Most of Lambastia's city life can be found along the southeastern coast of Norrega, where settlers feel they are safe from Nori Volcano at the northern tip of the region. Warm gulf winds ensure this region is the most habitable on the continent, though travelers are warned of the disappearances of many venturing too close to the Whisper Forest. Species from all over are housed at the Evelon Preservation Zoo.

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Postby Jaykobell » 02/23/2012 11:38 PM

Matthew was about to press Jonathan more when his brother turned around, still sitting in that computer wheel chair. "I'm not surprised you couldn't get here in one go," was all he said at first, but his expression, for once, was telling me more than I wanted to know. "You barely have anything left. I'm surprised you can still stand. It'll be done eating the muscles in your arms and legs soon enough, and then it'll start attacking your vital organs." I wanted to tell him to stop reminding me, but I bit my tongue; I figured he had to be building up to something here. "There's nothing I can do for you, Ashton," he finally admitted, and I saw his face change from passive curiosity to genuinely saddened. We had never been too close, but close enough to call each other friends.

"I thought as much," I replied after a while, mostly coaxed into saying something when I saw Matthew slowly losing his patience at my silence. "Tell me, then. Tell me what's going to happen."

Jonathan glanced at Matthew for a moment, and that's when I realized even Matthew knew what I wanted them to tell me upfront. I was waiting for them to tell me that the only possible outcome was dying. The x-rays were a mess; only a thin layer of muscles was left on my arms and legs. They were slowly being eaten away by the poison. It's important to mention that Hydra is a strain that merges with the host's body; as such, not only were my muscles being melted and eaten away, but that also included the Hydra parasite inside my body.

I was still thinking about those x-rays, the two brothers still quiet and unsure about what to say. "Dude, man, Ashton," Matthew started awkwardly, gesticulating a little towards me, but I could see that he really didn't quite know how to word what he wanted to say. "We don't want... to let you die," he said, finally uttering that one word that we often considered taboo, for obvious reasons. "We just can't do anything for you, man. Your body is just... gone. Literally."

Jonathan had his arms crossed and his eyes fixed on me, and it took a while for him to speak up; but when he did, he said something I hadn't foretold at all. "I do know someone who could help you, however."
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Postby Jaykobell » 02/24/2012 12:38 AM

I perked up when I heard Jonathan say that he knew someone who could potentially help me. Before he spoke up, something unnerving had started to grow inside me. The passive, calculating man people knew was only a facade I pulled in order to pull the strings and get what I want. That didn't mean the facade didn't hide an actual human being behind it, someone who felt emotions regardless of the situation. Coming from a group where death was a scarring taboo, it wasn't surprising for me to be afraid of being told I was going to die. Whether from the poison or from fear, my heart had started beating faster after hearing both Jonathan and Matthew say that they were entirely helpless.

If Jonathan knew somebody, it seemed like Matthew didn't know the person in question, since he was the first one to question Jonathan. "Seriously? You know someone who can fix him?" He leaned forward a little, craning his neck towards his brother curiously, waiting to hear the name of that person. "Seriously, I'm curious to know who could patch up this much damage."

Jonathan didn't reply right away, but instead looked at me silently. I couldn't tell what he was trying to tell me; unlike Matthew, Jonathan always carried that passive, uncaring look in his eyes that made it nearly impossible to tell what he was thinking. He eventually looked at Matthew before looking back at me. "You both know the person I'm talking about."

When I heard that, I suddenly understood why Jonathan had been looking at me. Perhaps it had been to get my agreement, or perhaps had it been to warn me about the person he was about to suggest. I, too, had an idea about who he was talking about. Matthew, however, wasn't as sharp. "Well? Who is it? I don't know anyone who could fix him up."

I felt a chill going down my back when I heard Jonathan spill the name. "Matilda."
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Postby Jaykobell » 02/24/2012 1:25 AM

I wasn't the only one who didn't like the sound of that much too familiar name. Matthew immediately responded with a gasp and a shocked expression. "Jonathan, what the hell?! Matilda? Really?"

