“No...” she remarked, unable to
believe her eyes. “It was here. It was definitely here.”
Could she have taken one more turn
without remembering it? She tried to force herself to recall all the
sights she had seen already, but they all blended together. “I
must have come from one of these directions”, she thought. With no
other option, she just chose one and kept walking. She walked for
quite a time, and the sun was getting lower in the sky now, but still
there was no sign of the shooting water and she definitely didn't
recognize some of the plants she was seeing now.
“I must have chosen the wrong one”,
she thought, turning around. Her feet were really sore now, but she
told herself that it would all be okay if she could just get back to
that square where the paths met. She found her way back to the place
where the tall leafy plants had been and kept going. The sky was
growing dark, so she tried to hurry as best she could. She wasn't
even paying any attention to her surroundings anymore, they no longer
mattered. She just had to get to the end of this path...
She finally came to the end, and still
there was no sign of the giant water spout. The path just split in
two again, and she was sure she hadn't been here before. She fell to
her knees in the dirt, her eyes full of tears.
“It's all over”, she sobbed,
hopelessly. “I'm going to be stuck here forever. I'll never see
anyone again. Why? Why does this have to happen to me?”
As she sat there in the dirt, she
recalled the final words Corsair had spoken to her:
“We tried everything, and there's so
much that's still beyond us. As things are now, we'll never find
Lapse. Even the captain of the Black Ship doesn't know how to find
her. It's just a matter of time before the rest of us get lost
too...”
“I'm sorry, Corsair”, she sobbed,
quietly, “you just wanted to help me, but it's too late. There's
nothing anyone can do.” She wanted to cry out for him, but someone
might hear her.
“What a fool I've been!” she
suddenly realized. What difference did it make if the strangers
found out about her and she was thrown in the water, anything was
better than being trapped here. “Lapse!” she cried out, as loud
as she could. “Pack! Corsair! Anybody! Please help me! I'm
lost!”
She shouted until her voice was hoarse,
but there was no response, and it was just getting darker.
Somehow, she forced herself to her
feet. “I just have to find someone. Anyone. As long as the sun
is still up, the stranger must still be here!”
She chose one of the paths and dragged
herself along it, periodically calling for help, though she was
losing her voice and the volume was less and less each time. She was
exhausted, but she had to keep going, the sun was almost down now.
Suddenly, she heard the sound of
running water. “It's here!” She gasped, hoarsely, “I made
it!” It was quite dark now, so she couldn't see very far ahead of
herself, but she followed the sound. She was almost there.
Then she took the next step and her
foot slipped out from under her. She instinctively reached down to
stop her fall, but there was nothing there, as though the ground had
disappeared beneath her feet. She toppled forward over the edge and
suddenly she was falling, flailing helplessly as she plunged through
the darkness. Her arm struck something hard and twisted in a
direction it wasn't meant to go, and the entire left side of her body
exploded in pain. She screamed, but with her throat being so sore
barely anything came out, and a moment later her mouth filled with
water as she plunged into it with a giant splash. Panic swept over
her as she tried to determine which way was up and push herself
towards it, but her left arm wouldn't work, and her tired legs had no
strength left to kick. She was sinking. She frantically pulled
herself towards the surface as best she could with her right arm,
but it wasn't enough, she was still going down. The light above
slipped farther and farther away as she sank into the cold, dark
depths of the sea.
“This is it”, she thought, resigned
to her fate. “This is the end.” She reached up towards the
surface one last time in vain. “Corsair...”
She closed her eyes, and in her mind
she was back on her ship with her friends. They were all laughing
together, just as it was supposed to be. Corsair was there, and she
buried her face in his chest as he wrapped his paws around her.
Slowly their voices faded away, leaving only the sounds of the waves
softly crashing against her ship, and then silence.
---
“Is this it, then? Is this how it
ends?”
He raised his head. It was very nearly
dark
“I thought you understood”, said a
deep voice. “I thought you knew what your priorities were.
Perhaps I was wrong.”
Pack turned around and was shocked at
what he saw. “You! How did-”
“Does it matter?” the dark-skinned
man asked, cutting him off.
“No. No, it doesn't”, he said,
sadly. “I've lost her again.”
“We're still here”, the captain of
the Black Ship replied. “There's still time.”
“She hates me. I could hear it in
her voice. She was so hurt and upset. She'll never come back.”
The dark-skinned man motioned towards
the sky. “When the sun sets, those who remain will be trapped
here, never to return.”
“Maybe that's for the best. Just
leave me, I'm done.”
“And what about her? Would you leave
her to suffer this fate again? Do you think she deserves it?”
“Lapse...” He thought of her
hiding, curled up in a ball, as the darkness enveloped her for the
last time.
“It's your choice”, he said,
starting to walk away, “but choose wisely. The wrong choice will
haunt you for the rest of your days.”
Pack rose to his feet. “Will you
help me find her?”
---
“...Then if there are no objections,
I will now pronounce you man and-”
“I object!” said a strong,
confident voice.
