Stranded in Thoughts

Chapter 18—The Artifact

“Chevonne! Look at this!”

How could I not wonder at this scenery? The picturesque view drenched in the moonlight was so majestic that it sipped all my worries and fears that were caused by everything on this island. I had never seen such a bright night in my life. Everything was glowing in lavender, and I could clearly see the details of the area: darkness didn’t mean anything at all. I squinted and found out that the cocohairs were the ones responsible for the wonderful light display. They looked like those candescent Christmas trees in P-mall that were displayed early in September.

The silence of the waterfalls never bothered me that much ever since knowing about strange powers and whatnot from Chevonne, so anything else that would happen that was not normal, was going to be normal for me. I wouldn’t intend to get surprised every time my mind couldn’t perceive nor accept things that normal human beings couldn’t normally do.

That was because I was also not normal. I had a power. I was a thinker all along.

I’d be a fool not to be a little bit proud of the fact that I possessed a supernatural ability. If I could just show and display it to my friends, I’d brag as much as I’d want to. I was not those superheroes who hid their powers from others and the public, and I couldn’t find a reason to hide this from anyone. I mean, if they’d put me on the news, so be it.

Chevonne got to my side and huffed. We walked for almost an hour finding for Lucky Kid, so it was not a wonder to see her like that. But the way she puffed smoky breaths got me blushing. She kinda looked erotic for some reason. I hated myself for thinking this and just averted my gaze, asking in a timid voice, “What do you think is this?”

She inhaled deep and blurted, “I don’t know. But I know for certain that this is something a creator has built.”

“There are more beasts here. I’d like to see one up—wait, can you see that? There’s a building in the middle of the waterfall basin!”

“Where? It’s too dark for me to—” here, her eyelids widened, and she inhaled deeply like she was about to shout. But she stopped and exhaled.

“So? Seems like you have an idea now.”

“Let’s find a way down first. I might know who resides there.”

As soon as we found a narrow brook below, she forced to cross it even if there was an easier and much safer way of getting across to the hillside beside the waterfalls. I could see the same expression she had shown when we first heard the fire alarm.

She was worried and in a hurry.

“Come on, Josh. It’s only knee-deep.”

I rolled my ragged pants up above my knees and dipped my toes first to check how cold the water was.

“My God, Josh. Of all times, you’re going to act ladylike now?” she impatiently mocked.

I blushed and sloshed my way through the surprisingly lukewarm water even with the freezing night. She snickered after I caught up to her and we both reached the main facade of the building. I took off my shirt and wrung it dry. I sneaked a peek at the corner of my eyes if she would do the same. Of course, she didn’t, and wouldn’t.

After wearing my shirt back, I had noticed that the door was not a door at all. There was no way to go into the building. The whole front of the hotel was covered with mossy bricks and same antediluvian-ish vines that we had seen at the clone school here, slithering through the cracks and the soil beneath. Dark clouds covered the moon, taking the only source of light we had ever since our cellphones ran out of batteries, and it started to drizzle.

“Hey, what are we supposed to do? There’s no way in!” I shouted over the drizzle that was becoming a noisy downpour.

“I reckon there’s a beast here that will open the way. I just don’t know what specifically,” she said after approaching me for her to be heard clearly.

“Did your father tell you that? Why didn’t you ask for the details?”

“No. It was my mother. She told me about this realm back when I was still a child.”

The angry clouds let out a roaring thunder and we both gasped and cowered to the upcoming lightning.

Nothing happened.

We were wrong. A set of thunder roared in succession followed by a bright flash of lightning, forcing Chevonne to duck with both of her palms on her ears. I didn’t know if it was what I thought it was, but it looked like she was sobbing from what I had seen through the momentary flash. I could somehow tell despite how wet her face was.

I pulled and broke a vine from the wall and set it on the ground. Without further ado, I closed my eyes and focused on morphing it to something that could be of use to Chevonne. It took some effort and strength before I felt light, and when I opened my eyes, there, in front of me, was a purple umbrella lying restless with the gust of the wind where the vine should be.

However, it looked ragged and beaten. And too many holes to serve its purpose.

I used it anyway.

I opened it and went to Chevonne. She looked up with a worry-wart face and gave me what I always wanted—her smile. She stood and wiped her face, then added in a sweet murmur: “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” I managed to reply.

Rays of moonlight shot out from the sky, and the rain stopped. We turned and looked up, witnessing the clouds splitting apart in slow motion while a herd of pegasus-looking creatures descended from the heavens. They had glossy furs and three pairs of legs. Their horns were all curly and they only had one eye each, which was situated on each of their foreheads. They landed briskly on the grass just some meters away from us and, perhaps when they had already finished evaluating that we were not hostile, stood on their hind legs and neighed in an orchestra-like chorus.

