A/N Hello beautiful people! I worked really hard on this chapter, so I do hope that you enjoy it. Also, some very important information! The part of this chapter that is in italics is supposed to signify that River is dreaming. I'll also put a reminder in bold parentheses. Also, I made this chapter just a bit longer than normal. It's not by much, but I still hope that you enjoy it none-the-less. Thank you.
"What?" I ask Aster incredulously.
"Jack hasn't seen her for weeks." He responds. I let out a groan.
"That's just great!" I exclaim sarcastically. "Jack is one of the only spirits that would know where Akiko is. How are we supposed to fix this if we can't even get ahold of her?" I ask, beginning to pace back and forth.
"We?" Aster questioned, one of his eyebrows arching upwards.
"Yes, we. You are going to help me find her, aren't you?" I ask, standing still for a few minutes to look at him.
"I think you're makin' too big a deal out of this. Akiko will turn up eventually..." He says. I stare at him in disbelief before my face twists into a glare. How could he say that I'm making a big deal out of nothing? She's throwing off the seasons, but he doesn't seem to care about that. Maybe it's because it's not even his season that's getting messed up. Maybe he just doesn't want to get involved. Either way, I can already feel the rage bubbling up inside my chest at his refusal to continue helping me.
Without another word I turn around and stomp towards one of the tunnels. Aster says something behind me, but I ignore it. It will not be a good day for him if I stay here any longer. I need to get away and go somewhere safe to let off some steam. After I calm down I can continue looking for Akiko on my own. I don't know where to go from here, but I'll be damned if I let this get any more out of my control than it already is. When I do finally find her, I am going to force her to reverse what she's done. After that I'll make sure to wring her neck until she promises never to do something so stupid again.
*A day and a half later...*
This seems so pointless! I cannot seem to find Akiko anywhere, and I've looked pretty much every where. I even swallowed my pride and asked a few other spirits if they've seen her around. All of them have said that they didn't. At least, not recently. I keep hitting brick walls no matter how hard I look for her, and I'm pretty much exhausted at this point. My head is pounding and I haven't even been doing my job because I've been too focused on finding Akiko. I just don't get how she could have just vanished! She's never been this hard to find before.
I went from a strong determination to pure exasperation within the span of 24 hours. I just need a short break from this whole thing while I recharge my drive to find her. That's why I'm currently flying over the islands of Hawaii, looking for a decent place to land. I settle for landing near the peak of the volcano in Mauna Loa. I sometimes like to come here when I need a break from life. It's easier for me to stay near a volcano and not hurt to many people due to rising temperatures.
I walk around for a little while as I clear my mind of everything that's been happening. After about half an hour I have destressed enough to finally be able to get a little rest. I find a good place to lay down. It's not exactly comfy, but I'm used to it. It's not like I've ever really owned a bed before so I wouldn't really know much of a difference anyway. I tell myself that I won't lay down for long. I just need enough sleep to get my drive back in gear. My eyes close and before I know it I've fallen into a deep sleep.
(Dream sequence.)
My eyes open to find myself... Somewhere. I can't really tell where I am because of the darkness cloaking everything. I can't even see my hand in front of my face. I try taking a step forward, but I find myself stuck. My leg isn't responding to my brain. I try again but get the same results as before. I feel the beginnings of panic creeping up into my chest, settling there like a heavy rock. I try to force myself into being calm as I twist my upper body around to see if I can see anything.
No such luck. There's nothing but darkness in every single direction. The panic in my chest grows bigger. Without thinking too much about it, I try to lift myself up off of the ground. I feel my body giving off so much heat that I would have given any human a very bad case of heat sickness. Or possible even have killed them. However, I find myself still glued in place. I can feel my panic fully taking over me. I recklessly raise my body temperature until it's surly past 140 degrees Fahrenheit.
