Funny story about this chapter. I was frantically writing this up while I was at the library when my time ran out, so I just quickly jotted down a couple lines that would have been able to end the chapter if I had no other choice, just in case I wouldn't get another chance, but I had been considering writing another scene for this chapter and was still debating on whether to do that or not.
Naturally, Jack was all, "Yeah, yeah, write that last scene! Do it! Do it!" So... I wrote the scene. Turns out, before I wrote the scene, the chapter was already over 4k words. With the addition of this last scene, it pushed it up another 4.5k! *headdesk* Jack, what did you make me do?! *laughs* I'd considered breaking it into two chapters since it ended okay just before the last scene, but this computer has strange issues with copy and paste, so I decided to just leave it as it was.
I'm sure you guys will enjoy the freakishly long chapter anyway. (You'd better! I worked hard on it!*shakes finger*)
Disclaimer: I don't have one. *snickers* No, I kid. I don't own ROTG. But I think giving disclaimers on Fanfiction is stupid since the point of Fanfiction is that we're writing about things we don't own, so why do we give these? It's not even written in their rules. *rolls eyes* I just don't know. But I'll never stop making fun of the disclaimers.
What sorts of wacky adventures we could wind up encountering in a weird sort of jungle that didn't even make me melt was beyond me, but we all knew they were coming, and we knew they were coming soon. The apprehension lingered at the back of my mind and wouldn't let me ignore it, though I consistently attempted to paste a smile over it and pretend there was nothing else underneath. I was the Guardian of Fun. I could have fun no matter what the situation, right?
Then again, maybe I should have checked that last thought with Chaos before thinking it, because I'm not entirely sure he agreed with me.
The first clue that something was amiss occurred when I heard the telltale roar rippling over the foliage, and I closed my eyes and said, "Oh, no." Brent turned to me with fear slowly creeping onto his face, though Amanda seemed completely oblivious to the danger we potentially faced. I supposed a wild animal wasn't really the worst thing I had ever encountered in my life, but that didn't make it any more desirable an opponent. And this time, I had two helpless people to defend while thwarting said wild animal's attacks. I hoped that there was only one.
I stood still, gesturing for the others to do the same, and I watched as the animal slowly walked into the clearing. It was a lion. It figured. What else would we find in a weirdly rigged up jungle other than a lion? "Okay, guys," I said, "Just back up slowly…"
This particular lion didn't seem like he had read the same books I had, and he lunged at the three of us, all the while seeming to grow bigger in size the closer he got to us. Was it just my imagination playing tricks? Or was Chaos honestly messing with our heads again? I could easily believe either one.
I did the only thing I could think of and grabbed the first person I could reach and launched into the air, the lion right on my tail, swiping at my heels. How high could this thing jump? It sure seemed to be able to jump a lot higher than a normal lion.
"You left Amanda down there with that thing!" I blinked and turned to look at the person I held captive in my arm, realizing I had apparently grabbed Brent. I felt horrible for leaving little Amanda down on the ground to struggle all by herself, but what was I to do? I hadn't had time to grab everybody, and I didn't think I could safely fly back and pick her up without getting all of us killed. Maybe I could distract the lion and make it follow us so it left Amanda alone.
"I didn't mean to," I said. "I'm gonna try and lead that thing away from her, okay?"
Brent rolled his eyes, but he nodded anyway. He didn't understand my magic all that well, but he was at least coming to terms with it and pretending he accepted it. That at least made my job a whole lot easier.
I took off at top speed straight upward from where we were, just trying to first get out of range of the crazy kitty's jumps, when my head pounded against something intangible. I heard the crack resound through my whole body, and my vision flooded from the impact.
"What was… that?" said Brent. At least now I knew I wasn't crazy if he'd noticed it too.
"Guh wuh wuh uh…" I replied, though I wasn't sure what I was trying to say. I hoped he understood me, because I hadn't a clue what language I was even speaking at the moment. Probably just the language of "I just hit my head so leave me the hell alone."
Whatever I'd said, Brent seemed to understand well enough, and he reached his hand out to feel the area just above my head where I had smacked myself. His eyes knitted in confusion as he ran his fingers over the area for a couple minutes, then he turned to me. "It's solid. Completely solid, even though it looks like a clear sky. Someone doesn't want you escaping."
Great. And psycho kitty was still on my heels even now, as I had to fly to the side to dodge him. I was already above the trees, but the crazy lion was still able to reach me up here. What kind of mutant cat was this thing that it could jump over trees? And why in the world was there a cap at tree level to prevent me from flying any farther?
I rubbed my forehead and groaned. "How the hell are we supposed to escape this thing if I can't fly away from it? I don't suppose you are secretly a lion tamer?"
