The most dangerous of murderers are the ones who are silent. They are crazy, but not outwardly so. They are close to your heart and so when they commit acts of treachery, you die from heartbreak more so than a bullet to the head. This a life lesson. This is something you've taught me, May. You were never a killer. You were never a lover. You were never even a friend. You were a lesson.
Most of all, you were a victim.
The way you used to tie your bandanna, you were tying yourself together, weren't you?
I wish I could have protected you. You were like my sister. He was like my brother, too. Who did it to you? Who made you the lifeless soul you are today?
I don't know what I'll do when I find out who it was, but it will be something drastic. Revenge. Revenge the cold-blooded killer deserves.
"Why did you come back for me, Drew?"
The worst night was over. The sun, or maybe simply the mystery of the Unown, provided us the light of morning. I could see her face was tired and anxious, but certainly earnest.
"I care about you, Amy."
"I wanted to go home."
"I know."
I wonder where she is going with this, but it feels good to let go of worrying about her condition. Unfortunately, the old worry was replaced with a new one: how to escape alive.
"I'm glad I didn't go home."
"Glad? What? Why?"
"There is another puzzle to solve. It's the key to understanding the Unown. If we want to get out of here, we have to solve it."
"We're going to be down here forever," I complain.
"No we're not."
She examines the walls carefully. I am baffled as to what exactly she's looking at, but then I see that the walls are covered with little inscriptions. The indecipherable characters Danson saw on the Central Slab. The indecipherable characters seen on the puzzle Amy had solved.
Amy had solved a puzzle! I had almost forgotten about that.
"Amy, what do you know about the Unown that the rest of us don't?"
She smiles sadly, turning away from the inscriptions for a moment. "Do you think I'm weird, Drew?"
"Of course not," I assure her, slightly befuddled.
"Good. Well, then I have a secret to tell you."
"Secret?"
She walks over to me and stands on her tip-toes. "I understand emotions," she whispers in my ear.
I pull away. "Emotions?"
She nods. "Right now, you're concerned about my mental health, you're jealous of my father, you're still fond of my mother, but, mostly, you're just confused. Especially now."
I stare at her blankly. "And when were you going to tell me that you were inside my head?"
Normally, I'm a skeptic, but, given the circumstances, everything seems possible. I wholeheartedly believe Amy.
"I've never old anyone." She looks away from me for a moment.
"So you read emotions. Do you read minds, too?"
"Nope, just emotions. Now, you're a little less confused, and more anxious and curious, I think."
"Curiosity is an emotion? I thought it was part of someone's character..."
She shrugs. "I don't know. Point is, I can see that you're curious. About my weirdness."
"Your power," I correct her. "So what were you saying about it?"
She looks back at the wall. "The Unown not only perceive emotions as their language; they also write in emotion."
I furrow my brow, glancing at code on the wall behind me. "It doesn't look like emotion to me..."
"None of the best code-breakers in the world could break this code. But I could just see it and read it without even trying."
I don't know what to say to that, so I say nothing.
"You're confused again."
"You're a good reader. Very accurate."
"Thank you." She curtsies. "The best part of it is that the wall tells us how to escape."
"That's the best part? That's wonderful! Why didn't you tell me before?" I exclaim, exasperatedly.
"The worst part of it is that it's written in a riddle that I don't know the answer to." She waits a moment and adds, "And now you're depressed."
"Depressed is a good word for it. What does the riddle say?"
"On whom can the shadows never descend?"
And then I see the doors.
May and Brendan solemnly make their way to the lodge of the Ruins of Alph. Brendan throws a comforting arm around his wife's shoulders.
"May and Brendan Birch? My name is Jonas Danson."
"Hello," Brendan greets him, somberly and with an uncomfortable handshake. May nods quietly.
Danson pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and sighs. "So I take it you've both heard the news..."
"Yes, yes." Brendan squeezes May's shoulder tightly in reassurance. Her eyes are glistening.
"I'm so sorry for both of you."
Danson truly looks sincere, Brendan decides.
"We just want to know where Amy is. Whether she's okay or not. If there's anything we could do to assist the search effort..." Brendan trails off.
Danson's eyes fade slightly. "Another person was taken by the Unown last night."
Brendan raises his eyebrows.
May looks surprised. "He's not dead?"
Danson shakes his head. "As of now, he is only missing. His condition, we have no idea. But Drew is emotional."
"Emotional?" Brendan looks ever more confounded.
"Unown communicate in emotions. They respond positively to people with strong feelings. Something tells me Drew and Amy will come out just fine."
Danson smiles apologetically and runs off out of the lodge through the front revolving door.
Brendan nervously makes eye contact with his wife. He lets his arm drop and she wanders off away from him.
"Are we okay, May?"
"No, we're not okay! My child is struggling through who-knows-what and we don't know if we're going to find her! We are not okay!"
"Our child," Brendan corrects. "But I meant us. You and me. Our marriage."
May is slightly dismayed by his question. It is the last thing on her mind. But it is a relevant question. Lately, she knows, Brendan had not seemed like an important part of her life. Ever since Drew had arrived, actually. She has a million other things to worry about. Brendan's needs had been on practically another planet. And now she felt guilty.
"We're okay," she lies through her teeth.
Brendan runs a hand through his overgrown dark hair, revealing a large scar he received as a child. It is the reason he wears his cap. There were only two people he had ever shown the scar to outside of his family and both were close friends. May was one, and the other was a female coordinator he had lusted after ever since he lost to her at the Wallace Cup when he was seventeen. They had had a drunken one night stand at the after-party. She ripped his hat off and he had had one too many shots to notice.
Point is, the scar was a part of him. A part that embarrassed him and so he revealed it to only the most important people in his life, yet, in his haste to get to the Ruins of Alph, he left his hat at home. His scar was now on display to the general public. He tries to cover it up with his hair, but the bangs are not quite long enough. He feels naked and vulnerable.
May feels vulnerable, but for a different reason. Her marriage and her child are both in jeopardy it seems. She wonders what lengths she will go to in order to keep more safe and sacred.
A sudden hatred for Drew springs up inside of her, white hot and burning. He did this to her. She is being ripped from the inside out and it is all his fault. The burning sensation simmers in her stomach. Acid rises in her throat.
"I'm going to throw up," she tells Brendan before she runs out of the room.
Brendan worries about her and about his life being torn up from the roots. He cannot imagine losing May and he cannot imagine losing Amy. Somewhere, in the darkest depths of his being, he wishes that Drew will die in the world of the Unown and Amy will reappear, safe and sound.
When two emotions run rampant, Amy keels over in pain. She feels as though two pokers have emerged from the ovens of Hell and bury themselves under her skin.
"Drew! We have to solve that riddle," she screams.
I have to save her, I resolve. I have to get us out of here before we both lose it.
I glance over at Amy, who lies on the floor breathing hard. It seems the crazy has already begun.