It lasted only a moment before they ascended back in heavens, vanishing in midair.

“What was that?” I asked to no one in particular.

Chevonne’s expression smoothly transitioned from a lord-what’s-happening-right-now face to a relieved and now-I-know look. “They are the guardians of this realm. Look behind.”

I instinctively followed and found out that there was already a double door that seemed like made of mahogany. I was about to knock when someone from inside yanked it. I felt the time slowing down when the moonlight went in, illuminating the lower body of the person inside. The illumination crawled up and right there and then, for the first time since being stranded here on this island, another familiar face came up.

It was Jelly.

We both ceased moving and just gawked at each other. Also, for the first time being up this close with her since being co-teachers, I realized how beautiful her eyes and lips were.

She was like an angel under the moonlight blaze.

A figure lurched past me and threw herself to Jelly, who, in shock, wrapped her arms around Chevonne. Tears ran down her face and, with the realization that was gradually setting in, she sobbed on Chevonne’s shoulders. Then they both wept like children who had just reconciled after a trivial fight.

Another two figures came out from the shadows inside, flanking Jelly. It was an old man in a tuxedo, and a well-rounded man in khaki shorts.

“You is come in,” the old man said.

† † †

We sat on a run-down couch that had a lot of stains, which I guessed were dried blood. The whole area was not that modern and, as what I had perceived it—normal. There was a rhino-looking beast beside the old man that he was petting, which made me think to the one that Lucky Kid silenced. So, he was the owner of it. I better not tell him what we had done to it.

The well-rounded man in khaki shorts was sitting beside Jelly. The coffee table in the middle looked like it was about to crumble.

“Me is sorry if me hotel is looking very old and small. You see, me business is not really that booming and me is don’t have any funds to renovate,” the old man broke the silence. He got up and went inside a room in the far corner of the lobby. He returned and offered us something to eat and drink. “But me can at least serve you this. Come, eat and drink.”

We had joyfully done so. The food must have been made from a cocohair fruit because it tasted just like coconut, but much tastier.

“Thank you very much for this. We are actually glad that we’ve found you and got reunited with our friends.” Chevonne turned to Jelly and gave her a big smile. Jelly returned a much bigger and wholesome one.

“Really, though. How come you’re living here? I mean, I already know what this island is and the strange beasts that are residing here.” I picked the wooden vase on the coffee table and closed my eyes. The moment I opened them, it was already a piece of rock. This time, I morphed it with ease, which made me think that the more ambitious or difficult the target object was, the more taxing and draining it was going to be.

It reverted to a wooden vase after I canceled my thought.

The old man stopped petting the beast and gave me an awry look. He adjusted his tie and pulled an ottoman under the bar and transferred to our place where he settled himself beside the man Jelly was with.

“You is a thinker,” he said.

“Yes, he is. Actually, I am, too. And I know who you are. You’re this realm’s creator.” Chevonne got serious and at the same time, for some reason that I sensed, hopeful.

The old man just gave her a blank stare and out of nowhere spouted a seemingly incomprehensible story that I somehow understood. “You know, me is the living here as far as me is can remember. Everything here is the my creation. Everything you is the see is mine. Then, one day, a group of is the people went here and is the massacred me customers and is the clients. Me is the scared, and me is the can’t do anything because it is me end of creating and is the beginning of transferring.”

“You mean, the transference rite, right?” Chevonne clarified. She noticed that Jelly and the other man were confused about what the old man was talking about, so she lectured them about thinkers and such. The occasional gaping of their mouths and widening of their eyes indicated their surprises that I no longer found surprising.

“That means that someone is taking over your power?” Jelly clarified to the old man.

Chevonne might have noticed the old man’s difficulty in talking so she smoothly carried on with the conversation without making it obvious that she was doing it on purpose as he might take it negatively against his difficult-to-understand speech. “Creator’s transference rite, or sometimes called takeover, is a ten-year ritual or rite that a creator initiates to his or her heir before he or she dies, or it could just be anyone that holds a certain artifact that the creator blessed. The moment a creator initiated a takeover, he or she will no longer have control over his or her realm. And, also, in this case, the creator can’t go outside. Meaning, as what you might have guessed right now, Josh,” she gestured my way as she noticed my expression of connecting the dots of what she was trying to explain, “he’s basically living on this island for more or less than ten years.”

“So, this hotel has been created before the takeover took place?” Jelly butted in.

Chevonne looked at the old man as if asking for his confirmation. He timidly nodded.

