Mystical Lights

Read Part One: The Safehouse

Read Part Two: Temptation

Read Part Three: Suspicion

Read Part Four: Glitter

Read Part Five: Running Bulls

The growing darkness was suddenly illuminated by green light dancing across the sky, coming to rest a few hundred meters away.

Once we adjusted to the sudden change of near-night becoming as bright as an overcast day, we had to deal with everything else. We were alone, with limited supplies, and our parents were gone. We had no idea what to do next.

For all that we had probably grown up faster than the generations before us, at least in the past century, we had retained enough of our childhoods. Enough to still think that our parents had all the answers. Enough to flounder when we didn’t have them to look to for guidance.

Sure, I knew enough to be reasonably self sufficient if my parents had to leave me alone for a day or so, or under the care of a temporary guardian while they scouted ahead, or foraged for food and supplies. That had happened more than once, and I’d been fine once they returned. I’d worried about them, but they always returned.

I didn’t know what to do now that they wouldn’t be returning.

Oh, and more people had just shown up.

Standing near where the green lights melted into the horizon, they waited, still and almost statue-like. Had they been there all this time, or had we been too distracted to notice their arrival? What did they want, and why?

Best case scenario, we were about to be dealing with more cryptic Guardians that appeared and vanished again out of nowhere

I didn’t have the energy for this.

None of us did. Not now, perhaps not for a long time. Adrien and Violet squeezed my hands, before Adrien took point. “Hello, who are you?”

One of them stepped forward, a man of undetermined age wearing a smile that was ever so slightly not-right. “We are the inhabitants of Sanctuary. We heard screaming, and came to investigate.”

I tried to push my suspicion aside; I wasn’t the best with body language and reading expressions myself, and after so long with most people living in tiny family groups, “social norms” weren’t what they had once been. “Thank you. As you can see, things are a bit all over the place right now.”

Another one approached, this one a woman, as ageless as the man. “Indeed. You poor dears. Let us take care of the… ah, aftermath. You all need rest after such an ordeal.”

Part of me wanted to stay, to see through my parent’s last rites, and say goodbye.

The rest of me couldn’t face it. We’d been through so much in the past days, and it would be so easy to just… let someone else take responsibility for the hardest thing I could imagine ever having to do. I’d lost so much, even before our journey started. Surely it wouldn’t be wrong to want time to myself to grieve for all of it?

Just once. Just for tonight.

A few of the eldest stayed, but most of the others were as shell-shocked as I was, and willingly followed our latest hosts to… wherever it was that they were taking us.

We entered a grove of pear trees, and Violet ducked under a low-hanging limb. “Do you get many people coming through?”

The lady shook her head. “Most give up and turn back long before they make it as far as you did. We treasure those children strong and brave enough to come so far.”

Children? Not travellers, or refugees, or strangers? There was something wrong, but I dismissed it again as no more than odd phrasing from someone unused to meeting new people. “We appreciate the welcome.”

She patted me on the head, as the grove opened into up into a small meadow, dominated by a large hall that seemed to be made of living trees woven together. “Don’t fret, just rest here until dinner is ready, and enjoy our hospitality.”

I felt a bit bad, and Adrien probably agreed, because he frowned. “Are you sure there isn’t anything we can do to help? To repay you in some way?”

She shook her head. “Even if you were an enemy, the bonds of hospitality are stronger than nearly any force in existence. Rest, and we will call when it is time.”

I wanted to protest again, but my brain and body had other ideas, and we were the last two standing. Taking Adrien’s hand, I led him to where the others already slept in a giant nest of pillows and blankets.

Everything else could be worried about later.

Join me next week for Part Seven: Deep Freeze...