The Afterglow: Treacherous and Peace(Vanessa Carcia) “Where is it, Mom?” I yelled through the hallway in a hurry of finding something.
“What is it, honey?” My mom asked. “Where are my black high heels that I just bought yesterday?”
“Oh! It’s in the kitchen; I’m polishing it right now.” Polishing? I just bought the heels and it was still looked shiny as new, my mom was just polishing it today? It hadn’t had any scratches since I bought it! My mom had answered my question that was in my mind. “Um... well, honey, I kind of wanted to try the black high heels, and I tripped this early morning, so umm… Sorry?” WHAT? She could buy her own beautiful and expensive high heels than mine. Why did she need to try on mine? Oh I forgot to tell you that her feet were slightly larger than mine, so I think that’s why she tripped.
I was carrying my big purple luggage to the front porch of the house. “Did you eat your breakfast Celeste Whitewoods?” oh and now she was calling me by my full name. How odd. ”Yeah, I know.” I replied to my subconscious voice in my head. “I just ate a beef burrito from the fridge and I finished some leftover of nachos, was that okay?” “Yea I planned that the leftover was for you, honey.”
“Morning, Celeste.”
“Morning, Dad.” My dad was handsome for his age. Maybe that was why my mom loves him so much.
“Why you need to leave so soon? I’ll miss you my baby.” My mom kissed my forehead and both of my cheeks. “Mom, it’s just a week, don’t worry about me, I’m a grown up girl.” “That’s the point! You are not a woman yet!” My mom reminded me. “I’m fine, mom, it’s just a school trip.”
“You’ll always be my little girl, Celeste.” My dad smiled. “Jeez! Mom, dad, it’s not like I’m going to go far away from you guys forever. I’ll be back. Love you!” “Have fun baby.” There was a honking sound coming from my best friend’s car that had just arrived now.
My best friend went down from her car and greeted my parents with her warm smile. “Good morning, Mrs. and Mr. Whitewoods.” “Morning, Ella. So, girls.” My mom clapped her hands. “I hope you have a very nice trip.” “Thank you, Mrs. Whitewoods.” Ella replied to my mom and my dad just smiled at her and gave her a reassuring nod. I kissed both of my parents’ cheeks and hugged them. Ella and I were going to her car and inside her car there was a driver, so we sat at the backseat of her car.
“I’m really super excited for this photography trip! We are going to Paris! I’ve never believed that this day we are going to Paris!” Ella is my best friend, who is a little bit excited on every little thing, but it was Paris we were talking about, and Paris is a big thing.
While we were on our way to the train station, I’m going to introduce myself. My name is Celeste, Celeste Whitewoods. I am seventeen years old, and British, but I could do the general American accent. I took photography classes with Ella in our school, since we wanted to become professional photographers, and also we could do some magic tricks with just our cameras, and our knowledge of photography. I also took a filming class online and it makes a beautiful combination when both of the knowledge collides together. I and Ella lived in Leeds, UK. I’m a brunette, and I have blue eyes. I am 5”5.
Ella is a blonde. She is also seventeen years old, but three months younger than me. She had also a pair of blue eyes and she was an inch taller than me. We both decided that we were going to take our gap year before we went to college.
We were in Ella’s car and talking about what might we do in Paris besides taking pictures of the scenery there. I was just checking my phone and it was just 7. 16 AM. Our boarding time would be at 9 o’clock since we were going to London (we’re heading to London first for transit, besides I hated on being in an airplane for just 30 minutes and Leeds don’t have international airport.) The distance between Leeds and London is 169.69 miles away so with a train it would be like two hours and ten minutes, and I could have the good time to rest as well as my other friends since we’ve been up so early for this trip( we were too excited.). And lastly, please do not trust my knowledge of geography and math. But I’m pretty confident of my knowledge of flamingos.
We had arrived at the Train Station at 7. 40 AM. We thanked Ella’s driver and carrying each of our own luggages. Once we stepped the ground, we know where we need to go first. Starbucks was my top priority right now.
I craved Hot Chocolate since autumn started and the temperature was getting lower from the past week. And autumn, I loved autumn, one of the perfect seasons for taking pictures.
I got my hot chocolate and Ella got her morning coffee with her name on the side of her cup that said” Eli”. Yuck! I hated coffee. And her name spelled wrong, I wondered if she realised it yet.
When we walked we saw our classmates waiting while sat on the waiting seats and doing their own thing so they could keep themselves busy. I thought we were the last ones to arrive. We just need to wait until the clock struck 9.
