Ghost Forest 19

  After thanking the talking frog and one-eyed Madame Waters, they attempted to leave, only to be halted by the same guardian at the small, round door.

  "What—do we need a password even to get out?" joked Rosso. "Simmering Waters—there."

  "I let you in the other day. Drop some sparks for the trouble," he said in his usual, rude tone, this time rubbing his thumb and fingers together.

  "We don't have any money," Rosso responded just as rudely.

  "Not money, you rookies. Jumpers don't trade cash. It's too risky, too heavy to carry across worlds. Plus, too many currencies. No—we exchange aura."

  He eagerly demonstrated to Roa that by squeezing his fist and focusing on letting go, his aura dripped in bright, glowing droplets of light.

  "The more you squeeze and let go, the more will come out," he expined, gathering plenty of drops that vanished the moment they nded on his open palms. "Keep it coming."

  Satisfied with the strange transaction, he unlocked the door and the boy from Earth stepped outside. In a swift motion, the guardian's hand shot out between the threshold and Rosso, blocking him too.

  "And another small tip from you too, you know—for the aura lesson—since you know how to use the Loot Gift now,” he expined, with a hint of shame in his voice. "Sorry—nothing's free in this world."

  The two made it out of the bathhouse, at st.

  "What a den of thieves. Figures that the first Gift I learn is how to lose money. I had no trouble figuring that one out," said Rosso, his hand on his forehead.

  "It's alright. We got what we needed. We got fed, we rested, got a lot of information, and we even got some kind of new Gift. We will be able to transact with other Jumpers now, even if we don't have any money with us."

  After hours of travel, passing through spiral staircases, flooded by cascades of water, and fnked by bickering art pieces, they navigated halls so narrow they were forced to swim through them, the cool, damp air clinging to their skin. They drifted past floating vilges, their wooden homes swaying on stilts above dark, murky waters, the faint scent of stagnant ponds and wood blending in the breeze. Eventually, they reached another rge room of the Pace, one filled with a forest.

  "What a depressing sight. There isn't a single leaf on these trees. They look like they're all dead," said the boy, as he ran his hand through his hair.

  "Well, the water here is almost very polluted here. I am not surprised. This must be Ghost Forest Nineteen, like the bath dy told us."

  "Nineteen?"

  "Yeah, she mentioned that since the Pace is so big, Jumpers assign numbers and other details like 'South' to simir-looking pces."

  "So, they're at least another eighteen Ghost Forests?"

  "There are at least eighteen Ghost Forests—that we know of," the man from the desert expined, as they made their way through the muck.

  "Are you also feeling tired?"

  "Yeah—we gave that crook too much of our auras, I think—what a den of thieves."

  After only a few hours, they decided to set up camp. Neither of them had the strength to push on, so they hung their hammocks, searching for the few branches still sturdy enough to hold their weight. The roots beneath them sank into slow-moving rivulets of thick, bck goo that emitted a pungent odor. As they y back, staring up at the sky, their eyes were drawn to a rge cupo, its painted clouds swirling zily above, a stark contrast to the grim surroundings.

  "My mind can't fathom how big this Pace is. We've only traversed one floor, right?"

  "I think so—and supposedly, there's several floors in the Pace Basements—and then even more sets of floors above that chokepoint? That's maddeningly big."

  Roa gently tried to free a small bird from the snare of the toxic substance, but despite his best efforts, the animal wouldn’t fly. Its wings fluttered weakly, weighed down by the slick, sticky substance. No matter how hard the boy tried to help it, the bird remained grounded.

  "I was thinking about that being at the top—the one that everyone is trying to reach for the chance at a wish—the Dreamer," Roa turned toward his friend, swaying gently inside his hammock. He looked up at the ceiling, which was now turning dark, revealing lots of twinkling, artificial stars.

  "Don't tell me that you believe in such a fairytale?"

  "I wouldn't have believed it back in my old life—but in this pce? Yeah, I think the Dreamer might exist in a pce like this one. I was wondering—what would you wish for if you met the guy?"

  Rosso thought about it for a moment.

  "First of all, how do you know it's a man? What if it's a woman? Or some strange—monster, or something ridiculous, like a—talking sack of potatoes?" The two chuckled, then Rosso's tone turned serious. "If I could really ask for anything—I'd ask about my father. What happened to him that day? Did he suffer? Did he leave anything behind, even a simple message for me and my mother, instead of just—never coming back. I need to know. I've wondered all my life, since I was a child. That would be my wish. How about you?"

  "I'd ask it to turn back time, so that I would not go into that diner that day, so that I could go back home, back to Eray, and just—forget about all this."

  "But what if that wasn't your home after all? You said that it probably wasn't Earth, anyway."

  "Yeah, but my life was easier back then."

  "Was it? Didn't you literally try to leave it because you hated it so much?"

  "Yeah, I guess I did—but at least I wasn't lost and alone all the time."

  "No point going back, man. That's a stupid wish," Rosso rolled his eyes and turned around in his hammock, soon snoring in the darkness. Above them, some mechanism in the ceiling cnked, revealing a thin, crescent moon that sparkled as artificially as the stars that surrounded it.

  He felt himself drifting to sleep as he heard his friend snoring. Suddenly, Roa's eyes shot open at the rustling of leaves nearby—Human steps! Someone was out there, hidden in the darkness. He looked around frantically, but his eyes couldn’t make out a silhouette. The trees loomed too thickly around them, their branches twisting like arms and legs in the dark. Fear began to creep in. He felt vulnerable in his hammock. The sound of footsteps grew closer, but Rosso remained fast asleep, his snores only adding to the difficulty of locating the source of the noise. The boy tried to use the Compass, hoping its light could cut through the darkness, but nothing emerged from his thumb. He couldn’t concentrate—he was too scared.

  "Rosso!" he whispered.

  No response. As the shape of a rge silhouette finally began to emerge beside him, a chill ran down his spine.

  "A Shadow," he thought, his mind running wild as he tried to scream his friend's name.

  Nothing came out, however. A knot in his throat let nothing but a feeble exhale out of his mouth.

  "They'll reset my mind. I’ll never get to go home," he thought in terror, as the dark figure grew closer.

  The enemy collided with him, flipping Roa from the hammock and onto the cold, hard, twisting surface of the roots.

  "Wake up! The Shadows are here," he finally managed to scream, his voice raw with fear. Rosso tumbled from his hammock with a thud, jolted awake in the chaos.

  With no weapons, no means of defense, and their hearts pounding with dread, the two travelers braced themselves, knowing there was no escape.