Chapter 14 -
12/17/2017
My hair was damp from perspiration. I raked my curls with a shaky hand. Half way through I gave up on the strands that had stuck together like a small beehive.
Up above, I could vaguely see the sun casting a dusky maroon tincture onto the wall of mists ahead of us. It had moved closer to the last Grit on the Belt of Sunpath. We were near the end of the fourth Cycle within the Period of Chaos. I had to make up my mind soon.
Part of me waged against going along with the Enchantresses. Their demeanor seemed a little off and I couldn’t put my finger on it. But then I couldn’t think of a reason to not put my trust in them, neither.
I looped the pouch around my wrist and called for Bulkee. “Let’s go after the Lilec trail.”
Our wild chase began with an excruciating start, because I had to stoop all the way down to the ground to catch the drift. After putting the dusts away into the bag, I nudged forward with my knees pressed up against my chest to make sure that no residuals were left behind.
The air was scorching hot. The overwhelming humidity drew out pearls of sweat above my eyelashes. My view was completely obscured. I could barely distinguish the violet tinge from the rest of the shiny pieces on the ground. The visual impairment caused me to constantly check my track.
“We should divide and conquer,” Bulkee said. He had been sitting up on my shoulder and I could tell from the way he fretted that he was getting impatient.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I meant that you glean the dusts and I put them away. It’d be much faster that way.”
“We can’t,” I blurted out, remembering Crystaline’s warning. “The Enchantresses said that only I was allowed to touch them.”
“That’s fine. Ears. We should still try figuring something out to work together.”
“Maybe later. I can handle it by myself for now,” I replied and went back to the task.
The collection process remained tedious. But I finally got the hang of it after attempting different positions. I started plowing through, reaching deeper into the crystal arena.
About two miles later, I was drenched in sweat and I was huffing like I had just completed a gymnastics competition. The repetitiveness of the task combined with my extra weight had finally caught up.
“Bulkee, I need to rest,” I declared, as my body thumped down. The ground felt like memory foam beneath my sore back. I turned on my side to slip off my snickers and spread out my legs.
I dug my feet into the warm sand, my toes wiggling to the sudden release of pressure. I tossed back my ringlets and lay my head to my arms. It felt so good that I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Ears. You are probably on the final stretch of reaching the Lake of Tears. You should stay alert,” Bulkee said.
I flipped my wrist and waved him off. By now I had collected more than a half-bag of Lilec dusts. I felt confident. “Let me just take a quick break,” I said.
“No. Ears. You need to make haste,” he insisted. “The smog is getting to us. It can complicate things.”
From the cradle of the sand, I looked out to the arena over the tip of my nose. The wall of fog had gone thicker. Beyond my feet the shimmering boulders appeared melded into the background, their outlines indistinguishable.
“It’s just the fog,” I said. A wave of drowsiness washed over me and I wanted to close my eyes for a catnap. “We got the Lilec dusts. We will be fine, as long as we follow the trail.”
“Ears. Listen to me,” Bulkee was unremitting. “The Flash that I had warned me of the smog.”
“No more talks of the Flash, unless you tell me exactly what’s going on.” I closed my eyes and tried to roll over on my side.
But I froze in a cold sweat. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t raise my arms. I couldn’t sway my legs. It was like a metal shackle had been dumped onto my body and pinned me to the floor. Fright kicked in, when I discovered sand all over my body, covering me from head to toe.
“Help!” I called out in a desperate wail, as I experienced a sensation of plummeting. I was terrified.
“What’s wrong?” Bulkee pranced over to my side and began brushing the sand off my shoulders.
“Help me. I’m sinking.” I heaved fast but I couldn’t catch my breath. I tried clasping onto something within my reach. But all I felt was numbness everywhere, like my body was under a pins-and-needles attack.
“Standup. Ears.” Bulkee said.
“What?” I snapped to focus. Quickly I came to see that my arms were thrusting in wild loops. The moment of panic finally passed. I squirmed with embarrassment, as I realized that my perception of plunging was a false alarm. I hadn’t slumped at all.
“I don’t know what happened,” I said. “I thought that I was under electric shocks.”
I had experienced electric zaps once. My fingers had accidentally gripped the metal prong, when I was disconnecting my hairdryer from an old outlet. The inadvertent exposure to high voltage nearly paralyzed me. I was able to break off. But the shock of the incident remained fresh in my mind.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But it must be that my legs had gone numb after the workout.”
“You are fine,” Bulkee said. “Now let’s get moving.”
I propped to my knees and padded off the rest of the sand. As we went back to the trail, a thought began gnawing at me that something about the episode wasn’t quite right.
