Find Your Way Back To Me
Suggested Theme:
Main Theme- Exile by Jack Wall
Lava Pond is the most dangerous Location in the UnderWorld, yet it was a great place to scan UnderWorlders. The Location allows a nice power boost to fire attacks but weakens air attacks; it is a perfect place for UnderWorlders to fight OverWorlders, the water attacks would become like steam once they hit the overheated air. Rumor has it that Lava Pond was the first place in which Maxxor and Chaor fought in; Maxxor was rescuing an OverWorlder from the UnderWorld, you know the whole save-friends-and-protect-them-OverWorlder shtick, when Chaor showed up and started blasting away at Maxxor in Lava Pond. Since Maxxor isn't a burnt corpse, it was safe to presume that Maxxor somehow got away and succeeded in saving his friend. Some fanatic UnderWorld fanboys love to just go to Lava Pond to try and find the spot where Chaor almost fried Maxxor like green meat over a roaring fire. Kazdan Robert Kalinkas, Kaz to all and Kazzy only to Chaor, is one of those UnderWorld fanatics. He wanted to find the spot where Chaor and Maxxor fought at, but he told himself it would be impossible because the volcanic eruptions and lava flow would have rid that battlefield a long time ago. He muttered about this problem in H'earring's presence when the little, green UnderWorlder was snacking on nasty Dractyl scales. The rabbit-eared UnderWorlder remarked that the rocks from Maxxor's Pebble Storm were still lodged in the volcano's side. It was then that Kaz demanded that H'earring take him to the sight for payment of the Dractyl scales, originally he was going to scan this Creature that H'earring thought Kaz might like but he could scan it another day…..
H'earring took Kaz there not for more Dractyl scales but to shut Kaz's begging up. Kaz didn't have a match scheduled that day and Tom was at Glacier Plains, so he told Sarah and Peyton that he was going to the Lava Pond. He tried to call Tom, but for some reason he wasn't answering. Kaz would have questioned this with almost hysterical worry, but he knows that Tom can handle things on his own and he will come back. Lava Pond is a very hot place, mostly because of the lake of molten magma and volcanoes, and Kaz drank all of the water he had by the time an hour passed. Lava Pond has many volcanoes, most of which were active, and the ground itself is made of harden rock formed from the streams of lava. Thousands of years of lava for ground have varied the landscape in countenance and security. In some places the ground was so impregnable that not even Chaor could get a scratch into it, in others it was so soft that one could just fall through. Luckily, the soft places could be identified by how silvery or shimmering it looked. Yet, there were fatal deceptions to the soft places just like with UnderWorlders. One could have had an UnderWorlder that know the layout like H'earring, but mistakes could still be made there because of the ever-changing terrain just like with Glacier Plains.
Kaz saw hard rock before him, he knows soft places from solid ground due to his time in this Location, but he felt a thin crust once he put his foot on the hard illusion. He fell through like a cartoon anvil, it happened so fast that Kaz did not even utter a sound except for the thud once he hit the bottom. He doesn't remember seeing much from the time he went through the hole and when he hit the bottom, he knows that he blacked out somewhere in between. And in that gap of time, volcanoes in the area were coming out of their temporary dormancy and the Creatures in the area all left before they get burned with hot lava. H'earring must have been one of the Creatures scattering for safety because he wasn't shouting Kaz's name in a high-pitch voice. Kaz woke-up in a sheer, tight pain radiating from his legs and an agonizing migraine forming inside his head. He took one look at his legs and saw that his legs were bent at odd angles like a sinister contortionist, but he then takes a second look to realize that his legs were bent at odd angles; it was the bones of the legs that were protruding out like the skin was a thin plastic cover. He vomits and then blacks out again for an unknown passage of time.
