Journey of the soul chapter 56

Spinax: (kicks down door) WHAT DID YOU DO?!

…1. I talk first, that's how things work. 2. I don't know what you're talking about and 3. How did you fit in the doorway?

Spinax: (flips table) INTRO CONVENIENCE, THAT'S HOW!

Hunter: as for 2, Spinax has been playing champions and just reached the same point in the story that we're in.

Spinax: (unflips table, then flips table again) YOU SKIPPED A CHARACTER!

Because they have no relevance to the plot. I've been skipping characters for a while now.

Spinax: (unflips table again) FAIR ENOUGH!

Why are you still shouting?

Spinax: (carefully puts door back on hinges) GOOD QUESTION!

Uh…guess I'll start the chapter then

Hunter adjusted his goggles as he followed Duna down the rock path, attempting to mess up his hair as discreetly as possible. He couldn't afford to give away his identity now. The only reason he agreed to follow Duna after she asked was to avoid acting suspicious. Then again, maybe she already figured him out? Duna is really smart, he could already be done for.

"So, why call me over here to talk?" Hunter tried to sound as calm as possible, "what's the occasion?"

"I have a few questions I'd like to ask you…starting with what your name actually is."

"Oh, uh…it's Hunter, Hunter Elwood," no point in stacking two lies, "I'm sorry I didn't tell the truth earlier, I knew about….Hunter Cloud and didn't want to upset you." It felt weird to say his own name. He'd said it before to Lila, but now, it felt like it was just half of his name, like it was missing a part to it.

"I suppose you are forgiven for that, even if it does call into question how you view emotions." Duna stopped walking, the strain in her voice was clear, "but here is where what I know about you comes to an end. So tell me." In a lightning fast motion. Duna shifted from her human disguise into her dinaurian form. She also flicked her hand towards Hunter. He felt a familiar clicking sound before his foldax was being pointed at him with the blades drawn. He didn't even realize that she had taken it off his back.

"How do you have this?" Hunter in a deep breath. He wished spinax would help out, but if he talked, they were caught for sure.

"It was given to me." That wasn't a lie. Hunter got his pickax from his adoptive father, Then again from Dr. Diggins as the foldax

"Do not lie to me, there is only one person who owns a tool like this and I am certain he would not just give it to some stranger."

"He said he didn't need it anymore," this was a total lie, "who does this belong to anyway." Duna's hand slumped for a moment before going back to pointing the foldax at him.

"It belonged to Hunter," she said quietly, "he said it was a gift from his father. I do not believe he would just give it to you." An idea came to Hunter. It was a terrible idea, but it could get him out of the situation. Spinax was repeatedly slamming his head against the walls of Hunter's mind, he didn't know whether this was a good or bad sign.

"I'm not saying I met Hunter, but I was given that pickax by someone," it took a good chunk of willpower not to say foldax, "when I told him my name, he shouted "that man is an imposter!"" This was technically the truth. Hunter has shouted that anytime he met someone with the same name as him on his travels. He did it mostly to remind himself that he can be a regular person, but sometimes it was to try and get Duna to laugh on vivosaur island.

"We hung out for a couple days, he seemed really sad a lot of the time though," this is it, the best and worst thing to do, "he gave me the pickax and this." Hunter slumped his bag off his shoulder and reached into it. He pulled out one of his two old visors. Duna expression hardened in an attempt to keep her eyes from widening.

"He said….he said he wouldn't need them where he was going." There it was, the suicide story. Hunter's supposed suicide was obviously faked, but there were a select few that believed he was still out there. Duna has to be one of those few, he was counting on it. In order to protect her from being dragged down with him if he got caught, Hunter needed to break Duna's heart and crush her soul. He needed to convince her that the one she cared about was dead.

"…" Duna was silent

"Like I said, I don't know if the person who gave me the pickax and the visor was Hunter Cloud. He wore a hood over his face the entire ti-."

"What you say does not matter at this point," Duna was fighting back tears, he could tell, "I already dismissed my suspicions." She flipped the blades on the foldax back to the sides and handed it to Hunter.

"The person you speak of was Hunter, I'm sure of it." Hunter breathed a sigh of guilty relief. He was able to describe himself well enough to convince her.

"I'm sorry…" was all he could say as he watched Duna attempt to not break down. She walked back towards the exit of the dig site.

"I must apologize to you as well. I see now that my suspicions were foolish."

"Wait, suspicions? Suspicions of what?" He tried to play it casually while also holding back a few tears of his own.

"Suspicions that you were Hunter." She turned to face him, her fist was curled around something at her neck.

"I should have known from the start, Hunter would never lie to me." All it took were those words. Hunter saw what her fist was curled around right before she left, it was a pendant.

