To those interested in learning more about Endymion look at my profile for The Legend of The Traveler, it gives a tiny bit more information about him.

Laura followed Endymion out onto one of the higher balconies of the mansion. It was nighttime so it was dark save for the starry sky and moon above.

"Wait right here, I shall return shortly." With that Endymion left her alone.

Not knowing what else to do, Laura took a seat at the small table. It was a tiny thing, barely enough room for two people to share tea and talk.

As Laura waited she let her mind wander.

Her brother could never be a monster... could he? How her death could affect him so she knew though. She was the only one who really showed true love and affection for the small boy. Their parents, particularly their father, rarely did if at all.

Ruben living a life, especially with his current injury, without her terrified her in more ways than one. He would be all alone in this big house... No one to show him any real love, no one to play with him.

Laura felt the slight stinging in her eyes that indicated the approach of tears. She sniffled quietly and frantically wiped her eyes before Endymion got back. She did not want to appear weak in front of him. Somehow she knew whatever he was about to show her would be horrifying. She had to be strong though, both inside and outside.

This was something she wanted... no, needed, to see.

When Endymion returned he held several items in his arms. The first was a small candle, the second a pitcher of water, and the third a large pan.

Laura watched carefully as he placed the items on the table. The pan was set in front of her, the water from the pitcher being poured into it.

"What I'm about to show you will amaze you at first, then horrify you." Endymion spoke with a soft, gentle voice.

Laura could only nod.

Setting the candle off to the side beside the pan, Endymion took the seat across from her. His next act is what really shocked her.

He lit the candle with a swipe of his finger.

Laura's eyes shot open in surprise. How on earth did he do that?

"Told you it would amaze you." Endymion smiled slightly. "Now, have you ever heard of divination?"

Divination? Laura eyes him curiously. The word was familiar but she did not know the answer. "No."

"Simple explanation, it is a way of using various methods to answer a question or to see something, the method we are using here is water. The practice is not used around here outside of stories and such." As he spoke, Endymion ran his finger through the water in the pan.

As Laura watched she grew more and more transfixed. The water in the pan was taking shape into various images. It was foggy, as if she were looking through a clouded window.

"Now, take my hand." Endymion rested his hand on the table in front of her.

Laura took it without hesitation.

"Final warning. What you are about to see will be terrifying, it will scar you forever deep down. You will never be able to forget. If you truly want to help prevent what he becomes, you must see." Endymion's words sounded almost... rehearsed. As if he had given this same speech before. "Do you still wish to continue?"

Laura hesitated only for a moment before she squeezed the man's hand softly.

This was for Ruben, for him she would face any nightmare.

Laura nodded once again.

With that the images instantly cleared up. The first that appeared was a tall man wearing a white hood. His back was facing them, masking his features. He stood at a workbench of some kind. Whatever it was he was doing, Laura could not see.

When the man suddenly stepped away to reveal what he was doing, the bile rose in her throat. There was a human body resting on the workbench in a vice of some kind to anchor it down. The top part of the head was missing, revealing the cut open skull and brain beneath. The table itself was covered with bloody saws, knives, and other tools.

The worst part of the image was that the person was still alive and moaning... god he was being cut upon while he was still alive!

When the hooded man turned around she got a good look at him too. It took everything Laura had not to throw up right then and there. He wore only a dirty pair of white pants and a matching jacket with no shirt beneath. The sliver of exposed skin on his chest and stomach was covered in what looked like old severe burns. His face looked the same, with similar old looking burns. Some of his flesh even appeared to be stitched together.

The truly scary part was that many of those burns were close matches to the burns Ruben suffered.

"No no no no..." Laura muttered the words quietly. This could not be Ruben, he looked more like Frankenstein's monster than he did a person.

"This Laura, is what Ruben becomes. Only he stopped using the name long ago, he began going by Ruvik instead." Endymion's voice was apologetic. "Ruben died long ago, in a tiny dark, and lonely room."

Laura tore her eyes away from the image before her. "What do you mean?" Surely it took more than her death to create this kind of change in Ruben. The boy was always a bit different compared to everyone else but this was another person.

"As I told you, Ruben survived the barn regardless of my intervention. You died to save him." Laura knew that part. What he said next she did not. "Ruben was taken back to your family home just like now, except your father was ashamed to have a son disfigured so badly."

Endymion moved his finger again in the pan, the image changed. This time it showed a small dark room, the only light came from a nearby window. Laura recognized it as the basement of their mansion. It was one of the far off storage rooms, it was different in the image however. It was reorganized to form a small bedroom of some kind. If he could be called so, it looked more like what a homeless person would sleep in.

On the bed a single figure laid, the form was curled up tightly into itself. The quiet sobbing sent a twinge of pain through Laura's heart. She recognized that crying sound. She had seen it herself in person more times than she would have liked to.

The real blow to Laura's heart came when the shape turned over. An all too familiar small boy, covered in burns and dirty, ratty clothes laid on the equally filthy bed.

