Testing

Colorful birds sang to the winds announcing the arrival of the day.

Sunlight bathed the red terrain and drenched it with succulent luminous energy, the same being greeted with fervor by the plant forms that inhabited the iconic landscapes of the Central Plateau.

In the midst of those many plants that started their photolysis process, hidden under several branches and fallen leaves, lay a burrow. There were no signs of life there, everything was still and static like a paused video.

Suddenly, this video was unpaused when the sound of someone's muffled cough echoed through the burrow. The cause of such a change was a person with green eyes, black hair who was wearing clothes with dark tones.

'Looks like it worked out in the end…'

Trevor's cough made him expectorate the green phlegm that got trapped in his airways. The large amount of phlegm expelled made Trevor happy, since it meant that his nose effectively filtered out most of the impurities left that permeated the air inside the den.

Even though he'd waited for awhile outside the den while the fire was still burning the insects inside to death, Trevor knew that the lack of air inlet and outlet passages would make a good deal of the material that was charred to remain inside.

'It also seems that Aicanhir cannot read or hear my thoughts…' Not having to control his thoughts for fear of causing some strange reaction in that monstrous guara drained a lot of Trevor's mind.

His empty stomach rumbled with hunger. Trevor paid no attention to that part of his body and focused his gaze on the golden-orange swastika tattoos that formed a crown on both of his ankles.

'It wasn't just a dream.'

'It wasn't just a mere dream!'

'It really is possible to get superpowers!'

He tactfully touched that part of his body, as if it was his stuffed animal that Trevor had lost a long time ago. Such a supposed stuffed animal, however, proved not to be inanimate when a voice reverberated in Trevor's mind.

'You finally woke up, I thought you had even died. It would have been too good to be true.' The Golden Sun of Dawn shook his head right and left as it spoke with the pain of having lost a close relative.

'It really is a pity, a pity.'

Trevor closed his eyes.

'You know, while you was out I started counting how many inse-' Aicanhir Best Anirth caught in mid-speech. His cruel mouth hung open, just enough space to fit two soccer balls side by side.

'You… what's with that expression of yours?'

'Hmm?' Trevor lifted his lids and looked coldly at his ankles.

'Nothing. Is nothing. I'm just curious, what are we going to do now? Everything looks so fun and interesting! Look at that ladybug over there! What a cute thing! I want to eat it!' Aicanhir kept destroying his image as an extremely powerful creature.

'I have no clear objective for now. I need to find food and follow the map I got.'

Aicanhir wagged his tail at Trevor's words. 'A map? Let me see too! I want to know more about the world out here!' To his requests, Trevor did as usual and dumped them directly in the trash can.

'Okay, I already understand that I won't have the map, but why don't we go test our powers at once? This will save us time. Isn't that what you want?' Aicanhir didn't give up trying to talk. To his misfortune, that trash can just got bigger and bigger with each additional sentence he spoke.

Trevor left the den, but not before grabbing his poisonous spear and the improvised bag he had crafted. Furthermore, Trevor has taken precautionary measures to bury some of his food beneath the red earth in case he is ever forced to throw his makeshift bag away. Never putting all your eggs in one basket was among the most basic strategies possible.

'Trevor, I forgot to ask, what happened to you to end up with your arm like this?? I can even see the tip of its burnt bone!' Aicanhir at this point should no longer be called the Golden Sun of Dawn, but the Golden Sun of Dumpster instead. The quantity of times he was ignored by Trevor was just too huge!

'Don't you get bored by not saying anything for hours? Don't you know it's bad for your health to isolate yourself for so long-' The Great Golden Sun of Dumpster suddenly went silent.

Trevor retracted the brief glance he gave to his ankles to pay attention to his surroundings. That region that had caught fire because of his actions remained as good as before, with the slight difference that some other plants emerged from the bodies of those other plants that could not resist the fire.

Using the ashes of the burned green wooden corpses, those plants would soon grow to become the next victims in this never-ending cycle of life and death. Trevor also noticed that that area of ​​the red terrain had turned black as mineral coal.

The lone pair walked carefully through the gnarled trees that made up this huge subtropical. This type of vegetation had fewer open fields when compared to the African savannahs across the ocean, but still had some areas where only grass and thin bushes could be seen.

The sun above Trevor's head was hot, making sweat break out on his skin to ease his body temperature. His lack of hair came to be quite useful in this situation, as this lack of hair allowed him to have no isolation of contact between his skin and the air.

At this point, Trevor had walked far enough to get lost if he didn't mark his path using the spear. His footsteps stopped suddenly, beneath the sole of his black boot the small grass the color of dead wheat was crushed. Trevor frowned and crouched down, crushing more grams of dead wheat in the process.

In front of him, a few hundred meters away, a termite mound the size of a three-story building. There were no trees or plants around this imposing mound of earth, and the most frightening thing about it all were the monsters that walked over such a structure.