Brent snorted at this new notion. "Not on your life, bud." Well, that ruled out my skills and Brent's skills, which only left…
"Amanda!" shouted Brent, waving his arm frantically at the little girl down on the ground. I turned to look at what he was freaking out about. "Get away from that lion! He's a killer!"
My eyes widened as I saw that Brent was absolutely right in freaking out, as Amanda casually walked up to the lion, a little giggle in her step, calling for the kitty to come and play with her. "Amanda!" I called, "No! I'll… I'll come and save you. Hold on!" Of course, that meant I had to figure out what to do with Brent, but I was pretty sure he could handle himself a little better than Amanda could. Maybe I could just ditch him in a tree for the time being?
Before I could make up my mind on what to do, Amanda had run up and hugged the big beast, and as if it had been poked with a pin, the lion deflated until it had shrunk down to the size of a normal house cat. Amanda cooed gleefully over her new pet, rocking it back and forth like it was a baby. I blinked, then blinked, then blinked again. What had just happened? Had I honestly seen what I'd thought I'd seen?
I slowly brought Brent and myself back to ground level, and we approached Amanda and her new kitten with no small amount of apprehension. She ran up to us and proudly showed us her prize, but as soon as I reached out to touch it, it exploded into a full sized raging lion once again, pinning me down beneath its mighty paw. What had I done to cause this?
"Bad kitty!" said Amanda, and she touched the lion again, making it shrink back down to the size of a cat. "You have to stay a kitty and let me pet you and play with you forever and ever and ever." I chuckled nervously and dragged myself to my feet. Whatever magic was going on here, Amanda was an expert at it, and I really had no idea what was going on.
Just when I thought this particular trial was past us, roars came from all around us. Brent and I snapped to attention as one by one, jungle animals of all shapes and sizes stepped into the clearing. One locked eyes with me and came charging at full speed, again growing bigger the closer it got, and I knew I couldn't get away from it, so I closed my eyes and waited until…
It never came. I opened my eyes and saw that Amanda had poofed this little creature too, and she now had two little furry creatures to play with. So, if we approached them without fear, would they go down to that cute and cuddly size? I decided to try.
I picked out an elephant that didn't look too terribly threatening at the moment and sauntered up to it, swallowing my fear and trying to look brave as I reached out to touch it. The instant my hand made contact, the elephant squealed and began growing in size as it stomped toward me. I gripped my staff and flew away as fast as possible, but the elephant was gaining on me. I don't know how it was, but it was. It was a freakish elephant.
It reached out and lashed its trunk around my ankle, dragging me out of flight, and it started slamming me repeatedly against a rock which it found nearby. My staff went flying in some random direction, so that even if I had been able to get out of the elephant's grip, I wouldn't be able to fly away from it now. I felt the skin around my ankle split open from the repeated impact, and I suspected I felt blood rushing out, though I knew it would freeze the instant it made contact with the open air as my powers activated. Still, frozen blood or wet blood, bleeding that much wasn't a good sign, not even for an immortal being.
I wondered whether this sadistic elephant had plans of finishing me off and maybe eating me alive or something, but I never got to figure out the answer to that, as Amanda rushed over and touched the elephant, causing it to shrink down to the size of a mouse. I groaned as it released its hold on my ankle, and I collapsed onto the rock.
I lay like that for several minutes, just recuperating, until I finally dared to open my eyes and see what other dangers lay around me. What met my eyes was a menagerie of cute, little forest animals, not one of them even remotely dangerous or threatening, and half of them clustering near Amanda. My eyes opened wide as I realized what was going on. She had turned each and every one of the threatening jungle animals into its harmless counterpart. All by herself!
"Jack, you okay, bud?" I turned and saw Brent standing there, eyeing me uncertainly as he noticed the blood streaks around my ankles, and I smiled warily.
"Nothing I can't handle," I said. "But I might need to fly more than walk for a bit."
Brent irritably ran his fingers through his hair as he turned around like he was trying to process something. "Geez," he said, "I don't know what it is, but I don't have a scratch on me, yet you're beaten to a bloody pulp. And then there was that time you almost died from heatstroke." I nodded, trying to understand what he was getting at. Was he saying I was weak?
"It's almost like Chaos is specifically targeting you," he said.
My eyes widened as I took that information in. Was that what was happening? Was I being particularly targeted, while the other two were mostly being left alone? Why me? I was glad the other two weren't being hurt as badly, especially since I wasn't sure if they would survive the torture, but why did Chaos want me in particular to be hurt? Had I done something to him that I wasn't aware of?
