The Tale of Three
Chapter 29
The ones that never left
A simple walk through the woods can be quite good for a person.
The feeling of being alone with nature, with nobody around to bother you, it's an introverts paradise. No pesky people! No pesky problems! Just you and the trees! Completely and utterly alone! Tranquility at its finest!
At least, that's what Meteora was trying to convince herself. But with no people around simply because they were all dead, and with the trees nothing but burned out husks of their former glory, she was finding it quite difficult to enjoy her walk through the forest.
But even if it was for sad reasons, she did enjoy the time alone. The Voice was not speaking to her at the moment, allowing her to finally find some time to be by herself. Who knows where it went. But then again, she didn't really care at the moment. She was still focusing on her plan. The plan to save the world.
Just thinking about it made her smile slightly, the thought of being some kind of legendary figure that would go down in history being almost too exciting to bear. Everyone strived to be immortal in some way, and for Meteora, she knew she had that chance. A chance that only a very small amount of people would ever get.
So she had to be careful not to waste it. The entire time she was going over and over in her head about how she would kill Drosid and Janna, almost getting to the point of sadism, before she slapped herself in the face to brush those thoughts off.
'Don't become evil.' She reminded herself. 'If you enjoy killing them, then you're no better. Kill only when you need to. The black priests, Drosid's demons, and everybody else you've hurt. You can't sink down to their level. Don't become someone you're not. You just have to figure out how. Yes, how?'
Meteora slowed her pace as the question racked her brain, and she started desperately searching for answers as if her life depended on it. She had already gone so low. She knew she was a hairbreadth away from becoming them, from becoming an arrogant and overwhelmingly powerful mess. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely", isn't that what Jenkins once told her? She had been thinking about that, every now and then, scared that she would turn into a villain.
But there was one piece of hope she could grab on to. Nothing had happened to her so far. Sure, she might have gotten a little overconfident at times with her new powers, but she knew she wasn't becoming evil. That wasn't her. If he was going to turn evil, she likely would have done it already. So that was it. That was the answer. She didn't need to do anything, because she just didn't need to. She wouldn't turn evil. It wouldn't happen. It would never happen. That was not Meteora Butterfly.
Satisfied that the answer required little real effort other than continuing to be herself, Meteora resumed her normal pace and kept going through the forest, stepping over giant holes in the ground where monstrous plants once lay.
"Jeez…" She said to herself. "Would have hated to see those things back when they were still alive. I wonder why-"
Just as Meteora was about to ask herself a question about why nobody simply killed all the plants, her thought process suddenly halted itself at the feeling of the ground beneath her charging. She looked down, and saw that it was no longer a burned forest floor, but a simple dirt path, too artificial looking to be natural. She looked to her right and left and saw that it extended in both directions, cutting through the forest.
'Okayyyyy...where did this come from?' She thought to herself. 'And who was crazy enough that they thought building anything in this place was a good idea? Considering the name, you'd think they'd have known it was a bad idea.'
Meteora stepped forward and once again looked both ways, deciding which way to go. She decided on left, knowing that it would be impossible to really get lost. The forest couldn't be that big.
At least, that's what she told herself. She was doing that a lot these days.
But as she continued down the path, her own self-truths deformed into lies as she saw that the forest was more massive than it seemed. Looking to each side, she could see on an ocean of trees, getting thicker as she went farther. Even looking above her, it got harder to see the sky, despite the lack of leaves. There was just so many trees and so many dead branches that it covered everything like a blanket.
Meteora was half-tempted to pull that blanket off of her and just blast a hole straight through the tree line, although her she knew that was a pointless gesture. Besides, why ruin the silence? It was even quieter on this path than back in the main forest, if that was even possible. Which it was, and that was nice.
So she walked on, eventually getting lost in her own thoughts. So much so that she didn't even notice a particularly large piece of wood sticking out of the ground in front of her, and as with anyone not paying attention to anything but their thoughts, she promptly tripped over it and face planted into the ground.
After a brief moment of shock, she yelled "OW! SHIT!" and jumped up in an instance. She quickly wiped her face with her hand, only to find several drops of blood now staining her fingers. "Oh for the love of god…" She muttered, before grabbing either side of her nose to try and stop the bleeding. She wasn't having much success, as in not time at all it looked like her hand had been doused in red paint. She merely grumbled at this and then looked back to the wooden slab she had tripped over.
Her hands started glowing green as anger took over, and soon she was seconds away from firing a spell. "Alright, burn you stupid piece of-wait, does that board have nails coming out of it?"