The heavy fog had ingested the little illuminance we got left. It was even more difficult to see now. I narrowed my eyes, as I gleaned another pile. I kept on going, trying not be distracted by the queasy feeling.
Stoop.
Scoop.
Stoop.
Scoop.
All the while the nagging thought still circled in my mind like an annoy ringing in the ears. What was so unsettling about what happened earlier? I stared blankly into the pile on my palm. When I reached for the pouch to put them away, my mistake hit me like a punch to my chest.
Shoot! Why was I so careless? I span on my heels and rushed back with frustration.
“What are you doing?” Bulkee called out from behind me.
I raised a hand. “It’s gone,” I said. The pouch was missing from my wrist.
As I ran through the labyrinth, I was desperate to locate the pouch by backtracking. But I quickly became disoriented. The ground gave out no clue as to marking where we had stopped to rest.
“Ears. Wait,” Bulkee caught up to me.
“Where is the pouch? I have to find it.” I jolted to a stop and started patting the sand frantically, rummaging in blindness. The arena had gone so dark that I wished I had a flashlight or even a torch.
“Something strange is happening here. We have to go,” I heard Bulkee say through tight lips.
I squinting into the distance. In the smog, there was a cloud of darkness and nothing else. “But I don’t know what they will say, if I tell the Enchantresses that I lost some of the Lilec dusts,” my voice was shaky. I recalled the menace in Crystaline’s glaring eyes when she handed me the pouch.
“We will deal with it later,” Bulkee replied sternly. “because what we have right now doesn’t look good.”
My head snapped back up, and a terror crashed over me. The shady mass of the smog was approaching us fast like an enraged beast with mudded claws.
We bolted before we even knew what was coming. In less than ten steps, a sharp pain shot through my left foot like I had been jabbed by a prickle.
I sprang up on impact but the stabbing persisted, twice, three times, and more to my buttocks and thighs. I choked down an outcry, when I turned to discover violet shimmers specked all over my legs. I registered that these flashing sparks were the Lilec dusts that I had been looking for. I was at a loss for words. What had happened to the Lilec dusts?
I hopped about, attempting to shake them off. But the dusts seemed to have tightened around my legs. I felt the minuscule jolts sending up another wave of sting.
“Get them off me. What’s going on?” I whipped my arms, my hands scraping and my legs kicking. Something must have set off the Lilec powers to make them turned livid.
“Keep running,” Bulkee shouted.
I glanced up and fell to greater panic. In a proof the dark mass in front of us had flashed into a flaring globe packed with the charged Lilec dusts. The violet radiance was so strong that I immediately braced my arms over my eyes.
A shiver ran through my body, when I heard the warning sound of crackles. I peeked through the slit between my elbows. But it was too late.
The sphere began slamming down batches of the dusts fizzling with electricity. I cried out in pain, as I felt quick intervals of lightning bolts ripping away at my flesh.
The voltage was high enough to immobilize me. Soon enough I was stripped of my senses, as I helplessly watched my body spasm. I bit down on my lips to the point that it left a salty taste in my mouth. Then everything went black.
I only regained consciousness when something hit me so hard that my eyes snapped open and my knees sank to the ground. It was Bulkee who had battered me with one of my fallen snickers. After he helped me break free from the lightning bolts, we were on our feet again. I took in gulps of air as I sprinted with frantic leaps.
The crackling blasted through from behind. I craned my head. We had made enough leeway to be out of range for the electric attacks. But the distance between us is closing, as the sphere seems to pick up speed.
“Bulkee. You have to do something,” I projected my voice over the noises. “The Imajigo thing that you use? The BionicShapes? Can you make up something to stop this?”
“What exactly do you need?” he panted heavily
“How would I know? Can’t you just create something?” I shouted back. I didn’t understand why he had asked me. Wasn’t he the one who should know about his Imajigo?
“Look. I have to focus,” he stopped dead in his tracks and turned to face the ball of Lilec.
“What are you doing?” I panicked. Was he out of his mind again?
“Hush, Ears. I have to focus.” He repeated and snapped shut his eyes. “Think about what you want. And focus with me.”
Were you serious? Dropping everything to focus when we were running for our lives? And focusing on what? I clenched my fists. But there was nothing else I could do.
I raised my arms to block the flickers from blinding my eyes. I tried to think. Spotty images of random objects speared through my mind. The pouch that had untied from my wrist. The TimeBook necklace that hung below my collarbone. The rustic wood fence at our front yard. The plastic Viking sword that Sam liked to swing about. The gold hoop that I practiced with during my gymnastics class. But none of the images stayed long enough for me to figure them out.
I peeked again and saw the ball of Lilec approaching fast to engulf us. I was sure that the torment had begun again, when I felt a punch to my palm.