Suddenly, the leaves on the trees in the jungle crumbled away like paint chipping off of a painting, leaving various shades of gray behind from wherever they had fallen. Very soon, all the color had vanished out of our little world, even the colors on our own persons. It was eerie. I scanned my own body, trying to make sense of the nonsense that I was currently consumed in, but I couldn't make heads or tails of it. Even my hoodie wasn't the slightest bit blue. It was only a dark shade of gray, as was everything else.
Brent retrieved my staff and handed it to me, and I used it to heft myself up to my feet, then levitate slightly off the ground so I wouldn't have to injure my ankle further, and I stood there with the other two as I waited to see what new punishment Chaos would have in store for us. Or me.
The gray sky in the background took on a misty tone, then blew away as the wind mysteriously picked up to reveal three headstones, one in front of each of us. I cringed at the sight. Cemeteries really weren't my favorite places to hang out. It reminded me too much of how I outlived everyone I loved, and how I always would.
Each of the three headstones then broke open, and a smoky mist poured out of them and reassembled into a gray figure that stood in front of each person. Each of us had a gray figure standing in front of us, and each gray figure seemed to be female, but beyond that, there were no other features to them.
Amanda tugged at my sleeve and whimpered. "Jack, what's going on?"
I shook my head while I patted hers. "I don't know, snowflake. We're just going to have to wait and see." Brent gulped, but nodded curtly as though the sight didn't bother him. I could tell it did. It was hard not to get bothered by a sight like this.
The next thing we knew, Brent's ghostly figure stepped forward, then reached out and touched him, causing a sort of explosion that sent us all flying as color rocketed back into our field of vision. I prematurely rejoiced at that, only to look down at my hands and realize that they were still gray. Amanda was still gray too. It was only Brent who wasn't. Nor was the room we were in. I stood up curiously, trying to figure out what was going on. I didn't recognize the room at all.
"Brent?" I said, "Do you have any idea what happened?"
He closed his eye and rubbed at it furiously with his hand, I assumed to rid himself of a telltale tear before either me or Amanda could figure out he was capable of crying. "Gabrielle," he said. "This was the library I first met her at."
"Gabrielle," I said, and I blinked a couple times as I tried to see whether I could remember anything about this girl, but no information was coming forth. This must have to do with Brent and Brent alone. Perhaps that was why Amanda and I were still grayed out.
"My girlfriend," he said. He then sighed and pointed off toward a table where a young girl with a long, blonde ponytail was sitting as she read a book. She seemed to be quite enjoying her reading, though she kept glancing up every so often like she expected something to happen.
After a moment, something did. Another Brent walked into the picture, came up to her table, kissed her, and the two sat down and chatted away in a whispered frenzy. I looked over at my Brent and noticed his sullen expression. The Brent in the picture seemed to be quite happy with the situation. Why was our Brent acting so opposite of this?
We watched for several minutes before the two of them got up and ran off, hand in hand, out of the library, two little geeky lovebirds just enjoying being able to spend all their geeky little time with each other. The scene shifted to them outside, and we watched as they ran through the park, poking and teasing each other. It seemed this girl was perfect for Brent. I was surprised he'd never mentioned her before.
It wasn't long before I found out why. In the midst of all their scuffling, Gabrielle's foot swung out and kicked at a random bush, but it turned out to be a bush inhabited by an angry nest of wasps, and next thing we knew, she was running as fast as she could, hands over her face, screaming at the top of her lungs despite getting stung mercilessly.
Brent, our Brent, choked beside me, and I guessed this part was getting to him the most. The Brent on screen ran after Gabrielle, commanding her to stop running and to let him get to her, but it did no good. He whipped out his phone and dialed 911 as he ran, but he found he struggled to describe where exactly in the park they were. They were somewhere by a tree and a bush and a path and… stuff. And he couldn't catch Gabrielle to make her come into a more accessible area. And she was allergic.
A sinking feeling occurred in my stomach as it suddenly clicked for me how this story was going to end. It explained the graves and the ghosts coming out of them. If that was the theme of this, then that meant that each of us was going to have to face a ghost of our past in this way, which just seemed cruel. It was hard enough to face a deceased loved one if you just got a second chance to talk to them, but to relive how they died? Why would Chaos do this?
Brent continued to run after Gabrielle, screaming for her to stop and let him help her, until finally she dropped to her knees, gasping for breath, unable to go on. The stings all over her body had swelled up to the size of baseballs, and were growing ever larger, and her breaths became more and more laborious. Brent rushed over to her and held her in his arms, reassuring her that help was on the way and to just hang in there, because she would be okay.
Except that it wasn't. After a few long, intense minutes of her struggling to bring in yet another breath of air, the beautiful girl finally closed her eyes and gave up, having breathed her last. The Brent on screen shook her, begging her to keep trying, begging her not to leave him like this, but it was no use. She was gone, and she was never coming back.