Kaz woke up again this time covered in his dried vomit and ash, he heaves as soon as the scent of decayed nachos entered his nostrils. He would have passed out again from the smell, but the pain radiating from his legs is like his stimulant. Everything seems blurry to Kaz, he feels around the ground for his glasses but cannot find them. The pain spikes and Kaz lets out a tearful scream, he quickly searches his pockets for his Scanner but doesn't find it. Kaz lets out another scream followed by a few shaky gasps to regain his composure and thoughts. He doesn't have his Scanner or glasses, he smells like vomit, his legs are too shattered to do anything but give hot knives stabbing through him feeling, and he was with H'earring. H'earring the green-skinned, rabbit-eared UnderWorlder was probably searching for him! He yells, he screams, he shouts, he cries, and he makes as much noise as possible to get the mutant rabbit's attention. For all his hard efforts, he was rewarded with no appearance or voice of H'earring but the small tremors of the ground and a torrent of ash falling from the only opening to freedom. The opening that is miles above Kaz's bottom and wrapped around with walls like a diagonal cylinder. He remembers seeing a movie where some chick climbed out of hole by using her hands and dragging herself out, Kaz firmly grasps a chunk of the wall behind him and tries to lift himself up but more pain shoots through him. He tries again, tries so hard to ignore the pain, and fails yet again. He tries again, and again, and again, and again….
"Stop it, Kaz; you're being more stupid than your deluded sermons about Chaotic being real to everyone at school." The voice was not being mean or cruel like the words seem, but jovial and worried just like Tom's. He saw Tom in his regular grey shirt and jeans; he wasn't covered in soot or vomit like Kaz, he looks really happy. Kaz would have smiled and shrieked in joy like he scanned Chaor's Super form, but logic prevented him to do so. First, how the Hell does Tom know where he is when he's supposed to be at Glacier Plains? Second, with all the ash in the air, how is Tom not covered in it? Third, how is he able to see Tom perfectly clear if he does not have on his glasses? And finally, why would Tom discourage his pursuit to survive? This Tom was clearly a figment of his pain-inducing mind, but then again why would his mind not be encouraging Kaz to live? Doesn't the mind and body want their host to live and pass on genes like it was so program to do long ago?
"You're not Tom. You're just some stupid hallucination I'm having to distract me from the pain." Kaz revels at the hurt look on fake Tom's face.
"Kaz, look at yourself. Your legs are so messed up that not even Song of Rejuvenation could heal them, you don't have your glasses or your Scanner. Kaz, face it you're going to die here." These words would never come out of the real Tom's mouth; the words were far too hopeless and realistic to be from Tom. Yet, the caramel face was just as sympathetic as Tom's.
"You know when all of the bullies would call me crazy to dissuade me from Chaotic, it just empowers me to try and show everybody the truth that Chaotic is real. You are just part of the subconscious that is so used to the negative abuse of the world, so you really are trying to encourage me to survive." The sympathetic face of fake Tom is filled with such sorrow now. Kaz feels something is wrong about this, he also feels some heat coming from the ground. Something is going to happen soon….
"Denial happens to be one of the five stages of grief. You denied that everyone's fear of your father prevented them from treating you like everyone else, you denied that girls would rather date me than you, and now you're denying that you are about to die here and no one is going to save you." Only his subconscious could know all of this about him, so it just reinforced the image of fake Tom. The heat from the ground transfers from the ground and into his body like some angry medium. Hot, spiteful anger is coursing through his veins.
"You are NOT Tom, you are just some pathetic wraith of my best friend. My REAL best friend would never say these things to me, he would NEVER let me give up hope, and he knows NOTHING about those thoughts. You're just some lowlife PROJECTION of the real thing, half of a whole like Maud! I FUCKING HATE YOU!" The ash from the air enters his throat and strangles the clean air out of Kaz's lungs. He nearly hacks up more vomit from his stomach. Tom just gives him this look that his mother would give him, a look that the real Tom would NEVER give him, a look of absolute pity.
"Kaz, I'm dead. I'm just a ghost trying to bring comfort to you in your final moments." Now that sounds like something the real Tom would say if all hope was lost. Reality is something Kaz is best at denying, after all Tom is right about that thing.
"Y-You can't be dead, I mean the real Tom can't be dead. He's at Glacier Plains trying to scan Tangath Toborn, he's probably back at the Port Court by now with Sarah and Peyton. They're all…slurping some icy, cold milkshake named after some stupid Creature. They're all so happy together; they're all without me…..while I'm stuck here. While I'm at rock bottom like some prince in exile, except for now it's at Chaotic and not back on Earth. I'm an outcast in both worlds." Tears came out of his weary brown orbs; Tom was coming closer to him like he was going to offer a hug. Kaz glares at the ghost and slaps away those arms. Tom looks hurt again and Kaz secretly relishes it.
"Go away; I never wanted you to see me die. You're not the person I want, so bring him to me, ghost boy. Bring me my dad." Tom lets out an omnipotent sigh and vanishes behind a current of ash. Kaz has a feeling that he shall see Tom again in a little while.
