Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot. One foot in front of the other, Alex crunched through the snow, dogging behind Link. Her legs had begun falling asleep, so she had resorted to reminding herself of the basics of walking. Every step resulted in some form of pain: the gashes down her calf, the blisters on her heels, the aching muscles from walking continuously for three days. The only thing that was keeping her moving was one of Dad’s motivational lines.
There were these exercises she used to do in gymnastics called leverage holds. Whilst doing them, her body would always quiver after a few moments, but just as she’d consider giving up, Dad’s deep voice would bellow from below: “Mind over matter, baby!” And she’d always hold it those few seconds longer just for him. As Alex trudged through the thick crust of snow, her hood tugged over her forehead, she imagined Dad behind her, shouting the line continuously.
The thought made her smile. But that smile quickly faded when she thought about their last conversation: a stupid fight over a paper she didn’t do. It seemed so silly now. Would her last memory be of them yelling at one another, hurling insults back and forth? It made Alex sick to her stomach even thinking about it. She missed his excruciatingly bad jokes and Mom’s homemade cheesecakes. God, especially her cheesecakes. Oh, how I’d kill for one right now. Her stomach had been growling all day, sounding as if she were harbouring some sort of alien inside of her belly.
Alex waited for Link to pass the hilltop ahead so she could eat some of their bread. She had to do it behind his back, because if he had caught her, he would’ve yapped on about the necessities of rationing their food. So she figured if she did it out of his sight, then it’d be out of his mind, and she could skip his drawling lecture altogether.
My genius knows no bounds, she thought.
The two had lost sight of Mount Hargul the moment they’d climbed down the mountain. So, for three days Alex and her brother had been weaving through the ranges, through cold and sticky snow, hoping to spot the mountain shaped like a wizards’ hat again.
To Alex, it didn’t feel like they were walking in circles; it felt like they were trapped in a labyrinth. Every mountain, tree, shrub, and stone looked no different from the next one in her eyes. Link would never admit they were lost, but Alex could see it in his eyes. Her brother couldn’t lie to save his life.
Alex lowered her head as a powerful blast of wind sent snow swirling into her path. When the howling had subsided, she looked up again, and found Link was nearing a hilltop spotted by evergreen trees.
She was still finding it difficult to grasp that she and Link were wandering inside of a world they’d created. Most of the times when she’d write well into the night, Alex would often have dreams of Nocera when she went to bed. But as realistic and awesome as they all were, they were always just dreams, and every time she awoke, she found herself back in the real world. But this was different. For days, she and Link had been stuck in this freezing mountain range, no closer to finding out why they were there than they were on day one. Home was starting to become a distant memory.
Just a few more steps till he’s out of sight and I can dig into my heart's desire, she thought. Who would’ve known my mouth could water at the thought of stale bread?
But to her dismay, Link paused when he reached atop the hill, a stern expression covering his face.
“When are we stopping for a break?” Alex asked impatiently when she had caught up to him. Her hunger seemed to be getting the best of her. She was on the verge of becoming “hangry”: a ghastly transformation of hers Bruce Banner had nothing on.
“Glad you asked,” Link said. “Right now.”
“Oh, thank God,” she said, sighing as she collapsed butt-first into the snow.
“You all right?” he asked.
“Never better, bro,” Alex said, flashing him a mocking smile. “I love being on the brink of exhaustion, starvation, and dehydration.”
He chuckled as he shrugged off his backpack. “Have you ever thought about not using sarcasm in a sentence? Might be a refreshing change up.”
But she was paying him no mind. Her hands were already in her bag, rummaging around for the stale bread to quell her hunger pangs. Alex took the biggest bite of the hard bread her mouth would allow.
“I’ve, uh, I’ve got something I need to tell you,” Link said, his golden eyes avoiding hers.
Alex’s back stiffened. Link was using his important voice.
“What?” she asked, her mouth crammed full of wheaty sludge.
“This is going to sound crazy,” he said, running a hand through his hair and grabbing a fist full at the top. “Like, real crazy.”
“Look around you, Link,” she said, sweeping an encompassing arm at their surroundings. “We’re trapped inside of a book we wrote in our free time. What could be more crazy than this?”
Link let out a half-hearted laugh, then stared at the untouched hunk of cheese in his hand. Alex knew something was wrong. First his important voice, now the lingering silence.
She cleared her throat expectantly.
“I think we are Deonis and Taytora,” Link said with a face as hard as granite.
Alex raised an eyebrow as if he had just spoken Chinese. “Um, care to elaborate?”
“Not just what we’re wearing, but actually—” He ruffled up his hair with a hand, “actually, ability-wise.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” she asked, scowling.
