I wonder how close or far off you guys are to guessing the truth.

Window to the Past

Chapter 13: True North and a Little to the Left

The sketches were crude, and only got cruder as they progressed. But this only succeeded in making them more terrifying. Who were these black figures? Why were they so big? Why are they always near water? Why is water in every picture? Is that water?

"Who drew these?" Mia wrote, trying to keep her shaky handwriting as neat as possible.

"Mine," someone wrote in a tiny font, below Mia's comment.

Whoever had written it hadn't signed it, but Alice recognized the handwriting. "David?! It was you? What spawn of the Underworld caused you to draw those nightmares?!"

"Nitemares, I think," David answered. "Is that bad?"

"I thought I was the only one," Adrian admitted. "I guess I'm not. They're about these dark figures and water and drowning. I hate those things."

"I've been having them, too," Toby wrote. "Same thing as you two, I think. Every time, I can't breathe."

"We may all be having them, then," Daphne assumed. "That night when the dark blob attacked us, I woke up gasping for breath from a nightmare I had."

"So we're all having these nightmares, then," Alice guessed. "I guess we share dreams and stuff? We've all dreamed about the creepy people and the drowning?"

"There's fire, too," Tristan wrote shakily. "There's one with fire."

"I've never had a dream with fire in it," Mia protested.

"I think he means the drawings," Alice answered. "There's one with fire in it, and it's...different. There aren't any dark figures in it. Just the round thing."

"It's safe to assume the round thing is us," Daphne surmised.

"Yeah, thats me," David affirmed. "I didnt get the hot one from a nitghtmare though. I just remeber it."

"What is it?" Alice asked. "No offense, but it's a bit hard to make out."

"It's...hot. And there's hurting on the neck, too," David wrote.

"?!" Adrian wrote, drawing an arrow to the word 'neck'. "How do I know what this thing is!? We don't have one!"

"The neck connects the head to the shoulders. Glenn had one," Daphne added helpfully.

Adrian simply angrily circled the words 'head' and 'shoulders' in the same manner.

"What does that mean?" Tristan asked in a small font. "How do we know about having pain on a neck if we don't have one?"

"I don't remember having pain on my neck," Alice responded. "It's David that remembers it."

"My head (?) is hurting just thinking about this..." Toby wrote. "I'm going to get down from this building; the heights aren't really helping me."

Toby closed the journal, sighing.

"What did I just read...?" he whispered to himself. After a long pause, he reluctantly opened the journal to the back, where David's drawings were. A bit of searching rewarded him with the picture of fire that Tristan mentioned.

It was strange. There was a circle; that, Toby surmised, was them. Then there was a sort of rectangular thing to the left of them. Under this rectangle were sharp jagged lines; the fire. And finally, underneath the circle was a vertical line that seemed to cut partway into the shape. Maybe this was the pain in the neck...?

Toby slapped the journal shut. For some reason, looking at that made him uneasy. He threw the journal back into his bag and threw it over his shoulder. In the back of his mind as he walked back down the stairs Toby marvelled at how inexplicably light the bag felt, despite it holding a pillow, a journal and a comforter, among other things.

Maybe it's enchanted or something, he guessed as he stepped outside of the abandoned site onto street level. The sun was rising in the north, which gave Toby a good idea of where to go until he cleared the city. Exiting Wayford would be a simple ordeal.

Toby, eyes open for any kind of danger or threat that could confront him, walked down the city streets, following the faint, warm, comforting glow the sun made on the sky.

This was, of course, in complete contrast to what he was experiencing in the streets. Toby stared at the ground uncomfortably, the stares of unknown strangers prickling his back. Every action, he felt, was scrutinized to the point of prejudice, to the point that he felt as if he should apologize to Wayford itself just for being in it. Toby didn't dare look up in fear of connecting the unsettling feeling to a pair of menacing eyes. Fear slowly accumulated in his throat as he squinted his eyes shut, hoping against hope he was closer to Wyvern than when he started.

Finally, Toby gathered the courage to look up, if only to get his bearings. He saw that he was about to ram into someone walking in front of him. Toby froze, his heart dropping into his stomach.

"I'm sorry!" he blurted out without thinking.

"Huh?" the figure turned around, giving Toby a better look. It seemed to be male, and the way he was dressed reminded Toby of a clown. He hopped back and forth on his two long feet, giving the illusion that he was much taller than he actually was. His blue pointed hat flopped back and forth in rhythm with his jumps. Toby did not notice any of this.

What he noticed was the shortening fuse of the round black bomb in his grip.

Toby felt like he wanted to puke.

"What're you saying sorry for?" he asked in a youthful innocent voice that completely contrasted the impending threat of his portable pocket explosion. "Didja steal something from me and the guilt weighing on your soul compelled you to return it?"

Toby blanched. "I'm sorry," he squeaked.

The clown looked nonplussed. "And you're saying it again! You really must've done something bad!"