The green glow from Meteora's hand faded away as she took a closer look at the price of wood, and saw that there were indeed several nails sticking out of it. In fact, it didn't look like any kind of branch at all. Just some slab of wood that looked like it was ripped out of a house.
Letting go of her nose, Meteora picked it up and looked around, searching for a source.
'How the hell did this get out here?' She thought. 'Did the bomb blast throw it from some house all the way over here? No, it's not burned at all. And there would be more around if that was the case. This is something else.'
She set the board down and looking around, but didn't see any clues. She merely shrugged and was about turn and leave, but then felt something wet pressing again her chest. She looked down to see her shirt almost completely drenched in blood, courtesy of the nosebleed she had forgotten about. It looked like she had been stabbed.
"Ah, son of bitch!" She cursed, before turning back to the plank. She growled and stomped on it with all her strength, making it explode into splinters. She held her nose closed again and then walked away, determined to not let a simple nosebleed anger her any further, even if it had ruined her only shirt.
Storming off away from what remained of the board, she continued the path until she noticed that it was starting to get wider. She then noticed several more boards appearing, all with nails like the last one, and she started to consider that it was in fact the nuke blast. But all her assumptions were proven incorrect when she entered a large clearing, revealing the last thing she would have expected.
A house.
A really crappy one in particular. It was poorly made, looking ready to collapse at a moments notice. The front yard, even if could even be called that, was full of old and half-destroyed furniture, and everything was generally a wreck.
'What is this doing out here…' She thought as she approached it. Careful to watch her step, she noticed that the boards that made up the house were the exact same one that she had seen earlier. There was no doubt about it.
She moved closer to the house and cautiously walked up to its door, not wanting it to collapse on top of her. She grabbed it's doorknob and pushed it forward, but the entire door was thrown off its hinges and fell into the house, so old and rusty that it took no effort on Meteora's part.
She quickly rushed backwards, expecting the entire house to come down. After a tense few seconds, the only things she heard was the sound of her own breathing, and a faint dripping as the blood from her nose landed on the ground. She took a deep breath and moved forward again, carefully stepping over the door and entering the main house.
Despite the outside looking like each part of the house had come from different houses, the inside looked much better. Still a total disaster, but better than what she expected. Most of the furniture inside was old and dusty, but intact and relatively undamaged. Meteora wondered how the house could be this fine, as the blast should have wiped it out of existence.
"Did the forest somehow protect this place?" She asked herself, as if expecting someone to answer. "Could it have-no, all the trees outside were still burned to a crisp. The blast should have reached this far. How the hell is this still standing? It's impossible! Nothing could have shielded it-"
Meteora paused mid-syllable as she realized that she might be wrong once again. Something could have shielded it. The most convenient thing in the universe. Magic.
"Someone…" She started. "Did someone use a spell to protect this place? Why? Who would want to save this train wreck of a house? And who lives here that could possibly use magic? The town hermit?"
Meteora groaned loudly at the lack of answers and continued looking around, eventually finding what appeared to be some kind of living room, the far wall almost entirely taken up by a line of portraits of green beaked monsters, with them of them being much larger than the rest and showing somebody she recognized instantly.
"What the...Brudo?" She said as she moved closer to the painting, making sure she got a good look. And it was Brudo, along with the rest of his family. Several of looked exactly the same, with only one really standing out to her, appearing at the bottom of the frame and and wearing some kind of skull hat.
Meteora remembered where she had heard about that hat. The small guy had to be Ludo. Jenkins had told them once had Ludo wore that exact same kind of hat, and was rather small as well. Meteora found him rather underwhelming, even if Jenkins had told her that that was what he was.
After looking at the various portraits for several minutes, she grew more and more bothered by the her nose continuing to bleed, making her arm look like it had been turned inside out. She angrily let go of her nose and waved her hand around, throwing drops of blood everywhere, including onto the paintings.
But the second a single drop landed on the largest painting, specifically right onto Ludo's face, she nearly jumped out of her shoes at the sounds of footsteps behind her, followed by loud shouting.
"HEYHEYHEY BE CAREFUL WITH THAT!"
The voice was both squeaky and rasp, and Meteora's immediate response to this was for her entire right arm to glow bright green and to point her hand at whoever was behind her. She spun around in an instant and did just that, shoving her hand in the face of an unfamiliar and short figure.
Instantly the figure stopped its yelling and backed away from Meteora, giving her a good look at itself. It was one of the monsters in the painting. One with wings for arms and wearing an extremely oversized shirt as it's only article of clothing. Both of them stared at each other in shock, Meteora because she wasn't expecting someone to be there and the monster because it saw Meteora's arm and quickly recognized it as magic.