The paramedics finally found them after that, and they hauled Gabrielle off into the ambulance, but it was too late. She was never coming back. As they drove away, a lonely and dejected Brent thrust his hands in his pockets and made his way out of the park, the flicker of light in his eyes gone, never to return.
The vision finally faded, and so did the color of both the scene and of Brent. I turned to face him, my jaw dropped, but I didn't know what to say other than, "I'm sorry." He just shrugged, trying to take on a stoic look, acting as though it didn't bother him. But I had seen how Brent had behaved in that vision before he had lost Gabrielle. It did bother him. She had been his world.
Before any of us had the chance to recover, Amanda's ghostly being came up and touched her, causing another flash to bring color back into the world. Once again, I was still all in grayscale, but so was Brent this time. Amanda was the only one who wasn't. And we were in a different place.
A young woman, swinging a ring of keys from her finger, walked into the scene and smiled at the little Amanda on screen. She looked just like the Amanda Brent and I knew, which meant that this had to have happened not too long ago, making me sick to my stomach. Amanda should not have lost someone so young. I only hoped that this person wasn't too terribly important to her.
"Mommy!" shouted our Amanda, who started bouncing up and down in her excitement, a movement that was echoed by the Amanda in the scene. Brent and I exchanged a look between us. This was Amanda's mom? Hadn't Amanda asked at the beginning of all of this to be taken back to her mom? Did that mean that she wasn't even aware that her mom was dead? In addition to the sick stomach I'd had, I was now getting lightheaded just thinking about a child losing a parent so young.
"Hey, Mandy," said Amanda's mother, "You ready to go to Pop Pop's Christmas party?"
"Yeah!" Amanda jumped up and down, excited at the proclamation and chanting "Pop Pop" over and over again. This obviously was someone she really liked that they were going to go see, though the nickname could have been used to apply to anybody. I guessed it was a grandparent or something, but I wasn't entirely sure.
The two climbed into the car and rolled out onto the street, the mom swerving as she tried very hard to drive carefully over the slick, icy roads. I cringed, not liking to see people struggling with the weather that I bring, but I didn't let it get to me too much. She seemed to be driving fine thus far.
But I spoke too soon. A few minutes into the memory, snowflakes started beating at the windshield, which wouldn't have been such a problem if they hadn't started coming down so fast. Even I was starting to have trouble seeing through it, and I normally can see my way through just about any blizzard. This one had gotten out of hand, and I strangely couldn't remember why. I couldn't recall a blizzard this intense that I had done recently, though I had to have done it if it was in Amanda's memory.
Amanda's mother set her windshield wipers to go as fast as possible and flickered between the high beams and the low beams of her headlights as she tried to figure out the best way to see anything through this haze, but nothing helped. There was no clarity one way or the other. She sighed and told Amanda that she was going to have to pull off the road so that she wouldn't crash, because she couldn't see a thing. I nodded my approval at this decision. One should never drive in a blizzard this bad.
She turned the car and began to crawl toward the side of the road, a difficult feat since she really couldn't see it, but she seemed to know what she was doing, and it looked like she was going to make it.
However, she wouldn't have been the main focus of this vision if she had.
Suddenly, a car horn blared out of nowhere, and the next thing we all knew, the vision before us shook and tumbled, Amanda on screen screaming her little head off as the car rolled over and over, down into the ditch on the side of the road. "Mommy!" she screamed, "Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!"
But Mommy didn't answer. Nor did she move. And before too long, Amanda started to stop moving too, and the vision went black.
I blinked as the gray came back, then shook my head to readjust after that weird exit from the last vision. Had Amanda passed out from that? Was that why the vision had ended so suddenly? Brent's certainly hadn't ended like that.
I wrapped my arms around myself and started to sob. If it hadn't been for me, Amanda's mom would still be alive today. Amanda didn't even know her mom was dead, it seemed, though she was now standing beside me, crying. It was all my fault.
A hand landed on my shoulder, and I looked up to see Brent. "Don't blame yourself," he said. "You were just doing your job, right?"
I shook my head. "That's just it, I don't know what I was doing! I don't remember that blizzard at all!"
Brent quirked an eyebrow. "Really?" he said. "I remember it."
"You do?! Then how come I don't?"
"I don't-" he started, but then he stopped speaking when he saw the third ghost approach and gesture toward me.
I shook my head and tried to step away from the ghost, but there was nowhere to go other than here. "No," I said, having a pretty good idea of what I would be witnessing. "No… nonononono!" But there was no place to hide, and the ghost approached and touched me nonetheless.
A spark flared up, bringing color into my field of view as well as a change of scene which I instantly recognized. It was the lake in Burgess that I was so familiar with, and my stomach tied itself into knots. I did not want to relive this. Not one bit. Wasn't there some way out of this? It had been bad enough to have to watch the other two relive their experiences. Did I really have to go through mine too?