His velociraptor claw pendant he had left behind.

Hunter collapsed against the wall and let the tears flow freely from his face. He couldn't remember the last time he had cried.

Wait, yes he could, it was when he had to leave Duna.

"Why does this goddamn world hate me?" Hunter curled up against the cliff face and cried into his knees. Spinax said nothing, aside from an occasional sniff himself, "why do I have to hurt so many people to get where I need to be? Am I just some sort of joke to everyone?" He was going hysterical now. Laughing and walking around in a daze.

"Oh haha, let's all laugh at this poor bastard. He has to leave everything he loved behind. What did the dinaurians ever do for me?! I'll tell you what. Nothing! NOTHING!" Instead of walking towards the bridge. Hunter stumbled through an outcropping as if he were drunk.

"No wait, that's wrong. They created me, they caused their own downfall by creating me. HA! Could imagine how Dynal must've felt when we whupped his ass? I BET HE STILL FELT BETTER THAN ME!"

"Hunter…" Spinax said quietly.

"But NOOOO! I have to protect their sorry asses because my girlfriend was one of them. I could've left those lizards to rot in space, but it looks like 8 months of fresh hell as a fugitive was appealing to young me!" Hunter started walking in erratic steps, like a deranged dance.

"Well look at this poor guy, left everything behind. You know what? Let's give him another shot! Dangle a chance to get back that life like a carrot on a freakin STICK!" Hunter punched the rock wall. He felt a knuckle split and wiped the blood on his shirt.

"Oh, look at that. Way to go, dumbass. On top of having to hurt and lie to everyone you care about, now you've gone and actually hurt yourself!"

"Hunter!" Spinax raised his voice. Still, Hunter acted like he was talking to someone else.

"That's all you're good for, isn't it? You hurt people every time and get hurt when you don't. What a sad, depressing, MISERABLE EXCUSE OF AN EXISTENCE!" Soulflame roared to life as Hunter shouted. Maybe he was secluded enough that no one saw him, maybe not. Right now, it didn't matter.

"Lookie here, the reason you're so messed up, you have a soul now. Doesn't feel too good when it's a shattered mess on the ground with you're heart now, is it?" Hunter walked out to the edge of a cliff.

"Not to mention Alvis, what is with that guy anyway? Just because you're blind and old doesn't mean you get a free asshole permit. That guy is probably the reason I'm going through all this shit. Setting me up for this dumpster fire, almost splitting my soul, controlling my mind. Wait, I'm not actually sure he did all those things. Ah well, for all I care he can BURN IN HELL."

"Stop this Hunter, you need to calm down." Spinax growled

"And then there's YOU. Always running your dumbass mouth at every chance you get. Did you ever maybe consider that NOTHING you say is funny? Maybe that's why you can talk, so you can lament to another species about HOW ANNOYING YOU ARE!"

"STOP NOW!" Spinax roared.

"SHUT UP! I'll never stop. I've torn the brakes off this train and I'll ride it all the way to hell. CHOO! CHOO! You know what? HELL SOUNDS NICE RIGHT ABOUT NOW!" Hunter felt his legs give out, he was vaguely aware of returning to his senses at the moment the world plummeted downwards. He spiraled down wards through the sky, the wind whirled around him, forcing his eyelids shut and drowning out spinax's shrieks. That's okay, he'd rather not be a witness to what his final act of idiocy resulted in.

"NO!" Spinax's Dino medal flashed to life. Hunter heard a roar and a sickening crack before he felt himself land softly on something mushy. Spinax thudded to earth and grunted In pain. Hunter felt himself being lowered onto the hard ground before fully opening his eyes. Soulflame has dissipated and that vortex of raging emotions faded. He looked up at spinax.

"Thanks bud-." He stopped dead. spinax was holding up one of his arms with the other. The arm being held was warped and twisted at the shoulder joint. Spinax's teeth had a red tint to them. There were red puncture marks all along his arm. It was clear, spinax had snapped his arm out of its socket to provide a soft landing.

"I….hurt you."

"Y'know," Spinax said through shallow breaths, "maybe I am pointy."

"I…I….sorry." With that, Hunter collapsed onto the ground, losing consciousness.

….….

"Hello?" Hunter was walking down a dark hall, the walls were tattered and looked like they might give out at any moment. What was he doing here? Last thing he remember was passing out after being saved by spinax.

"Spinax…" Hunter muttered quietly. He couldn't imagine what he just put one of his only friends through. Hunter watched his hand slowly curl into a fist. How many more people will get hurt because of him?

"anyone there?"

"I am." The voice responded so clearly, yet it sounded so far away that Hunter wondered if he just imagined it.

