Location: 10°06'38.66"N 84°23'16.58"W
Time since asteroid impact: 3 Years 4 months 2 days
Moving away from the farmer, Henry noticed a sense of curiosity building within Pelias. "Is something the matter?" he asked, apparently catching the sauropod off guard.
"Oh! Uh... it's nothing really just, what exactly happened between you three. Before you met me I mean?" Pelias responded, a surprising albeit expected question for Henry, who up until this point had wanted to put those events behind him. After all, those trips had no meaning in the present, and of course no one would believe such insanity. Nonetheless, Henry told him anyways, describing greatly each and every event that they had been carried to.
By the time he had finished, he looked to see the disbelief on Pelias' face. None showed, much to Henry's curiosity... it didn't help that Pelias hadn't spoken during the description, and wasn't saying anything now. After a good moment or two, an explosion of realisation came to fruition on the sauropod. "Ooh, now I know where I've heard that from." Henry backed a step or two away from Pelias, "You've heard something like this?"
"A couple of years ago we were given a report about those encounters and how they explained a lot of holes we currently had upon the Nyasasaurian culture, however obviously none of us believed such a sketchy source, which unfortunately lost the location of origin as well as the name of the one who sent it. I believe Oykot received another not too long after, but I'm not sure if they ever got the name of the one who sent it. Anyways, now that no longer matters, at least I know now where it came from." The apatosaur could see the newfound relief, which soon turned to that of concern, "But that means... you were serious about those encounters?" Henry nodded, to which Pelias put two on two. "So that means The First One's real!?"
Henry stopped, allowing Pelias to catch up slightly, before responding. "We're certain that The First One exists, even if the concept is still odd to me, but we have come to reason that he exists in the other world I mentioned not too long ago. We're safe, and so is this world." He could see the relief come back to Pelias, "Thank goodness, that would be the last thing I'd want to be here. So-
"HENRY!" Their conversation had ended when a familiar but booming voice shouted from behind. Before Henry had time to react, a large force had smacked into him, sending him down onto his side. Only then did he have the opportunity to see that it was Negev who had carried out the act. "Negev, what are you doing?" Pelias questioned, Henry knew what Negev was mad about, and felt pitty on Pelias for not knowing any better.
"Henry, out of all the things you could've done, I ever thought you'd be the one to do something like that! I mean come on..." Negev rambled on, pointing out all the things Henry already knew. Slowly, Henry got up as Negev kept on, much to Pelias' concern over hearing the contents. By the time Henry was fully up and ready, Negev was still going on much to his annoyance.
"Negev will you cut it out alrea-
Negev cut in, "No! You have no excuse of just kicking your own brother out of your family in such a cruel manner!"
"You think I don't know that already!?" Henry shouted, silencing Negev, before continuing. "You don't think I feel guilty about it? Well I do. Why else do you think I try my best to care about everyone else so much these days? I do my best to do stuff to make me forget, to brush it aside and know that I've become better since then... but ever since knowing that he's still out there, that he's with my family and is coming to Clawtooth Mountain, I know the past is going to come back to haunt me. I keep telling myself that things are better when they're not, and yes I know I've distanced myself from you three over the past few days... I just, I-"
This time, Henry felt the small weight on his back. It was Spot, giving him a forgiving smile. Turning back, he could see Negev and Pelias. "Be more open in the future, Henry. We forgive you." Pelias said, to which Negev nodded. "Thanks, but it's not your forgiveness that's needed. I just fear that he-"
"You've changed a lot since your past, it's time to put that part behind you, once you have confronted Russel that is. He'll forgive you, I'm sure of it." Negev spoke.
As they carried on north, things only gotten weirder when it came to the ground and surrounding mountains. For starters, there was much more shaking, which had become more and more intense over the coming days. On the odd day or two, they would see a volcano billowing with smoke, erupting furiously. Some larger than others blew their tops off, in one case quite literally. Finally reaching the coast again, they continued on traversing the quick path, closing in on Clawtooth Mountain.
Unfortunately, they soon came across a deep crevasse, which pierced the coast and quite far into the land. They had the option to swim, but with the tide going out the crevasse would've been risky in the case that it pulled things out faster. Trying to swim would cause one to be swept far from the coast and out into the sea. That left the option to go around the crevasse, or at least find a place where it was thin enough to cross.
This turned out to be harder than expected, as the crevasse went towards a large mountain range. While the mountain range was intact, it meant for all of them to scale the whole thing, before easing their way back down again. It was fortunate that it wasn't too steep of an ascent, but at the cost of being in a local blizzard caused by the mountain's topography.
"All right then, we're at the top, can we please go down now?" Pelias asked, to which Negev responded "That depends, you wanna do it the slow, or fast way?"
"There's a fast way?" Pelias questioned, however right before Henry were to answer that, a deep rumbling under their feet emerged. Not too far, a crater-like feature burst open full of liquid rock, so bright that amongst the snow that it was like staring right into the sun, except that the snow made it so that it was difficult not to look away from its intensity. With Spot on his back, Henry pushed Negev and Pelias over the edge and went with them. The fast way turned out to be a crude version of sledding down the steeper face of the mountain, which had turned out to be a dormant volcano. Blazing down the slope came with some drawbacks, most notably the amount of snow being displaced into the air, which then went right into their faces. It had to be done though, or they would be slower down and possibly slower than the lava which had also begun moving down the sides.
By the time they had reached the bottom, the lava had nearly caught up with them. However as soon as the lava made its way into the crevasse, it was clear that everyone would be safe, and safer yet that they had effectively gotten to the other side of the crevasse. Now, there was no barrier in their way. Right?
Audio Message #31: Subject Member 3 - aka Henry - has traveled 496 miles (798 Km's). Despite all odds, they have persisted very far, and now they are very close to their destination. There is not much to say about the situation between Henry and his friends, given the recent explanations, so in turn there's not a lot to add here. Survival rating is at a 4.3 out of 5.
End of message.
A/N: I've been thinking as to whether or not do a rewrite of Peter's Machine Between Worlds. On one side I get to improve the story, but on the other side it will take much valued time from me writing the other story, especially with my final year of Uni starting. I might have it so that I can develop the next story in the weekends, while developing the PMBW remake on the holidays.
Next chapter: Through The Scavengers
Fun Facts: N/A
