Evaelona: The Trails of Advancement

Chapter 02: The Jump to the Past

The lock Nathan provided was a Crown Iron Puzzle Lock. It was nothing very hard for him as he solved it before and thus was able to unlock the lock easily. There was a key that was attached to the lock & he retrieved it by unlocking the lock in a matter of minutes. But the matter that makes him scratching his head is the fact that the lock was given to him separately & there was no way to open the box as it had no keyhole or no lock to c***k. He examined the inscriptions on the box and found something written in a weird language. He could understand the word "box" as it was in Latin. But the rest was a blank. The inscription was something like this:

    "Vula ihe arca le bhith a ’sleamhnachadh la noĉo ĉe la fundo. Whakauruhia te raka & sebelisa senotlolo." 

Luckily, he knew someone at the Antica Language Institute. Marcus Borgese worked with linguistics his whole life. Wade sometimes takes him to his expeditions to help him with his cases. And if there is anyone who could decipher this strange cryptic sentence. it would be him. Without wasting any time he called him and to his luck, he caught him at the moment of leaving time. As Marcus owed him a favor for saving him once, he couldn't refuse & decided to decipher the sentence.

An hour or two went by. For Wade, it seemed like ages. He kept on thinking over and over about what the letter said. Promising of meeting him, sending over a strange box with a lock he is familiar with, spending years with him while actually, Nathan was using him to hide his real identity and all. He couldn't believe it all. But something was fishy and he became crazy to know it. And at long last, Marcus called. With a tome mixed with shock and surprise, he told him about the sentence. And this made Wade more curious than ever. Marcus found out the Jonathan/Nathan used at least 7 languages to make the sentence. At first, he was astounded seeing the sentence & researched for a straight 30 minutes. The sentence contained words from languages even he never heard of. Nevertheless, he was able to c***k the sentence and the sentence read:

    "Unlock the box by sliding the bottom. Insert the lock & use the key."

"Really !!!", Wade said. "This is how he concealed it".

"Concealed what? Wade, what's going on?"

"Nothing. Anyway, thanks for helping me decipher the sentence. It means a lot."

"No problem. But now, you owe me a favor."

Keeping the phone, Wade realized the way of opening the box. Back in his childhood, Wade and Nathan along with some other kids played a game of treasure hunting. It was fun & weird at the same time. As soon as they reached the treasure, they found a box with a separate lock. Just like Wade had now at present. And the way they opened it was using a pin to open the bottom of the box by inserting the pin in a small hole and sliding it. Then they found that the box had a gap similar to the shape of the lock. Inserting the lock, it got stuck in there tight, and using the key, the box opened like any other normal box.

Using the same technique, Wade opened the box with no trouble. Breathing a sigh of relief, he carefully examined the content of the box. What Nathan hid in that box was another box like the ones in which corsages are kept. In it is the most beautiful ring Wade has ever laid his eyes upon. Designed with 10 different jewels with a bit of diamond, gold & silver in the middle, the ring was a beaut. And that got him into wondering, what has this ring got to do with Nathan's death? Nathan did tell him to wear the ring to sleep. 

Seeing the beauty of the ring, he decided even if this turns out to be a hoax or something, he would wear it to honor Nathan until death. Yes, though he never told him about the government works and stuff, the life that he spent with him was one in a million. It's very hard to come by a friend like that. And to find Nathan's killer is another thing. If what Nathan told him is true, then he would move heaven and earth to find his killer & avenge Nathan's death.

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It's 10:00 at night. The streets are starting to quiet out & people are returning to their loved ones. Mark decided to camp out at his house so that he could feel better. But Wade is preparing himself for a meeting with Nathan. If his words are true then he is about to experience the most supernatural thing in his life, probably in the history of the world. And he was not ready although he was preparing for. For how long can he stay with him? Will it bring any toll on him? Can I get to know everything I need to know? It's too much. But he has to do it. It's the only way.