Lapse immediately swivelled around to
see who it was. It was a blonde-haired woman in a red dress whom she
didn't recognize. “I know these two, and their hearts belong to
other people”, she proclaimed confidently, pressing one curled hand
against her face. The entire crowd fell silent, and she walked over
to Lapse and sat down beside her. “You know this isn't right”,
she told her.
For a moment, the entire situation felt
strangely familiar, though it passed quickly. “Maybe it is”, she
replied. “Perhaps all I can do is watch others be happy.”
“Does someone love you?” the woman
asked.
“...no”, Lapse's voice trembled
weakly.
“Is that really what your heart tells
you?”
She closed her eyes and thought back
over her most precious memories. She remembered dancing for him as
he watched her every move, enchanted by her. She remembered when he
had agreed to come with her in the morning, and when they had seen
the sunset together. And most of all, she remembered the intimacy
they shared, the passion of their lovemaking, and the look in his
eyes afterwards. “I love you”, he said, holding her body tightly
against his own and tenderly caressing her. “I love you too”.
She could still feel his heartbeat next to hers. It couldn't have
been a lie, not like that. There was definitely something real
between them, but still she felt afraid.
“Why can't I accept it?”, she
asked, still frightened. “I know he loves me, why do I still doubt
him so readily?”
The woman put her hand on Lapse's
shoulder. “It's because you're listening to your head. Your head
doesn't know love. It knows fear, pain, loneliness, pride, and
stubbornness, but not love. Sometimes you just have to ignore your
head and listen to what your heart tells you. When it tells you that
you love someone and they love you back, that's all that matters.”
With some trepidation, she managed to
stand up and face them.
“I love you, Pack”, she said. “And
I know you love me. I'm sorry. I won't doubt it any more. Let's
all just go home.”
As she finished those words, Pack,
Sister, and the crowd all faded away, leaving only a dark, empty
pavilion covered in flower petals.
“What? What happened?”
“Not everything is as it seems in a
place like this. Come on, we've got to find the others.”
“I feel that we've... met before.”
Lapse said as they hurried out of the empty pavilion.
“Perhaps we have. I feel like we
have quite a bit in common, but if we ever want to meet again, we've
got to get going now, the sun is already beginning to go down.”
---
“Where are you going?”, a woman
asked, trying her best to keep up.
“I thought I heard something!” the
stranger said, briefly pausing to peer over the railing. “There's
someone down there!”
“Hey, what are you, crazy?!” She
reached out to stop him, but he had already hopped over the railing
and was sliding down the side of the ravine. All she could do was
watch in dismay as he dove from the bank into the water.
It was terribly cold, and it was almost
pitch black under the water's surface. The water stung his eyes and
blurred his vision as he searched frantically for the person he had
spotted, but it was no use, he could barely see his own hands in
front of his face. Not knowing what else to do, he tried to close
his eyes and stay motionless to see if he could hear them instead.
At first, all he could hear was the
dull rumble of the flowing water above. He shut his eyes harder and
tried to block out all other sights and sounds. As he did so, a
strange vision passed through his mind, full of smiling people who he
felt he hadn't seen in a very long time. “I'm beginning to lose
consciousness”, he realized, “I have to go up for air”.
But then he heard a small voice.
“Corsair...”, it said. He reached out towards it, and his hand
clasped an outstretched arm. “Don't worry”, he thought, “I've
got you, everything's going to be all right.”
Unfortunately, they had sunk quite far
down now, the light above them had all but faded away. “I've just
got to get to the surface”, the stranger told himself, as he put
all of his remaining strength into pulling himself and the girl
upwards, back towards the world of the living.
---
“Hurry up!” the dark-skinned man
yelled to Pack, “it's all starting to fade away!”
Pack turned around. Indeed, the end of
the path they had just taken had already faded to blackness and
disappeared from view, and it was slowly creeping up towards them.
“But what if she's back there?” he
asked, scouring the surroundings frantically as they disappeared from
view.
“It won't do her any good for you to
get stuck out here”, the captain of the Black Ship insisted,
“you've just got to trust in her and keep moving!”
Pack hurried after him as best he
could, he wasn't used to all this running. They reached a split in
the path in the darkness and the other man rounded it immediately.
“This way!” he shouted, as the darkness closed in from the other
sides. Pack just barely managed to keep up with him, the encroaching
darkness nipping at his heels.
“At least we know we're going the
right way!” he huffed, but his companion did not bother to respond.
---
“No!” Lapse cried sadly. “It's
all disappearing!” She plucked a flower and held it to her face,
but it faded away right before her eyes. “Come back!” she
pleaded.
“We've got to go”, the other woman
said, putting her hand on her shoulder, “there's no more time”.
“But it wasn't supposed to be like
this!” she protested, almost in tears. “I never got to show this
place to him, and who knows if I'll ever be able to come here again!”
“The most important thing is that you
get back safely”, she said, kindly. “As long as you're together,
you can make new memories, right?”