About time! Our train had arrived and we all went in and I found our seats according to the seat number written on the tickets. So we were all good, and let ourselves settled on the seat, and behave in public.
The train started moving on the railway. I liked trains better on the ground rather than underground, because I have my own benefits of taking pictures of the scene, but nothing much when you board trains in the UK. Alright, scratch that. Some places had the beautiful sceneries in here, you should visit UK sometime!
After two hours and ten minutes of getting uncomfortable on my seat, I, my classmates and my teachers went out of the train; here we are, in London.
What I loved about London was the beautiful architectures of the buildings, Big Ben, River Thames, and loads of sites that I wanted to visit. And I must tell you, that this was the first time I’d ever visit London. I mean, every person had their firsts on anything right?
But unfortunately, this is not our place to take pictures or to visit those sites in London.
We hopped into a double-decker red bus and it would get us there to Heathrow Airport, for maybe, 25 minutes from the tube station.
It was actually a nice day in London. What I meant ‘nice’ was gloomy. I’ve always loved gloomy day, I don’t know why, maybe because I loved to drink a cup of hot chocolate, and hot chocolate makes everything better.
We had arrived at the airport twenty-five minutes later. We would not have to check in for ourselves because it will take a long time until we got into the waiting lounge, and poof! We are late.
So instead, our teachers checked in for us and it would take less time so we could be on time. We’re not some spoiled children or teenagers or anything but oh well, we all gave our passports to them and let them handle those things I couldn’t handle most of the times.
I pulled out my phone and slide the screen to unlock the phone, and when the phone was unlocked, I got ten miscalls. And of course, it was all from my mom, my cool and beautiful mom, she must have been worried sick.
I decided to text her, I was not in the mood of calling someone, and so I texted her,” Hey mom, I’m in London right now, I’ll call you back when I arrived at Paris! LOL xxoxx” For Americans, LOL in my text was ‘Lots of Love’, not ‘Laugh Out Loud’.
“Hey, how’s it going?” Ella asked. “Nothing, just ten miscalls from my mom and I texted her said that I will call her back once I step the French land.” “You know that I got 23 miscalls from my mom too, so I forced myself to call her back and told her ‘I’m fine mom, we have just arrived at Heathrow Airport!’ and she replied, ‘wait, some guy has called you a HEART THROB?’ and I was just laughing at her and said ‘It’s H-E-A-T-H-R-O-W mom, an international airport in London.’ And she said ‘oh, sorry, I better get going now, love you! Have fun!’ and that’s it really.” “Wow.” “Speaking of French and Paris, we can find some hot French guys there, what do you think?” She wiggled her neat eyebrows. “Umm…” I pretended to shudder about that thought “No. We are going there for pictures and enjoying Paris, not the guys.” “Oh, really? Is that what you think about French guys out there in the romantic city?” I ignored her. And finally, she shrugged it off. Whew.
We had given the time to shop in the airport before we go to the waiting room. I didn’t want to shop as I would save the space in my luggage for some French things when I got home, and instead, I bought sweets, specifically, Maoams. Not Maoism or what words that suggested in Microsoft Office Word.
Ella and I also bought two notebooks for each one of us so in case we wanted to write journals about our journey to that certain places we would visit later on. Mine was the blue one, and Ella’s was orange, but we had the same type of book.
Boarding time! “Students, now we should go to the gate, I’ll distribute your passports and boarding passes now, and are there any students that haven’t still in the group? Are we all complete?” We all nodded.
“Okay, I’ll call your names and don’t lose your boarding pass or you’ll get stuck here in London.” We all nodded again. My teacher; Ms. Swan had started to mention our names. After a good five minutes or so, we were on our way to the departure lounge.
Our boarding time was actually like 11.15 AM, but we got there like 10.55, time moved so fast. As I was scanning through my boarding pass and what I know was our plane was British Airways and our destination was of course to Paris, France, to the Charles De Gaulle Airport. And my seat number… I wonder if I got to seat beside Ella.
“Hey.” I nudged Ella. “I was wondering if we are going to sit together.” “Wait, let me check.” She was checking her boarding pass. “My seat is 21C, what’s yours?” when I heard that, our other teacher, Mr. Pierre, said “No exchanging seats.”
I downed my shoulders a bit and realising we were not going to seat with each other. My seat was 18K; it was like far away, really far away from her. Ugh, I wondered who is going to seat next to me. Not a good day to start board on plane.
