Chapter 12,
Turquoise Stone: The Shadow's Play,
Third Person's POV
The blue bird kept on making the wierd noices, and the other birds present joined in. The four were perplexed, while Gella seemed very happy.
"Oh. My. God! On second thought, you two should go, and let the little one debut!" She squirmed, unexplainably exited.
"What's wrong?" —Tj
"The baby egg is hatching! The 14th bird is here!"
The blue and green bird stopped and flew away. Along with them, the rainbow-colored bird also came along, leaving an egg where the blue bird nested.
The egg slowly shook, everyone remaining in the room stayed silent, staring at the egg as it slowly cracked. One by one, the crack became larger and the egg soon hatched open, revealing a small bird.
It was a turquoise-colored bird with a few teal hues on some feather. It already has enough feathers and an abnormal size when it hatched, and it was amazing.
"I don't get it. Why did the other bids left, specially the rainbow one?" Lyka tilted her head, confused by the situation.
"Hue birds are typically useless from the day they lay eggs, and a few days after the egg hatches, because of the magic power consumption. It's normal for the mother and father birds to take a rest, but for the rainbow one, I think it got bored. It's not gonna do anything, so it's fine." Gella chuckled once more, still keeping the excitement.
"Wait." Eljeric halted, "You said it was the 14th Hue bird. How about the other mini rooms?"
"What an adventurer. You guys really love exploring forbidden truths, don't you?" Her face darkened, but eventually came back into her original, cute expression, "Don't worry, they have different animals. Cutie hint: this was decided randomly, so if anyone dies, much better," she winked, despite the words she just stated.
She stared right into the birds eyes for a second, making contact with each other. Her eyes looked captivated as she scanned through the bird's feathers and back to it's eyes.
"Don't worry, there's no problem with this bird! Healthy and powerful as it could get!"
The straight couple gulped, a little nervous about the small bird, "Are you ready?" Tj nodded.
Lyka slowly touched the bird's head, but nothing happened. The other three did the same, but it seemed to not work.
"Uhmm...Gella?" Eljeric called out.
"Heyo! That cutie pie like me needs two people touching him!"
Tj and Lyka looked at each other, simply counting in their minds, and deciding when to touch the bird. But in conclusion, they touched it on unison.
The two fell into a while place, voices spills out, familiar to them. It was not other then their voices.
"Zephyr? Why?" Tj's voice echoed.
"Eljeric, you better not make too much contact with him. He's... because... and ..." Lyka replied, but the voices were to vague for them to understand.
"You traitor!"
"Zephyr... How could you..."
"Tj, please, listen to me...!"
"No. No. No. I'm not letting you go, we promised!"
As countless words flowed into their system, mixed emotions shot them, one by one. Tears formed in Lyka's eyes and slowly fell into the ground, leaving traces on her cheeks.
The voices eventually stopped, but the pain and voices still lingers inside their minds. Such complex words, yet brought forth the innermost sadness they don't know where it came from.
[A world without us is nothing but a fantasy]
Lyka stared blankly at the words in front of her. It was her thoughts, and she knows them herself. He stared at Tj and gripped his hand tighter.
"Look, there's a shadow there..." Tj pointed in front of them, as shadows danced gracefully.
Yes, it was, indeed, graceful, but not the graceful we wanted. Every stroke and movements the shadows made expressed melancholy and unexplainable sorrow.
Slowly, neatly, the shadows looked like a man courting a woman. Every form it changed seemed to tell s certain story, yet no one knows who owned it.
The man courts the lady, day by day, and gives her flowers, as many as he could. They would walk while holding each other's hands, and kiss each other on lonely days.
They both promised to be together, but eventually, the boy found another girl, and cheated on his girlfriend. The girl couldn't believe what she just saw, and intended to break up with the guy, but the guy refused and still followed her. The girl already caught him, so she refused any explanation, whether it's valid or not, he broke her trust.
At some point, the girl reached the peak of her dream, without the boy by her side. Soon, the shadow that loomed in front of the couple morphed into little shadows children that ran pass through them.
Eventually, they came back from where they came from, the mini room. The two boys look at them, wondering. They looked into Lyka's reddish eyes that were products of sad memories.
"What happened there?" Zephyr asked.
"Nothing, just saw a small play. It was very sad,", Tj explained, still lingers with sadness within him.
"Eh? But past or future, Hue birds only creates—" Eljeric stopped midway when Zephyr suddenly blocked his moth with his hand and signalled not to speak further.
"Oh? I wished I could've seen it!" Gella looked like a child, disappointed after not getting a candy.
"Did you not watch?"
"We can't. That little cutie birdie does not know how to do it, yet," she looked more down.
"Anyways, it's our turn now." the blue-haired suggested.
He and Eljeric came closer, touching the bird, and experiencing the same sensation, but different emotions. With a small flicker of light, words were heard along with it, too loud for the two to not be heard.
"Why did you...?"
"I-I'm sorry, but I swear, I ... You ..."
"How could you say that to her?!"