She breathed in and continued, “And, on top of that, if an heir or the holder of the blessed artifact wouldn’t be able to find and get inside the realm over the first half of the ten-year transference rite, the realm will slowly and gradually dissolve over the remaining five years.”

“So, the fact that we’re still here means that the realm is still intact?” the well-rounded man in khaki shorts prodded for the first time.

“Well, sure.”

“What will happen if the realm will be gone and we are still here? How do we even know if it’s dissolving?” I pointed out some gaps that needed to be filled in.

“I’m sure that all of us here, well, of course, also you, sir,” Chevonne faced the old man for just a moment and continued, “know the very first vertical earthquake that hit Cebu, right? Actually, that’s the end of the first half of the transference. A vertical earthquake is an indication that a nearby realm is either dissolving or changing. The vertical earthquake that happens at the very end of the first half of the transference tells the creator that his or her realm has entered the dissolving phase. For the succeeding years, normal earthquakes will happen until the end of the last half of the rite. However, if another vertical earthquake happens within the last half, then that only means one thing. The realm is changing.”

I still didn’t get it. “Changing like in what manner?”

“It means that an heir or holder is already taking over the realm.”

I pondered for a moment what she was trying to convey, then it hit me. I opened my mouth to say something but was interrupted by Jelly.

“The barge. The seaquake that we felt, the one that got us knocked out and stranded. It was a vertical quake!” she exclaimed.

“Wait, so that means that an heir or holder got inside the realm even when we were still in the middle of the sea?” the khaki-shorts man questioned.

“Yes. Just because the whole island is a realm doesn’t mean that the creator’s thought is only limited to the island. Remember, we’re talking about a creator’s thought here. Of course, it’s going to be massive. Among the four realms, this one looks the smallest because it happens to be on an island. A wise thinker would know that the thought actually stretches up to the sea.”

“So, it means that he or she is among the passengers or crew of the barge?”

“Yes. And that means that the next creator is already here,” I interrupted and finally concluded.

Jelly and khaki-shorts man looked my way.

Chevonne smiled at me, and then the corners of her mouth curved down. She added in a forlorn voice while looking at the old man: “And the takeover is almost done.”

But who was it? Was he or she among the people at the beach where they got stranded? Or among the four of us here?

The old man stood and patted Chevonne’s left shoulder. She looked at the opposite side and made a face. “Thank you is the little girl. Let me is the continue here.”

He went to a cupboard’s door just beneath the staircase, leading to the second floor, which made me think if Harry Potter was inside. He opened it and pulled something out.

It was a crescent moon pendant.

He radiated an ambiance of nostalgia and melancholy. His eyes got teary and with a broken voice narrated, “Me is have a woman me really likes. She is the love of me life, but me never told her. Before me is the initiated the transference, me likes traveling anywhere. Me is went to Iligan and there, me is found Marigold. She is the beauty and the brains. We is get to know each other, and we is had fun, and me asked her to travel with me. 

“One rainy day, we is the met a man in the cruise ship we is the on. We’ve is got—” he coughed hard and crumpled his chest, and then he fell to his knees. I rushed over to him, but khaki-shorts man got to him first. He supported the old man back to his feet. The old man gave him a warm smile and continued, “—so, Francoise is the noble and serious man. He is have a friend who is always with him whenever we is meet. During is the five-day cruise trip, me is the notice that Francoise is looking at Marigold differently. He is the like he is in love.

“Me is the confronted him and he is the admitted that he is in love with Marigold. We fought. Then, without me is the knowing, our friendship is the grew despite being rivals. Me soon gave up and is the let go of Marigold after the trip. Me is the supposed to confess me love and propose by giving her a pendant during is the trip. Some years later, probably ten or eleven, me is can’t the recall anymore, me is found out they got married. Me is can’t do anything and just be happy for them.

“Me is the decided to return to me realm and to start a transference rite and live me rest of me life here. Me is the single, no any heir to inherit me realm, so me is the used an artifact. Me invited Francoise and Marigold here for is their honeymoon. However, some group of thinkers is the found out this realm and they tailed them. Then, the killings is the happened.”

We gulped in suspense as we listened to him to what would happen next. Even if we could hardly understand what he was saying, the words he was spouting somehow pierced my heart.

“Everyone here during is that time got is the killed. Except Marigold and me. Francoise is the managed to run away, but me is don’t know what happened to him. Marigold and me stayed in this hotel during is the killings. The killer thinkers, called Young Bloods, is can’t really kill me since they want the realm to be is the transferred to their teacher, who they is call Master. They is stealing the realm.

“Me is lied to do the transference to their leader. Me is told them to spare Marigold for me to do it. Me is the gave her the pendant in secret without me saying anything and told her is to go. They is caught her and erased her. Me kept on begging them to spare her life to the point where me is the suggested that she is can lure another thinkers if their maledicter will curse her to do so.