I looked down at myself and noticed that, for some reason, I was still completely in grayscale. Brent noticed this too and asked about it, and I realized with horror that Chaos was out to play another trick of some sort, making my experience different from those of the other two. I just didn't know how he planned to do it just yet, but I figured I'd find out very soon.
I reached in front of me and felt what seemed almost like a filmy substance of sorts spread out in front of me. When I pushed against it, my hand passed through it and regained its colorization, though there was something wrong. The colors were too deep, too rich to be me. At least, too deep to be me as I am now. My skin used to be darker and redder. I bowed my head in resignation as it clicked in my mind what Chaos had in store for me.
He didn't want me to just relive the memory as the other two had done. He wanted me to fully relive the experience in every detail. Not as Jack Frost, but as Jackson Overland.
I wasn't ready for this, and so I pulled my hand back toward me, figuring that if I extricated myself from the filmy substance now, I wouldn't have to go through with the vision for a while, since I would just stay gray while I stalled. But Chaos had other ideas, because as I retracted my hand, the film stayed tightly gripped around it until it pulled to a point of breaking, at which point the air on the other side of the film rushed in and threw me headlong out into the scene.
I coughed as I regained my breath and shivered slightly from the cold, which felt so strange after several hundred years of not feeling the cold in this way. I stared at my hands, both redder than I had seen them in half of forever, and I stood up and dusted the snow off of my cloak. Another thing that I hadn't seen in half of forever.
I turned back and grimaced at the two gray figures that I could thankfully still see, and I saw that Brent's jaw had dropped at the sight of me. I chuckled awkwardly and rubbed the back of my head, guessing what he was reacting to, though I wasn't sure if my explanation would make any sense to him.
"This is how I used to look, Brent. Back when I was mortal."
"Wait," said Brent, and he gave me a double take, "M-Mortal? Are you trying to tell me you're not now?"
"Eh heh," I said, "Well, I can die if someone kills me, but I haven't aged in several hundred years, Brent. I think that falls into some definitions of immortality."
The poor boy seemed to be at a loss for words as he flailed around at this information, trying to figure out what was going on. Maybe I shouldn't have blurted things out like that. I guessed that I'd figured it was okay to say just about anything to him by this point since he'd just decided to go with everything as though it was all a big hallucination, but he seemed to be starting to accept me as my own person the longer we went through this. Maybe I needed to guard my tongue more from now on.
"Who are you, Jack?" he said after finally finding some words. "Who are you really? And how could nobody have noticed a boy who hasn't aged at all since colonial days?"
"Heh…" I looked off to the side and noticed that my sister was running toward me. There was no time to explain things to Brent. As it was, I felt a weird tingling sensation creeping over me, which made me want to act exactly the way I had last time, even though my mind was screaming to do anything but. My will was slipping through my fingers. I had to speak quickly. I looked back at Brent and said, "I'll talk about it after the vision passes."
"That's not fair! Jack. Jack!" He pounded against something in front of him that I couldn't see. Had the film solidified into a hard screen for him to keep him from interfering? I supposed Chaos might do that just to make me suffer more. If no one was there for me during all of this as I relived this event, it would be much harder. And this was definitely going to be more intense than what the other two had just gone through. Brent was right. Chaos was particularly targeting me.
My will completely gone now, I turned to my sister, smiled at her and waved. "Hurry, Tannie, or spring will arrive before you do!"
Tannie gasped for breath as she ran to catch up with me. "Stop being such a fool, Jack. Just because you possess inexcusably long legs does not mean I take months to traverse this distance."
I laughed at her choice in wording, both from finding her retort funny at the time, and from my reaction now of finding her old-fashioned speech kind of endearing. I just hoped my own speech wouldn't be as bad as that, because it would just sound dorky coming out of my own mouth. I honestly didn't remember everything I had said during this scene and always paraphrased it in modern speech whenever I told the story to someone else. Did Chaos somehow remember better than I did? Had he actually witnessed this?
We walked to the lake, all the while my mind fought with my body to do something different, anything different, but my mind had no effect whatsoever on my body. It was on autopilot now and had me imprisoned within it for the ride to hell.
Tannie and I kicked our shoes off on the bank of the pond, and as I knelt down to pull on my ice skates, she had whipped hers on so fast that she took off running out into the middle of the lake before I'd even gotten one foot in one of my skates. Darn that girl, how had she learned to get those things on that fast? It wasn't like the shoes of this day and age were easy to put on and take off.
I would have just blown her a raspberry and continued to struggle with my own skates, but she had slipped and fallen down, and like the fussy older brother I was, I had to get out there and make sure she was okay. So, I threw my skates over my shoulder and ran out onto the ice, barefoot, and stupid as all hell.