"Uh, please don't hurt me." It whimpered. "I was just trying to warn you about being careful with the paintings."
"Who are you." Meteora demanded, taking a few steps forward. She didn't want to take any chances, no matter how harmless this person looked. If they had survived this long, then there had to be more than this...pitiful thing she saw before her.
"My name is Cudo." The figure said. "I'm one of the sons of Brudo Avarius. I've been living here my whole life, I have over a dozen siblings, my family has been hated for years, I-"
"Okay, shut up." Meteora said. "Geez, just tell me the whole story, why don't you. Slow down."
"Sorry." Cudo said. "But it's kind of hard for me to stay calm when you look ready to blast me in the face at any moment."
Meteora glanced at her arm, still burning bright with magical energy. She didn't realize how terrifying that must have been for "Cudo", if that was even his real name. But the tone in his voice indicated true fear, so Meteora decided that it would be best to trust whatever he said. Her arm faded back to it's normal color and she lowered it to her side, although she made sure to keep her ears and eyes open for any noises or shadows. She didn't want to take too many chances.
"Alright." She said. "Tell me what you just said, again, but a little slower this time."
"Okay." Cudo said, still trembling slightly. "My name is Cudo, my dad is Brudo Avarius, and I live here along with my other dozen or some siblings. We're all hated by everyone else in town."
'Avarius?' Meteora thought. 'Hold on, didn't my mom say that they all died in the apocalypse? What the hell is this? Where-no. Figure that out later. Work with what you have now. Bit by bit. What did he just say…? Oh right, they were hated.'
"Don't you mean you were hated?" Meteora asked. "No offense, but considering this places location, I have no doubt that everyone's forgotten about you. Not there's anybody left to hate you…"
"Hey, that's not nice!" Cudo said. "Sure, we're kind of forgettable, but there are still people that care about us! They just haven't visited in a while. And-wait, what do you mean there's no one left?"
"Well...nobody left to hate you I'd an exaggeration." Meteora said. "I suppose that counting the people staying in the underworld, as well as everybody at my moms...base, or whatever you want to call that, there are still some survivors left."
"Survivors?" Cudo asked, tilting his head at her. "What do you mean?"
"Wha-you-the ones left!" Meteora yelled, dumbfounded by the question. "The people who survived the apocalypse!"
"Apocalypse?!" Cudo gawped, as if hearing the word for the first time. "Did the world end or something!?"
"YES!" Meteora yelled. "What do you mean, "did the world end or something?" Have you been outside lately? It's literally all burned to ashes!"
"It is?" Cudo asked. "I haven't been outside in a decade and a half…"
This time, it was Meteora's turn to tilt her head. "What."
"I haven't been outside in fifteen years." Cudo repeated. "My dad said never to go outside because people will attack us because they hate us, so we stay in here and use the food supply in the basement. That should last us a few more years, and then we might have to go get more."
"I-are you-what the fuck?" Meteora cursed. "You...you really don't know? You really don't know what happened?"
"No." Cudo said. "Did the world really end?"
"Yeah." Meteora said, a thousand questions going through her mind. "Seth of Septaris blew it all to hell with hundreds of nukes. Almost everything is gone. Seriously, how did you not know? I get it if you didn't want to go outside because everyone you don't want to be attacked, but did you never look out any of the windows? Hear the blast? See the light? Feel the radiation and heat? The forest outside is nonexistent! Nothing but dead trees! How?! How the hell?!"
"We weren't allowed to do anything but stay in here!" Cudo said, still processing the whole "end of the world" thing. "No looking outside, we had to stay in here no matter what, it's basically been a miniature prison."
"But...but the blast." Meteora said. "The light you should have seen. The noise it would have made. You should have seen and heard all of that, even from here."
"Well, if that all happened, then we didn't know."
"Right." Meteora said, unconvinced. "Now before I get to the bigger questions, I think I should try and cool my disbelief by asking a few smaller ones. Why did you yell at me earlier? Wouldn't you have been afraid? Thought I was one of the people who would have attacked you?"
"Yeah, but I was more concerned about the paintings."
Cudo said. "They've been in our family for generations, and our father always said to take care of them. Then you came in and started splattering blood everywhere. Which by the way, you're still staining the carpet with."
Meteora looked down and saw that her nose was still refusing to stop its bleeding, and was painting the carpet a new shade of red. She sighed and grabbed her nose again, confused as to why it hadn't stopped.
"Sorry about that." She said. "Got a tissue or something?"