“It’s here,” A clamor escaped Bulkee.
Up above, I could vaguely see the sun casting a dusky maroon tincture onto the wall of mists ahead of us. It had moved closer to the last Grit on the Belt of Sunpath. We were near the end of the fourth Cycle within the Period of Chaos. I had to make up my mind soon.
Part of me waged against going along with the Enchantresses. Their demeanor seemed a little off and I couldn’t put my finger on it. But then I couldn’t think of a reason to not put my trust in them, neither.
I looped the pouch around my wrist and called for Bulkee. “Let’s go after the Lilec trail.”
Our wild chase began with an excruciating start, because I had to stoop all the way down to the ground to catch the drift. After putting the dusts away into the bag, I nudged forward with my knees pressed up against my chest to make sure that no residuals were left behind.
The air was scorching hot. The overwhelming humidity drew out pearls of sweat above my eyelashes. My view was completely obscured. I could barely distinguish the violet tinge from the rest of the shiny pieces on the ground. The visual impairment caused me to constantly check my track.
“We should divide and conquer,” Bulkee said. He had been sitting up on my shoulder and I could tell from the way he fretted that he was getting impatient.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“I meant that you glean the dusts and I put them away. It’d be much faster that way.”
“We can’t,” I blurted out, remembering Crystaline’s warning. “The Enchantresses said that only I was allowed to touch them.”
“That’s fine. Ears. We should still try figuring something out to work together.”
“Maybe later. I can handle it by myself for now,” I replied and went back to the task.
The collection process remained tedious. But I finally got the hang of it after attempting different positions. I started plowing through, reaching deeper into the crystal arena.
About two miles later, I was drenched in sweat and I was huffing like I had just completed a gymnastics competition. The repetitiveness of the task combined with my extra weight had finally caught up.
“Bulkee, I need to rest,” I declared, as my body thumped down. The ground felt like memory foam beneath my sore back. I turned on my side to slip off my snickers and spread out my legs.
I dug my feet into the warm sand, my toes wiggling to the sudden release of pressure. I tossed back my ringlets and lay my head to my arms. It felt so good that I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Ears. You are probably on the final stretch of reaching the Lake of Tears. You should stay alert,” Bulkee said.
I flipped my wrist and waved him off. By now I had collected more than a half-bag of Lilec dusts. I felt confident. “Let me just take a quick break,” I said.
“No. Ears. You need to make haste,” he insisted. “The smog is getting to us. It can complicate things.”
From the cradle of the sand, I looked out to the arena over the tip of my nose. The wall of fog had gone thicker. Beyond my feet the shimmering boulders appeared melded into the background, their outlines indistinguishable.
“It’s just the fog,” I said. A wave of drowsiness washed over me and I wanted to close my eyes for a catnap. “We got the Lilec dusts. We will be fine, as long as we follow the trail.”
“Ears. Listen to me,” Bulkee was unremitting. “The Flash that I had warned me of the smog.”
“No more talks of the Flash, unless you tell me exactly what’s going on.” I closed my eyes and tried to roll over on my side.
But I froze in a cold sweat. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t raise my arms. I couldn’t sway my legs. It was like a metal shackle had been dumped onto my body and pinned me to the floor. Fright kicked in, when I discovered sand all over my body, covering me from head to toe.
“Help!” I called out in a desperate wail, as I experienced a sensation of plummeting. I was terrified.
“What’s wrong?” Bulkee pranced over to my side and began brushing the sand off my shoulders.
“Help me. I’m sinking.” I heaved fast but I couldn’t catch my breath. I tried clasping onto something within my reach. But all I felt was numbness everywhere, like my body was under a pins-and-needles attack.
“Standup. Ears.” Bulkee said.
“What?” I snapped to focus. Quickly I came to see that my arms were thrusting in wild loops. The moment of panic finally passed. I squirmed with embarrassment, as I realized that my perception of plunging was a false alarm. I hadn’t slumped at all.
“I don’t know what happened,” I said. “I thought that I was under electric shocks.”
I had experienced electric zaps once. My fingers had accidentally gripped the metal prong, when I was disconnecting my hairdryer from an old outlet. The inadvertent exposure to high voltage nearly paralyzed me. I was able to break off. But the shock of the incident remained fresh in my mind.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But it must be that my legs had gone numb after the workout.”
“You are fine,” Bulkee said. “Now let’s get moving.”
I propped to my knees and padded off the rest of the sand. As we went back to the trail, a thought began gnawing at me that something about the episode wasn’t quite right.
The heavy fog had ingested the little illuminance we got left. It was even more difficult to see now. I narrowed my eyes, as I gleaned another pile. I kept on going, trying not be distracted by the queasy feeling.