My struggling comes to an abrupt halt when I hear something echoing to me in the distance. As I go still, the abyss is deadly silent. I strain myself to hear something. Anything. If someone else is trapped here maybe we can figure out a way to get free together. I try to call out to them, but my voice is sucked up by the void. It's almost like I'm in dead space. I don't even make a sound. That's when I feel something brush up against the back of my left arm. I twist around quickly, trying to get a glimpse of whatever it was. But I still can't see anything.
"Who are you?" A breathy voice whispers into my ear. I gasp, my eyes widening. I start struggling to free myself once again. Adrenaline is pumping through my body but it does me little good. Who ever this person is, they aren't going to let me leave. But I can't just let this happen. I have to try and get away. That's when I feel icy cold fingers circling my neck. I instinctively try to use my hands to tear the hands away from me, but my entire body has been paralyzed now. I realize that I'm going to die here and there's nothing that I can do about it.
The fingers tighten their grip around my throat until I can no longer breath. Tears begin to sting my eyes as I feel myself fading. My brain is shouting at me to suck in air. But I know that I won't be able to. I already know that I'm going to die here. Alone and defenseless. Somewhere in the back of my brain, I can hear the same being laughing at my destruction.
(End of dream sequence.)
"River! Wake up!" My brain barley registers the voice yelling at me or the hands shaking my limp form. My body feels sticky and gross from sweat. My clothes cling to me in the most uncomfortable way. I'm practically painting for air as my lungs burn. My hands reach for my throat as my pulse races with the panic that's still consuming me. I can still fill the coldness of that thing's fingers. I open my eyes and try to find the source of the voice that is still calling out to me. The brightness of my surroundings is blinding at first. I blink my eyes a few times before my vision finally clears up enough for me to make anything out.
The first thing I see is the worried expression on Tooth's face looking down at me. Why is Tooth in Hawaii? I furrow my eyebrows together and slowly sit up. My head pounds as I do. I move my hands to my temples and rub them to ease some of the pain as I look around. That's when I finally notice that I am not, in fact, still on the volcano of Mauna Loa. I'm lying one the floor in one of the open walled rooms of Tooth's palace. Her fairies are all skittering around and chippering to each other.
I look around further to find most of the other guardians standing a little farther away from me. Every one of them except for Jack, and the Sand Man. Both Aster and North are giving me a similar expression to Tooth. I lower my hands and throw a glare towards Aster. I'm still angry with him for blowing me off yesterday. He doesn't seem to care about my dirty look though. Which makes me get back to the situation at hand. Why am I sitting in the middle of the floor surrounded by guardians? I pull my legs towards me and situate them in the criss-cross position. I focus my attention towards Tooth.
"What's going on?" I ask. My voice is scratchy and strained. Tooth looks over her shoulder at North, who nods his head. She sighs and looks back at me.
"We don't really know yet. It's been brought to our attention that multiple spirits have gone missing. We've searched everywhere and we can't find them.. Akiko was the first to go missing, as you already know. When we first caught wind of this, Bunny said that you were looking for Akiko. So we came to find you to see if you had found anything out. After searching for a few days with no luck we had thought you had gone missing too. That's when we found you at the volcano." She finished.
"Wait, a few days? That can't be.. I was just talking to Aster about this yesterday." I say. My voice sounds a little better. Aster takes a step forward.
"That was nearly a week ago Shelia." He informs me. My mouth opens in disbelief. A week? I've been asleep for a week?! I curse myself for falling so deeply into sleep. I've lost an entire week of search time. I might as well be starting from square one! I groan to myself.
"That's great. Just grand." I complain out loud.
"I can see that you're still out of it.. But we really do need to know if you've found anything." Tooth says. My face twists back into a glare. I look back up at the three of them, but mostly Aster.
"I told you that something was wrong.. I tried to get you to help me, but you blew me off. Told me I was making too big a deal out of it! Why on earth would I help you after that?!" I exclaim. Aster's face contorts. I can tell I've started to piss him off, but it's clear that he's trying to hold back the frustration. I'm not. I stood up.