"Yeah, give me a second." Cudo said, walking off and then returning a moment later, an old napkin in his hand. He handed it to Meteora who gingerly covered her nose with it, and she spoke up again.
"Anyways, back to the questions." She continued. "Where is everybody else? Where's your father? More than anyone, I'd like to ask him some things, if what you're telling me about him is true."
"He's upstairs." Cudo said. "Asleep. Everybody is. I only woke up because I had to go to the bathroom, and then I heard the door crash in. Nobody else heard because we're all super deep sleepers when it comes to noise. So then I came down, and I found you."
"Yeah?" Meteora asked, not posing it as a question. "Why don't you go look outside the door and tell me what you see. It'll be a good start to show you what's really been happening outside."
"But...the people who hate us. They'll attack-"
"No, they won't." Meteora said, realizing that he had pretty much been brainwashed. "There's nobody outside. Not anymore. And why would anyone hang out outside your house all day just to attack you?"
"I guess that makes sense…"
"It does." Meteora. "Now go and look. Fifteen years of being lied to, I think it's time the truth got out."
Cudo hesitated for a moment, but soon walked away from Meteora and entered the foyer. He trembled upon seeing the door on the ground, it's hinges having come off with it. Slowly and steadily, he peeked out at where the door once was, expecting a large crowd of people, and braced himself for a bottle to the face.
But he saw something much worse. He saw the truth. He audibly gasped at the sight of the destroyed forest, no leaves, no grass, not a single living thing. The silence that had come from the forest crept into the house, and the only thing he could hear was his own panicked breathing.
He didn't want to believe what he was seeing so hard that it almost hurt to stare at it all, and he quickly looked away from the scene, gasping for air as if he had been holding his breath.
Trembling, he walked back over time Meteora, struggling to find the right words.
"You...you were telling the truth." He said, his eyes gazing down at the floor. "It's really all gone. Is the whole world like that?"
"Yeah. Pretty much." Meteora answered. "There are likely a few parts that are somewhat good for plants to grow in, but most everything is like the forest. Dead. Even after fifteen years, it's gonna take a while for stuff to start growing again."
"Fifteen years…" Cudo said, echoing her words. "That's how long we haven't been outside for. That's how long my dad forced all my remaining family today in this house. Did-did he know this was gonna happen?"
"Maybe." Meteora said. "Maybe he was in kahoots with Seth. Maybe he knew it was all happening. Or maybe he just had his own reasons. I don't care. But you know what, I'm gonna get the answers to those questions."
"Those were more statements really."
"That's great." Meteora said. "Now go up stairs and wake him up. If you don't, then I'll do it for you."
Cudo gulped and nodded, walking over to the stairs and heading up them. Halfway up, he turned around back towards Meteora, preparing to ask one last question for her.
"One last thing…" He said. "Who should I say is here to see him?"
"Oh, tell him Meteora Butterfly is here." She said. "I expect that should wake him up."
"Meteora Butterfly?" Cudo asked, his eyes widening. "The Meteora Butterfly? Holy-wow, I didn't even recognize you. It's an honor to meet you."
"It is?" Meteora asked, now greatly confused. "Am I famous or something?"
"Kind of, yeah!" Cudo said. "You were seen as the perfect combination of the union between Mewmans and monsters. Proof that we could coexist. You were really well known. All the monster children and some of the adults admired you."
"I was kind of a baby back then…"
"Eh, your age didn't matter." Cudo claimed. "We still saw you as something amazing, even if you couldn't speak."
"All the monster children…" Meteora wondered out loud. "Even Katrina?"
"Katrina?" Cudo asked. "Wait, are you talking about one of Buff frogs daughters? Have you seen them?"
"Uhh…" Meteora said, rubbing the back of her head. On one hand, if Cudo was friends with them before he and the rest of his family got shut into their house, then it was only fair for her to tell him about Katrina. But on the other hand, Mariposa did tell her what Katrina had, and that involved most of her siblings dying of radiation, a particularly gruesome and slow death. Well, time for a white lie. It was the best she could do at the moment.
"Yeah." She said eventually. "They're good. They're okay. But back to our main topic, I really need to ask your father a few things, so can you go get him now?"
"Sure sure…" Cudo said. "Oh wait! I can't believe I already forgot about that! How do you have magic? I saw your arm glow up and stuff. I thought it was destroyed."
Meteora groaned silently. "It was, but not entirely. It's contained in atoms, and it takes an incredible amount of willpower to summon up. There's more, but it would take too long to explain."
"Hmm...one last last thing." Cudo said.
"What?" Meteora growled, getting slightly annoyed at this point.