"Maybe deep inside, I'm also after the same objective, Zephyr,"
"Eljeric, please, just one more time... I'll do better next—"
The voices stopped midway, the two not knowing the reason. Whether it's because of Zephyr's power, or probably it was supposed to be like that, it didn't matter. What matters is that they heard those voices, and it sounded exactly like them.
"Is that...us?" Eljeric questioned.
"No doubt. This is what Lyka and Tj probably experienced,"
The small shadow children came back, running across them, bowing, and proceeding with their small play. Not like the last time, this one had voices. The shadows were laughing when they passed through the two.
The shadows collided and formed a small title— "Masked Man's Masked Man".
A huge spotlight shone where the shadows are, and emphasized their movements, creating a more highlighted and emphasized emotions.
There stood a man choosing a mask with different emotions with another man doing the same thing on the other side. Eventually, as a short time passed, the other chose the one with a smiley face and wore it while the other chose the one with a calm and kind smile.
"Good morning," the other one asked as he waved to the other. The other man did the same, and waved back.
The two came close to each other, every scene, every moment shown, but there wasn't a glimpse of a screen time where the two took of their masks.
"I need to tell you something, and I know this would hurt you and make you unhappy, but I needed to tell you eventually." The one with a mask with a calm and kind expression confessed.
The other just stood, waiting for words, but instead, he received actions. In fact, he was not even that surprised. The man took of his mask and shown him the face behind. To be honest, there was no face in there, and he feared anyone seeing it.
"I... I am ..." the other one was lost for words, not knowing how he should react, but instead, he allowed actions to express unexplainable feelings inside him.
Like the other, he took of his mask, and behind him was a crying figure. He wiped it, but the flow of tears would not stop, no matter how much he did it.
The other came closer, but there seemed to be a boundary forming between them, and the other could not touch the other. He spoke up, they both did, but no one could hear each other's voiced, as it it's trapped inside of them.
The faceless one dropped his mask, crushed it with his own feet, and once again, slowly stretched out his hand towards the other. They finally had contact, and by the time the other wiped the tears of the other's crying face, the tears faded out. They both smiled. The faceless had a smiling face, and the crying one had the same. This time, it was not a mask, nor faked. It was, indeed, true to heart.
The two came back, quiet and perplexed, yet a hint of happiness was gleaming on Eljeric's eyes. On the other hand, Zephyr was too stunned and speechless, but still, there's worry portrayed on his framed expression. Too bad he's faking, but too good the mask is cracking.
"Tell me what happened! Tell me, tell me!" Lyka and Gella looked very invested into their relationship.
The two stood in silence, until Eljeric asked, "Zephyr... Was that...?"
The blue head was astonished, his face frame broke, "Look. It's not like how you interpreted." He forced to explain.
"Oh... hehe, I understand. Maybe that was on me. The ending was reasonable, so I guess I'm overthinking," He changed sides, faintly shaking with distrust.
'Maybe I was no better, and I just proved it right now.'
"Was it that bad?" Lyka replaced her face with a worried look.
Eljeric waved with disagreement, "No, no. It was romantic, to be exact," he turned tomato red in a second.
"Anyways, why is the place looking like these?" Zephyr pointed at the white walls, that now has a few abstract design with different colors.
"I don't know, they birds just came flying everywhere and left this marks on the walls," Tj explained, not letting himself get left out for the unexplainable mood swings of the two ladies.
The walls was decorated with intricate designs—violet, yellow, dark blue, pink, green and blue, namely. Some parts are left white, but still, the form is beautiful and looked like every stroke was from a best artist that could ever exist.
"Anyways, you should hurry, a lot of players already finished," Gella rushed, keeping her cute persona, "I'll be going now, tell me the romantic details next time!" she winked back at Lyka while she also replied with the same action.
"Hello! We are the twins!" the orange bird suddenly spoke, "We need two players! One goes to orange, one goes to me!" the green one continues the other's words.
The orange and green bird glowed, the orange'd feathers looked like that of a fire for a second, glowing and flowing like lava on her feathers, while the green one had his feathers glow like a gem reflecting light. As the bright light touched its feathers, the bird glowed and shot the four in the eyes, too bright, but not blinding enough to hurt them whenever it reaches them
"Are you ready?" The two birds spoke in unison.
Eljeric took a glance from Zephyr as he did the same, and went close to the two.
"You go with the orange, I'll go with the green," Zephyr suggested.
The two simultaneously touched, and got warped into somewhere without a trace.
Electric stood up, his face on something warm. It was too warm that he doesn't want to wake up from. The sun's scent lingers, and the soft place his head leans on drives him to sleep, more and more. Birds were chirping, crickets were singing, it was a familiar place.
He stood up, in a daze because of the sudden realization. He was on Zephyr's hand, but that's not the point. He was on a familiar room. In fact, this was outside the Labyrinth!
He stood up, slowly going to open the door, when Zephyr pulled him back to the bed, "Just five more minutes," he grumbled, turning the poor boy's face redder than an apple could get.
***