ECHOES OF FORGOTTEN

Chapter 7: Where Dreams Become Measurable PART II

Light swallowed everything. For one impossible second, I felt weightless. Then gravity remembered me. Violently. I hit the ground hard enough to question several life choices. Pain exploded through my shoulder. A branch snapped beneath me. Leaves flew everywhere.

I lay there for several seconds. Mostly because moving felt ambitious. Eventually, I opened one eye. Gray sky. Trees. Too many trees.

I groaned. "... I miss the orphanage."

The forest offered no sympathy. Slowly, I pushed myself upright. The first thing I noticed was the silence. Not ordinary silence. Not peaceful silence. Wrong silence. The kind that made you realize something was missing. No birds. No insects. No rustling animals. Nothing. An entire forest. Completely silent.

"Okay," I muttured. A deep breath. "Find the artifact. Find Mira. Don't get murdered by ghosts and second-years."

A pause. "Reasonable objectives."

The forest remained silent. Which wasn't reassuring.

I frowned. "Now, where exactly am I supposed to find an artifact?"

No answer. I wasn't surprised.

I brushed dirt from my uniform and looked around properly.

Ancient trees rose into a ceiling of pale gray mist. Their roots twisted across the earth like the bones of sleeping giants. Every path looked identical. Every shadow seemed deeper than it should have been.

And then-

Something blue caught my eye.

I froze.

A tulip.

Not red.

Blue.

Its petals shimmered so softly against the gray forest.

For a moment, I simply stared.

"...Wonderful."

A pause.

"Now I'm seeing ghost tulips."

The tulip continued being a tulip.

"When Mira finds out about this, she's going to laugh at me for the rest of my life."

Another pause.

"Which is unfortunate."

I crossed my arms.

"The Duke can command ghosts."

A glance at the flower.

"And apparently, my ability evolved into identifying haunted gardening projects. That sure will be useful for the Wardens."

The tulip remained silent.

Rude.

Then another blue tulip bloomed several feet ahead.

I froze.

A third appeared.

Then a fourth.

One after another, the flowers emerged from the pale earth, their blue petals glowing softly beneath the gray sky.

A trail. Lrading deeper into the forest.

"Absolutely not."

The flowers ignored me.

A fifth tulip appeared farther ahead.

The trail continued into the forest.

Waiting. Watching. Inventing.

I sighed. "Fine."

The moment I took a step forward, another tulip appeared farther ahead.

"...That's unsettling."

The mist thickened. Soon, I could barely see twenty feet ahead. Only the blue tulips remained visible. Tiny stars guiding me through an ocean of gray.

Minutes passed. Or maybe hours. The realm made time feel unreliable.

The mist thickened with every step. The blue tulips continued appearing ahead of me, glowing softly against the endless fray.

Then I noticed movement. I stopped immediately. Something was standing between the trees. Far ahead. A silhouette. A second year? The silhouette tilted its head. I nearly jumped out of my skin. Then it raised an arm. And waved.

I blinked.

The figure cupped its hands around its mouth.

"LYYYYYYSSSS!"

The shout echoed through the forest.

I stared.

The silhouette started running toward me. Arm flailing. Occasionally tripping over roots. Somehow managing to look dramatic and ridiculous at the same time.

Relief hit me so hard my knees almost gave out. "Mira."

A few moments later, she burst through the fog. "I found my artifact."

I blinked. "What? How?"

Mira held up her hand. A small cut ran across her palm. "I tripped."

"Of course you did."

"The important part is what happened after I tripped."

"Which was?"

"My blood started moving."

I stared. "... Your blood what?"

"It crawled."

I stared harder.

Mira nodded confidently. "It crawled off my hand and started pointing."

"Your blood pointed."

"Correct."

"So your power evolved in blood pointing and mine in seeing dead tulips."

I stared at her.

Mira stared back.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then-

"You see dead tulips?"

"Yeah, I think they brought me to you."

"You say that like it's normal."

"I've had a strange morning."

"Fair."

A pause. Then Mira squinted. "Did you find your artifact?"

I looked at her. Then I looked back toward the place where the tulip had been. They were gone. Every single one.

