Chapter 15: Through Hell And [!!!] High Weather [!!!]

Shit.

After a soothing night, there was bound to be a storm waiting for us. We'd stumbled right onto a well-beaten path through the woods — one not marked on the maps, and one that we didn't want to see. Why?

Well, obviously, there were marks of bandits and criminals everywhere. Even for my untrained, high-future eyes it was clear that some tomfoolery was being gotten up to here — there were scratches on trees, a striking lack of any animal life, and most of the dirt was trodden down by boots of a similar make rather than the varied prints and footfalls of the main paths. It wouldn't have been as clear as it was had a loopy bandit not written "LAW KEEP OUT OR ELSE!" on a nearby tree in poor handwriting. Everything pointed to horseshit. Not particularly skilled horseshit, but horseshit nonetheless.

We'd need to move carefully from now on and keep to lesser-travelled paths. It was more nights slogged through on vigilant watches, more nights spent sleepless around an extinguished fire. A huge pain in all of our asses, even before the pouring rain started assaulting the forest. We had spells for this sort of thing, but it was detectable by magic... basically radar? So we didn't use it.

The last few days had been torturous. Stressful day after stressful night after stressful 24 hours. Nora and Flurry were made of sterner stuff, though, having kept their spirits high, and I pushed through for them.

What else could I do? I wasn't going to finish my mission just because it was convenient to me at the time. I had to push onwards, even if it meant feeling like I was gasping for air. Right?

Augh, whatever. I was spiralling again, I knew that much. I'd need to take some time to code later, preferably with Flurry watching. She'd taken a — purely professional, I assumed — interest in my coding. It was, after all, like magic to her. But she'd learned a lot just from watching, and insisted that I continue coding with her. So I started including her in my work, explaining parts of the code and what they did. It'd made things faster, somehow. Despite the wasted time spent explaining myself to her.

Realistically, it wasn't that hard. But the integration hell I was going through, while mild, was still hell. Everything kept throwing errors, and it was hard to re-categorize things once you'd already input information. Additionally, the problems with manually inputting values for all the elements and tracers between the elements weren't gonna go away anytime soon. But Flurry made it bearable, lightening the mood with jokes and such.

I couldn't code now, though. All of us had to be on high alert during the rain. It masked sounds, movements, and — critically — my thermal sensors. I hadn't told the others everything, but they knew I was able to see by heat. This blocked all that out with a mist of blue cool.

Oh, and did I mention the cool? It was freezing these nights, to the point that we'd desperately fantasized about any fire the past few nights. All three of us, verbally. And with a decent gap in between each time. It was kind of funny, but not everyone was made more metal than man like I was (well, metamaterials and such along with polymers, but the idea is conveyed regardless.) I did my best to keep Flurry and Nora warm, running my internals hot with heat-diffusers and such, but it really wasn't enough. We needed more shelter than just our tents in the storms rolling through the area.

Which led us to where we were now. We were on the very edge of a bandit settlement, seemingly abandoned. It'd be creepy, but as safe as could be. The log cabins felt rustic-American, but they were utilitarian above most other aspects. Still, we were able to see some variance.

To go for the biggest central cabin or smallest edge one was a relatively easy choice for me, but the others stopped me from immediately starting to try and break the door of a nearby shed down. "Cyl! What are you doing??? We should go use the central cabin!" Nora hissed at me, with Flurry hurriedly nodding right behind her.

"W-Well, I thought it'd be lower-key for us to use an edge shed. That way we could stay low?" I reasoned, hoping to convince them of the relative safety of this, uh, random building on the edge of a bandit encampment.

Nora huffs, exasperated. "The caution's appreciated, but anyone looking for us would probably not worry about whether or not we're in an edge building! This area's abandoned and easily-defensible, anyways. We want an area that's got loud entry sites and a lot of exit ones — neither of which this shed gives us, and both of which the big buildings give us. C'mon. I'm soaked and you are too."

That, uh, was sensible. Flurry was already rushing off through the rainy encampment to the central bandit building. It was eerily silent beyond the pitter-patter of rain. Not silent as like suspicious, breath-holding silence, but silent like the heavy quiet of a graveyard stretching beyond your sight. The buildings here had weathered storms before, I knew, but how many? How many clouds overhead had came and went?

It didn't matter right now. The weighty atmosphere didn't matter. I reminded myself of that several times as I made my way closer to the center, wading through the muck like wading through memories.