Jonathan calmly looked back at his brother, arms still crossed and eyes as unreadable as ever. "I said you both knew who I was talking about," he reminded his brother, whom didn't really care about that answer.

"She's cruel," Matthew went on, turning back to me momentarily before turning back to his brother. "She's a cruel witch. You're sending him to his own death faster!" He grabbed onto Jonathan's shoulders, to which Jonathan just looked up curiously at his brother. "Can't you try to make him something stronger?"

But Jonathan would have none of Matthew's overreacting, and he pushed his brother away. "She's not a cruel witch," Jonathan argued first before moving on. "Matilda is the original Libra-dominant Hydra. Her ability to manipulate an object's time is unnaturally powerful." He turned back to me, and this time, he continued his explanation solely at me. "If you can find her, she could regenerate your body's timeline and rewind it to a point in time before Crawford poisoned you."

That was the catch: if I could find her. When I'd first asked my parents if I could continue my mother's research on immortality, they'd clearly stated that they wouldn't support me. However, they had mentioned that perhaps the other main researchers — whom were all known as Creators — wouldn't mind giving me a hand, in their own way. I'd found most of them, such as Matthew and Jonathan, Janice, and Abigail. However, I couldn't find all of them, and Matilda was one of the Creators I hadn't been able to track down. It's important to note that Matilda, while not cruel, was, indeed, fairly peculiar in the way she used her abilities.

Matthew was set on his opinion, and turned to me when Jonathan started ignoring him. "Ashton, if you try to find Matilda, you know the price she'll ask for won't be worth living through it," he warned me, genuine concern in his voice as he grabbed my shoulders this time around. "Let me and Jonathan try to make something stronger for you, and then we'll try to do something about putting your body back together, yeah?"

"Try to find Matilda," Jonathan insisted, this time getting up and pulling Matthew away from me; a gesture I appreciated, if only because Matthew's hold had given me this burning pain in my shoulders. "You're the Capricorn... Foretell what's ahead. Foretell if you can and will find her."
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Postby Jaykobell » 02/25/2012 12:13 AM

I didn't answer when Jonathan asked me to foretell what was ahead. There was definitely fear inside me at the thought of looking in the future; fear that I would see something I didn't want to ever see. To begin with, I hadn't been all too successful in foreseeing anything in a long time; the memories rarely mixed in with my own, and it seemed to be unable to let me go back in time. I could access both the past and the future, but now the past was merely a hazy memory, and the future rarely spoke to me anymore.

"Jonathan, can he even do anything anymore?" Matthew piped in, turning to his brother with crosses arms and a curious look on his face. "Hydra merges with the body, so a big part of the parasite is gone." He paused and turned back to me, and I could read concern on his face. "Have you been able to foresee anything recently?" he asked me directly, as if he'd been reading my mind.

"Barely," I admitted, and I felt embarrassed to say it out loud. The Capricorn and its ability to foretell the unknown future and relive the untold past were my dominant traits. There was no way any of the other abilities were left, such as Virgo's precise eyesight or Aries's supernatural strength.

"Can't you try?" Jonathan pressed, without being too authoritative; still, I could feel the urgency in his voice. "Barely still means that you can see things. Can't you try?" Perhaps he had a bad feeling that I didn't have much time left, and so he wanted me to use everything I had to my advantage. Maybe looking forward wouldn't hurt; I was certainly the only one who was capable of doing it.

And that's when I remembered...
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Postby Jaykobell » 02/25/2012 12:26 AM

It was a place I didn't remember from before. A dense forest, clouded in mist and fog; you couldn't see anything ahead of you. Still, despite the eerie look of it, the place had a relaxing air to it. There were no sounds or even animals; only myself and the eerie forest all around me. All I could feel a presence that was surrounding me. I couldn't pinpoint its location, but it remained close to me at all times, as if watching over me.

