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“I don’t have…any way to help you get home and I…just wanna find my friends again…” Ehud confided.

Erin wasn’t sure how to respond but then he started fumbling in his pocket and withdrew a compass,

“Thousands and thousands of years ago people used to use these thingamabobs to figure out where they were going–this’d probably be worth a lot if it wasn’t a cheap copy.” He paused. “Anyhow, no matter where ya put it or anything, it always points North cos it’s gotta magnet in the center. You can dent it and smash it but as long as it’s got it’s center’s working good it’s not broken.”  He held it up for Erin to see better. “See you can’t keep your center until you know what it is. But once you start pointing that way you’re not really broken anymore…I guess, um…I mean…here!”

Then he reached for Erin’s hand and slipped the compass into her palm. Erin’s gaze dropped to it. She knew what a compass was and vaguely how it worked, but no space traveler used one because it doesn’t work in space.

She looked up again and their eyes met. A smile tugged at the corners of Erin’s lips and Ehud dropped his gaze.

“Hey, where’s Calixta and Ahab and…” She’d forgotten the fey’s name too. “Maybe we should look for them–I think she went that way!”

He then unexpectedly took her arm and steered her in the other’s direction. Erin tensed, unused to physical touch. Ehud’s arm dropped away.

“Why do you think this castle thingy got us here anyway? I wonder how we get out…I’m hungry, how long have we been here? Are you hungry? How do you cook an egg?” Ehud seemed like a scattered person, always jumping from one thought to another.

Erin ignored him and continued to look at the compass. Ehud seemed to stare longingly after it and appeared to be dying to open his mouth to ask for it. Not until he gave her tracking beacon back. How naughty of him to steal it.

Besides, if he really wanted his compass back, he’d ask. She reassured herself.

Erin tucked the compass away and linked her arm with Ehud’s again and started back off to the others without a word.

At first Ehud didn’t follow her tug and Erin laughed. She wanted to laugh, so she did. He was such an unusual person. A bit like Jackson, a bit like Dusk, a bit like…well, Ehud.

Erin grinned at him. A real grin. She was finally having fun, messing with a male’s brain. She couldn’t mess with Sander, but Jackson was rather gullible at times.

“Come on!” She tugged at his arm but suddenly her feet seemed to stop moving her forward and an unexpected gust of blew a thousand colors before her vision before wrenching her from Ehud and plunging her into utter darkness.

Erin whimpered. She wasn’t having fun anymore. The darkness seemed to eat her alive and she curled into a ball, waiting for the scene to change and take her back to Ehud. Back to anyone. 

She looked up. A person, lit by whatever light happened to be at that moment they were from, running towards a little girl. He was calling to a her, his voice echoed in the surrounding darkness.

“Erin, don’t go!”

Erin’s breath shortened. Not this. Please not this.

She closed her eyes and tried to block out the scene. Why didn’t she listen then? She’d left them all to die. She should have died with them. She was so lonely know.

But Jacker was still alive. She felt it in her bones.

Silence. She carefully looked up. She saw herself, older now, charging into a building, her loyal crew behind her. Erin couldn’t see inside but shouts and gunshots run out before all fell silent. She saw herself emerge battered and alone.

Her heart lurched when she realized they had finally failed a mission. All her friends, no, family had perished. Yet she lived on.

Wait. That had never happened to her. But she shivered uncontrollably at the sight. It was her fear. She was being shown her darkest fears.

She sprung to her feet and tried to escape the darkness that trapped her. She feared a past event would happen again, she feared she would lead her crew to their deaths, she feared two other thing as well though…

Please spare me that. She begged mentally.

Mercifully, she suddenly found herself out of that horror zone and lying on her back on hard stone, the sky above. The first few stars of dusk had appeared.

Stars. She felt safe being able to see the stars. She closed her eyes and sighed deeply. This was the most bizarre adventure she had ever experienced.

 

 

Okay! Erin is now on the roof.