"Th--Thank you." I managed to force the words out. But the behemoth didn't say a word, it just looked at me with it's huge Scuba Mask. There was a faint light coming from the inside of it, behind the iron bars, behind the glass -- white with some kind of fog from within. The huge suit looked like it was made of Kevlar.
"Well, I -- uh, I'm gonna be on my way then." I said and turned around to start heading to Pompey. As I made my way I could hear the gigantic footsteps slamming against the earth behind me. I looked back. The Colossus was following me. I stopped.
"Are you following me?" I asked. Still, not a word. I paused, looking for the right words.
But none came.
I started to walk again. At first I tried to ignore the giant pounding footsteps that were following me, but after a while I just couldn't take it. I slowed down a bit, walking beside it.
"Well, um..." I looked up at it, into the foggy light of it's face. "I'm going to Pompey to find my wife. She, uh...she left me -- well, we had a fight and I, uh said some things I didn't mean. She was pretty upset, and I mean -- she was being really mean, always bringing up that ex of hers. Its been three years!" I was shouting now. I was completely pouring my insides out to this complete stranger. But I guess everyone starts out as a stranger, and the people we really confide in are just the lucky ones, or the ones we've managed to prove ourselves to. No one really ever wants to be the one with their insides open for display, for the world to see. Others are just there when you need them, a faceless entity you can trust.
"I just...I hate feeling like I'm second best, you know?" I said. It was easy to see in the dark, the Colossus' illuminated face acted as a flashlight. "She didn't have to leave him, and that's what I told her. I said, 'If you miss him so much, go back to him. No one told you to be with me, you chose!' Then she flipped out and started screaming and left. It took me a while to get over it, the anger, you know? I was in that mind set of just saying the worst possible things, just to make her mad. And I did, and it hurt me, doing that." We began to walk across a huge field, with tall grass. The light cut through the grass blades, making a strange army of dancing shapes. They looked like flowing hair strands, made of light.
"I realized that she was really all I based my life around. I began photography to take pictures of her, to capture her beauty for the rest of the world to see. I wanted to show off, show the world that a--" I looked up at the Colossus, who just gazed forward, off into the endless night. "--that an ugly, no talent like me could have a girl like that. That there's some kind of beauty, some kind of talent I can't see. You know?" The Colossus looked at me and then back at the path before us.
"She made me love myself, and that's why I have to get her back. She, ha! I know it sounds stupid, but she...completes me."
The two of us walked side by side, through the tall grass.
"My name's Jack, by the way. And yours is...?" But, no answer. We continued to walk along side one another, in silence. The zephyr blowing through the tall blades was the only sound, other than the heavy footsteps and buzzing of far-off insects.
"I'm going to call you..." It looked over to me. "Tiny. Your name is Tiny from now on, kay?" Still, no answer.
"Tiny? Do you think I'm crazy, wasting my time on all of this? I mean, I'm going into Pompey, just for a girl. Do you think I've completely lost it? Sometimes I feel like I have, like this is some kind of test, for myself -- to prove something. What? I don't know. Then, other times, I feel like this is my way to help her. Like she was lost in that same mind set I was, to inflict as much pain as possible. Like she wants me to save her, to take her back to the way things used to be." Then Tiny stopped and so did I.
Just beyond the grass, a few feet ahead, was a lake. The grass all around it was dead and had turned to ash. On the opposite side there was nothing but flat sand, for what looked like forever. It eventually, off -- way off in the distance, it hit the sky. Massive and dark, lit up only by the giant spectacle of the moon and a few magnificent planets. All of this was reflected on the surface of the still, mirror-like lake. It looked like a sky flipped on it's back, looking down at itself.
I walked up to the edge of the water, Tiny standing still where he first stopped, I walked to the one thing in the lake. A dock that stretched from one end to almost the center. As I stepped on it, it creaked and dipped into the water. A single, huge ripple expanded from the dock, hit the ends of the water, and rippled back to the dock. I walked to the end of the dock and with each step a single, huge ripple shot out from the dock. When I reached the end I peered inside, through the surface of the calming water.
I knelt down and pressed my chest against the dock, my face just above the water. I was so close my breath alerted it. As I looked through the surface I saw a garden of seaweed, just as tall and menacing as the grass Tiny and I were walking through. I looked through the dark shadows beneath the water and saw a woman trapped within them. Her hair floating weightlessly in the water. My eyes shot open, and so did hers. She looked at me, from the bottom of the lake, her arms and legs bound by the tall underwater grass. My jaw dropped and so did hers.
A few air bubbles escaped her mouth. They hit the surface of the water and looked like blisters waiting to pop. And they did.
The first bubble popped and a handful of fragmented letters floated in the air. Slowly, they formed a small sentence.
"Don't leave me here to die."
Another bubble popped, and more letters floated up into the night sky.
"I'm only wishing you'd extend your hand to me."
A few more bubbles exploded.
"How much of myself can I pour out,
Before I'm all shriveled and old?
My insides fill with self mutilation,
And my heart is screaming out to you."
Two more bubbles explode.
"Don't leave me here to die,
Pick me up and carry me to safety."
Then the tall, underwater grass covered her, and I could see her no longer. I got to my feet, the lake echoing my movements like it did the sky. I walked back to Tiny.
"We have to go, Tiny." I said walking around the huge lake. "I have to save Abbi, I have to save her from herself. We'll only be safe if we're together. Come on, Tiny. We have to save her!"
-Sir Jestro
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