I blinked slowly and quickly snapped out of it. I was still looking at the two brothers, as if nothing had changed or happened. It looked as if they didn't realize that I'd blanked out entirely for a few seconds. I figured they were still waiting for me to answer them, but I didn't need to. I had found my own answers, and I knew what I needed to do from here.

I struggled to push myself up, and the two of them leaned over to grab me by the arms and lift me up. A gesture, admittedly, that was kind, but that still insulted my pride. For the sake of both of them, I bit my tongue and didn't say anything, but my face had probably already betrayed me. "I need to go," I said simply, not looking back at them and simply walking away. "I know where the exit is, I'll see myself out."

But before I could really start going, I felt Jonathan grabbing me by the arm. He wasn't using a lot of force, but it still stung and burned my arm when he grabbed it so suddenly. "Can you even get back to your place in one piece?" he asked, walking a little closer to me, and I could hear Matthew following along. "You can barely get up on your own."

When he said that, I pushed his hand away from my arm using a fair amount of strength, I thought, especially considering my condition. "I already told you to stop reminding me," I replied quietly, but I made sure to add just a small hint of anger in my voice so Jonathan would get the message. "I can take care of myself just fine."
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Postby Jaykobell » 02/25/2012 12:44 AM

It had taken a bit of arguing to get Jonathan and Matthew off my back. They insisted to come with me or to at least go with me for part of the way, and no matter how many times I told them off, they kept coming back.

I opened the door that lead to their first floor and tried to ignore them, but they were quickly getting irritating. "I'm not trying to insult you," Jonathan kept saying, probably upset at the fact I kept telling him to stop reminding me how weak I was, and how it was just getting worse. "I'm trying to be realistic. Ashton, those x-rays date back to weeks ago. That means your body is actually worse than what we've seen on the screen." I bit my tongue again; he didn't have to remind me about that, either. I had seen the x-rays just as much as they had.

"Dude, how can you even still walk? Doesn't it hurt a lot?" Matthew piped in from behind, trying to crane his neck over his brother's shoulder to see me as he spoke. "You're just accelerating your own death, Ashton. You're not doing yourself any favors." I felt a chill going down my entire back as Matthew said that particular sentence, but I ignored him as much as I ignored Jonathan and simply kept on going.

However, the more I ignored them, the more they pressed me. Jonathan got a bit irritated, while Matthew was ready to drag me down into their basement by force. "Why are you being so stubborn, Ashton?" Jonathan asked, and while he wasn't grabbing me, I could feel his hand hovering over me, ready to latch onto me at any moment.

"It's not only about me anymore," I said simply, going out through their bead-curtain and back into the main store. As vague as it were, Jonathan would probably pick up what I was trying to say. I figured an explanation would keep them at bay for a while, and it seemed to have worked. Jonathan stopped following after me, and I heard him and Matthew bickering, so I could only imagine Jonathan had stopped his brother from pursuing me. My back was facing them, at that point, and I didn't care enough to look back.
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Postby Jaykobell » 02/25/2012 12:54 AM

Making my way back to the train had been painful. I had to stop at a few benches to recover from the aching pain in my legs that just got worse the more I walked. However, there wasn't any other way; until I got to the train station, the only way to move was to walk. Every time my arms would also burn and ache from the strain I put on them to help myself up. Thankfully, they had more strength left in them than my legs, most likely because I didn't use my arms nearly as much.

I was relieved when I reached the train station and finally got to sit down. I was going even further this time, in the opposite direction from home. It was a stop not a lot of people dropped at, but I had a hunch that told me I had to go there. The memory Capricorn had latched on didn't tell me the exact location; the fog of that forest was too thick to tell where, exactly, it was located. However, I got an idea while snoozing lightly on the train; perhaps one of the train attendants would know about that specific location.

