Emet

25

The door that came next had a single word inscripted on the face just as the previous one had: "LEVI". It opened slowly as a gust of fresh air brushed past the group. Luke, now back on the ground and his legs feeling like jelly could see just past them that the door led outside—he could see the sky up above them and the sun peeking out over the day. It almost seemed unfair to him. Was this it? Were they free that easy? Was it that close and now he'll have to live that another of them is dead because he wasn't strong enough?

For some ugly reason...he had almost hoped that it wasn't over. He wanted to be free, no doubt about it, but he felt a horrible blackness inside the pit of his stomach. Just before it formed into a solid feeling he looked back up, the sun was still beating brilliantly over the field, grass flowing in the slight winds.

"What the..." Sophie asked, stepping out. She was the first, but as soon as she did Levi and Luke poured out behind her. They felt the soft dirt beneath their feet as tiny patches of grass interspersed throughout. It looked like there was a small village across a bridge. The bridge itself was small and old fashioned; its wood looked ancient, but sturdy. The village itself looked like it had been stolen out of one of an old fairy tale—buildings made of stone and wood with unlit lanterns for when the sun sets. Luke lets the door close behind him.

"This...is your room," Luke said, not believing it. "But...it's not a room at all."

"This can't be right...where is this?" Sophie asked, looking around. "Where are we?"

Luke turned around to see the building from which they left...but all he could find was the door. There was no building for which it would connect to...just a heavy-set door standing in the middle of nowhere. Behind the door stretched hills that swept up and down—he could almost see a valley of some sort in the distance. Farther than that even was a large mountain that poked at the sky.

Luke yanked for the knob, twisting it and opening to reveal the hallway inside that would lead back to the central room. How could that be possible...? Was this door some magical portal to different places around the globe...if this was still on the globe?

"Getting worked up about it isn't going to help anything," Sophie said, coming to terms with it herself. "I'm curious, but the best we could do is explore our surroundings and see what we could make of it."

"I...have a bad feeling about this," Levi said. "I think that...that's my village out there," he said, pointing out. "I think that's Steinschild."

Sophie turned her head, "Your village is called Stone Shield?"

"I see you know some German," he answered, but he was focused on the village.

"Very minimal amount," she said.

"Really?" Luke asked.

"Picked it up in school. Never know when it'll come in handy, you know?"

Levi shook his head and began running toward the village, leaving the both of them in the dust.

"I...I'm not so sure I like that he had a bad feeling that we were here," Luke said.

"Good catch...I was mainly concerned that it took him a bit long to recognize the area."

Luke nodded his head toward Levi and they both started running to catch up. Luke's body started to feel more right with itself, he could keep up a bit of pace, eventually matching Sophie's.

There was something about the door that stuck in his mind...He knew that he wasn't going to stop and ask anymore questions, but doors don't just take you to random places—especially when there was nowhere for it to lead to such a hallway. If he squinted his memory of the door he could almost envision a word faded on the door...EMET. Emet...Emet...what ever could that mean? Emet was Hebrew for truth. There was another fact his mind knew as a truth, but he had no bearings for how he knew it. Something about this door wanted to share with him an invaluable truth, but he didn't know how to even to had begun to understand its meaning. There was a truth that lied just in front of him. If only he could grasp it. If he only stayed a minute longer he would have seen the "e" vanish from the door as if it had never existed. Met.

It was Hebrew for death.

26

Luke could see the buildings more clearly as they got closer. They looked handcrafted—the stones had imperfect cuts between the tar that would cement them together. It had been lucky for those that might inhabit these buildings that the sun had been out and shining brightly, any rain would totally seep through the cracks.

Levi walked into the central plaza and noticed an extremely short woman with little else other than a rag to cover her essentials. Others were around that wore similar clothing. They were all shorter than Luke, but definitely looked much older than he was. The older woman stared at him with a wide eyed sort of look that would mean pretty much anything other than "I want to have a conversation with this fine young man."

"What is..." He started and stopped in his tracks. Luke and Sophie managed to catch up to him as he had. The woman asked Levi something in a language Luke had never heard before. He looked as if he'd seen a ghost. "What's..." he started before he answered back to the woman in what Luke assumed was German.