“I told you you’d think I was crazy,” he said, taking a rabbit nibble of his cheese. “Just bear with me, OK? Now, I know we don’t have the appearance of Taytora and Deonis, but I think it's possible we may have, somehow, I don’t know—” he paused and swallowed his food, “obtained their abilities.”
Alex didn’t know how to react, so she just chuckled stupidly. “Their abilities?”
“You know?” Link said, lowering his voice again as if someone was listening in. “Their magic, sword and archery skills?”
As soon as he said “archery skills,” Alex’s mind wandered to when she’d shot the gorlac in the head. How she didn’t have to think about the motion; it was just a knee-jerk reaction to draw her bow and fire. It hadn’t dawned on her until then, but the whole time she’d been in Nocera it felt like she was in someone else’s body.
“Even the way you climbed that mountain when we were being chased by the gorlacs,” Link continued. “So light on your feet.” He shook his head, smiling at the memory. “I couldn’t believe it.”
Alex sat in silence with her hands jammed underneath her armpits, truly trying to comprehend what he was saying. But the more she dwelt on it, the more absurd it sounded. They were Alex and Link from Phoenix, Arizona, not Taytora and Deonis from Orban.
“Why are you so confident?” she asked, nibbling on her bottom lip.
“Huh?”
“You’re acting like you know for certain we’re our characters,” she said. “How can you be so confident? You look like plain old Link to me, and I’m not in possession of a mirror, but I sure as hell know I don’t look as glamorous as Taytora.”
Link shifted his shoulders uneasily, then picked up a small pebble and held it in his palm. “This is why.”
“What are you do—”
“Quiet,” he said, glancing warily behind him.
For a few seconds, Alex stared at the pebble amusedly, unsure of what was meant to be happening. But then Link thrust his palm upwards, and the pebble shook slightly. Soon enough, it was levitating a few inches from his palm. Link exhaled, and the pebble dropped. Earthwielding. Alex’s jaw could have almost hit the ground. Was her brother a Gifted?
When a Gifted opened their Gates, the Eternal Source would flow through them, immediately heightening their five senses and accelerating their body’s healing. But that was just the beginning. In addition to those perks, the Gifted would have access to a multitude of magical branches: Teleporting, Divination, Telekinesis, and Bloodshifting just to name a few. To think her brother was one of them was making Alex lightheaded.
What did this mean for them? For her? If Link was a Gifted then did that mean she was as well? A cold chill ran through her body upon that thought. Taytora and Deonis were the ones that put an end to the Great War, aiding the Kingdoms of Mist and Meadows by vanquishing the Alzuri forces. They even slew the tyrant of the West himself: King Kilaydis. If she and Link were, in fact, their heroes, then the whole land of Nocera was doomed the moment they’d woken up in this nightmare.
Link suddenly gasped for air, his chest heaving, eyes screwed shut. Alex put a hand on his shoulder. He grabbed it feebly.
“Are you OK?” she asked.
“Yeah, I’m fi—” He sucked in a deep breath and tried again, “fine.”
In the book, when a Gifted drew too much of the Source, it could prove to be fatal. And as small as Link’s pebble-levitating trick was, Alex knew it had taken an immense toll on his body. She yanked her waterskin out from her backpack, pressing it to his lips. He batted it away with a clumsy hand.
“I’m OK, I swear,” he panted. His hands told Alex a different story; they trembled so bad it looked like he had Parkinson's.
“So, you’re a Gifted?” she asked, looking down at the pebble that had toppled out of his hands. “Does that mean that I . . . How long have you known?”
Alex felt horrible for asking Link when he was so fatigued, but she needed answers. Desperately.
“A couple days,” he groaned, massaging his temples with two fingers on either side.
Every branch of magic affected the body in different ways. Alex figured the Earthwielding Spell must have been giving Link headaches—among other things.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” she asked, not being able to hide the hurt in her voice.
“Because I only learned that Spell from one of the scrolls last night,” he said, finally lifting his head and glancing at her. His eyes were watery and half closed in pain. “And I was waiting until we took a break today before I showed you.” Astoundingly, he found the strength to chuckle as he added, “Because now I need to get my strength back.”
Link tried to put a comforting hand on her shoulder, but Alex shrugged it off and stood up abruptly.
“So, what does this mean?” she asked. “Like, for us. What are we supposed to do now?”
He massaged his forehead. “I don’t know yet; I’m still coming to grips with it all too. To be honest, I was hoping you’d know something I didn’t.”
“But these are our bodies,” Alex replied weakly, chewing her nails. “We can’t be Taytora and Deonis. We . . . ” She spat out a nail. “We just can’t.”