I inquired the one attendant who'd asked me if they could give me some painkillers earlier before. I figured they might recognize me — which I think they did, but it was hard to tell — and that it would make the conversation a little less awkward. They did answer me, however, and they seemed to know the area fairly well. It seemed like the forest I'd described was just small woods that lead to a small village. While not uncivilized, the village in question was considered a peaceful retreat where people of any working class or race could retire to. It was a common vacation and honeymoon destination, supposedly, but I had never heard about it. Then again, nobody really knew everything about the whole wide world, did they?
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Postby Jaykobell » 02/25/2012 1:10 AM

The stop wasn't as far as I had anticipated. I was grateful for that, since the sun was about to go down in a few hours, so there wasn't much time left for exploring.

The train terminal at this particular location was fairly empty, and the location of it perplexed me ever so slightly. There were barely any buildings around it, and while very clear, I could see the woods the train attendant had told me about, a thick fog shrouding it in a huge white cloud. Still, it gave me the same relaxing feeling as I'd remembered earlier. Despite the pain in my legs coming back so soon and the unknown that faced me in the forest ahead, I still moved on to go explore it and maybe even find the village it lead to.

At first, I'd thought the fog might be suffocating or hurtful. Similar to someone coughing when they inhaled smoke, I thought I would get a similar reaction to a fog as dense as this one, where you could also put your hand and arm through it and move it about. It was still as smokey and thin as any other fog, but the massive quantity of it just made it look thicker and more malleable than it really were.

Perhaps it was because of the fog, or maybe it was because the poison was starting to affect my hearing, but there were no sounds in this forest. Only the faint crackling of dead leaves and twigs whenever I stepped on them, but besides that, the woods were quiet. I got a bad feeling; perhaps the vision had been clouded by my fear, and perhaps it had lead me here in a desperate attempt to find a way to save myself from a death that was only coming faster and faster.

It was only when I stopped to try to figure out where I was that I started feeling that protective presence.
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Postby Jaykobell » 02/25/2012 1:18 AM

Now that I was physically here and not simply living an event from the near future, I tried to pinpoint the origin of that strange presence. However, it was the same problem as in the vision; it seemed to be moving all around, giving this impression that it was omnipresent and not only in a single spot. I'm not sure what I felt when I realized that; it felt like fear, but I'm sure desperation and the will to give up had a big part in it.

I pushed my limits and started walking faster through the thick fog. My legs were burning as if I'd just started walking into a live fire, and it didn't take so long for them to stop responding entirely. I felt myself plunging forward, but I managed to latch onto a nearby tree just in time. It was hard to see any of the trees or paths because of the fog, but thankfully one had been close enough to keep me from falling.

However, the more my arms had to hold my entire weight, the weaker they got as well. Soon, that same burning pain started welling up in my arms, and I felt my grip on the tree weakening quickly. It slowly started getting worse as I started breathing hard; I knew it wasn't because of the fog. The poison had started seeping into my vital organs, and it got harder to breathe. My stomach also started burning painfully, and soon enough I found myself coughing and hacking. I started coughing out something, and at first, I wasn't sure if I'd just coughed up saliva or blood, but seeing the red stain in my hand convinced me rather quickly that it had been the latter.
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Postby Jaykobell » 02/25/2012 1:34 AM

It didn't take long for panic to settle in. At this point, I was certain that I was too late, and that the poison had already won. My entire body started feeling that same burning pain as it traveled all around, attacking any organ it came across.

Despite that, I tried to keep on going. I started crawling on whatever I had left of my body. Internally, perhaps the poison had already damaged it beyond repair; but outside, I had no burns or gashes or bruises. Nothing indicated that I was, so to speak, in terminal stage. It was so surreal to say it like that, but nothing could describe my situation any better. Even I could tell I now had very little time left, if any at all.

I thought that, maybe if I reached the village that was past these woods, it would give me some hope. What could ignorant commoners do to help me, however? But my visions had always been right; I'd always seen real events, and not just daydreams that proved to be false. I could still feel that presence all around me, but by now, I was starting to think that this presence, perhaps, was another side-effect of this strange fog. Or maybe, just maybe... it was the beginning of the end. I'd heard people say that death was painless, ultimately, and that it was warm and welcoming.