Luke turned to Sophie, "You know what they're saying, right?"

She shook her head, "I only know so little...and this village seems to have their own tongue anyway, so even if I did know textbook German I doubt it'd help here."

"Ah, I see," Luke said, then turned to Levi. "Hey, what's up? This is your village...right? Why so-"

"Nothing's right," Levi said, turning from the woman who gave a puzzled look. "Nothing..."

An older woman who looked like she'd almost shed the skin off of her bones approached them, hobbling her way, "Ottsana wae oculo!"

"Levi...you're going to need to talk to us," Sophie said. "What's she saying? What's wrong with this place?"

Levi swallowed hard, "This place looks like my village but houses are in different places. I don't know anybody here...at least, from what I've seen."

"It doesn't look like a big village..." Luke said.

Levi responded back to the older woman, speaking in her tongue. She nodded to his reply and made a motion for them to follow.

"My village is matriarchal…" he thought on it a minute, "We have a maternal leader," he repeated. "She...I can't understand much of what she's saying. I have bits and pieces...she's...the elder of this village."

"What?" Luke asked.

He turned from the woman who stopped speaking as he looked away, "There are small pieces I know, but large chunks that seem to be gibberish." He looked back and spoke to her in the tongue of Steinschild. She nodded before he could finish and she turned around and began to walk further into the village.

"Where's she going?" Sophie asked. "Rude if you ask me."

"She...wants us to follow...I don't like this one bit." He turned back to them, "Nobody in Steinschild speaks like this. We understand each other and have since...well, forever."

Sophie shook her head, "We're out of options if we don't follow," Sophie said. "Might as we accept some new campers might have planted down in your village. Our only way is back, and I'm more than positive we'd die if we trekked out toward the mountains."

Levi nodded, "Yes...the climate makes it difficult to cross unless you're heavily prepared. That's why we get so few travelers...and why it's so hard to believe that all these people just settled down."

"Well...I mean...We're...free out here, right?" Luke rubbed his hands together. He was colder than he expected to be. "We don't have to go back in and play that dumb game. We're out. Maybe we can get something to eat...I'm sure we can make it up to them somehow."

Levi looked back at the older woman...she'd not made much progress on her hobbling, but it wouldn't be long before she was out of view. "I...I don't think this stupid game is over yet," he said. "It'd be way too convenient."

"Well, if that is true then we'll figure out what to do then. Now, I say we see what information you can get out of her," Sophie said.

Levi took in another breath and nodded his head. "O-Okay..." He tried to steel himself as he walked to catch up to the old woman. Sophie and Luke caught up much easier this time.

The old woman walked past a large stone statue that looked almost like a large dragon with a human face at the end of its long neck. Carved into the face were two slits at the end of the mouth that reached each cheekbone. The figure made Luke shudder. "What is that?"

"..." Levi kept his focus on the old woman, his eyes shifted to the statue for a moment. "It's from an old fairy tale...something about an old dragon that stole the faces of humans. Supposed to have been built sometime in the 1500s if I remembered it right. I haven't heard it in a long while...but if I remember right it was supposed to live inside one of the mountains that walled the village. Obvious fairy tale kind of stuff."

"Huh, why'd you guys make a statue of it?" Luke asked.

"Do I l-look like I lived in the 1500s?"

"Well...no, I guess not."

"Th-that's like me asking why you all kept the Statue of Liberty around. It's been there and is a symbol of your nation. The statue here's always been here."

Luke glanced at it for a second longer before looking back toward the woman could see where the woman was heading. They walked a few minutes longer down a stone path to a stone hut smaller than the rest that surrounded them. He could count three people staring at them as they entered. Luke looked then to Levi as he started to speak. The woman nodded her head as she slid the door open to the smaller structure—the wooden door scratched the ground and made a horrible sound. She stepped aside and motioned them to follow once more. Levi nodded his head and he walked in first, Sophie moving in beside him. Inside he could see that the light was much dimmer than it was on the outside. There weren't any windows to let in any natural light, so instead lit torches were hung on the walls. It sent out a cone of light around illuminating the barren rock floor with rudimentary furniture that seemed more built for purpose than luxury.