I slumped myself beside her and I ate a couple of sweet little maoams. If you didn’t know what Maoam was, they were sweets that were manufactured in Germany long time ago and had spread to European countries and some parts of the United States. I bought the Haribo Maoam Mixx bag, which contained a variety of little individually wrapped items. I would explain this further if it were not for going to the plane.
So fifteen minutes passed and time to get into the plane. No.
I remembered that Ella was not going to sit next to me, I was so worried sick, and I don’t make good friends with others besides Ella. I glared at Ella and gave her the ‘I don’t care, sit with me.’ Look. She gave me the ‘I can’t help it.’ look. I’m fine with it. I’m fine.
I was walking forward while I was looking for my seat, jeez, there were lots of people on the plane even it was not a holiday season, and it was really hard to pass through the aisle with my handbag hoping somebody would not steal my wallet or anything.
I had finally found my seat and when I saw a brown-haired guy and he was good looking I admit. A stranger, I didn’t even know him, but he looked the same age as me. My mom always said to me, smile to anyone and be kind. I did what she said, I smiled at him genuinely and said good morning to him, he smiled back at me but he didn’t seem to buy it, I just shrugged it off and made myself comfortable. Ugh. The flight will end soon; I promised to myself, it’s just one hour and a half. It will end sooner than I thought.
“Good morning ladies and gentlemen, welcome aboard. We will proceed to the safety instructions for your guide during the flight. Thank you for choosing British Airways.”
I just sat and looking at the window and waiting for it to just fly. Only I wanted to skip one step of the flight. Which was the take-off; I hated the take-off, always. Soon enough, the plane was started heading on the runaway and I held my seatbelt and tighten it so I wouldn’t fall. I held it like my life depended on it. The good looking guys just shook his head and chuckled. I rolled my eyes and I now tried my best not to shout and scream so I wouldn’t be public’s attention.
Fortunately, I went through take-off without screaming but I was sweating like every pores on my skin opened up, and there was one benefit from a lot of sweating actually. You don’t need to go to toilet as much often as you did usually on planes. So yeah, one point for me.
Well the ‘one point’ thing for me has nothing to do with the flight, so just forget it.
‘He’ beside me offered me his handkerchief. I looked at ‘him’ with a surprised face. And he said, “Just take it.”He has the British accent with a little bit of French in it, “You’re sweating like a pig.” WHAT THE HELL? And was that what it looked like in the movies, when someone offered you a handkerchief, and said that the handkerchief was for you, you washed it after you used it, and give it back to the owner and suddenly, you are in a relationship. But this was is the reality. And had him saying I sweat like a pig, ugh. I will never see ‘him’ again and also because Paris is such a big city. Not possible of finding him.
“What’s your name, brunette?” oh. Now he was trying to call me with my hair colour.
“Should I tell you the truth or the lie?” “Uh... Either way is the same, Shortcake.” This guy had me on my nerves. He smirked at me. “Celeste.” I shook my hand with his. His palm was rough and warm. “So Celeste, is the name you told me was the lie or the truth?” he quirked his eyebrow. “The true name of mine.” I cockily answered to him and stuck a tongue out for him to see how immature I am. “And what’s your name? It will be only fair if you tell me your name?” “Who says that I’ll not tell you my name?” okay... “My name’s Ian.” “Very original.” I sarcastically remarked. “Thank you.” He smiled. “So what are you going to do in Paris?” I asked him. “Well, I have my house there in Paris, you know, it’s the weekend. Every weekend I’ll be staying in France. France is just like my second home. England is my home.” “Alone?” I took a glance at his face. “No, when we checked in I thought I was going to sit with my parents, but it happened to be separated from them. But it’s alright, I’m a grown up man.” He smiled. “How old are you?” I asked him. “Do you always ask a lot of questions to all strangers in the world, Celeste?” I stayed quiet. I acted nosy in front of this stranger whose name was Ian. I just realised I asked too many questions to him. I mumbled “Sorry.”
He sighed and pulled down the table in front of him, I did the same too, knowing that we were going to have the meal here.
Finally a stewardess had reached our row and she kind of asked Ian very sweetly, “What would you like for a meal, sir?” “What would you like for a meal, sir?” I mimicked her voice in my head.
He didn’t seem to notice that, “I’ll have the pasta with the basil sauce.” PASTA? MY WORLD IS ROCKING! Pasta was my favourite!