Had I foolishly guided myself to my own death?
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Postby Jaykobell » 02/25/2012 1:52 AM

The irony of it all was just striking. Desperate to get rid of this humiliating pain, had I really trusted my vision so much that I didn't even question it? I'd thought, perhaps, that the soothing feeling the presence gave me was a good sign; that this was where I would find my very last hope at surviving this curse. Had my fear of dying really interfered with my ability to foresee my future? Capricorn was sometimes clouded by emotions and bias, enough to create visions of things it wanted to happen; in those particular cases, the events sometimes happened, but the real event and the vision differed, sometimes even beyond recognition. Had this happened earlier? Was that it?

I was still slowly and weakly crawling on the forest floor, some twigs scrapping my hands, but at this point, the pain was nothing compared to what was happening inside. I started wheezing and my arms were getting weaker. Not only that, but my vision was also starting to fade. Black dots popped here and there all around me, and everything got darker and darker, just as I got weaker and weaker. I could feel my heart struggling to hold on, just as much as my lungs couldn't let me breathe well anymore.

When my arms stopped responding to me, I felt my body falling over; it was a strange feeling, however, as I felt like I was falling in slow motion. I thought I would hit the ground and watch myself slowly pass away; my mind still felt sharp, but everything else was shutting off, one after the other. Agnes and the boys... They were all I could think of then. I could only think about how I'd failed to protect them and watch over them like I said I would.

That's when I felt myself falling onto something soft and warm. My first thought was a bed, or perhaps a pillow. However, I knew the feeling of that warmth, and it was far from being a bed or a pillow; it was the warmth of another human.

Image

The black dots were still making it hard to decipher anything, but I could see small details of the person who was holding me. A woman, about the same height as I was, grey-white hair that was even longer than her. I struggled against my unresponsive body and forced a hand to latch onto the sleeve of that woman's arm. That was all I could do as she held me in her arms, my body almost entirely limp, before I felt my eyes rolling over and my consciousness slipping away entirely.

"You were always too proud and reckless for your own good."
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Postby Jaykobell » 02/25/2012 3:36 AM

I didn't think I would awake ever again.

I was laying on something soft, but I couldn't tell what it was for sure. I already felt a lot better than I did back in the woods; I could breathe normally, and it felt like my body was back to normal. When I opened my eyes, there was a ceiling right above me, so I knew that someone had found me and brought me out of that foggy forest. I could still feel that peculiar presence, so I figured that whoever that was, was the person who had brought me here.

It's only when I tried to push myself up that I realized the poison wasn't gone from my body. Immediately my arms started to burn, and I had no choice but to let myself lay back down. I hissed a little from the pain, but I noticed that as long as I didn't move, I felt somewhat comfortable. I closed my eyes again and breathed slowly; I felt like I could relax here, I felt like I could lie down and still feel comfortable and at home.

But thinking of home, I realized I didn't have time to fool around. I turned my head around, and that's when I saw her. I stared at this familiar woman, sitting on a seat right next to me, her hair flowing over the armrests of the small single-seat sofa. Looking around just a little more, I realized I was lying down on a long sofa, dressed just the way I'd been back in the woods, with no patches or bandages or anything of the sort. I turned back to that woman, whom was simply staring back at me with an eerie, yet comforting smile. "To think you would push yourself this drastically just to find me. It would've haunted me for a few years if you'd died while looking for me."

"... Matilda..."
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Postby Jaykobell » 02/25/2012 3:48 AM

I was baffled at the fact that I had actually found the person I'd been looking for. The presence I had felt wasn't me slowly dying; it really was Matilda's presence, whom had been watching over me back in those woods. It was a surreal reunion, all things considered. "Did I die?" I was clearly alive, but that wasn't my question. "Was I dead when you found me?"