"What's an atom?"
"It's a-you know what, I'm not in the mood for a science lecture, and I only have the scarcest idea do what it is either. Now can you please-"
"Yeah yeah!" Cudo said. "I'll go get him. Jeez…"
Cudo disappeared up the stairs, and Meteora rolled her eyes and walked back into the painting room, before setting herself down in one of its chairs. Grabbing the tissue she had stuck up her nose, she took it out only to be met with more blood dripping onto her shirt, and she quickly shoved it back in and started shaking in anger.
'Why won't this stop bleeding?!' She thought, starting to get worried about it. 'It should have stopped by now. I didn't hear any cracking when I feel on top of it, so I don't think I it's broken, but it just won't stop! At this rate, I'll start to pass out. If this is how I die, blood loss from a nosebleed, then I'll haunt this place forever. Hm. Okay, that's a stupid threat.'
Her inner monologue was interrupted by loud voices suddenly coming from the top of the stairs, and she looked in their direction to see Brudo quite literally fall down them crown first, landing in a heap at the bottom. He looked exactly how the portrait portrayed him, and looked like he hadn't aged a day since that time Meteora saw him in the Voice's meeting memory.
Scrambling to his feet, Brudo looked around and saw the fallen door, and loudly made a noise that was a mix between a cry of despair and a scream of terror, before rushing over to it, grabbing it off the floor and then propping it back up against the doorway. As if he had just completely some great and exhausting task, he panted heavily and backed away, making sure it would stay up for the moment.
He then slowly turned to his right and spotted Meteora sitting in his favorite chair, and what followed could only be described as a somewhat unfortunate affair.
"Hey." Meteora said, beginning their inevitable chat. "You're Brudo, right?"
"I am." Brudo said easily, walking into the painting room. "And you're sitting in my favorite chair."
"Right, sorry." Meteora said, not sounding sorry at all. She got up and casually took a seat in another chair, completely calm.
Brudo huffed and strolled over time his chair and sat down, leaning back and setting his arms on the armrests.
"So, I have a few questions for-"
"You need to go." Brudo said, stopping her mid-sentence. "You're not supposed to be here. I've been keeping my family safe from the outside for years, and I intend to keep it that way"
"Cutting straight to the point, eh? Well, if by keeping them safe, you mean brainwashing." Meteora griped. "Do you even know what happened out there? About the apocalypse?"
"I know full well." Brudo responded. "They don't need to. They never will. I'll convince Cudo that it was all a dream, I'll fix that door, you will leave, and life will go back to normal."
"You're not really in a position to be making demands." Meteora said. "Don't expect to just leave when you tell me to. I sent Cudo to fetch you because I want answers, so you're gonna answer for me. And then I'll leave, depending on what you tell me."
Brudo scoffed. "What is this? Some attempt to be intimidating? Go ahead and kill me if you're going too. I'm sure every single person out in that wasteland had done it eventually. But it won't work. Killing me won't do anything. I've been keeping my family safe. If lying to them is the way to do it, then so be it."
"I thought you only cared about your stickers." Meteora stated, the memories of the meeting she saw fresh in her mind.
"Yes, well, those ran out a few years ago." Brudo mourned. "And how do you even know about that? Did Cudo tell you?"
"Nope." Meteora said. "I learned it from...another source. But are you really doing this for your family?"
"With my stickers gone, I had nothing else to worry about." Brudo said. "So, I started worrying about them. Besides, if they died, then I'd have to open the door to get rid of the body and risk them seeing it all."
"Wow, you are a terrible person." Meteora said, disgusted. "You only care about them because you have nothing else."
"Don't insult me." Brudo fumed, leaning forward in his chair. "We all have problems. Some more than others. I never claimed to be a good person, and I never will. For me, humility is all I got. Yes, I'm a terrible person, but I don't care."
"That doesn't make it okay," Meteora said. "In this world, you should cherish what few people you have left because one day they might not be there. Not cherish them because you'd have to get rid of a body if they died."
"Oh please." Brudo said, rolling his enormous yellow eyes. "Family family family, that's all that's important. Don't you think I know that? Without my family fortune, I wouldn't have this house. I know it's garbage, but it's livable. It's what we have."
"Yeah, garbage is a good word for it." Meteora said. "But why-"
"No, I'm not done." Brudo said. "I can see what you are in those eyes of yours. You can tell a lot from a person's eyes. I've learned to be able to tell almost everything. You've killed people out there. You've done terrible things yourself. Don't whine that I'm a bad person Meteora." He spat at her. "Because you've done worse. At least I've never taken a life."
