"That was so much fun! I loved it!" Athena shouted, her voice echoing with pure delight as she leaped toward me.
"Uh... yes?" I replied, a little taken aback by her sudden, high-spirited energy.
"I have something amazing to show you!" she declared, her eyes sparkling with mischief. Before I could object, she grabbed my wrist and tugged me away from our quiet campsite, deeper into the thick, whispering woods. The trek felt longer than it should have, and my feet crunched on the fallen leaves until we came to an abrupt stop. Towering before us was a magnificent tree, its trunk so massive I couldn't even guess its width, and its branches seemed to scrape the sky itself.
"What are we doing here?" I asked, my voice a whisper as I craned my neck to see the top.
A sly grin spread across her face. "We're going to climb it," she said, pointing a finger to the crown of the 300-foot-tall tree.
A nervous laugh escaped my lips. "Haha! That's a great joke," I said, playfully hitting her arm. "Come on, let's head back to the campsite. We don't want to get left behind."
I turned to go, but in an instant, she had me again, pulling me back with surprising strength. The next thing I knew, she scooped me up as if I weighed nothing at all. I was a doll in her arms.
"I'm not kidding, Sari," she chuckled, her voice low and serious. "I'll carry you all the way up, so you'd better hold on tight."
"W-wait! I wasn't kidding either—we really might get left behind—AAaaAHHHH!" My protest turned into a terrified shriek as she launched us upward with an inhuman leap. The world blurred into a green and brown streak as we rocketed into the air. I squeezed my eyes shut, my heart hammering against my ribs, convinced this was the end. We were supposed to be on a hiking expedition to the next checkpoint, and the whole group needed to be complete. This was not part of the plan.
After what felt like an eternity—about a minute, I think—the dizzying ascent finally stopped. I slowly opened my eyes, finding myself staggering on a broad, sturdy branch at the very peak of the tree. My legs felt like jelly, and my stomach churned. I was sure I was going to faint from the sheer terror of my fear of heights.
"Come on! A true warrior faces their fears!" Athena said, her hands gently prying my clenched fingers away from my face.
"No! I'm not a warrior!" I insisted, my voice muffled.
"Oh, really?" she challenged.
"Yeah!" I snapped, my eyes still squeezed shut.
"Then you have no choice but to stay here until late at night, because I'm not carrying you down until you become a warrior." She said, her voice firm, and then she sat down on the branch, crossing her legs with a sense of finality.
"But I'm scared," I whimpered, slowly peeking through my fingers before turning to face her.
"No, you're not," she insisted, her gaze unwavering.
"Yes, I am," I shot back, a tear escaping my eye.
"How can you save everyone if you can't even face your own fears? You know what? I'll just reflect on something. You go find a way to be a warrior," she lectured, then closed her eyes and held a strange, meditating pose.
I let out a long, heavy sigh. I needed to convince her to get us out of here, but how? I closed my eyes and concentrated.
Activate telepathy mode, I thought desperately, hoping I could reach for ate Clydelle.
"If you think you can survive by asking others for help, you're wrong," she said, her eyes still closed, a small smirk on her lips.
Deactivate telepathy mode, I thought, frustrated.
"There's always a different way," she told me, as if reading my mind again.
I spent the next hour lost in thought, desperately searching for a way to overcome my crippling fear. I tried to think of my bravery and strength, but nothing worked. Finally, I found it—the key to withstanding the terror. I had to think of my greatest nightmare, the one that haunted me every night.
The memory of what happened when I was nine years old came flooding back, and the fear I felt then was so overwhelming that the height of the tree seemed to pale in comparison. It was a painful, horrific memory, but it worked. The ground below no longer felt so terrifying, but I still wished I didn't have to remember it.
—
It was the dead of night, the house silent except for the frantic clicking of my controller. My family was long asleep, but I was wide awake, my eyes glued to the TV screen. I was on the final boss fight of Legend of Adlez, a beautifully crafted pixelated RPG, and I was desperate to finish it. My hands were slick with sweat as I dodged a barrage of magic spells, my character's health bar hanging on. I just wanted to win so I could finally get some sleep. Then, a strange thing happened. The soft, silver light of the moon that had been filtering through my window and bathing my room in a gentle glow suddenly intensified, bleeding from white to a deep, crimson red.
