Chapter 31: Cave of crystals
I looked around the room from where I stood to try and find the source of the giggle but it seemed to come from everywhere at once. The largest crystals came from the ceiling of the center of the room. This crystal nearly touched the floor, making it nearly six feet in length and two feet in width. Surrounding it were other crystals spreading out in a similar manner to the way the dirt kicks out from an underground explosion. Clusters of large four foot crystals were also scattered around the room and I finally noticed my own reflection in each of them. Making my way to one of the crystals I found that my reflection did the exact same until I reached the crystal and my reflection balled up its right paw into a fist and trust it at my face. It was a mere reflection and couldn't hurt me, but from across the room I heard my own voice say, "What the hell was that?" Shocked, I turned around and began approaching the direction of the voice until I heard from another direction, "That bitch! That was uncalled for." More of my reflections began acting seemingly on their own. I then heard a man's voice talk to me through the echo's of the cavern. "Like it. These are the crystals of possibilities. The reflections in each of the crystals show you a possible choice or reaction you could possibly use in a given current state of mind. The rubies represent anger, for the color red." I guessed that it was the time wizard. One of my reflections blurted out, "Come on out you little bastard. I'll kick your scrawny ass." Another of my reflections simply gestured the middle digit of its left paw separate from its fist in replacement of a human's middle finger and I decided to try and run to a friendlier chamber and less vulgar.
I passed through another chamber where the crystals turned to topaz. There, I could hear my reflections cower in fright, most of them falling on the ground and hugging the time stone and shivering. I continued running through and into the next room where the crystals turned back into sapphire, where my reflections all seemed sad about something. The center crystal was the one that caught my attention when she began bawling her eyes out and eventually cried out Eric's name. It was apparent that this represented sadness and I've felt plenty of that throughout this little adventure, so I continued on to the next room. I make it to a room where the crystals turned opal in color. The bright pearl white made the room almost gleam and I noticed that the reflections inside the crystals all had smiles on their faces, some of hope, some simply giggling with laughter and others simply happy for no apparent reason.
If I had a choice, this would be the ideal place to be captured by a madman. I knelt down to rest when my knee hit the time stone and sent it flying into a nearby crystal. The crystal it struck broke off and collapsed to the ground and at the same time the time stone bounced off and cracked in the place where it hit. As I gazed at the crack in the stone, I found myself asking the question, 'What would happen if I destroyed this wretched thing?' Suddenly the wizard's voice, sounding somewhere in his thirties, echoed through the halls, "Go ahead and destroy the stone that lies in front of you. The time stone exists in the past, present and future all at the same time. Even going back and stopping the moment of its creation won't stop it from existing. The only thing that'll happen is that you'll trap yourself inside with me, where we can literally spend eternity wandering the crystal halls."
I certainly didn't want to be trapped in here with this loon, and I didn't even know his name. I closed my eyes desperately trying to think of a solution until one of my reflections giggled, "Well, if it exists in the past present and the future at the same time, what happens if I bring them all together and destroy it?" "Now that's an idea." I blurted aloud with my own happiness. I then worked out how the time stone worked in my mind from how it activated in my paws those times. 'The first time it activated was when I needed to get away from those machines. I felt desperate and afraid. The second time was when I was group-hugged by all of my future friends. Then I longed for my family but was torn with the thought of loosing those I currently cared about.' "That's it!" I shouted upon realization. I then grabbed the broken crystal with my right paw placed my left paw in the center of the stone and concentrated with every fiber of my being. "What are you doing?" The mage shouted when he saw what I was doing as he turned the corner. He lunged at me to try and stop me until the pale blue light enveloped me and I vanished into what I hoped to be the past, present and future combined.
The space that I found myself in looked endless with an aurora of colors surrounding me in all directions. I was literally weightless through the space and moving at a good clip forward. Taken in awe by my surroundings, a hardly noticed the time wizard behind me until he shouted at me at the top of his lungs. I turned to look and find him a good distance behind me and closing in fast, insanity and bloodlust apparent in his eyes trained on me. In fear, I acted. I took the piece of crystal in my right paw and smashed in as hard as I could into the center of the time stone. Both the crystal and the time stone shattered upon impact and I turned around to see the time wizard writhing in pain behind me as if I had stabbed him in the kidney. In mere moments the wizard began disintegrating into nothingness and I remembered what he had told me before, that his life force was embedded inside the time stone. Meaning, that when it is destroyed properly, so is he. But now I found myself trapped in the merging of all time with it whizzing by me. I thought of Eric and my friends, my gummi family at the glen that I witnessed being destroyed twice. Their smiled flashed through my mind like lightning. All I could think about was them, those I had come to know and love and wished that I could see them all just one more time. I closed my eyes and screamed aloud while letting myself drift through this nexus that I had created when a bright flash of white light enveloped me.