John was bored. John was more than bored; he was practically chased out of his own mind with boredom. Of course, he was usually bored, after spending two years on this meteor they hadn't discovered very many new things to do. So, John had given up. He had been sitting mindlessly on the ground, blowing around some of the dust in front of him.
It had been a month since he had brought his magic kit back to the meteor from his house. It was quite short lived though. He had been overly eager to learn some new tricks, and he did. But as all things that are done too much, they become tiresome very easily, and fast too I might add. After that week was over a John had gotten his fill of magic and trickery, he had spent the majority of his time in the library.
He read and read, filling up his head with any book he could find. He came across a few books he had read as well, or at least, it felt like he had read them before. He couldn't remember ever reading them, but there was an entire shelf that he had read, he couldn't remember ever even picking up one of them. It was odd, but John decided to leave it alone for the time being. But he knew one thing; all of the books on that shelf had practically no dust and looked like they had just been dusted recently.
John had read a particularly interesting book on chess. He had never played the game before and thought it would be a splendid time to take up the sport. He still didn't understand a lot of the rules, but he had taken a peculiar liking to the game and was picking it up fast over the few weeks. He even found a board in one of the rooms near the roof where he and Dave would chill. It was missing some pieces so John had to improvise and use whatever was lying around that was small enough, writing the name of the piece it was standing in for in permanent marker.
Dave was quite good at the game too. He had played a little bit before, but his skills were pretty rusty from not playing it for so long. After all, Dave was formerly a member of the chess club at his school, he was the vice president. He thought that stealing the spotlight and stealing all the thunder wouldn't be very ironic because he was the best player on the team. So he stuck to the corners and acted as the stoic, cool faraway kind. In reality he really badly wanted to help his team mates improve their game, but he would only help when they asked him to, as to not look to eager and lame.
So, John lost every match against Dave. But when he was pitted against Karkat in the cut throat battle of chess and one sided cussing, John always won. Karkat was not new to the game like John, but that didn't mean he was good either. He was the worst on the Meteor, probably the worst out of the group of friends. Dave and Rose were the best. Unexpectedly, Kanaya was almost as bad as John, barely beating him every time he challenged her.
John still played Chess and his latent skills were still developing, but recently he had found another was to preoccupy his time. A book, and not just any book. It was a book given to him by his dear friend on his twelfth birthday. He hadn't read much paranormal books since his arrival on the meteor, most likely due to their rarity, but he could barely put this one down. It was odd to say the least. It seemed familiar, like a memory from the past. He could barely remember when he had read one story about these creatures. He could only find one story. They were truly rare and unknown to most of the human race. Although, now it would be known by half the human race, seeing as how two out of four kids knew about them.
But right now, John didn't feel like reading the book, he wanted to savor it, reading only one chapter at a time. He was already ten chapters in. There was a grand total of twenty. It was truly a test of perseverance for the pubescent young man. Now we are back to John, playing idly with the dust on the ground. He sat with his legs spread out in front of him and leaning back on one hand, twirling the dust with his finger half-heartedly. He was most likely thinking of a new strategy to beat strider at a match of chess, of course at his current skill level that would be proven impossible in their next game.
John floated himself to a standing position. John had been also working on his power and controlling them more precisely and found himself doing this now without even a second thought. Instead of grabbing something, he would make it float over to himself instead. He didn't even walk on the ground anymore and sort of just walked on the air instead. He felt freer in the air, as if by touching the ground meant being grounded to it. It was starting to feel weird. John didn't mind though, as floating became second nature to him.
John walked; I will refer to his floating as walking, and he left the library. He walked down the corridor, looking at the odd picture adorning the otherwise bland rock wall. It wasn't anything special, just a carpacian knight. He kept walking. It was pretty quiet, it always was around the library, and John was pretty much the only one who ever went in there.
He kept mindlessly walking, not really paying attention to where he was going, sort of in a daze. He was like that a lot recently, really recently actually. It had only started two weeks ago. He started to feel more distant. John snapped out of it and looked at his surroundings. He was lost. He didn't know how much time had passed, but he knew it couldn't have been that long.