"Hey, my little King, it's good to see you again." His dad is right next to him and he looks the same way he did when he died with his copper with gold highlights for hair, sun-tanned skin, and dark brown eyes that almost look black. He is just as perfectly clear like Tom, but Kaz is not annoyed by this. He's very glad to see his dad, if what Tom said was true. But then again, Tom is not very good at lying to his friends without some sort of ulterior motive to protect them.
"Hey, dad, where's your glasses?" It was a joke that he used to crack with his dad when he was alive, when Kaz had only humor reserved for him and sometimes Tom. Though this time it wasn't an actual joke, but a question embedded with familiarity.
"They were yours upon my death, but it would seem the glasses are not with you." His dad always has this way of making a blatantly obvious statement seem wise.
"Dad, how was it when you died?" The story that a military officer told them was that a bullet from the enemy hit his dad's heart and he died instantly. Little Kaz did not buy it one bit because it just seems a far too perfectly easy death for his father, but he did not voice his opinions because it gave his mother comfort. After all, she was all that he had left as a family.
"Not like yours." Kaz could have broached his dad's reply, he could have told him how that wasn't a real answer, but the air seems harder to breathe. He can only say so many words before erupting in a coughing fit. Plus, the heat was sapping the life and anger out of Kaz.
"Dad, am I really going to…die?" Kaz was afraid of the answer, he was afraid to know the truth, and he was afraid that Tom was right. Kaz is the King of Denial, and the King of his father's heart.
"No, you shall close your eyes and go to sleep from the lack of clean air. You shall be asleep when the magma burns your body and leaves nothing of you behind." He could always count on his dad to give him the answer that he wants to hear but seems like something he needs to hear.
"Dad, I…..please…..uh, would you stay with me until that happens?" Kaz did not want to be alone for the great, fiery death coming for him. He did not want to die; it was just human instinct in him that reacts that way. But he was going to die anyways. Well, technically he'll just be half-dead since his Earth counterpart will still be kicking.
"Sure, why not? But first you need to close your eyes." Kaz does what he says and immediately he feels calm like death might not be coming to claim him, like God was actually real. He feels his dad's big hand take hold of his smaller hand; his dad gently pets it like it was some limb made of a miracle. Kaz doesn't like the silence, yet he takes comfort in it. He has so much time to think in his head about random things and not so random people before the magma enveloped him. He thought of how clueless H'earring will be of his death because he wasn't exactly the brightest UnderWorlder in the world; at least Kaz gave him a bag of Dractyl scales before he died, so Kaz takes comfort in that thought. Sarah and Peyton will be equally clueless for awhile until someone (presumably Tom) breaks the news about Kaz. Tom, if he is alive, might be very distraught and do a lot of stupid things in trying to find him. Chaor, his hero, will probably just go on as before and not waste his time in trying to find him. Kaz really wishes that he told Chaor about…something that something was a secret even to Kaz. Kaz did not spare one thought about his mother. Instead, he just listens to his father's cooing and the magma bubbling. His dad really did stay with Kaz until the very end….
H'earring came back to Lava Pond, half expecting for Kaz to be there. Most UnderWorlders that received their payments beforehand would have just left their client and save their times, and H'earring would have done that to except, Kaz is H'earring's friend, albeit an annoying, strange human, and H'earring would feel really horrible if he didn't keep his promise to Kaz. H'earring could have scoured all over Lava Pond for Kaz, but H'earring was actually smart enough to retrace his steps to the spot where he last remembers being with Kaz. It was quite close to the battlefield where Maxxor and Chaor first fought at, so perhaps Kaz was there and probably pissed about H'earring bailing on him when the eruptions hit. H'earring was able to reach the spot but notices a stream of lava blocking his way into the battlefield, it was odd considering that the lava should have been harden rock by now. And then H'earring's little heart stopped for a second, he saw at the cut-off battlefield a pair of pink glasses. Glasses that only a person with Kaz's nutty tastes would like and actually have the idiocy to don. Kaz could never leave his glasses behind even if he had to "port out" and Kaz would never take those glasses off so long as he was….alive. H'earring fell to his knees and became even shorter than Hammerdoom Chantcaller. Kaz was dead, Kaz was dead, Kaz was dead is what reverberated in his mind until he regained his senses with this last thought.
Who was going to tell Chaor of this?