“I never said we were Taytora and Deonis,” he said. “I said we might’ve obtained their abilities somehow. Put your gloves back on please; you’re going to get frostbite.”
Alex nibbled on another nail fold and then spat it out to the side. “No, it relaxes me.”
Link grabbed her gloves which were by her feet, dusted the snow off, and then slid them onto her hands. “All you’ll have left is stumps if you keep chewing them.”
“I don’t care,” she replied dully. “Surely you’ve worked it out by now. If we are our characters, then you know what that means? The fate of this land literally rests on our shoulders.” She lifted her glassy eyes and found his. “What if we never make it back? What if we’re stuck here for—”
Link grabbed her two hands and squeezed them, cutting her short. “Look, Alex, I don’t know what this all means, how we got here, or even why we have our character’s powers. But I promise you one thing: I will find out, and I will get us both out of this book.”
Alex looked away, alarmed by the intensity in his voice. “You can’t promise something like that.”
Link held out his pinkie finger. “Yes, I can.”
“What are we?” she asked, chuckling. “Twelve?”
He wiggled his pinkie in her face. “C’mon; you know you want to. Pinkie promise.”
Alex fought back a smile. “OK, you loser. But only to shut you up.”
As she wrapped her pinkie finger around his, a booming scream shook the tree branches around them. A flock of birds took flight overhead. Despite the crippling pain Link was in from using the Source, he lunged for his sword in the snow and ripped it out of its scabbard upon hearing the disturbance.
“Stay put,” Link ordered in a tone that broke no argument. He crouched down and zig-zagged out of the trees towards the noise, ducking here and there to avoid the evergreen branches that threatened to snag his cloak. Alex instinctively nocked an arrow and set off after him. She knew he’d scold her for it later, but there was no way she was going to be alone after hearing that noise. She had seen enough horror movies to know you never separate from the group.
Link scowled at his sister when he looked over his shoulder and realized she was following. Thankfully, he didn’t tell her to go back; he just ushered her to stay close by his side. The evergreens came to a stop when they reached the opposite side of the hill. As they looked down at the open and sunken valley beneath them, it didn’t take them long to find what the source of the noise was: a giant.
The colossal creature was as blue as frost and taller than a two-story building. A grey-streaked beard reached all the way to his belly button, and he wore a white loincloth of what Alex presumed was gorlac’s skin. The giant resembled a man in many ways, apart from his inhuman azure eyes and primitive features.
The giant was crouched low, on guard, scanning his surroundings frantically. He was holding a bare tree that had been fashioned into the likes of a club in two hands, ready to swing. Just what he was so on-edge about, though, Alex had no clue. There was nobody else in sight.
Then they came out of nowhere. From beneath him, three milk-white insects the length of cars emerged in unison, leaping out from the freshly fallen snow at various angles. There was a hollow crack as the giant’s swing was true. The first insect soared end-over-end through the air like a thrown Slinky. A deep cry of pain shook through the valley. The second insect had latched its powerful mandibles onto the giant, its body curled around his forearm like a vine on a branch. The third had merely feinted an attack, burrowing itself back into the snow and disappearing out of sight.
They’re coordinating their attacks, Alex realized.
A hard, chitinous casing covered the elongated insects like battle armour, and under their sleek bodies were rows of stubby, hooked legs. But it was what was on their backs Alex thought made them look the most intimidating. On each section of its carapace, a cruel horn protruded from it: A mohawk of razor-sharp knives.
Alex felt sick to her stomach. They were exactly how she had imagined them, from their milk-white shells and menacing jaws to their rows of stocky legs. They were called horriks, and the insects were her bright idea in the book.
Before battle, a horrik produced a potent toxin in which it coated its mandibles and teeth. One clean bite could kill a grown man in seconds. But judging by the scene that was unfolding in front of Alex, it took a lot more to bring down a giant.
The giant plucked the second horrik from his forearm like it was nothing but a tic and then he squished its head with a finger and thumb. There was a crack like an eggshell breaking. Violet-covered goo splattered his face. The giant dropped his tree-club and kicked his leg back and forth wildly. The third horrik had re-emerged from the snow and clamped onto his ankle, its mandibles sinking deep into the flesh. The giant swayed, then fell to the ground with a thump, kicking up a cloud of snow.
Alex’s eyes were fixed on the bearded behemoth, watching him as he crawled feebly on the ground, the horrik still wrapped around his ankle, injecting its venom into his bloodstream. He rolled onto his back, and then in one, last-ditch effort, smashed the side of his foot against a nearby tree, pinning the horrik. The insect dropped to the snow, coiling and shrivelling inward like a dying arachnid.