I extended a hand and helped her to her feet, then smirked at her. "Very well, Tannie. That was a devilish move. But it is now time to cease being a devil and return to the edge of the pond where it is safe." Great, I really did sound dorky in this time. Couldn't Chaos at least spare me the indignity of knowing exactly what I'd said?
"I do not wish to return, dear brother." She laughed and skated away from me before I had the chance to grab at her and force her to come back to the side of the lake so I could at least get my own skates on. I rolled my eyes and sighed as I ran after her, strangely adept on ice even while being fully human. I guessed it was just natural that I'd become the spirit of winter if I was already this capable without any special powers. Funny how I'd never noticed that before.
"You shall wish you had wished it so, you devil of a sister." I laughed despite myself as I ran to catch up with her, but as I was not a winter spirit yet in this memory, I slipped on the ice and fell down as I skidded along in the direction I had been running, my skates sliding in a different direction on their own quest for adventure. It seemed only my skates would be getting any skating done today if Tannie had her way about it.
I pushed myself up to my feet despite Tannie's incessant laughter at my little slip up and brushed off my clothes and started heading toward her again when I heard something that sent fear through my heart. My winter spirit tenses sent my thoughts into overdrive and my ears started ringing. I would know the sound of cracking ice anywhere. Oh no. It's already begun.
Tannie hadn't noticed the problem yet, but I had, even in the memory, and I ran toward her as fast as I could. A cracking sound beneath my own feet made me look down to see that I too had stepped on a patch of thin ice, which prevented me from reaching her. The last thing I wanted to do was send her into the lake by combining my weight with hers. I had to come up with something else.
Finally, Tannie looked down and saw the ice cracking around her and realized the kind of danger she was in, and then she noticed that I was in the same kind of danger myself from trying to get her out of this predicament. Fear etched its way over her features as she looked up at me and said, "Jack, I am afraid."
I had to break out of this situation. I had to do something different than what I had done in the past. I had to drop down onto the ice and crawl away and get Tannie to do the same, which would have most likely gotten the both of us safely off of it. I had to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
But I didn't have any choice on what I did. "All is well, Tanja. We shall be all right. You shall not fall in. We shall make merry instead." I internally winced at my word choices, desperately wishing that I could at least relive this memory with the words I chose to remember myself saying and not the old-fashioned speech that I seemed to have.
"We will surely not!" said Tannie. I chuckled despite myself. My attitude of "making merry" in this situation, or "having fun" as I usually said in the modern day, was kind of a bad suggestion during this serious of a predicament. But I couldn't help myself. It was just who I was.
"Would I deceive you?" I said.
"Yes," she said. "You were born to deceive!" Ouch. I hadn't remembered that she'd actually been that harsh. Though I supposed I couldn't deny the truth of it. I laughed again.
"Very well," I said, "but this one time I speak truth. Verily, verily, you shall be… you shall be well." I gulped, nervous at my words, and I wasn't sure if it was because I wasn't entirely sure of the truth of them, or because I despised my choice of the word "verily". I mean really, who talks like that? I was such an old fart, it wasn't even funny anymore. "Would you play a game? We shall play hopscotch, as we play every day."
I knew what was coming next, and I fought with ever fiber of my being to avoid having to go through with this part of the drama, but I couldn't change a thing. My body did as it wished, and it didn't need my mind's input at all.
"It is as simple as one…" I took a step. "Two…" The ice cracked beneath my feet, and I pretended it wasn't that big of a deal by flailing comically to make her laugh, not that I needed to flail to make myself comical. My speech alone was probably making Brent and Amanda die of laughter right now. I wished I could at least make that stop, if nothing else. "Three." I hopped onto safe ground, smiled at Tannie, and then turned and grabbed the nearest stick I could find that would enable me to whisk her off of that dangerous area. Her mobility on the ice wasn't as good as mine, so she was going to need all the help she could get.
"It is now your turn to try," I said, and I began to count as she struggled to take the steps, "One… Two…Three!" On "three", I had hooked the end of the stick around Tannie's waist and flung her off of the deadly ice with as much force as I could muster, not wanting to take any further chances with her. That ice had looked like it had gotten pretty weak with her standing on it, and I didn't want to risk a second attempt at getting her off of it.
Unfortunately, the force of that swing ended up propelling me over to the same spot where she had been standing. Tannie and I both looked at each other and smiled at my success at getting her safely off of that danger spot, but internally, my mind was reeling. Don't stand up! Don't stand up!
