why are you here?

"Well, actually," Zilia began, clearly knowing that, they can't lied that they where not saying or having something to say, her voice ringing in hesitation.

"W - we.. we were thinking about coming to visit you and you know, spe… and spend some time here... like, on a holiday or something." Zilia said, glaring at Jonas, as if she had already knew what Jonas would say.

She knew that Jonas doesn't really like the idea whenever it was about 'spending holidays' in his place.

Ever since they where kids, Jonas would nevered agree to such, she had asked her mother– Jonas sister, why he won't allow anyone to spend holidays in his place, but she hadn't gotten any good answer up till now.

The answer she kept getting then was, 'your uncle doesn't like noise, he doesn't like children to be disturbing or uncle is very busy.'

Yet anytime they came for a visit, he was always in his basement, either reading a book or drawing some samples of maps or something. Only God knows why he had been like that.

'I wonder what the excuse would be this time around.' She thought as she fixed her gaze on Jonas, waiting for an abrupt reply.

There was a pause, and the room was filled with a deafening silence.

"I'm sorry, what?" Jonas asked, his face betraying his shock. He cleared his throat, trying to gather his thoughts.

"I mean... you're welcome here, of course, but... I'm not sure if it's the best idea right now..." He paused, and the sisters exchanged a surprised look.

Actually they where not really surprised, they where expecting him to decline as usual, it had always been like this, since when they where kids.

'Mom would phone him, telling him that; the kids are coming to your place, and he would be like; oh! Really, I would have really love to welcome that, but you see, I'm really busy and I won't really pay attention to the kids which would make them feel bored, you know what, they should visit next summer.'

'And it kept on going like that and that, till this very day. He was definitely not telling us something that he knows of, or he has been up to something.' zilia awoken to reality as he kept expecting Jonas to give reasons to why he had refuse or about refusing again, but Jonas kept on hard, he didn't say anything after that.

"Why not?" Zilia asked, her voice sounding cautious. If he won't say anything, throwing a question at him would make him say something, that was one thing her mom had refuse to do whenever he declined on matters like this.

"Look, I appreciate the thought, okay!" Jonas said, his tone still unsure. "but….." Jonas took a deep breath, his mind already racing.

"But what?" Lily inquired out of curiosity.

"It's just that... I don't think I'm ready for visitors. I mean, not since... not since my wife passed away." He lied, as he trailed off, his eyes cast down. Zilia and Lilly looked at each other again, their expressions now transiting from curiosity to compassion.

'But….but..why is he just saying this now, his wife passed out 10 years ago, and admist that, he had been hard on the matters of visitors, he could have just explained it then, right?' zilia thought as she stared at Jonas and shift her gaze to her sister who was now as surprised as she was.

Both of them had never trace Jonas declination to his loss, they had been assuming that, he was being hectic or something other wise.

Although, It's painful to lost, Jonas had actually lost his wife, some years back, and then, lily and zilia didn't actually came to the funeral, so this moment just throw them back to those memories.

However, that wasn't Jonas real incentive, he just brought that, at least, to lessen the raze of suspicions that they must be having by now.

"We're so sorry, Uncle Jonas, actually we were told when it happened, we never really got a chance to come give our condolences, as we were in Germany then." Zilia explained, with gentle voice, hoping that excuse, would give a satisfied reason for being absent.

Honestly, it should, because come to think of that, they where still kids then right? So jonas would not really expect the kids to come give condolences to him.

Anyway, Jonas wasn't in anyway repined towards the whole discussion, what matter to him was a successful excuse for declining them this time.

"Actually, I don't think you can come here for a holidays, precisely now, like right now," Jerry said, interrupting the moment of silence.

"Because, you see, we're going to be busy with a very important task - journeying into the jungle to find a magical crystal." He whispered playfully.

He spoke with an air of excitement, but his words were met with shocked expressions from both Lilly and Zilia.

'What? Magical crystal, like for real?' this questions swirl around their minds as if they where having the same thought, they where already intrigued at the hearing of it.

They looked at each other again, still in surprised, their eyes wide, then turned to look at Jonas who now bow his head in disappointment. His face was red with anger, and he looked as if he was about to explode.

'Damn! Jerry, why the hell will you even let them know of this, why…why..would you even bring this topic in the middle of this discussion, now, if this kids get to know about it and put this information on the internet, the next thing that's going to happen in the next minute, would be the freaking government that are going to show up at my f**king door step'

Jonas thought angrily, he tried to control his facial expressions not to let it know, but unfortunately he really couldn't control his aggravate. Letting lose of it, he turned on his son.

"Why did you tell them about that?!" Jonas burst out, his voice filled with anger. "You know we can't share that information with just anyone!"

Jerry chuckling face turned confused, as he never thought, that bringing that discussion would be getting his old man upset.

Zilia and Lilly were both staring at him, their faces now was a mixture of confusion and curiosity.

"Tell us what?" Zilia asked, her voice wavering slightly, as she glance at both of them "is something going on around here that I don't know of…. why the hell is everyone silence?"

She turned and look at serinal and Mike, who where total strangers to her, she lurked her eyes with serinal own, expecting her to say something.

But instead, Serinal just shrug, knowing fulling well that, the pioneer of this matter doesn't want to disclose this, not even to his relatives.

'Can she top staring at me like that, it weird. It's not like I'm the only one who knows what's going on…' serinal thought, as she tries to avoid zilia gaze, who kept staring at her and Mike expecting them to say something.

"Can someone tell us what the heck is happening here?" Zilia said, her gaze landing on Jonas this time.

Jonas let out a deep breath, trying to calm himself down.

"It's... complicated, kid" he said, his voice still tense.

'Kid?' zilia pounder for a moment, as he heard Jonas called her kid, 'Puff, I'm 23, so I'm pretty sure, I'm an adult. Anyway, that's not my point' she quickly flash back from her thought, still interested on knowing what's going on.

"We need to know what's going on here, what's Jerry saying?" Zilia asked, her eyes fixed on Jonas, there was no way she wouldn't be curious, common–jerry just said; magical crystal, who wouldn't one to know what this crystal was all about?

Lilly nodded in agreement with Zilia, her curiosity clearly getting the better of her, she had been as curious as her sister was, but she allowed her sister to do the whole talking while she desperately wait to hear.

After a moment of hesitation, Jonas finally gave in.

"Fine, I'll tell you, but we need to go to the research room first," he said, a hint of resignation in his voice. He turned and headed towards the research room, the girls stood up and followed close behind.

As the sisters made their way to the research room, Jerry and Mike joined them, sensing that something important was about to happen.

Serinal followed close behind, her mind where racing with questions.

'Is that how this crystal thing is so important that Jonas wouldn't even let his nieces to know about? Why was he so reluctant to share it?'

They got to the bottom of the stairway leading to the research room, Jonas opened the door, ushering everyone inside.

The group followed Jonas into a dusty old room, its shelves overflowing with ancient maps and scrolls. Some of the maps were rolled up, their edges frayed with age. Others were spread out across the tables, their markings and symbols faded and where clearly hard to read.

Jonas strode to one of the tables and laid out a particularly worn-looking map, pointing to a spot in the center.

"Alright, this is where it all begins," he said, his voice trembling slightly.