Meteora shrank in her seat as she reflect on everything Brudo just said. He made several good points. When it came to it, she wasn't a good person either. Sure, she tried to help people, but the cost, the mountain of bodies she left behind her, was growing by the day. The cost was too high, and one day that mountain might collapse and bury her.
"Nothing to say?" Brudo asked. "I thought not. You're a hypocrite to insult me. Now leave this house and never come back. I don't know how you've survived out there, I don't know if you're with anyone else, but I don't really care. Leave. Now."
Meteora took a deep breath and gripped the ends of the chairs armrests. "No." She said. "I'm not leaving. Not until I get answers. I want to know how you've survived."
"I would tell you, but I think you're running short on time." Brudo said, a knowing smile spread across his face. "You might want to leave before that nosebleed of yours kills you."
Meteora felt at her nose again and looked at the tissue. She let out a silent gasp as she saw that it wasn't even white anymore, but completely red. Long after it should have stopped, her nose still wouldn't cease it's bleeding, and Meteora got a cold, dark feeling in her chest.
"What are you talking about?" She asked. "Did you do something to me?"
Brudo shook his head. "No. I didn't do anything. But how about I answer two of your questions at the same time. You want to know how I survived? How my family survived? This is how. We don't know."
"The hell do you mean you don't know?" Meteora asked. "Cudo told me that you had a food supply that would run out in a while. Which is, by the way, kind of impressive. How did you even manage to get that much food? And prevent it from spoiling?"
"Pft. We've had that supply for years." Brudo said. "The second the two worlds merged, all my children wanted to buy Earth food like the little varmints they are. So they used every scrap of money they had to buy it. It damn near emptied the entire store."
"...Okay, that's sounds really unlikely." Meteora said. "That would cost an absolutely insane amount of money to empty a store like that, and even then, how did you get it all back here? Did you use a dump truck?"
"Only they know that." Brudo scoffed. "I don't know where they got all the money, probably stole it, and I don't know how they got it all back here. But the point is is that they bought all the food, I was furious, but I knew we just couldn't get rid of it, so I hired some people to build a giant hole in the ground and we put it all in there. We've been living off it for years."
Meteora eyelid suddenly felt like they weighed a hundred pounds and she buried her head in her hands. "Nononono." She said. "First off, the hell? Second off, the fuck? Third off, I don't believe that. Why didn't the food spoil? Why didn't anybody investigate you after buying that insane amount of food? Why did you build a giant hole to put it all in? Don't you have a cellar or something? Just how much food is there that it's lasted for a decade and a half and apparently is going to last a few years more? Just-I-WHAT?!
"I know it sounds unlikely," Brudo said. "But it's the truth."
"I'm still calling bullshit." Meteora said. "But you said that your answer would answer two questions. What was the second one?"
"Oh yes." Brudo said. "Actually three. You also asked why the food doesn't spoil. That's because...it just doesn't."
"Huh?"
"It just doesn't spoil." Brudo repeated. "No matter how long we've had it, no matter how long we keep it, it doesn't go bad. No mold, no bad taste, nothing. It's explicably stayed fresh for fifteen years, and we have no idea why."
"I…" Meteora started, unsure of what to say next. She was in complete disbelief. Everything she heard sounded like it was made up on the spot, nothing but a lazy lie. Food that didn't spoil for no reason? His children bought so much food that they survived for years? Bullshit! It had to be something else. Something Brudo wasn't telling her. Unless, of course…
"Brudo." She said. "Do you know anything about magic?"
"Magic?" Brudo said, puzzled at the question. "It was destroyed years ago by that butterfly girl. It's no longer around."
"Wrong." Meteora started. "Magic is still around. It's still on this world. In places, portals...and people."
"What are you getting at?" Brudo asked her. "Magic is still around? Don't make me laugh. I haven't seen a single bit of magic since the merge. No one has. It is dead. And if you think I'm going to believe your lies, then-
"Solis." Meteora said, and instantly a blinding white light erupted from her hand, so bright that both Brudo and Meteora had to look away. Brudo covered his eyes and waved his hand at Meteora, begging her to turn it off. She soon consented and closed her own eyes, concentrated, and the light vanished.
"So." She said. "Do you believe me now?"
"Ugh...yes." Brudo groaned. "But next time you do that, could you make it a little less bright? How did you even learn-"
"At the Lucitor castle." Meteora interrupted. "I found it in a spellbook. First time I used it, I nearly burned my eyeballs out, and I never thought it would come in handy again. Although I suppose it's the perfect spell to show people that magic's still around."