“I’ll have the same.” I informed her immediately as I was thinking about pasta. “Okay.” She looked annoyed, one point for me.
She served the both of us and put our pasta on our tables. I gobbled up the dish and it was delicious. I finished up my meal and I was wiping my mouth with wet wipes and Ian was looking at me. “What?” He just stared at me, and finally he stopped staring, “I’ve never seen a girl eating like that.” My eyes widen. What was that suppose to mean? “You know, they will eat politely especially they’ll eat like a lady in front of a good looking guys like me. But you though, you ate like a pig. I just wanted to laugh at you forever.” I blushed. I actually didn’t care about my diet, I’ve always love eating, not starving myself and became anorexic. My body is still fit though. ”Maybe I’m not like any other girls.” “Yeah, I think so too.” He smiled. Well hell he smiled a lot today I noticed.
We both had finished our delicious pasta and knowing that the plane would land soon approximately eleven more minutes. I stayed at my seat and fasten my seatbelt again and I knew what to do.
TOUCHDOWN WAS LIKE THE SCARIEST THING EVER! I finally did it, but I did sweat again.
The speaker said on the plane that Paris is one hour advanced than England, no jetlag. I pulled out my phone from my handbag (I’ll say backpack next time, I promise.). Realisation had hit me, I couldn’t call my mom since the SIM card could not be used while you were outside of England, so I better turned off the mobile data, and I was going to use Wi-Fi instead, and of course, if you were out from the plane.
Ian stood up immediately and took out his things above our seat, “I’ll see you soon, Shortcake.” He stuck out his tongue for me to see and I stuck out my tongue back in reply to him and walked away with the other passengers. I stood up from my seat and suddenly someone yelled my name. “Celeste, Wait for me!” that voice sounded familiar though. You know who that was? My precious missed Ella was calling for me.
I looked back and stuck out my tongue at her and I walked out first to the aisle, she was left behind.
Finally we were out of the beautiful and gigantic British Airways and got rid of the crowded place. I saw my teachers gather their students at the corner of my right eye. I decided to wait for Ella first and we would walk together heading to our group.
I spotted Ella in the crowd; I waved at her to come here faster. She also spotted me and ran knowing what I signalled her to do. She better do it faster.
She stopped and she was panting like a dog. “Let’s go.” She nodded and headed to our classmates and teachers and one stranger. Strangely, that guy was the one who sat beside me on plane. He hadn’t notice me yet, that’s good enough, sooner or later, he will.
I noticed some of the girls here whispering to each other like, “He’s hot.” “He’s sexy for a tour guide; this is going to be a nice trip.” Wait a tour guide? Oh.
But he said that...
“Good Afternoon students, welcome to France, Paris.” He stared at me, and now what?
“Okay, students, meet Mr. Zachary Paul François Martinez. He will be our tour guide for the whole week.”
“Sexy name!” one of our classmates yelled, like literally yelled in a public place. The others just shushed her, and some of us laughed at her bluntness. Me? I stayed quiet because I was too stunned staring at him.
He smirked at me and mouthed, “We’ll talk about it later.” I nodded at that statement that he just mouthed to me. We walked and heading to the immigration, getting stamps. When I was a kid, i really loved stamps. Now, I didn’t know how I feel about stamps. After that we took our bags from the baggage claim and went out from the airport. We took a bus that will take us to the centre of Paris.
So the first thing we visited was a pyramid, well it looked like a pyramid but smaller version, and more European. It was called Louvre Pyramid, located in the front of Louvre Palace in Paris. I read the article about the pyramid in Wikipedia that the pyramid has the association with the number “666” of glass panes. They said it was just a rumour in the late 1980s, and they counted again the glass panes which they counted total of 673 glass panes. I took my camera from its bag. My camera was a Nikon d7000 with the 50mm lens, just the standard lens. I took almost 13 pictures and looked around the pyramid and finding a good angle and lightning to work with it.
Someone grabbed my arm from my back and I almost screamed. I know who this was.
“So you’re the tour guide of mine? And your name is Zachary? Oh yeah, my mom said to me that don’t trust strangers and also don’t give them my real identity, will you just let me go?”
“My real name is the one I told you on plane, Celeste. You just don’t understand.” He shook his head. I was purely confused. What did he mean by that? Why did he refer his name into “the one I told you on plane”? “Why you changed your name to Zachary? It just doesn’t make any sense.” He spun my head right round, right round, when he went down, when he went down, down. I know what you were thinking in your head.
