I wake up feeling nauseous, along with a painful feeling in my head. I'm alone. No one is around. Just me, some sunshine, and this canteen of water. Wait, canteen of water? I blink my eyes rapidly and allow my vision to focus.
"Drink," Wendy says to me. "You must be parched." She is holding out a canteen for me to take. I sit up and take the canteen from her. I gratefully gulp down the cold, stagnant water from the canteen. I'm not done drinking until the entire canteen is empty. I try to stand up to work the kinks out of my back, but I realize that my back is flaring with pain. I slowly push myself up to a sitting position. I then stood up with the aid of a nearby tree. The idea of a broken back stood out to me. But since I could stand, I went with badly bruised back. Besides that and a few painful electrical burns, I guess I could still walk. Normally my luck doesn't hold up like this. With my luck, I normally would've landed into a nearby active volcano.
"Along with the destruction of my device, which took a whole six months just to prototype," Wickerbottom begins, giving me the evil eye. "you still, however, managed to disable all the automatons. The electric pulse given off from my device being smashed managed to shut them down. Anyhow, we are ready to continue whenever you feel well enough."
"Wait where's Wolfgang?" I say with concern. No one says a word. " Where is he?!" I say, a bit too loudly. Everyone is still quiet. They avoid eye contact with me.
"He is n' bad shape." Woodie says quietly. We all stand quietly in silence. It's an uncomfortable and unsettling silence.
"It takes more than pathetic magic trick to kill me." We all turn to face the voice. It's Wolfgang! He wobbled up the hill, supporting himself with a thick branch. The branch worked as a makeshift walking cane. He breathed heavily and his face was beaded with faint perspiration. His shirt was burst open, with a bad burn going down the middle of his chest.
"If Wolfgang is all right, I'm ready right now!" I say enthusiastically. "Let's get going!" I start moving towards the center of the slabs at a brisk pace, minding my injuries of course. I get there before everyone else. I examine the peculiar object that we would use to go, well, wherever the heck it decided to send us. It was a dark and endless-looking hole in the ground. It gave off a strange, and frankly disturbing, buzzing sound. It pulsated every once in awhile. Is it a wormhole? Wormholes were just a scientific theory, no one has ever seen one, much less created one. This world must have a completely different set of laws of physics.
When everyone got there, we all seemed to have second thoughts about jumping inside the wormhole.
"See you wusses on other side!" yelled Wolfgang, as he jumped in headfirst. Typical Wolfgang. I shake my head, and then I jump in after him. My world draws a blank, and I only see darkness. I am getting really tired of blacking out.
When I manage to gather myself up, I see that everyone made it through safely. Wolfgang didn't have that branch anymore. He seemed to have slight trouble standing up, but he was able to cope with it. Weirdly, I felt better too. My back was a lot better, and my burns were now numb.
"The wormhole made a bend in time," Wickerbottom said, almost in awe. "We all aged by a few days. I assume you and Wolfgang are feeling better?"
Wolfgang and I both nodded. We were both walking like normal. I guess our bodies had a few days worth of rest in a matter of minutes. And oddly enough, I didn't feel hungry at all. Even though we aged a few days, how did we not lose any calories? I don't think if I had two lifetimes I could figure out how this new dimension functioned. I suppose I'll have to be okay with that.
"I knew it was only a matter of time." The voice was croaky and silent. The voice sounded familiar to me. I looked in the direction of the voice. It's him.
"Well, what a coincidence. It's my good friend Maxwell," I say, a bit sarcastically. I look over at him and I'm genuinely surprised. The man I'm looking at can't be Maxwell. He looks to be 50 or 60 years old. The Maxwell I saw was in his mid 30's. He's sitting down in a chair, his arms restrained by weird shadows.
"Life give you a good whirl Maxwell? You don't look like you're doin' so well," I voiced aloud arrogantly.
Maxwell looked up from the floor. I study his face for a few moments. It doesn't hold anger, malice, or even any kind of ambition. It just held, sadness. Loss. All of a sudden, I feel bad for the guy. The same guy who imprisoned me in this world, the world full of danger and confusion. The same guy who I grappled with violently in my house. But the emotion of tragedy on his face seemed too real to be fake. I look around at the others. I can't read what they're thinking.
"I cannot excuse my actions," Maxwell starts. "I have wronged all of you. But I chose each of you to be the catalyst for my atonement because I knew of your strengths. However, I have dabbled where man shouldn't. And in my foolish ambition and arrogance, I have doomed all. As well, I thought that if I had enough time, I could stop what I had begun. Yet now, I see that there is no way. Perhaps it was fate, but that is the way of pardoning a man's actions without reprimandation." He looked at us all with a strange facial expression. "Excuse my ramblings, but I thought I may as well say my final words."
"Final words?" Willow says.
"Yes. As I have failed, and I could not stop the resurrection of the Codex Umbra. The darkness of that book has seeped into me, and I must extinguish that darkness with my death. Go, leave me here. I am only the hollow shell of a man that once was."
What happened next surprised me. Wolfgang walked up to Maxwell. He looked him straight in the eyes. He then punched him in the face. Maxwell coughed as blood dripped from his mouth.
"Wolfgang! What are you doing!?" I yell at him. I run up to pull him away. He pushes me back and then focuses his attention on Maxwell.
"You give up on life. You say you can't live with guilt." His accent thickens. "There is no point in throwing away life for simple sake of guilt. If one failure stops man from moving, he is a coward. Live to stop guilt." Maxwell stares ahead. He seems perplexed.
Maxwell looked back at Wolfgang, with blood dripping down his chin. "But why do you forgive me?" Wolfgang looked off into the dark sky. "Everyone has regret. That is why I do." Wolfgang walked closer to Maxwell and inspected the dark binds on his wrists. I walk up and join him. I look back at the others. They all stand there, with conflicting emotions I'm sure. Silence, except for the moaning wind, envelops us.
"Well, I don't know all the reasons why we went through all this," Willow said, breaking the silence, "but there's gotta be a reason." She glances back at the rest, and then at me. "Well, what now Wilson?" Everyone stares at me. I feel uncomfortable. "Uh, well," I clear my throat. "I say we free him so we can get him to stop speaking in riddles, and understand this threat he's talking about."
"Well I am interested about the Codex Umbra." Wickerbottom says. "As well as the impending 'doom' he speaks of." Wendy and Woodie gave their consent to free the man without much protest. We spend the next ten minutes or so formulating a plan to remove the shadow bindings. After Wolfgang tried to remove the restraints with brute force and failed, Wendy chimed in with her idea.
"I know this sounds stupid, but, could light free him?" Wendy said hesitantly.
"That's good thinking Wendy," I tell her. "Say Willow, try using your lighter near his binds."
"I might burn him, but I guess that's a chance I'll have to take." She says this with a mock grin. I think she said that with a bit too much delight.
She flicks the lighter on and moves it towards Maxwell's bindings. Maxwell had a look of nervousness on his face, and he fidgeted slightly. As the flame moves closer, the shadows start to dissipate. She successfully freed one arm, and then started to work on the next. In a short time, Maxwell was free.
"Those bindings hurt my wrists more than last time," Maxwell says, rubbing his wrists. "Thank you for giving me a chance to redeem myself. I'll be sure to," he looks in my direction, "'not speak in riddles', and explain my actions." Everyone seemed to have gotten over their anger towards Maxwell, and we were all standing about, more or less, content. But of course, nothing is easy, simple, or safe for me. A thundering explosion marks the dark sky, and we all hit the deck.
"Well, what have we here?" It's Charlie.