"No kidding…" Brudo complained. "But so what? Magic is still around? That's great. But I don't care. Even if it's still around, it hasn't affected me or my family at all until you showed up, so it doesn't make a difference to me."
"That's not true." Meteora said. "Magic might have been the thing that's saved you from starvation."
"How so?"
"You said your food doesn't spoil. No matter what. While I didn't believe that I first, I think that there could actually be some truth behind it. I think that magic somehow got into that food and prevented it from spoiling."
"Really?" Brudo asked. "That's your explanation?"
"Do you have a better one?" Meteora asked. "Because I sure don't."
"I don't either." Brudo responded. "But you know what, if that's what's keeping it fresh, then I don't mind. As long as it keeps it up."
"Fine. But back to the questions. What was the final answer you had?"
"Oh, that?" Brudo scoffed. "Regarding your question about your nose, I would suggest you leave. You see, I have already lost one of my children to something in this house. One day, Manudo? One of my sons, cut his arm. And it bled a little. But it didn't stop bleeding. It bled and bled and bled until he was a corpse on the ground. The bleeding never stopped. Do you understand what I'm getting at?"
"Why didn't it stop?" Meteora asked, the nervous feeling in her chest amplifying. "Shouldn't it have cauterized?"
"Oh, it should have." Brudo said. "But it didn't. Look around you. Look at the objects in this house. Do you see anything about them? Any peculiar?"
Meteora paused and slowly turned her head and looked around the room, trying to see if there was anything...off about the furniture. But it looked normal at first glance. The chairs were normal, the few lamps were normal, despite all being circular, the picture frames were normal, although their edges were curved rather than edged. It seemed like-
Like…
"It's...its all blunt." Meteora said, taking a second glance around the room. "There's not a single sharp edge on any one of those objects."
Brudo nodded. "That's right. Nothing sharp. Nothing that could cut us. Everything is circular or has its edges curved. We couldn't take any chances. Wounds in this house...they don't heal. They bleed. They bleed until the person who has been cut dies from it. We tried to cauterize Manudo's wound with heat, but the blood...I don't even want to say it. It was bad."
Meteora got up from her chair as she realized what this meant. That was why her nose hadn't stopped it's bleeding. Something in the house was causing it. Probably the same thing that made it so the food didn't spoil, if that part of Brudo's story was true. If she stayed here, then that nosebleed would kill her. She had to get out. She was already starting to feel a little dizzy, and she decided that there wasn't much time left. Whatever information she wanted to get out of Brudo, she needed it now.
"Okay." She said, speaking as quick as she could. "What about a torquinet? Haven't you tried that?"
"Tried it. Didn't work." Brudo said. "Just like with the whole cauterization by fire thing we attempted, the blood didn't stop. It never stopped."
"Fine. But what about the-"
"Leave." Brudo demanded. "I'm not here to answer your questions, and I also don't want to have to clean your body up. I'm going to have to be doing enough cleaning already what with the blood you've spread all over the place."
Meteora bit her lip and took a deep breath. "Fine. But this isn't over. Expect a few more visitors sometime today. You've hidden here for fifteen years. You shouldn't have expected that nobody would ever stumble upon it eventually."
"Honestly, I'm more surprised that nobody else has stumbled upon it before you." Brudo said. "Now are you going to leave?"
"Yeah." Meteora said. "Goodbye. For now."
Brudo huffed and Meteora left the room, before grabbing the front door and pushing it back to the ground like a child through a tantrum. She exited the house and left it behind, noticing that the second she left the porch, her nosebleed had immediately ceased. Brudo had been telling her the truth. It had been something in the house.
Meteora took one last look at the place and then walked off, heading back towards Mariposa. Hopefully Jenkins had gotten those packs, and then she could tell him about Brudo and he would get the real answers. But she still wondered. Her mother had told her that the entire Avarius family had died. That Ludo had left because of it. But if the Avarius's had shut themselves away soon after the merge, then why would they think they died? Just an assumption? Maybe, but it didn't really make sense.
She decided that that was a mystery for another time, and she could only focus on the current one at hand. Or ones. There were so many mysteries, so many questions waiting to be answered.
Meteora speed-walked down the path, careful to avoid any more planks of wood, until the path need and the first cleared. She looked around and saw Jenkins walking towards another section of the forest, the expression on his face being one of anger and fatigue. But he had the packs. Meteora walked along the tree line and followed him into the woods, until he made it back to the camp where Mariposa was waiting.
"Where's Meteora?" He asked her. "I thought I told you guys not to run off."