“It’s a long story, shortcake. You’ll meet me at your lodge after all the touring thing. Just remember. And now, I want to see your pictures you just shot.” I showed him some of my pictures.”You’re not bad, shortcake.” He said while smiling “What can you do most besides being a tour guide?” I asked.
“Hm... I swim, sing, play music instruments, and public speaking.” He never failed to surprise me. “You still owe me one question though.” He questioningly glared at me. “How old are you?” I finally asked.
“I think it’s not the right place to tell my true identity. I’ll tell you why.” He nervously let out the words. Was there any secret that will never mean to be told? Why me? “Why me, I-“He shushed me with his finger on my lips. “Just don’t mention my name here, okay?” I nodded silently, still confused of what was happening.
I walked around and I found a strangest thing with my own eyes. A moving branch, was heading right behind Ella. It seemed no one was looking at it. I wondered why. I ran towards Ella to save her from the gigantic branch from the ground. I bumped her. She fell.
“Ouch! What was that for?” “Did you see that?” “See what?” “The...” I looked behind her, and it was gone.
“Are you hallucinating?” “No. There’s a branch trying to rape you or something. I have a bad feeling at this.” “Celeste, you just have read so many fiction books until you imagined things that don’t even exist. Calm down a bit.” I shook my head. “No, it’s real.” What if I could see through the Mist like demigods did on my Percy Jackson Book Series, or a Supernatural TV series that I watched last night would be happening in the real world. What if I couldn’t be controlled like Tris did in the Divergent series. UGH WHAT IS HAPPENNING WITH ME? It didn’t make any sense!
Was this the thing that what Ian was talking about? About hiding his true identity, I think this was it. The branch, I need to talk to him.
Suddenly, people looked around and seeing the Louvre pyramid glowing with red eyes, Ella diverted her gaze to the pyramid. She was absolutely stunned by it. No one moved. That made the two of us, Ian and Me.
“Run!” He yelled at me. I ran and followed behind his back. He grabbed my hand and we ran as fast as we could, what was happening?
“Where are we going?” I admit, I was scared with all of that. “To my hidden house, come on!” We ran like the horse in Percy Jackson series, Arion, and vampires on Twilight series.
He suddenly gave me a piggy back ride. “WooHoo! I’m a pig! I’m a pig!” He scolded me and ran fast as he could, maybe because I was too slow.
We finally had arrived at his ‘hidden’ house. “Get inside.” “Okay”
The house was just made of woods, polished woods. When I entered the house, I was welcomed by a couple. His parents, I think?
“Mom, Dad, we’ve got a trouble.” His parents immediately walked toward us, “What happened, son?” “It’s just happening too fast.” A hint of fear was in his voice.
“We’ll talk about this later on dinner, Ian. And who is this beautiful young lady?” I blushed. “My name’s Celeste.” “Celeste, what a beautiful name, dear.” His mom smiled genuinely. I looked down at the wooden floor.
Wait, his father had just mentioned his name? “It is a safe place already to call my real name. I don’t want to get into trouble by the demonic pyramid. That’s why we need to get far away from that place.” But... “Why? Why did you take me, not the others?”
“I have the feeling that I can trust you Celeste. And tell me. Did you know what was really happening there, physically?” “I actually don’t really know what was happening there but, I saw a pair of red glowing eyes on the pyramid and I felt the presence of someone, I felt uncomfortable.” “Was there anything else you saw before that?” “The branch“ I answered almost immediately. “The branch.” He repeated my answer, like he knew it was going to happen. “Dad, what are we going to do?” He finally asked his dad.
“I’ll give a quest Ian, and you, young lady. You are strong and you are different, that what makes you dangerous. We need to do something with this. Go, to the deepest point in this forest, and find a book. That book will tell you what to do, but be careful, monsters are awake again. They’ll find that book if you don’t get it sooner.” Monsters, like Percy Jackson and his friends, he fought them. “What kind of monsters?”
“They’ll hunt you both. You are both fresh in meat and blood, I hope you understand, Celeste and Ian.”
I shook my head, this is not happening. I just wanted to have a good trip with my classmates, not the opposite of this trip. “I wanted to go home.”My eyes were brimmed with tears; I really wanted to go back to my house in Leeds, where I could be happy with my parents and Ella. My home, I missed my home.
“Look shortcake, we haven’t started the quest yet and you’re scared already, I thought you were not like the other girls. Prove me that!” Ian reminded me.