Startled, I tossed the controller onto my bed and slid open the window. What I saw outside both fascinated and filled me with a primal dread. The sky, a moment before a deep velvet blue, was now a perfect, inky black, as if all the stars had been swallowed whole. The only thing illuminating the world was a grotesque, shimmering blood moon, casting an eerie red light over everything. But it wasn't alone. Another moon, a twin, had appeared beside it—a sickly, jaundiced yellow orb that pulsated with a faint glow. Together, they looked less like moons and more like the monstrous, unblinking eyes of a titanic creature staring down at the world.
A sudden, sharp chill ran down my spine, and I found myself on the floor, the cold wood pressing against my feet. I looked up, and there, silhouetted against the blood moon's light in the open window, was a figure. A man. I couldn't make out his face, but two points of light, one bright yellow and the other a blazing red, stared down at me from where his eyes should have been. I was terrified, not because his hands were wreathed in shimmering flames, but because the light from those flames was finally revealing him.
He was a vision of uncanny beauty—a beautiful man with a smooth, almost porcelain-pale complexion and long, platinum-blonde hair that cascaded over his shoulders. His mouth was curled into a chilling, predatory smile, revealing a set of unnervingly sharp, pointed teeth. He was dressed in a pristine, elegant black suit that seemed to absorb the light around him, making his form even more stark and unsettling against the fiery glow.
"Well, hello there, little girl," a voice rumbled, thick and viscous as tar. It slithered into my ears, chilling me to the bone. Yet, somehow, I managed to ask, "Who are you?" My voice was steady, a stark contrast to the terror seizing my insides.
A wicked grin stretched across his face. "I'll tell you my name when you come and play with me," he hissed. He knelt, bringing his face level with mine, his eyes gleaming with a malevolent light.
"My grandma said not to trust strangers," I said, trying to hold my ground.
"Is that so?" The grin widened, a silent promise of pain that sent shivers down my spine.
"Yeah, so leave!" I shouted, pointing a shaky finger toward the window.
He stood up and turned away. For a moment, a wave of relief washed over me. I thought he was leaving. But then, without a single touch, a brutal force slammed me against the wall, stealing the breath from my lungs.
"HAHAHA! You think you can still put up your brave appearance?!" He laughed. I felt a terrible pain on my neck, belly, and palm that made me scream and cry in agony.
"Help!"
"I'VE BEEN FOOLED FOR ALL MY LIFE AND NOW THAT I FINALLY FOUND YOU... DO YOU THINK I WILL JUST LET YOU GO?!" He yelled, and instantly appeared in front of me with his eyes darting at me. It was so scary, his voice, the way he laughed, and how he made me fly and hit the wall without touching me.
I was frightened, but everything stopped when my mama woke me up. They keep on telling me that I was just having a nightmare, but it happened day after day for 13 days.
So they decided to call Lola Naomi to find out what happened to me, and she immediately arrived at our house and let me have a drink that immediately stopped my nightmares...
—
"Sari!" Athena's voice, warm and full of laughter, pulled me from my thoughts. I spun around as she enveloped me in a quick, celebratory hug.
"Huh? Why?" I asked, bewildered.
She grabbed both of my shoulders, turning me to face her fully, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "You've done it! You were about to jump!"
I blinked. "What?"
"You were just about to leap off the tree!" she announced, her smile both proud and slightly worried. "I'm not sure if we should be celebrating, to be honest. I just realized this method probably isn't the best for a mere mortal like you, but congratulations, little warrior! You faced your fear." She let out a small, proud chuckle.
A wave of relief and triumph washed over me. "Really? I knew it would work."
"So, what was going through your mind in that moment, right before you were about to jump?" she asked, her expression now genuinely curious.
I looked at her, and the memory of the wind, the dizzying height, and the sheer terror of it all made me a little anxious. "Well..." I trailed off, not sure how to put the experience into words.
"Alright, alright, you can tell me about it some other time," she said, sensing my hesitation. She gave me a gentle, reassuring smile and rubbed the top of my head, a gesture I found oddly comforting.
With a final squeeze of my shoulders, Athena effortlessly carried me down the tree, her movements as graceful and sure as a falling leaf. The moment my feet touched the ground, my telepathic device buzzed. It was Ate Clydelle.
"Sari! Where are you now?!" she shrieked, her voice booming so loudly it made me wince. I wanted to pull the device away from my ear, but her fury was so intense that I knew it wouldn't matter. My ears were ringing, and I knew I needed to stop doing reckless things.
"Spending some girl time with Ate Athena?" I replied, trying to sound nonchalant.
"The other teams have already reached the checkpoint! Get back here! A.S.A.P.!" she yelled, each word a command.
"Yeah, yeah, we're coming," I said, already turning to head back, a small smirk playing on my lips.