Chapter 6: The Road Less Traveled
As Jonas made his way back down the trail he'd taken, the pain in his head began to slowly dissipate. He heard a noise and turned to the left only to see a stream bubbling past.
He was hurled into his past once again. The stream, it was where he'd gone after Mollie died. He'd gone there to think. They'd visited the stream together many times, and he felt her presence all around him when he was there.
"I was there Jonas. I watched over you until you were sixteen, and the impact of my . . . uh . . . demise had begun to wear off, as well as the guilt that you felt." Mollie said silently, clearly finding it difficult to speak of her own end.
Jonas sat beside the stream, tossing stones into the water and watching the ripples that they created. At the time, he was fifteen, and to ease his pain, he buried himself in books.
He was pulled back from his past and found himself sitting beside the path that he was on, clutching a stone in his right hand. Confused at how he'd gotten there, he rose to his feet and threw the pebble aside. It landed, and rolled, with a scrabble of dirt.
He continued to go on, returning back to the main clearing, where he stopped, contemplating where he should go next. In the spur of the moment, he decided on the path directly across from him and started down it.
The trail split in two parts, one which seemed fairly easy going, and the other, which looked completely treacherous.
"Now what?" Jonas called.
There was a noise behind him and he spun to see Colonel O'Neill watching him closely.
"Colonel?" Jonas asked.
"Oh look, now you've done it Jonas. You really got yourself into a mess this time didn't you?" Jack stated simply.
"Sir, what are you doing here?" Jonas asked.
"I dunno, it's your brain, you tell me." O'Neill replied.
Jonas gaped openly at the Colonel, standing in the centre of the path, blocking his escape.
"Well?" Jack asked.
Jonas shrugged, he didn't know why the Colonel was there either.
"How can I help you, if you won't help yourself?" Jack asked.
"What are you talking about Colonel?" Jonas wondered.
"Oh, nothing. I must be getting senile in my old age." The Colonel replied casually.
Jonas looked away for a second, back to the two paths, and when he looked back. Colonel O'Neill was gone.
"Colonel?" Jonas called, there was no answer.
"Mollie?" Jonas asked. The child stepped up next to him.
"Yes Jonas?" She asked.
"Where do I go?"
"That's for you to decide, but if it were me, I'd take the path less traveled." She replied.
"That's the way then." Jonas stated. Perhaps Mollie was going to be of help after all.
With that, Jonas began down the rockiest trail, also the one with the most potholes and hills from what he could see.
About mid-way down that particular trail, Jonas was stopped by a familiar smell. He sniffed at the air and soon recognized what it was.
He thought back to when he was seventeen. It was the year that his grandfather had passed and the smell that was so familiar, smelled exactly like the cologne that his Grandfather used to wear.
Jonas had been close to his grandfather, and it all came as quite a shock when he passed away. If he remembered correctly, it was an evening in December when his family received word of the news from the local hospital.
Jonas was pulled back to his subconscious mind then, and his eyes burned with tears that threatened to fall.
"Why am I being reminded of all of this? I went through it once, I shouldn't have to go through it again. Mollie!" Jonas yelled.
The girl was sitting a short distance away, her blonde hair tied back in a braid at the nape of her neck. As she watched Jonas, and the pain that he was clearly going through, her eyes clouded with tears.
"I'm sorry Jonas, but I haven't got control over your memories. Those are yours alone, and only you can control them." She replied sadly.
"You told me to take this path!" Jonas yelled, he was frustrated and angry all at the same time.
"I only suggested it, you didn't have to take it if you didn't want to." The girl replied quietly, hurt by the tone that Jonas had suddenly taken with her.
"I just want to get out of here." Sighed Jonas.
"I know you do, but as I said, it's ultimately up to you if there's a way out or not."