I was still crying and realising we didn’t have much time to get the book. I need to be strong. I need to, but it just happened so fast I couldn’t hold it much longer. The weight of the world was just in my shoulders now. I couldn’t get up, paralysed.
“That’s a lot to take in, Ian, she was just a normal girl, let her rest.” The last thing I saw was Ian swept up my feet and laid me slowly and gently on a fluffy surface.
The next morning, I saw Ian putting on his grey t-shirt and his mom putting some supplies for the quest.
Quest, I forgot about that. “Time to wake up, sleepy pig. Here, have some milk.” He offered me a glass of milk; I gulped until there was no single drop left.
I woke up. I stood up from bed, and looked at the mirror. Bad Hair Day, I need a comb. “No time of getting yourself to look pretty, Shortcake. We’ll be running out of time.” He glared at me, and I sighed.
I had no strength for crying or grieving for my life. I was so numb I couldn’t get up so I had Ian giving me a piggy back ride.
“This is much better than walking.” I mumbled at his neck, and inhaling his manly cologne.
“And shut up and don’t make me lose on this battle okay?” Ian turned his head to face me. “Okay.”
It was still in the morning when we started our journey. “Actually, what’s the real reason behind all these things, why you wouldn’t let them to give your true identity?” I asked him.
“If you gave them your true identity, you’ll become one of his delicious meals!” I gasped. No way.
He laughed, once the situation was serious enough, he laughed? That was all he could do?
I hit him hard on his shoulder blades, well, I should say, muscular back. He faked the sound “Ouch.” And I hit him hard again on his chest. “You are strong for a girl.” I blushed. Again.
Obstacles here and there come again another day. A cave, I saw a cave. “Is it right there?” I asked him. “Yes.” I just kept quiet until we reached the cave. Oo, I never thought this quest was going to be easy.
“Stone rolled, open the key
Where I’ll find my treasure
Give the way.”
What kind of poem was that? It didn’t rhyme or anything.
The stone rolled and it would maybe lead us to the book, magically. I decided to walk since Ian would be tired. I was a pig anyway to clear things up, according to him.
That poem, reminded me of the movie Rapunzel. The difference is, Rapunzel made it a song.
We walked down the muddy and rocky track, and surprisingly, it was not dark at all. Crystals everywhere in the cave, we could see everything clearly.
I spotted like the priest’s table (I don’t know what that’s called), the one that you found in churches when a pastor was preaching, we were meant to approach that place and Ian easily took the book. “This is it! We better get home before the monsters come here.”
We made our way out from the cave. But the stone, we were stuck here! I tried to roll it aside, but the stone wouldn’t move!
“The branch, it’ll get us! There should be a way.” We tried everything we could until we heard a deep laughter of a man. “Welcome, my prisoners.”
Our fight had begun, and specifically,
The real fight has begun.
I punched my surroundings to find the man. I need to kill that man.
“Ian...” I was shaking and I... and I would be like A MILKSHAKE, NO SHAPE!
“Stand near me, Celeste.” I obeyed what he said. “It’ll rape me! It’ll rape me!” I screamed.
“SHUT UP! I’m trying to protect you.” He was standing in front of me since he had a bigger body than me. I didn’t know what was going on.
“We need to get out of here.” He hissed out. “But, we’re stuck! THE TREE BRANCHES WILL RAPE US BOTH!” “Be quiet! How could you be so stupid? Stop whatever you’re doing I’m trying to summoning the branch, okay?” summoning the branch? That reminded me of Carter and Sadie in The Kane Chronicles series. So that was why he was calmer than me earlier.
“Okay.” And the nature thing, it reminded me of Grover, the satyr, from Percy Jackson.
I closed my eyes and started to sing.
“Our hearts with a hopeful feeling
My children, listen to my song
I wonder how we loved each other
When we built our own guards
Down and fearful
It might harm you
Cowards with a heart,
No thoughts.
When you give me harm
I’ll give you my forgiveness
If you give me death
I’ll give you my happiness ahead.
Give me war
And I’ll give you the peace
I promise you
It will embellished your lives
Glow in the sunlight when you smile,
Shine in the moonlight with bright
Oh, my children
Hope you hear my song,
Let the world sing.
I still close my eyes, and I felt someone shook my body.
“Hey, sleepyhead, get up.”
I opened my eyes and saw sunlight in front of me. It worked.
“Hey, you did it. Come on let’s get us going.”

Has the quest begun?
Yes. And we are going to do it.
Together

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