"River, please. I'm sure Bunny didn't mean to do that. You know how Akiko is..." Tooth said as she tried her best to diffuse the situation at hand.
"Yes, we all know that Akiko likes to hide out when she's done something wrong. But when I went to this so called guardian for help he turned me away. He only cares now because more than just some prankster has gone missing!" I exclaim. That seems to have pushed Aster over the edge.
"I turned you away? You were the one who ran off in a huff when I merely suggested that Akiko might just be avoidin' ya. Why do ya care that much anyway? It's not like she really means anything to ya." Aster says. He changes his stance into a more intimidating one, but I'm not threatened by it.
"I care more about her than you!" I say, clearly irritated. Tooth is now standing off to the side. Some of the fairies are hiding behind her. I ignore her and continue, "Do you even really care about anything besides your stupid holiday? You treat people as if they are all mere inconveniences!" I accuse. Aster grinds his teeth together and begins to walk towards me. He's stopped my North, who stands in between us with his back towards me.
"Enough! Now is not time to fight with each other." He says. Aster and I continue to glare at one another, both daring the other to speak first. Finally Aster sighs and looks at North.
"Fine, but don't think this is over." He says. The last part is more for me than anybody else. I can't be bothered to care though, because I agree completely. I have a feeling that I'll need to find someone else to fix me up whenever I get hurt. I don't think I'll be able to be in the same room with him after all of this is over. I huff and give a small nod to let the others know I'll comply for now.
"Now, River, tell us. What have you found out?" North asks. He turns halfway so he can see the entire group, though he stays in-between Aster and me.
"I.." I briefly pause. "Nothing. I haven't found anything that will be helpful." I say finally. Tooth sighs.
"This isn't good. Are you sure there's nothing that could be even remotely connected to this?" Tooth asks desperately. I bite my lip and think. The only other thing that's been weird is that encounter I had in the meadow the other day. I feel like it's important to what's going on, but I don't know how.. Maybe they will? I take a deep breath and explain the odd girl, her song, the trance she put me in, and her shrill scream when I managed to break free. Everyone is silent while I tell them about it. After I'm done I look hopefully to North. "Do you know who she is?" I ask. I figured that he would know since he keeps a list of spirits to give presents to on Christmas.
"I have never heard of this spirit. If we knew name, we could find her. Perhaps Man in Moon knows." North says.
"Oh, yes! We should probably talk to him anyway, just to fill him in on what's going on." Tooth says. Her fairies are no longer hiding behind her. Instead they chirp in agreement.
"I think he already knows.. He does kind of see everything, you know." I say sarcastically as I prepare to leave the guardians to their investigation. I don't see why they would need me here any longer. They already have their information. I begin to raise my body temperature, but stop when Tooth places a hand on my shoulder.
"You're not leaving are you?" She asks. I toss her a confused look. "It's just that you might be able to help us.. You were the one who had that weird encounter after all. Plus you might remember something else useful." Tooth explains. Now it makes sense. They want to use me! Well, okay. Maybe not use me. Besides, it may not hurt to have a little help from the guardians. Even if one of them is Aster. I let my core temperature return to normal, and compose myself the best that I can.
"Okay. I'll help you guys." I take a look around the room. North has a very pleased expression on his face, while Tooth looks mostly excited. Aster looks annoyed and grumpy, but he doesn't object. I wonder if this might have been a bad decision after all. Let's just hope that both Aster and I survive until the end of this whole ordeal.
A/N There ya go. I hope you have enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Also, I want to give a special shout-out to onthenilerivah. Thank you so, so much for taking the time to read this work of mine. I want to dedicate this chapter to you my dear. If any of you other beautiful readers have a tumblr I highly recommend you go follow her. She posts amazing things and is a writer herself. Please go check her out. Until next time, stay awesome!