Kiria

The next morning I packed whatever remained of my luggage. Lubbock hadn't come back yet, I had to pack his stuff too. He hadn't brought much with him and most of it wasn't meant for the round trip so I barely had much on me. Miss Traveler said she was leaving too. We decided to leave town together. To be honest, I felt like I needed to talk to her at least once before we left.

I was waiting for her downstairs, having finished with my brief packing earlier. It hadn't snowed last night, but the morning was chilly. I was sitting at the bar as the owner scrubbed clean the glasses that he never even had to use.

"Why don't you leave here?", I asked him.

"And go where?"

"Somewhere you can find food easily."

He chuckled.

"An old man like me can survive on bark", he started on another glass, "I'd be dead by the time I make it off this mountain anyway."

"Come with us, then."

He said nothing. I suppose that was it, his decision.

"You young folk can't understand, I was like that once too. But like my father, I have stayed here all my life. I am the last Agarthan that remains now. This will be a ghost town soon enough. Since Sangmu's gone..."

He hadn't grieved, yet I could see the grim shade under his eyes.

I said nothing and waited until Miss Traveler came down. We bid farewell to the old tavern owner and headed out. I supposed I would find Lubbock on the way. I figured he'd be dying to leave here by now.

Still, the prospect of leaving without having said enough made me uneasy. Even though I realized there were other things present before us, I decided to bring it up.

"Where will you go?"

"I wonder."

She was a traveler to her core, alright.

"See, I've been wanting to ask...", I decided to be as direct as I could be.

I stole a glance at her as we walked side by side and I could see that she already knew what I was going to ask her.

"You saved me on the mountain, didn't you?"

Perhaps, seeing as I wasn't exactly asking her, she chose to remain silent. That was an affirmation on its own.

"So...", I didn't know the right way to bring it up, "Why did you do it?"

I knew she could tell the 'it' wasn't about saving me but what came after that.

"Who knows. I thought it'd be my way out", she seemed slightly embarrassed, but also a bit sad.

"Your way out?"

She nervously smiled.

"You didn't look like you were enjoying it", I said abruptly.

"You were awake?"

"Why did you do it then?", I didn't realize how uncomfortable I was making her. I'm surprised she kept walking with me.

"It doesn't matter. When I leave here, I'll be pure again. Untouched...back to the start", she replied, looking away.

"What does that mean?"

She didn't answer. I stopped and grabbed her arm. She kept looking away.

"Will I ever see you again?", I was really digging into her face with my eyes.

She lifted her head and looked back at me with a faint nervous smile.

"I'm glad I got to know you, Seraph", she caressed my cheek.

So I understood, that this was goodbye. I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me sad. It kind of broke my heart, though I hadn't realized that just yet.

She hugged me, leaving that familiar warmth and her faint smell with me for the last time. When we parted, she smiled a little more brightly and turned to walk away. I still had to look for Lubbock so I couldn't follow her.

"Hey!", I called out to her before I knew it.

She turned around, awaiting.

"What's your name?"

She was a bit surprised, perhaps realizing for the first time that I had never known her name all this time. Then, she chuckled.

"Kiria."

Kiria. That name hadn't left me since then. I never met her again. When everything was over, I went around the world, looking for her. By then, the old owner was dead. The tavern's roof caved in and his little tavern became his grave. There was no one to mark the day it happened.

I thought I would find a trail there but with the owner dead, I had no choice but to go around grasping at whatever would come my way. I didn't find a single soul that knew her or had seen her. It was as if she vanished the day we parted.

I remember the feeling I had as I watched her back, walking away from me. I heaved myself around Agartha to find Lubbock after she had gone. It was ridiculous. Two heartbroken lads such as us, descending the wretched mountain of Agartha. Even the fog had disappeared, refusing to hide us.

"The pods that were keeping the real bodies stable for Shamballa, emitted a lot of gases. They were getting discharged down here. That's what the fog was. It was a hallucinogen, as you experienced it", Lubbock explained when we were heading down.

There were a lot of bodily remains that had succumbed to the hallucinations. They had lost way and fell down the mountain.

So my memory of having shoved Lubbock off the mountain turned out to be a hallucination too. I hope Lubbock didn't know what it was. Though, considering him, he probably got a kick out of it. Good thing he wasn't affected by the gases.

I remembered Doctor Ema had said they've been detecting some abnormality in their system since a week before our arrival in Agartha. But in fact, Lubbock had made it to Agartha a week before me. That explained the abnormality.

The third man of the mountain must be an illusion too, I conferred.

The way down seemed a whole lot easier. With every step we took, I felt some life restored to me. Still, I could barely stop thinking about 'her'. I wondered where she'd gone after leaving Agartha. I sighed so much, Lubbock had to stop me.

"Oh, that reminds me", I said, "Lubbock, you bastard, you didn't have to use me like you did. Can you not explain stuff before you do it? I thought you didn't like being roundabout about things."

"And I don't. But explaining to someone as stupid as you is roundabout."

He'd known Serena was a robot from the beginning. He knew Miss Traveler had come to the place through proper channels, which meant she knew Shamballa was just an illusory heaven. He killed her to get her out of the world before he wreaked havoc. He'd always intended to have us discover the temple, so he'd have a cover to use when he entered it himself.

"That boulder could have killed us both, you know!", I said.

"What boulder?"

"Don't play dumb with me, Lubbock. You're a terrible liar, by the way."

"For a terrible liar, I sure do manage to get you all the time. You must have a joke of a brain yourself too, Seraph."

"Look who's talking. No one ever buys your dumb lies, you metal head!"

"Better than you, you devil reincarnate!", he retorted, "In any case, I don't know what boulder you are talking about."

He hadn't known where we were, until he'd detected the system's waves changing. Realizing there had been a new entrant, he decided to hop in instead of spying from a distance. He'd been monitoring the temple from a safe distance, where he could hack control of the system and spy on all activity.

"What? You're not kidding?"

"I said I'm not!"

"Well then...if you didn't hurl that boulder down the slope, who did?"

I remembered the silhouette. It wasn't anyone I knew. It looked like a young man's. I had thought it was Lubbock but if not him, then I simply had no clue who it could be.

Thinking that, I looked back up the mountain we were descending. Agartha was far away now. We probably would never go back there.

This was a close to another chapter. A chapter which started with my envy of Lubbock, as I was falling apart all over the place. It took me to a heaven for once, a strange one but a heaven nevertheless. It was a place where I got to spend a brief time with my old friend Nasty. A place that was built on failed hopes and betrayals. A place that was wrought with regret and struggles. And now I was leaving it behind, with a sweet memory, a trusted friend and a broken heart.