Matilda was one of the powerful Creators who had taken the time and effort to develop her abilities so generously granted to her by Ethelred. Unlike Jonathan and Matthew, whom had stayed relatively the same in terms of skill level, Matilda was one of those Creators whose power had continued to grow and expand over the years. The more you matured, the more the Hydra parasite matured with you, allowing you to expand its capabilities. Matilda, the Libra-dominant Creator, had a vast understanding of her abilities and could control the time of an object or a living being, either by rewinding it or even fast-forwarding it, if she so desired.

"No, you weren't dead," she answered quietly, her voice eerily quiet, yet still full of emotions; she was both hard and easy to read and understand, due to the fact that she was both quiet and lively at the same time. "You probably would've fallen into a coma. I rewinded you just a little so you wouldn't die... At least not for now."

"How did you know I was looking for you?" I asked, trying to ignore how dreadful her last words were. I wouldn't die, which was a good thing, but it seemed like Matilda hadn't sent me back in time far enough to get rid of the poison.

"You're not the only one who has the Capricorn," she told me passively, tilting her head just a little. "I don't have your skill level, but I sometimes foretell some of you trying to find me. I suppose a part of me longs to be with all of you."
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Postby Jaykobell » 02/25/2012 4:00 AM

Matilda's explanation surprised me. While all of us possessed the abilities of all the strains, each of us had a dominant one. Beyond the dominant strain, none of us truly bothered to expand on the other, weaker strains we did have. It felt like a waste to focus on abilities that would never truly develop beyond a certain level. Matilda, however, had expanded Libra, and it seemed like she had also expanded her Capricorn ability as well, since she'd known some of us had been looking for her before now. "If you knew we were looking for you, why did you never answer?"

Matilda straightened her head, but she didn't answer me right away. Instead, she looked away, a little upset. "The group officially split. That was then, and this is now." She paused for a moment before slowly looking back at me. "That is a life of my past. What is in the past, stays in the past. In order for me to move on and live a new life of my own, I believe that keeping close to any of you would interfere with that goal." An interesting answer considering her dominant strain. It was a valid answer: what's in the past, stays in the past. Still, Matilda could manipulate the past, present and future from her fingertips.

"Because the group split doesn't mean we can't keep in touch," I argued, turning my head as much as I could, so that I could get a better look at her. "We weren't looking for you for research purposes." That was something I regretted saying, but it was too late to take it back.

Matilda blinked at me before narrowing her eyes, and right then, I saw her composure change. "Please don't lie to me, Ashton," she quietly warned, her voice calm and steady, but her eyes telling me everything I needed to know. "You sought me then to ask about the research, and I can only assume you are seeking me now for something related to it." She leaned down towards me until we could almost touch noses. Those pale gray-green eyes were both charming and menacing. "I don't think it's fair to lie to the person you need help from."
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Postby Jaykobell » 02/25/2012 4:17 AM

I couldn't help but to look away when Matilda pulled that card. I was unnerved at this point; one false move or inappropriate word, and I would lose all hope of getting rid of this life-stealing poison. At the moment, I had to be careful and bear walking on eggshells. "It's not entirely true," I tried to argue, using this as an opportunity to explain what I'd meant better. "I'm still in contact with Jonathan and Matthew, as well as Janice and Abigail, and my parents, of course. It's not all about research and work."

It seemed like that was enough to appease Matilda's insecurity. "I suppose so," was all she replied to me for a while, and I wasn't sure what to do, think or say during that period of silence. However, Matilda eventually broke the silence on her own. "While grateful to Ethelred, I lost... many years of my life on that research. I don't want to make the same mistake again, Ashton. I am not interested in that research any longer."

"I wasn't looking for you because of the research. I was looking for you because I..." Something made it hard to say the last part out loud. Matilda looked like she had a vague idea of what I was trying to say, but she remained quiet as she waited for me to spill the beans. "I was looking for you... because I need your help," I eventually blurted out, swallowing my pride in one fell swoop, and saying I was embarrassed to admit it was an understatement.

Matilda, however, was slightly intrigued by my request. "I'm all ears."
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