She began speaking again, it was a guttural language that she rapped off very quickly. Levi's eye's looked like they were spinning trying to understand it all. Levi would interrupt at points to say his own, and then she would continue. This kept on for a few minutes...for Luke and Sophie who simply stood awkwardly in the woman's excuse for a home felt like an eternity.

"She said..." Levi had begun in English, "...That we arrived just in time. I asked her what that had meant...I told her I live in this village. She said that it was impossible and doesn't recognize my family name. She then rounded around to saying that it was written that we would show up here."

"Written? Like some sort of prophecy?" Luke asked.

He nodded his head. "I asked her if she knew anything about the Roulette Game, she had no answers. I then asked if she knew a way we could make it back to our homes..."

"What'd she say?!" Luke asked, more excited than he had intended to sound.

"She said that she felt that we would not be able to go back quite so soon."

"Was that written in that prophecy?" Sophie asked, a tinge of sarcasm rang out.

Levi nodded, "She wouldn't give me details on the prophecy itself, I promise my village isn't that crazy. My elders are old fashioned...but this woman seems a step above," he said.

"Well, what if she's in on it?" Luke asked. "Why else would this village be just outside one of these doors?"

"Asked that," he said. "She didn't know of any doors to any buildings outside of her village."

"We're here, though, so obviously there is one." Sophie said.

"Yes, but if you recall we didn't see any building from which we left, right?" He asked.

"Right...she have an explanation for that in her prophecy?"

"Asked that. She said that it was a story we wouldn't have time for."

"So then she must know," Sophie said.

"We're on a limit here?" Luke asked.

The old woman stepped forward, her hunched back seemed to scrunch up even further. She spat out a phrase that looked like it took half of her energy.

Sophie looked right to Levi. "Well?"

"She...she said to beware of the dragon."

Sophie chuckled, looking down to the floor, "Okay. I don't think there's anything else of value we're going to get from this woman. She either speaks in riddles locked behind a language barrier or is senile."

"I'm...surprised," Luke said, looking toward her, "...That sounds very Simon of you."

"I have limits," she began, "...and what have we really learned here? Some dragon is going to be a threat? Unless there's a significant iguana problem in your village Levi I don't think we've learned anything."

"Hey, d-don't blame me," Levi said. "I-I'm just the translator," he said with his hands up.

"Question," Sophie asked.

"S-Shoot," he said.

"If we go investigate elsewhere do you think you can get us some actually useful information?"

"I can try...I'd almost prefer it..." Levi began. "Hard to keep switching back and forth."

"Okay. Luke, you want to join me and check out the rest of this place?"

Luke nodded his head, "Uh...okay. Yeah, that's okay. How long do you think you'll need?" He asked.

"I guess that's based on which scenario she pointed out is true."

"Fair," Luke said.

"Come on," Sophie said, moving to open the wooden door. "My legs are cramping up."

"Got it, any trouble just yell out to us, okay?" Luke asked.

Levi looked from the old woman to him, "I don't think that'll be necessary, but if she somehow transforms into a big ugly dragon you'll be the first to know."

Luke nodded as he followed Sophie out the door.

27

"I want to check out that statue again," Sophie said as the door slid shut.

"Huh?" Luke ran up to keep her pace. "I thought you thought that was bogus?"

She bit her lip, "I think it is, but it'd be dumb of me to ignore giving it another look-around. We only glanced at it coming in."

Luke nodded, "Sounds fair." He was looking up toward the sky, "Crazy how weird the sky looks when you don't think you're ever going to see it again.

She looked up for just a moment before looking back down, "Yeah, it's okay."

Luke was silent a minute.

"Go ahead, ask," Sophie said.

She knew that a question had been bubbling up inside. "You said you knew the two boys I keep seeing, but you aren't Cain's girlfriend. That, um, conflicts with what I saw."

"Correct. Cain…" she began, "He was...difficult. A friend, definitely a good friend, but he always saw it as more."

"Do you think...that they might have a part in why you're here?"

She looked at him and smiled, "I'm sure of it."

He didn't expect such an easy answer, "W-What?"

They passed a round man who reached Luke's shoulder and not a stretch taller, he whispered something to a woman beside him. It was chatter he couldn't understand. He tried his hardest not to focus on it.