“She is the freed. Then, their maledicter also cursed me to not talk to anyone for the rest of me life. However, the maledicter is the not talented enough to pull it, so she is the found another way and cursed is the me to talk unintelligibly for me not to spread is the word if by chance some thinkers come here. They is can’t erase me because it’s too risky, especially during is the transference.”

Jelly studied him in all seriousness. She was sweating.

There was a long pause in which we didn’t say anything, then he finished, “So, sorry if me is can’t speak well. The first time me is cursed, me can’t really talk intelligibly. However, for is the last nine years, me practiced and practiced until me can speak intelligibly, enough for someone to understand.

“Then, they made me realm a hideout and training ground for is the next Young Bloods. Me beasts here is good practice for their killings. They is the visited me and mocked me and punched me and kicked me and cursed me. They is the kids, but they is the brutal.

“Anyway, every time they visit me realm, their leader feeds me with news about what is the happened to Marigold in the outside world. They told me she is got remarried after they is erased her, and apparently, the man is the Francoise’s friend. The most shocking is that she is had two children with Francoise who were already twelve and eleven years old. Me didn’t even is the realized.

“They is also told me that they erased her again and her children as well because there is the time when Marigold is remembering her old self. They let her remarried again with a drunkard. Those Young Bloods, me swear!” The old man punched the cabinet and his fist went through it. We all exclaimed in the sudden action, except Jelly.

Tears were running down her cheeks. She was crying.

And she was not aware of it.

The khaki-shorts man noticed it and asked her, “Jelly, what’s wrong?”

She turned his way and asked dumbfoundingly, “What’s wrong?”

“You’re crying.”

“What?” She touched her cheeks and wiped them. “No, it’s just that, I feel like he’s been defeated all this time. And despite it, he still loves her.”

The old man calmed himself and approached Jelly. He kneeled in front of her and held her hands. “Those eyes. Me can’t forget those eyes. And those lips.”

“Wh—What?” Jelly pulled her hands and jumped off the couch. “Wh—what are you doing?”

 She looked disgusted.

The old man went to the bar and sat on his chair, petting the groaning beast beside him. It started purring. “Aside the Young Bloods, there is a man who is the visited me here every once in a while. He is the work in a shipping line and his boat crosses this island. Though he was already dead, his visitations is the brought me news about Marigold’s children. He was Francoise’s best friend and is the one Marigold first remarried. He is the told me that Marigold is gave the blessed artifact to him, and he gave it to Marigold’s eldest daughter before he is the killed by the Young Bloods. That is the time when Marigold almost remembered her is the true self.”

“Do you know what happened to Marigold when she got remarried for the second time?” I intuitively asked. I didn’t like to break his momentum, but I couldn’t just get away with the curiosity of what happened to Marigold.

He gave me a sad smile. “A Young Blood told me she became is an investigator for two years and a teacher when she got erased again. The Young Blood is also shared that though it is the pure coincidental, her eldest daughter is the applied to the same school she was teaching. And that’s where me is believe that it’s fate.”

“A teacher?” I repeated. “What school?”

“Me is don’t exactly know, but me is know that she goes by the name of teacher Mary.”

We all fell silent.

The whole lounge became a void. Was it just a coincidence? Without us knowing, we caught ourselves staring at Jelly.

Jelly shivered and forced herself to ask him one question, which she might not want to be answered based on her tone. “H—hey, I’ve been meaning to ask this, the artifact that you gave Marigold, wasn’t it a crescent moon pendant?”

“Well, yes.”

“But you’re holding it right now!”

He sighed and looked her in the eye. “This is mine. Me is gave her the other half. It is a crescent moon as it is also a full moon when is the combined. You is say your family name is Diaz, right?”

Jelly’s eyes spouted tears again and with a sob, she got something out from her pocket.

It was a red pouch.

She slid her hand inside and pulled something out.

It was a crescent moon pendant.

Everything slowly fit together. I shot to my feet. I just stayed standing and didn’t say anything. Everything made sense now.

“This is my father’s gift! He said my mother gave it to him before she died! It’s just a lucky charm that was supposed to attract love! Uwaaa…” she bawled out and covered her face with her hands on the coffee table. Chevonne rubbed Jelly’s back. By this time, I already sensed that she had also understood what was happening.

The old man coughed once again, and khaki-shorts man continued supporting him by his shoulders. He grabbed the pendant from Jelly’s hands and combined it with his. It fit perfectly.

“Small girl, you is Marigold’s eldest child. And you is going to be the next creator.”