-Chapter XXXIV- Revolutionary Lost

-Chicago, Illinois

-March 30th, 2012

-8:00 A.M.

-Saria

"Dammit Nick..." she muttered as she headed out the door with Wright and Johnson. They had searched the entire building for him, but it seemed as though he had just...mysteriously disappeared overnight. It had been raining ever since that morning, lightning and thunder bursting throughout the air, shaking and illuminating the entire city, it seemed. She ran to the car as Wright and Johnson worked together to put the roof on it to protect the interior from the weather.

"Come on, Saria! We gotta hurry before this storm gets really bad!" Johnson said as he sat in the passenger seat and Wright in the driver's seat.

She hurriedly climbed in the back behind Wright as he started the car. "Nick, why the hell would you leave like this?" he said as he backed up out of the driveway.

The lightning flashed before Saria's eyes as she stared out her window in search of him. It seemed like the blinding streaks of blue energy had touched the streets. "Shit." Johnson said angrily. "Stop, stop the car, Jackie."

Wright did what he was told almost immediately. "Why, what's wrong?"

"It's too bad out here, we're gonna have to wait til it clears up a bit." he explained.

"But that's exactly why we need to find him!" Saria retorted.

"Saria, it won't help if we can't see!"

"David, we can't just leave him." Wright said quietly.

"I understand that, but if he's stupid enough to go out there while it's like this, he either has a very good reason or he's got shelter. Otherwise he's an idiot, and probably will come back home when he can." Johnson told him.

"You say it as though he were merely a dog." Saria muttered as Wright returned to the driveway.

"What do you want me to do! I'm not gonna risk our well-being because of his stupidity!"

She could not find a response. She tried to say something, but stopped when realizing the truth in his words. She sighed, "Fine..." she undid her seat belt and opened the car door again.

They quickly opened the door to rush into the apartment building and into the dry front room. "Well that was quick." Sonic said as they took off their drenched coats and jackets.

"It's too bad out there, we could hardly see a few feet in front of our faces." Wright explained.

"We gave up way too easily." Saria muttered quietly.

"Saria, enough. We're not going out there." Johnson told her.

She silently walked away after unlacing her boots, and walked up the stairs, the only sound being her footsteps against the hardwood. She walked across the carpeted hall to return to her own room. "Something tells me..." she heard. She looked up to see Rains leaning against the wall next to his bedroom door. "...he'll be back."

She gave him a puzzled look, "What makes you say that?"

He silently stared at her for a moment or two, allowing uneasiness to settle into the conversation, "Because he's the Power Keeper." he looked down at his feet. "He'll be back..."

"What does that mean? The Power Keeper. What the hell is that?"

He silently looked back up at her face. "You'll find out soon enough." he said before opening his bedroom door and disappearing behind it. With the shutting of the door, Saria was again alone in the silent hallway.

She sighed irritably again, then shivered. "God that guy is creepy." she whispered before slipping into her own room.

She thought about her dream the night before coming to America, what it could mean, and it couldn't be coincidence that Rayman seemed to have a dream just as confusing and unsettling as hers when he was in it, too. What could it mean? She thought. The Power Keeper...

She walked to her bed and let her body fall onto it. After a minute or two of blankly watching the ceiling as she was enveloped in thought, she removed the ring from her finger, causing it to glint in the sunlight filtering in through the window in the room. She examined the gold jewelry as it shined, looking over the pearl line that ran through the center of the gold. Something in the light caught her eye, and she drew the jewelry closer to look at it. An engraving on the inside of the ring that was hardly legible due to someone wearing it constantly. She squinted in order to look at what it was that it said:

It is you, my love, that I shall cherish, forever and always...

However, the lettering of the names were to worn down for her eyes to perceive, the information that she could salvage was the first letter of the first name being "A", and the second possibly being "r". Images of the ring flashed through Saria's mind, images of it placed upon the ring finger of a woman that stood over her, tender and loving, with hair that fell upon her shoulder of a pure white colour, and eyes of a lovely blue that looked back down upon her happily. Saria couldn't help but smile back as the mysterious woman in her mind gently smiled at her.

"Saria!" she jumped when she heard Johnson call her name from the front room.

She walked to the door to her bedroom and opened it just enough for her head to poke out from behind it. "Yeah?"

She saw Johnson come up from the stairs at the end of the hall, "Can you please come here?" he asked tiredly.

"Uh...yeah, hold on a second." she replied blankly, her mind still focusing on the images that had flowed through her mind not a minute before.

He nodded with a smile before turning back around and following the stairs back down. She drew a deep breath, and opened her door fully before picking the ring back up from her bed where she had dropped it when her name was called. She walked down the stairs without a word to see Wright and Johnson, Johnson sitting on the loveseat and Wright lying on the couch. Johnson looked at Saria and pointed at the television across the darkened room. "Look." he said simply.

She turned to the TV to see the weather channel on, with a man standing in front of a map of America with little pictures of gray clouds with lightning bolts scattered all across it. "What does that mean?" she asked.

"It means...we're not going to be able to find Nick anytime soon." Wright said quickly.

"What? How come?" she asked, getting slightly agitated.

"This storm's all over the States, Saria. And we just happen to be in the middle of it." Johnson explained.

"Life can just never be easy for us, can it?" Sonic asked from the kitchen, but Saria payed him no mind.

Saria covered her face with her hands, grunting angrily. She sat next to Johnson on the smaller couch, "So, in other words, Nick's pretty much screwed over."

"Not exactly." Wright debated, "I'm sure he's fine. Knowing him, he probably is out somewhere, safe and happy right now, right, David?"

Johnson nodded in agreement. "Exactly. He's fine!"

Saria hesitated for a second, "Are you sure?"

"Positive."