You know, it rained a lot like this back at home. Heavy, and in long, sustained droves. It was the work of hundreds of thousands of giant cubes in the sky, interlocking to form a blanket over the world. Well above the clouds, these cubes seeded the world with rain to keep a constant downpour on the less-wealthy and barely-surviving. The artificial rain provided wind and power to many places, but more importantly it cooled the earth — the cubes took in heat from the atmosphere and turned it into water, cooling down the atmosphere while giving the poor water to survive. An option not favored by most company workers, but necessary due to the lobbying of the few charity groups that still existed.

There were few areas that weren't covered by rain. I worked in a Tower, though. So I didn't really even see the outside from my city-tower stretching into the sky, and even if I was able to it'd be a waste of company time to have me operating at full capacity just to look.

It'd been at least three or four weeks since I was brought here.

What was I doing with the time I'd been given? Running off on some quest?

No. I was spiralling again. I focused on the here-and-now once more, checking back in to see that Flurry had just finished picking the lock to the back door. She gave both of us a thumbs up and entered, checking for traps along the way.

It was equally as heavy inside. Dust had settled over every available surface, and as we walked in a cloud of dust would have sprung up behind us had we not been drenched. The other two set out to find a fireplace, but I stayed in the entrance for a moment.

This felt like home. Not home as in Nora's room, or the Towers, but someplace before that. Somewhere where I remembered very little beyond a haze of yellow and gray and crashing blue. It wasn't really... it wasn't my home. I pressed on for a moment, closing the door behind me at the very least — bolting it, too — before stepping further in to meet up with my friends once more.

It was quiet. The dust still covered everywhere, but Nora and Flurry had stoked a roaring fire in the bandit's stone fireplace. It filled the room we were in — a sort of common area, I assumed — with light. And heat. And a smell like the new morning, somehow. Maybe I was just being romantic.

They were warming themselves by the fire. I really wanted to join them... should I just ask?

Yeah. Okay, I'd just ask if I could join. "I-I, uh, guys?" I coughed, bringing their attention to me. This was a bad idea, but I pushed through. "Can, uh, can I sit with you?"

They look at me funny, before Flurry speaks up. "Yeah, why would that be not okay?" Nora nods, turning back to bask in front of the fire on the stone floors. 

Was that question weird? Fuck, it kind of was. Sounded like a high-schooler trying to sit with their date at lunch, actually. Shit. Time to play it off as cool. I shrugged noncommittally, walking over to their seated positions near the fire and sitting down next to the two. The heat from the fire baked the water off my bodysuit and scarf, slowly easing the weight on my shoulders. The weight on my mind stayed, though. Maybe it'd never go away.

I looked up, the dusty ceiling seeming almost leagues apart from the ground. Was it so bad? I'd found two people who seemed to tolerate my presence, though that might have just been part of my status as a quest member. But it wasn't just that, was it? I'd been taken in before.

Gah, I didn't know. For now, the ironclad air around us was kept at bay by the warmth of the fire and the now-comforting sound of rain impacting the roof. This wasn't the most safe spot, but it was safe with my companions. It bolstered me. Pushed me just that little bit more to find things out about the people I wanted to call friends.

"Guys?"

"Yeah," Nora responded listlessly. She was thoroughly enjoying the heat of the fire, leaned back and with a content, blissful expression on her face. "What's up?"

"I, uh... I dunno. Just wanted to talk, I guess."

Flurry jumps in. "What about?"

You are reading story FLASH-HIDER // A Modular Spark at novel35.com

"...No clue," I respond after a second.

"Fair," says Flurry, and that's it for a few moments. Nora looks at me after a time, questioningly.

She speaks up, words cutting through the soothing background noise. "What held you up back at the entrance? You took a bit."

Could I tell her that I was just... feeling? Maybe? "Nothing much. Just thinking," I say, a non-answer that even while speaking felt dishonest.

Nora stares at me for a bit. "That's not all, is it?"

"No," I sigh. "It isn't."

I'm not ready to speak for a few seconds more, but I continue nonetheless. "The foyer reminded me of a place I was at a long, long time ago. Maybe ten years or so. Weird feeling."

Flurry nods, sighing. "I know it. Kinda like you want to go back, but you know you can't?"

"Yeah. Weird, right?"

"Weird," she agrees.

"Is that normal? I don't really know."

The two girls beside me give a little chuckle at that, some in-joke popping to the surface. Flurry speaks up again after the humor passes. "Buddy, nobody here's normal. In fact, even for normal people most aren't 'normal'. Everyone's weird."