“Let’s go,” Link said, his eyes still fixed on the scene unfolding in front of him. “We’ll circle around this valley as a precaution.”
“A precaution?” Alex snapped. “A precaution from what?”
Her brother turned and furrowed his brow.
“Why are—” she stopped and chewed her gums. “We can’t just—we can go down there and help him.”
Link grabbed her by the arm suddenly, as if he knew she was about to do something rash. “If you think we are going to waltz down into a nest of horriks just to try to save a dying giant that would probably kill us, given the chance, then you’re out of your mind.”
The giant rolled onto his belly, and Alex was shocked to find his azure-coloured eyes were locked onto hers, filled with an unbearable anguish. He reached out a meaty arm in her direction, as if pleading for her to come and help him, or even to put him out of his misery, and then his arm flopped to the ground.
Before Link could object, Alex shrugged out of his hold and took off down the hill. She knew it was foolish, considering another horrik could emerge from the snow at any minute and decide she was its main menu, and because the creatures’ venom would completely shut down the giant’s respiratory system in a matter of minutes. But despite that, some part of her wanted the giant to know it wasn’t alone. Even if it was only to be there as it passed.
The stitch jutted into Alex’s side as she sidestepped the trees and stones that blocked her route. She cautiously passed one of the dead horriks. Its mandibles were still clicking and glistening with fresh venom even though its body had been crushed. Alex caught a musty and metallic whiff in the air that made her almost gag. The horriks violet-covered goo and insides had spilled out of its shell, staining the snow beneath it like spilled red wine.
The giant had rolled onto its back again, its enormous chest heaving slowly. The only thing it seemed to be able to move was its eyes. They were watching her now, wide with fear.
“I’m here,” she said, panting, “I’m here. What can I do?”
The giant’s lips trembled and then they parted slightly. “Pouch,” he whispered in a low and raspy voice.
“Pouch? What do you mean ‘pouch’?”
His azure eyes glanced down to his body. Alex followed them and saw a pouch hanging off his belt. She quickly ran to his waist and opened it. It was filled with an abundance of exotic-smelling violet leaves.
“Alex, let’s go now,” Link said. He had caught up to her, now bent forwards with his hands on his knees as he gasped for air. “We can’t help it. It’ll be dead in a matter of seconds.”
Alex shut out his voice as she ran back the giant’s ear with a handful of the leaves. “I’ve got the leaves; what do I do now?”
The giant took a shuddering breath before he spoke. “Chew,” he groaned softly. “Chew.” And then his eyes closed.
Does he mean for me to put the leaves in his mouth? she wondered. He could barely talk let alone chew. Then the thought dawned on her. Maybe he meant for me to chew?
Link still had his sword drawn, head turning swiftly from side to side, looking for any dangers.
“We can’t save him,” he said, his back to her. “Get that through your head. If we don’t move now, we’ll be dead in a matter of seconds.”
“I’m not leaving him!” she snapped.
The giant began convulsing. Alex had to step backward as he began thrashing about uncontrollably, almost knocking her over with the back of his hand.
Without considering the consequences, Alex threw a few leaves in her mouth and chewed, just as the giant had said. Immediately she wanted to spit them out. The texture was so rough it felt as if she was eating bark, and the taste was so pungently revolting she had to hold a hand over her mouth to stop herself from gagging. Nevertheless, she forced herself to keep chewing, grinding down the leaves with both her teeth and saliva.
Link was staring at his little sister in horror. “What the hell are you doing? Are you stupid? Those could be poisonous.”
Alex spat the ball of mush into her hands and approached the giant’s forearm. The wound was like nothing she’d ever seen before. Two festering punctures the size of dinner plates covered his arm. The skin surrounding the bite mark was an electric blue, and coloured veins were beginning to spread up his body like tree roots. Alex felt lightheaded just looking at it.
The giant was still flopping around. Alex waited for his movements to slow, timing her approach wisely, and then she sped forward. She held her breath and quickly smeared the leaves onto one of the bite marks. She prayed this was what he had meant for her to do.
Link was standing beside her, searching her face in disbelief.
“Help me,” Alex pleaded as she moved her tongue around the inside of her mouth, trying to get some moisture back. “Chew some of the leaves. He has another bite mark on his ankle.”
Link gazed out towards the mountains behind them as if anticipating more horriks would crawl out of a cave at any second.
“Link, please,” she pleaded, her mouth full of the vile-tasting leaves.
Link turned to her and clenched his jaw, then finally sheathed his sword. “And you say I’m the stubborn one?