"You imagined nothing." Suddenly, the walls started to shake. Hunter kneeled down and braced his hands against the floor. The walls have out, but they didn't fall inward. The walls fell back revealing a wide, circular pillar in the middle of the sky. Hunter stared up at all the stars dotted around, but no moon was in sight. He walked to the edge of the platform and looked down, but was only greeted by more stars.

"Am I….dead?" He asked the voice.

"No…..not yet." Hunter felt a chill shoot up his spine. He moved to the side just as someone darted to the spot where he was.

"What the-" was all he could say before the figure darted at him again. Hunter jumped out of the way and skidded on the floor of the pillar when he land. His hand flew to his holder, but all it was met with was thin air. He didn't have his bag or his foldax either. Completely on his own against this person surrounded by shadow.

"Don't make this difficult for me," the voice said again. The figure paused, as if considering something, before rushing at Hunter again. Hunter dived towards the ground just as they were on top of him, staying low to the ground and going to the opposite end of the pillar. He could worry about other things later.

Come on then!" He shouted, "is that the best you can do?" The figure responded by lifting his hand up to the stars. Hunter stared in amazement as one of the stars lowered down to the figure and became a glowing orb in the palm of their hand.

"….are you sure I'm not dead?" They responded by flinging the orb at Hunter. We walked out of the way pretty easily, considering the orb was moving at less than a mile per hour. Hunter gave it a close look as it passed by him.

"Fool." The orb exploded in a brilliant flash of white light. Hunter was sent careening backwards by the blast. When he regained his sense and looked around, the figure was practically on top of him again with another one of the orbs.

"Oh come on," Hunter pushed himself backwards just as another one exploded. This was tiring fast, and losing energy meant slowing down and dying.

"I thought dying was what you wanted." The figure spoke in an almost mocking tone.

"Shut your mouth." It was true though. For a moment, Hunter was so consumed by hatred for himself and the world around him that he literally drove himself off the edge. Would it be worth it to go back? Or would he just go through the same cycle of hurting people and being hurt?

"Hunter!" Another voice shouted, this one was much clearer than the others. Both he and the figure stoped their fighting and looked around.

"….you got lucky." The figure said before the entire pillar began to shake violently. Hunter felt as if the entire world had slowed down just enough so that he could feel it spinning. The shaking was about to become too much and send him flying over the edge.

And then He woke up.

"Hunter!" The violent shaking has devolved into his shoulders being thrown back and forth. Hunter's eyes tried to adjust to the sunlight before being rattled along with the rest of his head.

"Alright alright, I'm up." He pushed himself off the ground to see Lila staring at him.

"Lila? What're you still doing here? I thought you left."

"Don't act like nothing's wrong!" Lila slapped Hunter's cheek. It barely stung, but Hunter still felt bad, "what are YOU doing sleeping at the bottom of a canyon?!"

"I…uh."

"You tripped and fell," spinax finished for him.

"I tripped and fell. Spinax helped me though, so everything's alright."

"Is it though?" Spinax asked. There was no joking tone in his voice. Hunter looked at Lila's expression as it switched back and forth between angry and concerned.

"Well, tell Spinax I said thank you." Lila huffed, "now c'mon! Todd was looking for you. He said he found the big round thing."

"…oh right. I'd almost forgotten about that." Hunter stared blankly into space.

He actually did that. He actually tried to kill himself. Why? When he "fell" off the cliff, it felt as if he wasn't making that decision. Like he was possessed by a part of himself he didn't know he had.

"If you decided to get possessed again, I'm putting you in a hospital until you calm down."

"Spinax, I'm so so-"

"Didn't you already say that?. Now onward good sir! There's fetch-questing to be done!" Hunter smiled. Spinax, Todd, and Lila. These people cared about him.

"Alright, let's go," Hunter pushed himself up and let Lila lead him back towards the gondola. Whatever had just happened, for the sake of his friends and his future, Hunter would make sure it never happened again. They cared about whether he lived or died.

They are worth living for.

Done! So Hunter, did you learn any lessons?

Hunter: never rant on a cliff

…any other lessons?

Hunter: stars explode

Are you reallly going to be this difficult?

Hunter: depends on how the next chapter goes.

You act like the next chapter will be soo-

Spinax: (kicks down door) WE DID IT!

Hunter: why do I feel like we've done this joke before?

What's wrong this time?

Spinax: (flips table) WE HIT 10000 VIEWS!

Hunter: well hot damn, good job Cross

...

Hunter: Cross?

(Flips other table) NOOOOOOOO! NOW I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING SPECIAL!

Hunter: like what?

I have no idea. Actually why don't the viewers decide? Leave a review as to what you think I should do to celebrate 10000 views! Thanks for reading!

Hunter: (unflips both tables) there's another lesson, replace door hinges often.