"I, uh, I guess. I've been in sort of a really bad mood the past few nights. Sorry if you noticed."

"We don't care," Nora says. "Er, like, it's not a huge deal whether you're in a bad mood or not, not that we don't care that you're doing poorly. I do care about whether you're doing well or not. In the non-self absorbed sense. Like. I want to help."

Flurry playfully punched Nora in the side before she spoke up again. "What this numbskull said. You don't gotta worry about hiding your feelings. Bad team composition." Her gaze softened a bit before she spoke further. "And, I mean. We do care. You're a pretty cool person."

"Uh. You too. Both of you," I responded clumsily, silently having wished I was born with a better speech processor. I didn't deserve them.

But they were with me regardless, so I tried to stifle those dark thoughts and push them aside for my companions. "You think it's safe in here? With the fire and all..."

Nora shrugs. "Haven't been in a bandit encampment in a while, but people usually don't come in when the fire's on. Only people we'd need to worry about are the bandits, and considering the dust they're probably long gone. Besides, the rain will mask our tracks assuming it keeps up for a while."

Huh. I hadn't considered that. "You sure? It seems almost too easy..."

Flurry snorted, pulling a canteen of water from her inventory. "Most people," she says, "take the easy route and ride out the issues that come with it." After taking a sip, she continues — all the while staring into her bottle with a wistful look. "Sort of a thing with how adventurers and heroes are made. We're all cut from the same cloth. Want to improvise our way through everything, making our destiny by the way we run and fight."

Bottoms up for Flurry. "Meh, usually ends up with people who get their dreams crushed or people who have the same mentality as us. 'Cept we've got that spark still, so you're in good hands!" She smiled at me with no teeth before averting her gaze again. Everything was a little quiet after that. I touched on a bad subject, didn't I?

The mechanic was giving me an easy out, though, and I wasn't gonna squander it. Instead of pressing for answers like the little demon inside of me wanted, I just nodded and started prepping for a night next to the roaring fire. It was getting late anyways, but my motions would (and did) spur my companions to start grabbing bedrolls and such as well. No tents, though, which made sense... and was also nerve-wracking for me.

I did sleep, too. As in I was able to. It wasn't a physical sense of anxiety, it wasn't me being afraid that I drooled or something inane like that.

Mostly.

The majority of me was worried that I'd show some sign of weakness in my sleep. Or emotion. Or fear, anxiety over losing the people I was sleeping next to, and all the other dark things rushing through my head. This world seemed to be an odd blend of light and dark, with permanent death being staved off by respawning and a fantastical magic system and larger than life friends, and yet also abandoned, rotting wooden bandit camps sodden in the rain and the promise that my home was far, too far, and the burden of saving an entire world and business venture by a literal deity.

To put it cleaner, I was falling solidly into the darker side of this world while my companions travelled light and without burden on their minds. It felt like I was falling behind, like I was falling susceptible to the inevitability of entropy years before I was set to become inoperable.

And I didn't want my party to see that side of me! Call me selfish, or absurd, or manipulative — I didn't want to burden anyone else with my thoughts. What if one of them could read me even through my default expression? Would it be better to just let some of my emotions show as a sign of me being "clear" with them, even though it was a lie?

I didn't know. It was scaring me.

"Hey Flurry, Cyl," Nora yawned, dragging her sleeping bag next to mine. Shit. "Just like a sleepover, right?"

Flurry shakes her head, a smile on her face. "Yeah, just like a sleepover. Move it." She, too, moved her sleeping bag next to mine and Nora's, before tucking herself in with a smile on her face. Hell. Hell on Beyovaria is what this was. I hid my face, trying to turn away but being blocked on both sides by my travelling companions, and eventually settled to just sleep extra-deep in my bag this night.

Even as my anxiety reared its ugly head, though, I felt Nora's slow breathing and Flurry's rapid heartbeat next to me. Pretending worked well last time. I'd just need to get good at pretending — and, with practice, I'd get there. I knew that much.

So I started to pretend that today was just a normal night, between friends. And that hope, that idiotic dream let me drift to sleep without any hard resets or shutdowns. The stars turned above, as our group huddled in a pile by the dying fire.

You can find story with these keywords: FLASH-HIDER // A Modular Spark, Read FLASH-HIDER // A Modular Spark, FLASH-HIDER // A Modular Spark novel, FLASH-HIDER // A Modular Spark book, FLASH-HIDER // A Modular Spark story, FLASH-HIDER // A Modular Spark full, FLASH-HIDER // A Modular Spark Latest Chapter