Stoop.
Scoop.
Stoop.
Scoop.
All the while the nagging thought still circled in my mind like an annoy ringing in the ears. What was so unsettling about what happened earlier? I stared blankly into the pile on my palm. When I reached for the pouch to put them away, my mistake hit me like a punch to my chest.
Shoot! Why was I so careless? I span on my heels and rushed back with frustration.
“What are you doing?” Bulkee called out from behind me.
I raised a hand. “It’s gone,” I said. The pouch was missing from my wrist.
As I ran through the labyrinth, I was desperate to locate the pouch by backtracking. But I quickly became disoriented. The ground gave out no clue as to marking where we had stopped to rest.
“Ears. Wait,” Bulkee caught up to me.
“Where is the pouch? I have to find it.” I jolted to a stop and started patting the sand frantically, rummaging in blindness. The arena had gone so dark that I wished I had a flashlight or even a torch.
“Something strange is happening here. We have to go,” I heard Bulkee say through tight lips.
I squinting into the distance. In the smog, there was a cloud of darkness and nothing else. “But I don’t know what they will say, if I tell the Enchantresses that I lost some of the Lilec dusts,” my voice was shaky. I recalled the menace in Crystaline’s glaring eyes when she handed me the pouch.
“We will deal with it later,” Bulkee replied sternly. “because what we have right now doesn’t look good.”
My head snapped back up, and a terror crashed over me. The shady mass of the smog was approaching us fast like an enraged beast with mudded claws.
We bolted before we even knew what was coming. In less than ten steps, a sharp pain shot through my left foot like I had been jabbed by a prickle.
I sprang up on impact but the stabbing persisted, twice, three times, and more to my buttocks and thighs. I choked down an outcry, when I turned to discover violet shimmers specked all over my legs. I registered that these flashing sparks were the Lilec dusts that I had been looking for. I was at a loss for words. What had happened to the Lilec dusts?
I hopped about, attempting to shake them off. But the dusts seemed to have tightened around my legs. I felt the minuscule jolts sending up another wave of sting.
“Get them off me. What’s going on?” I whipped my arms, my hands scraping and my legs kicking. Something must have set off the Lilec powers to make them turned livid.
“Keep running,” Bulkee shouted.
I glanced up and fell to greater panic. In a proof the dark mass in front of us had flashed into a flaring globe packed with the charged Lilec dusts. The violet radiance was so strong that I immediately braced my arms over my eyes.
A shiver ran through my body, when I heard the warning sound of crackles. I peeked through the slit between my elbows. But it was too late.
The sphere began slamming down batches of the dusts fizzling with electricity. I cried out in pain, as I felt quick intervals of lightning bolts ripping away at my flesh.
The voltage was high enough to immobilize me. Soon enough I was stripped of my senses, as I helplessly watched my body spasm. I bit down on my lips to the point that it left a salty taste in my mouth. Then everything went black.
I only regained consciousness when something hit me so hard that my eyes snapped open and my knees sank to the ground. It was Bulkee who had battered me with one of my fallen snickers. After he helped me break free from the lightning bolts, we were on our feet again. I took in gulps of air as I sprinted with frantic leaps.
The crackling blasted through from behind. I craned my head. We had made enough leeway to be out of range for the electric attacks. But the distance between us is closing, as the sphere seems to pick up speed.
“Bulkee. You have to do something,” I projected my voice over the noises. “The Imajigo thing that you use? The BionicShapes? Can you make up something to stop this?”
“What exactly do you need?” he panted heavily
“How would I know? Can’t you just create something?” I shouted back. I didn’t understand why he had asked me. Wasn’t he the one who should know about his Imajigo?
“Look. I have to focus,” he stopped dead in his tracks and turned to face the ball of Lilec.
“What are you doing?” I panicked. Was he out of his mind again?
“Hush, Ears. I have to focus.” He repeated and snapped shut his eyes. “Think about what you want. And focus with me.”
Were you serious? Dropping everything to focus when we were running for our lives? And focusing on what? I clenched my fists. But there was nothing else I could do.
I raised my arms to block the flickers from blinding my eyes. I tried to think. Spotty images of random objects speared through my mind. The pouch that had untied from my wrist. The TimeBook necklace that hung below my collarbone. The rustic wood fence at our front yard. The plastic Viking sword that Sam liked to swing about. The gold hoop that I practiced with during my gymnastics class. But none of the images stayed long enough for me to figure them out.
I peeked again and saw the ball of Lilec approaching fast to engulf us. I was sure that the torment had begun again, when I felt a punch to my palm.
“It’s here,” A clamor escaped Bulkee.