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12:00. Wade is trying to sleep. On his ring finger is the most elegant ring anyone has ever seen. And within a few minutes, when Wade snoozes off, he will meet Nathan for the last time. But Wade can't just seem to close his eyes. His feelings right now are mixed with horror, confusion, excitement, and whatnot. And when the clock hit at exactly 1:00 Wade felt something pinching his ring finger. He felt as if he was pricked by a pin or something beneath the ring. When he tried to take the ring off, he couldn't. Now he started to become scared. The activity happening around him was not to his knowledge and anything can happen at any time. Just then Mark entered the room.

But what he saw made him more terrified than ever.

Mark was opening the door very slowly. And he was trying to tell him something. But he was talking so slowly that nothing he said could be understood. And then finally, everything stopped. 

Suddenly, he started to sweat a lot. His eyes started to fluctuate rapidly. The air around him became so heavy that he was almost running out of breath. Then with a blow to his head by an invisible force, he was knocked out cold.

Hours later, as his senses returned, he realized that he was not in bed anymore. Actually, he recognized that he was not in his home or Antica also. Open grounds, high mountain ranges, clean lakes, gushing rivers, rainbows, all the things which couldn't be seen at Antica. The blow to his head still hurt. But with difficulty, he got up and tried to understand what was happening.

He observed around for a while. Standing in the middle of a forest, with the view of mountain ranges at the far east and barren snow lands up north, he mumbled, "This is definitely not Antica. And how is snow & sun together?"

Well, he knew that it would be weird. But not his much. And more was to come.

Wade tried to scout around & tried to find out where he was. And then out of nowhere, a notification or something popped out of thin air. And it read:

    "Welcome to the Hoarder forest,

       Wait, why am I welcoming you,

    Beware for you may not return alive,

        Enter at your own risk."

Ok. That writing is a bit funny but at the same time, it's a warning. Who are the hoarders? And where are they so that he could remain cautious about them? As they are nowhere near, he sighed relief and said, "At least I am out of harm's way. For now."

"And while I am here, I should explore more & also find Nathan. He is the only reason that he came there."

Wade decided to find Nathan in the jungle. Though he was given a warning, the warning looked suspicious & for that, he ignored it. But at the same time, he also remained cautious.

The jungle was really mesmerizing. sunrays trying to get through the dense forest really changed the forest's view of perspective. And an ample amount of fauna & flora. It was breathtaking. And wondering how Nathan actually knows about this place, & what did he actually do to get here. Then there was the ring. What a gorgeous ring. State of the art design & to his knowledge, he or even anyone in the whole world never could have owned one.

As Wade was traversing the forest, again another notification like thing popped out of thin air. This time, it read:

    "You are in the middle of the forest.

        Chance of survival 0.00 %,

    BEWARE!! BEWARE!!"

Then out of nowhere, Wade heard a scream. Somethings happened. Now Wade is starting to regret not following the warning at first But he came all the way, there is no turning back now.

With shaking legs, he slowly & cautiously went to the place from where the sound came. But as soon as he reached there, there was nothing except a lot of blood, bones & some flesh. A shudder went down Wades' spine. "Are these hoarders cannibals?", he thought. Then again another scream. Looks like the hoarders are on a hunting spree. Without waiting for another moment, he cautiously went to the source of the next sound.

Before nearing the sound, Wades' head suddenly started to hurt. Then he saw something in his head. The moment of Nathan's death. 

"Why am I seeing this now?"

But wait. Somethings being shown to him here. The person who stabbed Nathan mercilessly had the name "User" tattooed to the wrist of the hand with which he held the knife. And on the other hand, it was written "Evaelona".

Wade became both happy & scared. Happy because he found Nathan; sort of. Nathan showed him a clue to his killer. But scared as he still has no clue as to where he was and what is happening. And he also has to go to the source of the sound. Getting all the thoughts out of his head, he breathed a sigh & started approaching the source cautiously.

And then he came upon people for the first time in this land. But one he could already identify them as hoarders because of their humungous and furious looks and shape. But he couldn't realize the other.