Not the monster alone itself, but their incalculable quantity.

'Holy shit…' Even the shocked voice of the Golden Sun of Tomorrow didn't bother to disguise his surprise. The giant guara saw from within the mini-dimension something that could only be described as an army of disgusting insects.

Each of these monster insects was at least 1 meter (3' 2'') wide and half a meter (1' 6'') high. Trevor remained crouched on the grass, his eyes patiently scanning the surroundings. There were no easy exits to cross this obstacle.

'Okay, let's do it.' Trevor stood and backed away.

Trevor continued to walk, squishing insects and grasses that had committed the sin of getting in his way. The black-haired young man walked around this large termite mound, with no apparent destination in his walk. He walked until he approached a tall tree.

The grip on his right hand was firm, in no time Trevor slashed out with the poisonous spear and plunged it into that tree. The tree in front of his eyes was not a gnarled one, which was quite unusual in this region. Still, his knowledge of botany was as bad as it could be, not having ways to comprehend better about this plant in front of him they looked all the same.

After making sure the spear was steady, Trevor used both his legs and his singular arm to try to climb it. Just as he was about to get his balance on the spear, his feet slipped and Trevor fell toward the wooden spear handle with his legs splayed.

Luckily, the spear shaft resisted his weight and refused to break, remaining in place like a solid iron bar. In this way, his poisonous medium range weapon has not been lost.

He wasn't happy about it.

Trevor's expression was bitter.

Aicanhir felt sorry for this miserable young man.

The majestic guara decided to be silent for a full minute.

Trevor didn't say anything, just took a deep breath. It was unknown whether the sweat that trickled down his forehead was due to the hot sun in the sky or because of this terrible incident. The green-eyed lad stopped sighing and went back to trying to climb the tree again.

Needless to say, this time he was much more careful than before.

Still, Trevor couldn't help but lose his balance.

He fell the second time, but tried a third.

He fell the third time, but tried again.

Series of attempts went on without end.

Suddenly, he managed to balance himself.

Suddenly, he achieved what he always wanted.

As soon as Trevor reached the top of this white-speckled tree, he gained enough height to catch a glimpse of all the places around him. With the exception of a few hills, the rest was quite visible.

His pupils shrank to the size of needles when Trevor found what he was looking for. Something light-brown as chocolate, flat as a chessboard, and the size of a football field appeared before his green irises.

'My bet was worth it.'

Trevor found a lake!

Aicanhir saw Trevor nodding his head slightly as if the latter had expected it and frowned, making his black snout twitch in the process. 'Where the hell did you get that there would be a lake nearby? Have you awakened other superpowers without me knowing?' The Great Golden Sun of Dumpster's face of disbelief was evident.

Unlike before, however, this title was no longer valid.

'I used basic logic, as simple as that.'

Trevor didn't wait for his mate's response before climbing down from the tall white-speckled tree and heading towards the pale brown lake.

'That doesn't make sense from start to finish, what logic could there be in it? What other kind of power have you acquired?' Trevor kept his usual cool expression, capable of making even a painter or a scientist of human behavior bored out of his emotionless face if they were depicting him.

'Firstly, there is no other power since I don't even have one to begin with.' Trevor pushed through a tall yellowish brush with the boot of his spear, to see if there were any lurking predators hiding in that unusual spot.

Seeing that there was nothing there, he retracted his spear.

'Secondly, don't blame me for your lack of brain. The bird doesn't blame gravity if it was born without wings.' As soon as he was finished, a creepy, disgusting cockroach was squished under his right foot, smearing his black boot and leaving a sticky white goo clinging to that shoe.

'To hell with it, hurry up and tell me the truth!' Aicanhir at this point had as his main entertainment watching scenes like the ones that just happened, he was bored to death. Watching Trevor push some plants aside or see him squishing some idiot bugs was anything but interesting!

It would be even more interesting to watch a game of chess between two monkeys, as Aicanhir was at least certain that the two monkeys would at some point start fighting each other with their fists and teeth!

'It's not hard to understand. Think, what did we see before on our way?' Trevor didn't stop walking, finally coming a few dozen meters away from the pale brown lake.

The surface of the light brown lake was not calm, small ripples vibrated and reflected sunlight. Such a phenomenon resembled a ferrofluid being placed near a powerful magnet.

'We saw a lot of trees and bugs, plus there was that scary thing back there.' Aicanhir said, exposing the content of his heart.

'Exactly, that scary thing is a huge colony of mutated termites. Just considering the expense that this colony has daily to keep half of the insects we've seen, did you really think there wouldn't be any place with water nearby?

Trevor stopped walking to stare at that gleaming pale brown surface.

'Right, when you say it like that it makes some sense…' Aicanhir nodded.

Then, he, the magnificent Golden Sun of Dawn, smiled and lifted his head towards the sky with great pride and arrogance.

'I knew this all along! I was just testing you! Haha!'