"Technically, you told not to leave Echo creek. You never said we couldn't leave this area. But I don't know where she is. I saw her leave about a half hour ago and...huh. Nevermind. Turn around."
Jenkins looked begin him and saw Meteora coming up on them both, looking like she had been on hold with a local cable company for two hours.
"...What happened to your shirt?" Jenkins asked, greatly concerned. "Is that dried blood?"
Meteora looked down and saw that the blood that had painted her shirt a different color had now dried, and looked like an obscure map of some random island in the middle of the ocean.
"Uh, yeah." She said. "I tripped earlier and fell on my face, and my nose started bleeding. I'm fine though. You don't have to be worried."
"Still am." Jenkins said. "That is an insane amount of blood for a nosebleed. Come here. I wanna make sure your nose isn't broken. Can't have more injuries on my watch."
"It's not." Meteora said confidently. "But...I did find something out there in the woods."
"Is that so? What'd you find? Food? Water? A creepy cabin?"
"Well, your last guess is kinda correct…" Meteora said, shrugging. "I did find an old house. It's a real wreck."
"You found an abandoned house?" Jenkins asked. "Hm. No surprise there. It was probably Lord Brudo's old house. Ludo's dad. For whatever reason, he never allowed any of his kids to leave the house after the merge. Only he ever left, coming to an occasional meeting. Don't tell me you found their bodies or something."
"I didn't find any bodies." Meteora said. "But I did find them."
Jenkins froze in place and twisted/tilted his head at Meteora, his mouth slowly dropping open.
"You...you what?" He asked, slightly laughing as if it was all a joke.
"I...I found them." Meteora repeated. "They're all still there. They survived the apocalypse. Brudo was the only one who knew, because he never let any of his kids go outside, and they survived with some kind of-"
"Uh-uh-uh-uh-uh." Jenkins said, putting his hand up. "They're still alive? Still living there? After all this time?"
"Yup. Brudo said that they have a food supply that doesn't spoil for some reason. I have my own theories on that…"
Mariposa, who had been unusually quiet for the past few minutes, got up off the ground and joined their conversation, also shocked by the things she was hearing.
"How many?" She asked. "How many of them are there?"
"A lot." Meteora said. "A dozen-something? One of them, named Cudo, said it was along those lines. I believe only one of them ever died, and it was some kid named Manudo because he bled out from a small cut on his arm."
"This is going too fast." Jenkins said. "One thing at a time. One thing at a time. Okay, ummm...how did they survive? Even if the blast didn't reach the house, which it should have, how did they survive the radiation?"
"I think I know how." Mariposa chimed in. "Some monsters are completely immune to radiation. Katrina told me so. That might be how some of them survived. Maybe Brudo's entire family is immune to it as well."
"The entire family? I doubt that." Jenkins disagreed. "But even if they were all immune, how could they just sit there for years without anybody stumbling on them?"
"Brudo said I was the first." Meteora answered. "He also said he was surprised that I was. I guess nobody expected to find anything useful in the woods, and everybody that knew that house was out there is either dead or just doesn't care."
"That's possible. How else do they survive?" Jenkins asked her. "You said some an "unspoiled" food supply."
"Uh, well, it's just that." Meteora said. "They have some gigantic food supply, and Brudo said that the food never spoils, although I have my doubts as to whether this supply even exists in the first place, or if it's something else."
"I'd say something else." Jenkins stated. "Okay. One last question for you. After that, I'm going there myself and getting the rest of the answers. Did that Voice in your head say anything about this?"
"Did the-oh!" Meteora exclaimed, realizing she had completely forgotten about the Voice. What had it been doing this whole time? It was rare for it to be this quiet for this long. She had been so caught up in the other thing that the Voice has been buried in her mind.
"It...didn't say anything." She finally said. "In fact, it's been quiet for a while."
"Tch. Fine with me." Jenkins said. "Just the three of us then. Come on. We're leaving."
"We're leaving?" Mariposa asked. "Wait, are we actually going to that old house?"
"Of course." Jenkins said. "I want answers. Whatever Brudo did to survive all this time, I need to know how. So let's go make some new friends."
And so they set off, with Mariposa begrudgingly following them, and a person high in the sky watched them go.
End chapter 29
A/N: New friends indeed, although I don't think Jenkins and Brudo will get along.
So, those guys are still alive. They'll play a part. The end of this arc will definitely feature them, and as for the next chapter, we'll have more questions, (always fun), a few surprises for our protagonists, and perhaps a flashback or two.
But anyways, thank you for reading and please PM me or leave a review if you have any questions or comments.