My body hadn't listened to me about this memory even once before, so why should it listen to me now when things had suddenly gotten crucial? I stood up on the ice, still smiling at Tannie, when suddenly the ice gave way beneath my feet and plummeted me into the freezing water below, me just barely hearing Tannie scream my name before my head disappeared below the surface of the water.
The stick I had used, which I now realized had been my staff all along, had flown out of my hands when I fell, and I was now flailing aimlessly as I tried to find my way back to the surface of the water. I could swim, and I flailed and kicked as I attempted to find my way out based on the way gravity was pulling me. Any other time of year, I'm sure I would have made it out alive, but during this time of year it was impossible. My head smacked against a barrier of ice, and my hand reached out to try and find out where the hole I had fallen in through had gone to. I must have drifted. How would I ever find it in time? I gulped as realization hit me from the memory of what I had actually gone through: I wouldn't.
But I was still trapped in the memory and unable to do anything other than struggle to hold onto life for as long as I could, and I frantically pounded at the ice above me, hoping that maybe I could find a weak spot and break it open. The surface of the ice felt different each time I touched it, which meant I was flailing so much that I was still drifting, though I didn't know by how much or in which direction. I could only hope that maybe, just maybe, I would somehow find the hole I had fallen through. Though my mind knew it was futile. I'd already lived through this. And now I was being forced to live through it again. And all for what?
I ran out of breath as the air leaked out of my nose and mouth, and my movements slowed. No more air was able to come in, and so in a desperate attempt to find something to fill my starving lungs, I inhaled whatever was there to be inhaled. My lungs filled with water, and I coughed and gagged as my lungs tried desperately to right the wrong that they had just done in taking in water instead of air, but it only made things worse. I was quickly drowning, and there was nothing I or anybody else could do about it.
I could only imagine how Brent and Amanda were reacting to this scene right now. I wished they could be beside me and comfort me through this while they stayed safe, but Chaos didn't seem to want to allow even that. He really did want me to suffer for some reason. I hadn't the foggiest idea what I had ever done to piss him off so much.
My limbs gradually went numb in the cold water and my mobility decreased bit by bit until I couldn't move at all. My eyes then drifted shut just before I myself passed out.
The next thing I knew, my eyes were open again, but I was still under the water. I was still freezing, but I wasn't desperate for air all of a sudden. I guessed it was more similar to how a baby doesn't need to breathe while in the womb, and I was just as terrified as a baby suddenly realizing that they're going to be forced out of their mother. My mind was strangely calm, considering that I knew what was happening now, but my body hadn't the slightest clue what was happening for whatever reason, even though I had lived through this before. It was my body that felt the fear this time around.
The fear died down quite a bit as soon as I saw something and was no longer cloaked in blindness. In this case, it was the moon, shining through the ice. I nearly breathed a sigh of relief, except that the me of this time hadn't even thought to breathe at the time. I guessed it made sense, since I was still under water, but I wanted to get out of here already and get the memory done with.
I slowly rose up to the surface, ice cracking around me as my body pushed its way through the ice, and suddenly I was above the water, and I finally gasped for breath, gulping down air like I hadn't tasted it in a couple millennia. That at least was something that both my body and my mind could agree on. Breathing was a very good thing.
Little by little, the cold feeling left my body as cold became the norm for me, and I just stared at the moon, the one thing that felt safe through all of this chaos. I heard a voice tell me my name, Jack Frost, and then I was gently set back down on the ice. I was now expected to go out and make a new life for myself.
And just like that, the dam broke. The tingling feeling left me and I was me again, able to act and think of my own free will, and I turned to see both Brent and Amanda regain their colorization and come running toward me. I heaved a huge sigh of relief that that traumatic experience was over, picked my staff up from off of the lake, then turned back toward them just as they both bowled into me, wrapping their arms so tightly around me that I worried I might die of suffocation.
"Jack! What the hell was that?" said Brent, panic clearly in his tone. "You were supposed to witness the death of your sister. That was the pattern. Why did-Why did…?"
I sighed and shook my head. It made sense enough to me why Chaos had chosen that scene for me, but I supposed it would take a bit of explanation for him to understand. "I never actually saw my sister die," I said.
Brent let go of me and stood back to eye me quizzically. "What?!"
"Nope," I said. "She's gone by now, of course, but I never saw how she died." I sighed wistfully and turned to look at the place on the lake where I had seen her last. "I-I just never saw her again. I lost everything after I fell into the lake." I wrapped my arms around myself to try and help myself feel a little more secure, hiding my hands under my cloak. Apparently Chaos didn't see fit to give me back my hoodie either, even though he'd given me my normal form back. Did he find it funny to have me walking around in colonial garb or something? Brent was sure looking at me awkwardly for it.