"R...Ruben?" Laura was fighting the tears back now. Her hand, without her knowledge, had formed a death grip on Endymion's.

"Ruben spent many years locked down in this tiny room." Endymion explained slowly. "Losing you was the first hit, the second was the sheer pain of his burns, the final blow that broke him was being locked away like an animal by his own father. It was around this time that Ruvik was born."

If it was not for Endymion's grip on her hand, Laura felt like she might have sprung to her feet to run to Ruben's room. Just to make sure he was still there and what she was seeing really was not real.

"If it makes you feel any better, your mother was completely unaware of this." Laura's eyes snapped up at that. "She was led to believe you both perished in the fire, she was forbidden from the basement, but she always suspected she could hear him down there."

Once more, Endymion changed the image. This time it was her parents room, the disturbing part was the tall bandaged figure standing in front of the bed with a bloody knife in hand.

"Oh, father, if you only knew how satisfying that look on your face is." The bandaged man spoke quietly, his voice was disturbing. It sounded so... gleeful.

Laura looked down toward the floor to see who the man was talking to. She was greeting by the sight of both her parents laying on the floor at the foot of their bed. Both covered in bloody stab wounds side by side.

"Did you actually think if you locked me away I would just cease to exist?" Gripping the bloody knife in hand he continued to speak.

Laura could only stare in horror at the man in the image. It did not take a genius to figure out the bandaged man was her brother.

Her brother that had just murdered their parents.

Their mother and father.

"Out of sight, out of mind? You did... you did, didn't you."

Laura always knew her father could be cruel, but what he had done to Ruben... it was something completely unforgivable. Something she thought him incapable of.

"Well you were never out of my mind." Ruben's voice sounded so sickly sweet it was disgusting to Laura's ears.

"I hope you're proud of yourselves." At Ruben's words the image faded with another to replace it. This time Ruben... no, Ruvik, was laying on an operating table surrounded by many people dressed in white.

Laura knew an operating room of a hospital when she saw it.

"What's this?" Laura could not see exactly what was going on because of all the people surrounded Ruvik. She assumed he was having surgery for something.

"The death of Ruvik's body but not his mind."

Laura looked up at Endymion. "I don't understand."

Once more the picture in the water shifted, now it showed a large circular room. In the middle was a glass sphere with a brain within. A label on the case told Laura who it belonged to.

Ruben Victoriano.

"He spends his entire adult life working on something called the STEM project. After countless experiments on people, alive and dead, he finally perfected the process. Unfortunately, the people funding his research turned on him. His own body was harvested to finish it. He spends a time trapped within a world fueled by his own madness and nightmares. He later escapes by possessing the body of another young man to embark on a quest for vengeance."

Laura did not know what else to say. Everything she was hearing was so unbelievable but she was seeing it in the water with her own eyes.

"But all of this is irrelevant."

"Why do you say that?"

"Look at it this way, Laura. Time is a river, it flows a single way and forges on. The flow of said river is the events that you have seen. Through my intervention the flow has changed to a different direction."

Laura was beginning to understand now. "So all you showed me..."

"Has not happened. Now that the first domino has been removed, there is a chance none of it will ever happen. You survived the fire, you have the power to hold his mind together in this difficult time."

Laura already felt the pressure of the man's words. For Ruben, she would do anything.

After blowing out the candle, the balcony returned to darkness.

Endymion stood to his feet. "My business here is done. I must now take my leave."

Laura was back to her feet in the blink of an eye. "Wait!"

Endymion regarded her with a raised eyebrow. "Yes?"

"I have to know..." Laura's curiosity was burning in her mind. "The candle, the water, all of that, how did you do it all? How did you know about Ruben?"

Endymion chuckled quietly. "Because I have seen it firsthand."

Before Laura could say anything else the man was walking away.

He spoke one last time before disappearing back into the doorway. "Your brother will always need you, never hesitate to show him the love he deserves." With that, Endymion stepped back into the house.

Laura broke into a sprint to get to the door. She threw it open but when she searched the hallway, Endymion was already gone without a trace.

Somehow she knew that was the last she would be seeing of him.

Feeling a strong desire to see her brother, Laura rushed back to the boy's room. She arrived just in time to see her mother leave.

Laura was already entering the room before their mother even made it down the hallway.

Ruben was still out cold. He laid in bed with his head and various parts of his body wrapped in fresh bandages. Laura wasted no time in taking the seat beside the bed that their mother had previously occupied.

Laura, slowly and gently, reached foreword and took Ruben's unburned hand in her own. The young boy did not stir but Laura remained in place.

Laura thought about everything Endymion had showed and told her. No matter what it took, she would not allow any of it to happen. Her baby brother was going to get the chance to grow up into a fine young man. He would not become the monster. Laura leaned in close to the slumbering boy and whispered softly.

"I'm here Ruben, I will always be here no matter what. I love you little brother."

So ends another piece of The Saga of The Traveler. To those interested his story continues elsewhere, simply look at my profile for other pieces of his tale.

Let me know what you all think, reviews give me desire to write.