"Th-th-th..." Toby stammered, his eyes racing back and forth between the clown's face and the clown's bomb. "It...it'll explode..."

"Oh, yeah," the clown gave a casual glance to the round black sphere of death beside him. "I should probably get rid of this." He then proceeded to toss it over his shoulder the way you'd toss a wad of paper over your shoulder. Toby reacted the way you would if someone had tossed a wad of paper over their shoulder if that wad of paper contained about a good five pounds of nitroglycerin.

"So why'd you say sorry?" the clown asked as the bomb rested on the curb about five meters behind them.

Toby stared fearfully at the bomb as he tried futilely to continue. "I-I-I was about to bump into you-"

BOOM

"AUGH!" Toby screamed in terror.

The clown gave no clue that he had even acknowledged what had conspired behind him. His face was shadowed by the billowing flames behind him as he gave Toby the same expectant look he had before the explosion.

"I, uh..." Toby had nearly lost all capacity for thought. "I'm sorry I a-almost ran into you."

"Oh, that's it?" he asked, surprised. "Well, apology accepted, then! I'm Nac, a Poppy Bro Jr.! Nice to meet you!"

"Toby, okay, thanks, bye!" Toby said in a rush before dashing past a very shocked Nac.

I have to get out of this city before it kills me! Toby thought hurriedly, gripping his sack tightly as he doubled his pace, trying not to look at the flaming wreckage the bomb had left.

After what felt like forever, Toby finally felt the familiar soft prick of grass against his feet. He let out a sigh, looking back at Wayford. He dug into his sack, looking for the journal in order to reaffirm where he was headed.

"We have to go between the far off mountain and where the sun rises in the north," Toby read, looking up at the horizon. He had gotten out of Wayford quick enough that he was able to still see the sun touching the horizon. He looked for the 'far off mountain', and found it slightly to the left of the sun. This difference was so slight, in fact, that Toby had to shade his eyes to block out the sun so he could see properly.

"How do I go between the two...?" he mumbled to himself. "They're basically right in line with each other."

Heaving another sigh, he began walking towards the horizon, hoping things became clearer as time went on.

"Uh...That was good," I said uncomfortably, avoiding eye contact with my co-author. "I liked the descriptions."

Chaos said nothing in return. Instead, he gave a subtle nod, signalling he had heard.

I gripped my left arm, still looking at the ground. Our earlier conversation was still ringing in my head. "I'm sorry about what I said earlier. About-"

"Stereotypes, I know," Chaos interrupted. Turning his head towards me slightly, I could see a small smile on his lips. "You really know how to get my goat, Cameron."

"And..." I hesitated. I was unsure of how to word my apology. "If you feel like I'm writing way more than you, I could-"

"This is your story," he interjected again. "It says your username in the description twice. It's normal for you to write a bit more than me. Let's not get sappy, though. Remember, this stuff is being recorded," he reminded me, jerking his head towards the laptop in front of him.

I walked up beside him and observed the words forming. "And we can't delete any of this?" I asked.

"Afraid not," he affirmed.

"But we can delete parts of our story," I continued.

"Yeah, because we write it."

Then who writes this...? I wonder, staring at my own thoughts appearing on the computer screen.

Chaos stifled a laugh. "Nothing's sacred, I guess. At least, not from a first-person perspective."

I tried to laugh along, but the strange descriptions were bothering me.

Suddenly, I felt a lot more powerless than I had about two minutes ago.

"Where did you get these directions from anyways, Mia?" Toby asked through the journal as he walked. His handwriting was a bit shaky, but otherwise legible.

"Well, there was this huge eye thing and she hated puffballs. Like, a lot. And she was yelling at me because I'd bumped into her friend, whose name was Dee. And then I told her I wanted to go to Wyvern, and (I don't know her name but I don't want to call her eye thing so I'll call her Sue because that's a nice name) Sue was like 'Yeah, it figures you want to go there' and I was like 'What do you mean?' And then Sue said that puffballs are killers! And I find that hard to believe because Fey seemed nice enough. Anyways, Sue found out I had amnesia, and then she told me where to go and then left."

"...Fey?" Alice asked. "Who's Fey?"

"The deaf girl we met," Toby answered. "She tried to introduce herself as 'Fey', but it came out like 'Vi'. I had to coach her on how to say her name."

"It was sooo cute!" Mia interjected.

Tristan squinted at the huge paragraph Mia had written. She'd gotten this from someone who hated puffballs?

He shook his head. Those directions were bogus. He had a gut feeling. If Sue hated puffballs so much, why would she help him? What made him different?

Nothing. I'm not going to that mountain, he decided adamantly. I'll go...this way instead.

And Tristan, in complete disregard to everyone else, began heading west.

If I posted David's drawings to Photobucket or something, would you guys care? I mean, I'm pretty sure it's legal, FanFiction-wise since the Rules & Guidelines don't say anything about hyperlinks. But I'm just thinking I'm not really doing a good job of describing the sketches. Yay or nay?