Brent cast his eyes to the ground for several moments, and I could tell that he was trying to search for words to say. This was certainly a difficult situation to deal with, especially since he had now witnessed my transformation, something which no mortal had ever done before. I doubted he heard the voice in my head telling me my name, but I was pretty sure he'd witnessed everything else. That had to be pretty traumatic for both him and Amanda to witness.
Strangely, it was Amanda who ended up asking the question Brent wanted to ask, as she tugged on my sleeve and said, "Jack, are you dead?"
I chuckled and knelt down to her eye level and shook my head. "No, Amanda. I'm very much alive." I paused and let out my breath as I thought for a moment and looked up at Brent. "Though I think I might have died for a while after I fell in the water. I'm not entirely sure."
"Wait," said Brent, his logical mind clearly having issues with this. "Are you trying to tell me that you died and then came back to life? How is that even humanly possible?"
I shrugged and stood back up, slightly amused at the question, but mostly just awkward. "I wouldn't know," I said, "But I know that I was no longer human once I became this."
Again, Brent's logical mind couldn't deal with this, and I could swear I could see the gears churning in his head as he tried to come up with some kind of logical explanation for this. And one by one, the gears in his mind were blowing up as each part of his mind received an error message. "You're-You're not human?!"
I shook my head. Brent then threw his hands up in exasperation, and I was worried he would burst a blood vessel if he didn't calm himself down, so I conjured up a snowflake and blew it in his face. He blinked a couple times, then started to breathe deeper, and after a few seconds, he had at least calmed down enough to speak again. So that power had managed to come in handy after all.
"Th-Then… what the hell are you, Jack?"
A hand went over Amanda's mouth as she gasped in shock, and she shook her finger at Brent. "Uh oh, someone said a bad word. Naughty, naughty Brent."
I chuckled and rubbed her hair, then said, "He's just scared, snowflake. Just let him be for now, but don't you say what he's saying, okay?" She nodded her agreement, and then I turned back to face Brent himself. I sighed. "Would you believe me if I told you that I had turned into a fairy?"
"No," said Brent.
I rolled my eyes. "Well, I turned into a fairy."
"Gah!" said Brent, running his fingers through his hair and then tearing at it. I got ready to conjure up another snowflake for him, but he stopped me before I could do anything. "Why do you keep talking like that? First the whole magic thing, and now this? What the hell is wrong with you? There is no such thing as fairies!"
I huffed and turned away from him while crossing my arms. "Why does it even matter to you so much? Aren't I just part of your hallucination or something? Or don't your hallucinations allow for the existence of fairies?"
Brent audibly growled, then grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me back around to face him. "Listen, Jack," he said, "I'm only gonna say this once, so you'd better listen good. Yes, this whole world seems like a big hallucination. I don't know how, and I don't know why, but I'm pretty sure it is. But the more I get to know you and Amanda, and the more I get to watch how the two of you think and act so differently from how any part of my mind works, the more convinced I become that the two of you are real people who have somehow gotten sucked into the same hallucination as I did."
My eyes widened at this. Brent was starting to think I was real? Did that mean he was starting to believe? I still didn't feel any belief coming from him, so I didn't think he believed in me as Jack Frost yet, but believing I was a real person was a start.
"And now with you trying to throw me off with your claiming to be a fairy and all…" He shook his head. "I just can't take it, Jack! I can barely keep myself sane in this crazy, messed up world as it is. Don't go around trying to tell me that you're something that shouldn't even logically exist!"
I stood there for several seconds, my mouth agape in shock. Brent cared about my welfare all of a sudden? I'd been suspecting that he was starting to care a little bit, but I hadn't realized that he'd reached the conclusion that I must be a real person. Somehow I hadn't picked up on that at all.
The next thing I did surprised even me, as I stepped forward and threw my arms around Brent. He gasped at the sudden touch, but I only held him tighter. "Thank you," I said. "I'm glad to know that someone cares." I paused for a moment, then said, "And I'm honestly sorry that my existence falls outside of your realm of knowledge." I really was too. I didn't want to keep scaring him by being something that was so hard to understand.
I pulled away from him, then waved to the two of them to follow. "Come on, guys. We should get moving before Chaos does something else nasty to us for sitting around." Amanda sprung right to my side, but Brent waited a few moments before reluctantly following us himself.
I hung my head, feeling sorry for him. It was almost like I'd broken his mind, and I didn't know how to make it better. I only hoped that given enough time, he could repair it himself.
Did you survive the long chapter? I assume that if you're reading this, you probably did. Either that, or you're a ghost who's very dedicated to finding out how this story ends. (If the latter is the case, please write to me and tell me all about it. I want to hear from someone who is THAT dedicated to my work, haha.)
Anyway, I'll see you next time I get the chance to write. Reviews would be awesome. And I hope you all have a wonderful day! :)