She nodded and wiped her eyes. “Let's
go. We have to find everyone and get back home again.”
This time it was Lay who struggled to
keep up. As they hurried down the path, they passed by a giant
square with a pool of still water in the middle, but neither of them
paid much attention to it.
---
Once again a strange blurry vision
appeared before his eyes. He saw someone leaning over him, a
saddened look on her furry face. He reached out towards her and
touched her face with his paw...
A hand grasped his own, tightly,
snapping him back to reality. “What were you thinking?”, she
snapped, and for a moment he was sure she was going to hit him. “You
nearly gave me a heart attack, jumping off like that! You're not
young any more, you have to stop throwing yourself into things head
first all the time!”
“I'm sorry, darling”, he said,
finding his voice a bit weak, “but I couldn't just stand by and let
her drown. At least I've always got you to watch my back, right?”
She let go of his hand and a tear
streamed down her cheek. She closed her green eyes as he caressed
the side of her face. “How is she?”
“See for yourself”, she said. “I
did all I could, but she's not in good shape.”
“That's assuming I can get up.” He
said, struggling to rise to a sitting position.
“You can”, she said, rolling her
eyes. “I've known you for too long to think something like this
would slow you down.”
With some difficulty, the stranger
picked himself up and turned to face the girl. She was a tiny thing,
with long black hair that had been dirtied by her fall. Her arm was
broken and bleeding, even though his love had tried to wrap it with a
makeshift sling it would need more attention. Her eyes were still
closed and her skin was terribly pale from her ordeal. He gently
picked her head up in his arms. She did seem to be breathing
faintly, at least.
Suddenly, a man's voice called to him
from far away. “Is everything all right?”
“Thank goodness”, said a second
man, “someone else is still here!”
“No, this girl needs help!”, he
called back. They hurried over.
“Oh no”, said a portly man with
short hair as he leaned in towards her, “this is terrible!”
“I hear them!”, a woman called out,
from somewhere else. Two more people rushed over to join them.
“Sister...”, said one of the women,
who also had long black hair, “I'm so sorry...”
“Your friends have come for you”,
he said to the girl, shaking her very gently. “Please wake up.”
Slowly she raised her eyelids a little,
barely revealing the kind blue eyes underneath.
“Corsair...” she said weakly,
looking up at him. “I'm so glad... I always knew you'd come for
me...”
He almost dropped her as he heard her
words and realized that he was looking not at the face of a human,
but rather a spotted tortoiseshell cat. “How...?” he muttered in
disbelief, as he ran his fingers over her damaged paw.
“Oh great, now you've done it”,
said one of the others, and he turned to see a scrawny black cat with
his paw on his forehead. They were all cats. There was a grey one,
a white one, and a brown one as well.
“Look, Corsair”, said the spotted
cat. “We're all together, now. The fighting is over. Please come
back to us.”
“Come back?” he said, bewildered.
The darkness had closed in all around them, so only a small clearing
and the lake was left.
“I know it's been a long time”, the
cat said, “but please, you must remember us.” A giant, wooden
ship with white sails came into view over the lake, even though there
was no way it could have sailed there. “Let's go home, Corsair.”
“I don't know what you mean”, the
stranger said. “My home is not on any ship.” The darkness was
right around them now, and everything was starting to get hazy.
Sister looked into his eyes. They were
dark, the eyes of a stranger, not the bright, enthusiastic eyes of
the friend she had known. She thought back to the last time she had
seen his eyes, just before he had left, but they hadn't been right
then, either. The last time she had seen that sparkle in his eyes
was after they found Steven. He had been so excited to learn about
the strangers, and the world beyond their own. In that moment, it
finally became clear to her, after so long.
“On board that ship,” she told him,
“lies the greatest adventure anyone could ever have. There's a
whole different world out there, unlike anything you've ever known.
Don't you want to see it?”
“Another world?” he wondered aloud,
casting his gaze over to the ship. For just a moment, she caught a
glimpse of a pair of inquisitive brown eyes.
“There's not much time left for me”,
she said, “the darkness is closing in, and the ship will leave
soon, leaving me behind. I can't make it back on my own...”
He paused a moment, then slowly raised
to his feet, carrying the girl in his arms. “Where are you going?”
his love asked, concerned.
“To see this other world”, he said,
turning back towards her. “Somehow, I feel like it's calling to
me. Will you stay by my side?”
“Always”, she said, falling in
beside him and helping him carry the girl.
The others hurried on ahead, and
someone threw down a rope ladder from the deck of the ship.
“Boss! You made it!”, he said, as
the others began to climb up the ladder.
As the two of them reached the ship,
his love turned to face him. “Thanks for everything”, he said to
her, and she leaned in and kissed him. He nodded to her, and she
climbed up the ladder as well, so only he and the girl in his arms
were left.
He turned and took one last look back
at the now empty space where the garden had been.
“One story ends...”, he said, to no
one in particular, as he lifted the girl over his shoulder and put
his paw on the ladder.
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