enough time to get loose and run through the forest, evading lashes of green power. I sunk into a shadow and hid.
What in the hell is going on?
I tried looking inside my head, but everything was dark, and all I wanted to do was huddle and cry. Something was very wrong with me. I didn’t feel well at all. It's almost as if the world were painted black, and I wasn’t fit for it anymore.
Maybe I should let them catch me? I didn’t have the choice to choose, as green energy wrapped around my frame and squeezed. Slowly, it weaved a haze of poison around me, and I felt my skin itch, my eyes water, as I held my breath. I was snapped off my feet and dragged back to the woman, through the underbrush.
As the woman and the men came into view, I made eye contact with the Kin Beast, and it felt as if my soul suddenly was invaded by another wild source. The beast whined trying to get up. It was a mix of an elephant and a tiger. It had the beginning face of an elephant but the snout of a tiger.
It had tusks, however, and sad, wise, eyes. The body was streamlined like a tiger but with the girth of an elephant. The legs were a tiger, but the tail was strange. It was fluffy like a tiger’s but short and stumpy like an elephant’s tail. All in all, a magnificent creature.
“Bring me the girl,” the woman said, her bangles clanging like gongs. They reminded me of Medina, and I took notice of her more closely. Bowl-cropped, dark green hair adorned a stern face that reminded me of my brother on his constipated days. A dark green sari dress in two pieces and a million bangles.
What caught my eye the most was the way she stood, like a dancer. Yes, this woman knew of or was related to Medina. I had to get away before she linked me to being an other worlder. We already had the pig back in that village and if not him, the guards saw me too.
I felt my voices stir for lack of a better word and tried to see but again everything was black. I felt the disappearing powers awake again and used them to get away from the energy as it passed through me for a minute and I ran. I nearly screamed, when a hand touched my shoulder.
Again, Lesley disappeared with black blood on his teeth. Jack’s eyes elongated into black almond shapes. The darkness of the subconscious was his home and he sunk inside it. A few minutes later Lesley felt a boot collide with his ribs as he was pushed back further. He needed to get back into the subconscious for it to flow back to its borders. Jack shot another beam, pushing Lesley backward into the hole that made the subconscious.
Slim arms wrapped around him and a glowing golden glow surrounded him. He felt safe. Looking over he saw Maryanne whacking Lesley into formation. It was her ability with every voice. She was the leader, but Lesley needed healing, and the only way was if he saw his real self again and gained his sanity.
He growled. He couldn’t enter that room unless it was a voice’s time to leave but maybe Maryanne could?
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“Maryanne, he needs to see himself. Take him to the mirror room and lead him to his mirror. Hopefully, the leeches haven’t done permanent harm with the false truth.”
“But he could dissipate, and Myra needs him!”
“I'm sure another will take its place with the same powers.”
Maryanne sighed and glanced at the now calm voice. It was under her command. “You don’t know that.”
Jack glared. “What I do know is he is free and infested with leech venom. Do you want that to spread?”
“What about the subconscious? We can’t live inundated as we are.”
Jack smirked. “Leave that to me. I know what to do to get it back to its borders. Take Lesley to the Mirror room."
Maryanne nodded and walked past Lesley avoiding the leeches.
Jack sighed and swam through the subconscious, destroying fake truths, the leeches, as he swam to the very bottom of the black void, becoming the creature, he really was. Something better left to nightmares for Myra. An obsidian shark monster. He wasn’t ashamed of his true form; he was afraid of being weirder than he already was. With his sight, he could see the clog of memories around a cocoon. A voice cocoon.
As always, he dragged it with him to the surface and transformed back into a human, dragging it to the main control center and hooking it up. Unlike every other cocoon, this one was completely white the opposite of his. The waters flowed back to the banks and there were cheers from the boneheads in the other room.
“Where’s Maryanne,” asked Strength as he appeared drenched in sludge. He glanced at the left passage. She should’ve been back by now.
“I’ll go find her,” Jack muttered walking down the left path and towards two white gold doors. They were open. He checked inside.
“Maryanne?” he called not daring to pass past the golden borders of the door. There was moaning and then Lesley's clear voice as he never heard it before.
“Jack? In here! She’s knocked out,” he said.
Jack eyed the room full of moving mirrors and straightened his now dry shirt. “No other way,” he muttered, taking a leap and landing in the room where a fully male Lesley was. He was dressed all in white and had longish hair in a ponytail looking a bit like Roy and a bit like him!
He carried Maryanne. She too was dressed in white. A white dress with a green sash.