He kept walking to see if he could find a familiar path, but alas he couldn't. But there was something odd. At the end of the hallway, on the right wall, between a picture of Prospit and a picture of Derse, was a door way. And I say door way because there was no door, it might as well have been a door shaped hole, and in a sense, that's all it was. It was dark, That was defiantly one of the obvious things about it.
A sense of curiosity awakened in John and he felt the need to go in it. He grabbed a torch off the wall and stood in the entry way. He started walking. The light from his torch didn't extend that far and he could only see a few feet in front of him, which only fed the fires of his excitement. It was somewhat dank, like this part of the castle like building they had all found themselves living in had been forgotten long ago. The ground was cracked and there was an abundance of dust everywhere, you could practically feel it in the air. If it was just a little bit thicker it could have qualified as a fog.
"Oh man!" John said happily, he didn't know what awaited him at the end of the tunnel, but he knew one thing, he couldn't wait. He was practically shaking with excitement. You could tell he was excited, he was almost beaming. He looked at the walls to see if there would be any secret hidden messages usually left for adventurers. They walls were dusty and rough, but still very much messageless.
The pathway continued straight for what seemed like forever with only the sound of the soft breeze beneath his feet sounding down the lengthly corridor. John whistled a tune he had almost forgotten, a relic of the past near the back of his mind. It was almost subconscious due to his growing boredom. It was understandable of course. Unbeknownst to john himself, he had walked at least a kilometer into the deep, forgotten passageway. It was not looking hopeful with such a long walk down a straight passageway with no turns, or at least had no turns anyways.
In fact, John had come to a fork in the metaphorical road, unless the hallway was a road for very small people with tiny, tiny cars, but that didn't seem to be the case since no small vehicles were present. And John was not small enough for this to be considered a road so we'll just stick with reality and not silly hypothetical possibilities. Tiny cars might even be considered to silly to be a possibility by some people, but I beg to differ.
Anyways, john was at a crossroads. Left or right was the decision. He might come to regret it, or be blown away with his phenominal sense of choice. Or course, it would not be the latter concerning this decision. Oh no, that would be too lucky for this boy. This boy was not meant for having an easy go. If he was to become the hero he has to go through some shit, knee deep in fact. Uphills both ways, against the rain and hail, like how his father had to walk to school sans the shit. No, but john did have a spot on decision making technique.
"Left or right…" said john in his no longer crackly pubescent voice. No, he was on the straight and narrow path of becoming a god man, as well as journeying through this forgotten strip. "Well, since right is right, it's the right decision." See, brilliant technique. So John continued down the right pathway, never to find out where the left way went. Maybe he would double back and explore the left as well when he had finished this side, but that would be another silly hypothetical possibility not likely of being made reality.
John turned to the right and walk home free. He picked up his speed a little out of anticipation and impatience. He was back in his excited state and couldn't wait to see what was at the end of the hall. Times like this were usually accompanied by some suave music in all the movies, but john made up with his expert, almost godly, whistling skills. Surely if he ever made it back to earth he could win some awards at least, maybe even break some records for the worlds longest whistling with no stopping. Who couldn't wait for the future when it was so promising.
John had successfully passed his first trial in this exploration and the excitement was back. He could practically smell victory. He could smell the victory, but that was not the only smell in the air. It was unfamiliar to him. It was…unsettling. John continued on, the scent caught in his throat. He ignored the scent and came to a corner. It was the first turn in his path and he was even more excited, completely forgetting the strange scent. so he took the corner and kept walking for a few minutes.
John was coming closer to the scent and it was growing stronger. It was stifling. John came to a opening and it was like a big room, well, not overly big, just somewhat. John flashed the torch around the room and something caught his eye. It was in the corner of his eye. It was different from the usual grey and rusty metal tones that had been present up until this point he looked at it at the ground then lifted his light a little closer and higher to see where the color was coming from.
John regretted this decision immediately. When he lifted the light, john found the rest of Karkat's friends. Then he screamed and proceeded to get the hell out of there very, very fast.
TBC…
A/N: Woo, that chapter was so dragged out. Whatever, I hoped you enjoyed it and continue to enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it :) until next time