"You've been seeing what happened to them. Maybe you'll see even further than that...I'm sorry. I'm not comfortable sharing that information with you."

"Oh...that's...I can't really take that as an answer," Luke sputtered. "You know something."

She turned back and walked a hair faster. "I do. And I don't have any reason to share that with you now. You don't have any reason to know why I am here. It doesn't affect you."

"But it could-"

"It doesn't. End of story."

She was nearly jogging now. Luke knew it had to be more than just that. He'd have to try and remember more of the two boys' experiences. He put that thought on hold as they arrived at the dragon statue. Sophie was climbing onto the base, much to Luke's chagrin.

"Get down from there, what if someone sees and doesn't like you doing that?"

She looked down at him as her arms latched around the dragon's neck. "Excuse me?"

Luke backed off and held up his hands. "Sorry."

She nodded once and continued checking the statue out. Luke figured he'd check out the base while she tackled the top. "Hey, uh...sorry also for being nosy, uh back there," Luke said. He didn't know if she heard him, but he continued anyway, "Your business is your business. I'm just desperate for things to make sense, and these memories have been a lead if not anything else."

She jumped down beside him, nearly making him jump out of his skin. "Yeesh!"

She chuckled once and her smile fleeted. "I don't keep grudges. Don't get all twisted. If there was anything I needed to tell you I would. I don't, so I don't."

"G-Got it…"

She cocked her head up, "Check around the backside, I'll take the sides here."

Luke nodded, not really sure what he was looking for...but as soon as he reached the back of the statue he realized. On the back of the base was a green monitor with text displayed in bright white.

"You are Levi Strauss—The WHITE. You are frail and often find others making choices for you. The executioner has you in his sights. The RED has sealed your fate before you are even aware of it—your enemy is bathed in flame. The WHITE cowers in metal, constantly threatened to be melted down the same. The only respite you find is that your death will be painless—the molten metal shall bind to your skin and burn any nerves to cinders. Water cannot douse your fire, you are scrap to be thrown away so that a new sword may be forged. Night falls with the axe. What can you do but fall?"

Luke didn't know what to think as he looked at the screen. Sophie must have seen that he had found it and stumbled up next to him. Her eyes shifted down the screen then turned onto Luke. "What's going on here?" She asked, turning to face him. She felt a bubble of questions rising to the surface. "You...you said something like this back in Aria's room, did you not?"

Luke nodded, bent, but wholly unmoving from his spot staring at the monitor. "Yeah...some of what's said here at the bottom was different, but the core idea was the same. White metal, something to do with fire and water."

"If only you had that mysterious notebook on you," she said, almost wistfully.

He stood up straight, "I'm not hiding it on you or anything like that if that's what you're implying."

"No, I'm just having a bit of fun."

"Fun?" Luke looked at her now, saw her face unchanged, still looking the monitor up and down. It wasn't the look he'd describe as one that was having fun.

She took a deep breath and shook her head, looking toward the sky. There wasn't a cloud in sight. Something about it brought out the smallest of grins. It lasted only the shortest of moments. "Its...been awhile since I've stopped to look at the sky."

"The...sky?" Luke looked up, but nothing caught his interest. It looked as plain as could be...wait...no, that wasn't quite right. There was something in the sky, a black speck of some sort hung across the blues. It looked quite strange and he couldn't quite tell what it was. "What do you think that is?"

She looked back to her sullen look before stepping away, holding her hands at her side. "I'm...not sure how to say this…" she started. Luke turned to face her, concerned. She apparently didn't know heads or tails of the speck and didn't seem to even consider it. "I'm...sorry."

"Sorry?"

"I have been a bit unfair." Her body loosened a bit and she bit her lip. "It was unfair of me to hide what I did. I know you're not a bad person and are just trying to piece yourself together." Her eyes cast to the floor and she shook her head slowly.

"You're willing to talk about it?" Luke asked. It came out a bit harsher than he intended it.

She looked up to him and in her eyes he saw a flash of something in himself. It was like a storm through his mind as a frame filled in his eyes. He saw himself only hours before as Lucky the rabbit hopped closer to his restrained body. He was both out of and inside his own body at once. The rabbit's eyes were shined and almost dead—confirmed only by his eventual death after Aria's room. In the rabbit's eyes he saw his own reflection.