"...No."

Mira blinked. "Cut your hand."

I stared at her. "What?"

"Cut. Your. Hand."

"That is a terrible sentence.

"It worked for me."

"You are not helping your argument."

"My argument is that I already found my artifact."

Unfortunately, she had a point.

I looked down at my perfectly unharmed hand.

Then at Mira.

Then back at my perfectly unharmed hand.

"... I hate that you're making sense."

"I get that a lot."

"No, you don't."

"Fair."

"Okay, with what do I cut myself?"

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "...Good point."

"Thank you."

"We don't have knives."

"We don't have anything."

Then Mira looked down. A sharp rock rested near her boot. She pointed. "There."

I followed her gaze. "...You want me to stab myself with a rock?"

"I want you to find your artifact so we can go find the exit and end our exam."

"Fair."

I sighed dramatically. "Okay."

Carefully, I dragged the sharp edge across my palm. Pain stung. A thin line of red appeared. One drop of blood slipped free. Instead of falling straight to the ground, it drifted sideways. Toward Mira.

Both of us froze.

"So my power really evolved."

"Yeah."

I looked at the cut on my hand. Then at the floating droplet. Then at Mira.

"I don't know if this is good."

Mira shrugged. "I don't know if anything about this exam is good."

A reasonable point.

The blood drifted through the air for another second. Then it suddenly shot forward. Not fast. Just determined. It knew exactly where it was going. The droplet floated between the trees. Paused. Waited. I stared. The blood stared back.

"...Is my blood judging me?"

"Probably."

"Traitor."

The droplet continued forward. We followed. And the forest ended. Not gradually. Not naturally. One moment, twisted gray trees were choking the sky.

The next-

There was sunlight.

I stopped so suddenly that Mira nearly walked into me.

"...What?"

A wide meadow stretched before us. Green grass swayed in a warm breeze. Wildflowers painted the hills in blues, golds, and reds. A narrow river wound through the landscape like liquid silver.

Mira frowned. "I hate it."

I glanced at her. "It's beautiful."

"Exactly."

The droplet floated ahead, crossing the river without hesitation. Then it landed. On a tulip. Not a blue tulip. A red one.

I froze.

Mira froze.

The tulip stood alone near the riverbank, bright against the endless sea of wildflowers.

Red.

Exactly like the one I'd seen before the examination.

The one that appeared at my feet.

"You can see that tulip, right?" I asked.

"Yup."

I blinked. Then blinked again. "Yup?"

Mira nodded. "Yup."

I pointed at the tulip. "The red tulip."

"The red tulip."

"The suspicious red tulip."

"The extremely suspicious red tulip."

I starred at her.

She stared back

"Oh, thank the stars."

"Enough with the drama. Your artifact is right there. Let's get it and find a way to get out of this exam realm before we run into second-years...or the Duke's ghost."

"A wise plan."

I stepped toward the tulips. Immediately, the flower reacted. The red petal trembled. The air grew cold. The tulip continued to shake. Then the ground beneath it cracked. A thin line split the earth.

"My artifact wasn't as dramatic as yours," Mira said.

Before I could answer, a red light spilled from the opening. Not bright. Soft. Like moonlight trapped beneath the soil. My heart beat quickened. The flower slowly unfolded. One petal. Then another. Then another. At its center rested something metallic. Silver. Beautifull. A compass. No. Not a compass. It looked like one. But the needle wasn't pointing north. It was spinning.

"So that's your artifact. Why do you always get the cool thing?"

"'Cause I'm cool."

Mira stared at me. A pause. "I'm not gonna answer that. Let's find the exit."

"Coward."

"Correct."

With that, she turned and started walking. I followed.

As we left the meadow behind and stepped back beneath the shadow of the forest canopy, I glanced over my shoulder one last time.

The red tulip stood beside the riverbank. But something has changed. The wildflowers covering the hills were gone. Or perhaps they had never been wildflowers at all.

Across the meadow, thousands upon thousands of tulips swayed in the wind.

Red.

Blue.

Gold.

White.

Violet.

Every color imaginable.

To be continued.