“She was under the sub too long, and so she did something stupid. She saw her truth. It did get rid of the sub’s taint but I’m not sure what else it did.”
A grey and then an emerald eye came into view, and I threw myself at Jonah bursting into tears. I didn’t know why. I had far worse before. I heard the beast cry out too.
“Find that girl! She’s bonded with the beast. We need to break that before we proceed,” said the woman, and I made a decision. I’d fight for the Kin beast. I had no idea what she meant but I felt it. I held the new soul within me and reassured it.
“I’ll be back for you.”
I heard a deep whine and a huff of compliance. How I knew? I didn’t have a clue, but I knew what the beast’s huff meant. I felt something else latched deep within me, and I stroked it once curiously. Nothing happened and I shrugged. Jonah froze and rubbed his chest lightly muttering. He then took me to where he remade his last array of teleporting, and with some commands, we were gone from there, leaving the beast.
Feeling the strange sensation of the time and place changing, but you, never moving, was weird. When the dizzying spell stopped, we appeared in a forest well known to us. The giant root nets were where we first survived on our first trip in Sapherine, and I relaxed. It wasn’t long till I fell asleep.
I slept to near sundown feeling so drained. I could feel that something within me changed but not what, only that my outlook on things had a black film to it that I couldn’t let go of. A negative view of everything. I lay for a few moments before remembering the scroll.
“Oh shit the scroll!” I yelled, tossing it to the ground and opening the first part again.
Welcome to your first lesson. Returning was your first lesson. Responsibility and obligations are at the forefront of everything, but remember not everything is as it seems, and not everything is at the same level of responsibility. You must always come first before all. It may be selfish, but who will lead if you can’t?
You have to be alright to do so. Now that have seen one of your partners, you must rescue it. Once you have a bond with a Kin Beast, it is forever. This is what you have created with it. We shall meet in Lesson Two. Where we shall start on energies and Kin bonds.
I couldn’t open the second scroll yet as I had no kin beast to open it with in tandem, and I wondered if somehow the scroll could see my life as it was playing out? I asked Jonah exactly what Kin beasts were.
Jonah smiled, his arms under his head and stretching under the root, placing a blanket swirled in arrays over us. I laid against his side and snuggled up. My head was on his chest.
“Each Kin beast is special, with different attributes and powers. The one we encountered is known for its calm presence and healing aspects both mind and body. They each have one element complementary to those they bond with. Force never creates a bond with them.”
“Then what was that lady trying to do?” I asked, a yawn escaping me. I still felt exhausted to a major degree.
“I’m not sure. Kin beasts are sacred to, but with the Council at large, who can say?” He passed his fingers through my hair, and I shifted closer listening. “Once bonded to one, it's for life.”
“It feels like my soulmate except different,” I said, yawning at his fingers carding through wet hair. We were dressed as this era dictated, Britches, skirts, shirts of wool, and boots. I refused to change my boots. It would be footwear that sold us out again most likely.
“They kinda are in a way. Most that bond with Kin beasts don’t bond with anyone else,” he said, yawning and turning his head.
I fell asleep, cuddled against him just like at the beginning of our journey.
Jack walked back to the common room to see Strength's solemn glare at him.
“I thought you controlled that thing!” he cried.
Jack winced, feeling the venom working its way through him. He gritted his teeth at the insinuation. “I don’t. Nothing controls the subconscious. You know that.”
“Whatever happened, Happened. We can’t go back but Maryanne was swept under that thing for who knows how long, Bro," said Mark, glancing at Lesley who was humming softly to himself while he read one of Mark’s books.
“What do we do with sir hums a lot?” asked Strength as he also eyed the new interloper. True Lesley had been one of them, but that had been the pink, sunflower dress, bonnet wearing, weirdo with autism. This one put everyone on tenterhooks with how normal he behaved.
“She saw her truth. I’m not sure how that will change things, but it will,” said Jack playing with his ponytail and sitting beside their fearless leader. She was covered in tarry water, and he swept a hand clearing her of the stuff. She groaned and cuddled on the big round sofa that stretched the room. How would she change? No one knew.
He didn’t know how he would change either, but he would. He was the most dangerous of them all, because while he didn’t own the subconscious; he could command it in various instances. Being insane gave him more power not less.
Jack hmmed and sat on his black cushion. He hid his bite mark with his long coat. For now, he was fine, later on, he didn’t know.
“Can we address the elephant in the room?” muttered Mark staring pointedly at Lesley.
Lesley glanced up and smiled. “I’m not an elephant.”