"Your name is Abel."

The flash of his reflection didn't occur to him until this very moment. He looked just like the boy in the memories. There was no way it could be true...but no way it couldn't be, either. Of course he was if he was seeing memories of the poor boy—of himself, but things didn't line up right. If that were true then he shouldn't be able to walk. Abel was in a car accident. He was paralyzed from the waist down. There was also that creeping feeling in the back of his mind that he was someone else. Those memories didn't feel personal to him—they felt as if someone were telling them to him like a bedtime story.

He couldn't argue with physical evidence. He was Abel...no matter the circumstances. He saw how he looked. The only reason he had clung to Luke for so long was because it was the first that he attached to. It was like a safety blanket. Two voices in his head had to stop fighting or else he would explode. He was Abel, whether he liked it or not. Whether he was crippled or not.

"My name is...Abel," he said, looking down to his hands

"I don't know where you got the name Luke from, but it isn't your name."

"It was…" he thought back, not looking up, "...it was on that notebook I got."

"Notebook, huh…?" She said. "Around and round it comes but nowhere does it seem to actually show up. It doesn't seem that notebook was meant for you after all," she cocked her head.

Wasn't meant for him? Then why would he have woken up with it? There had to be a reason. There were thousands of questions he wanted to ask Sophie rising in his mind, but he had to silence them, just for the moment. Something wasn't right, and once he found that out… "Maybe...it was meant for Levi?" he asked.

"White metal, huh?" she looked back to his monitor. "We have nothing to prove that there isn't more than one white metal," she eyed the message, "but it will be good to keep in mind."

"Right...I don't know why it'd say a different name though, even if it was his. He'd have no reason to lie about his name if that were the case."

"Why don't we go back and check up on him?" Sophie offered. "I don't think we're going to get much more out of this statue here."

Luke nodded, "Sounds good to me." The two of them began to walk back toward the elder's shack. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the black speck in the sky. It was bigger than before, and for it to have grown in such a short time made him feel uneasy. He tried to not think about it. There were other things that needed his focus. He became overly aware of his own footsteps as he broke the ensuing silence, "So...you know me. The me I don't remember."

"Yes."

"And you didn't say anything." They passed by an urn that had fallen off of one of the nearby stoops. It had seemed to break as it fell, spilling a kind of seed onto the ground in front of them. It looked like it had been knocked over in a hurry.

"...Yes."

"Why?" Luke stopped. No...that wasn't right. Abel stopped. He felt a hot feeling rise to his face. "Why didn't you say anything? You know me!"

"I…"

It was the first time he saw her speechless. She stopped a few paces after him, looking away. "I couldn't…I couldn't risk…" Sophie took a sharp breath and clenched her fist, turning back to him, that same fire in her eyes, "I couldn't risk being left here. It didn't matter that I knew you or not. I cannot die here. That is my number one priority, so I'm sorry. I was unfair to not tell you, but I have, and now that I have I'm done talking about it."

He was taken aback by her outburst, "W-wait...no way! That's totally adding not fair onto not fair!"

She stood her ground, "I don't care. You pissed me off. If you want to know more about it check your damn memories. I told you what I wanted to, my priorities haven't shifted. I'm done talking here." She stamped back on the path.

Abel stood there for a few seconds longer as he tried to work through the logic that brought out such a reaction. I cannot die here. Something about that is...strange to him. He didn't want to die here either, but it seemed to be more than that for her. Something that drove her, motivated her to consider playing this game while keeping secrets. He kept it in the back of his mind and looked down at the seeds at his feet. To think, these poor things probably won't all get the chance to grow into...whatever kind of vegetation they were destined to be. Something about that thought made him sad, but it was quickly blocked out when a shadow overcast him.

He looked up to see the black speck had increased almost a hundred-fold in size and had been covering the sun. A large explosion sounded off in the distance, it seemed to be unrelated to the black speck, but he couldn't tell where it came from. It took him a moment longer to realize what the black speck had been.

It was an asteroid, and it was heading straight for them.