My Long Lost Mate

Luke raked through his hair, clearly frustrated at the situation, but he knew very well what we should do now. We needed to figure out what had happened to the villagers and how to help them. 

"You're right," he sighed, looking at our entwined fingers. "This time, I'm going to save them. I'm not going to let anyone die." When he looked up at me, his eyes burned with rage and determination. "Except the witches—I mean, black witches."​​

I let out a chuckle, pulling him to continue our search. While Luke searched the papers, I went to the cauldron, curious as to what was inside. It was huge—the biggest one that I've ever seen. I lifted the lid but released it almost immediately when I smelled something absolutely horrific. It was even worse than those hearts. 

"Hell, what was that?" Luke gagged. 

"I-I don't know," I, too, gagged at the smell. It was horrible—very, very, horrible. "It came from here," I said, pointing to the cauldron, then backing away as the stink had intensified since I raised the lid. Though the entire place had smelled bad since I first stepped here, this just made everything ten times worse. 

I wouldn't be surprised if my nose lost its ability to smell once we're out of here.

It wasn't just one stench; it was a mixture of all the world's worst odors combined into one. If I had to put it into words, then I'd say it smelled a lot like rotten meat, with the addition of something sickeningly sweet on top. Maybe like a cheese. Or maybe when someone had taken a giant dump, and unfortunately, it turned out to be explosive diarrhea which had been left in the loo for way too long for anyone's liking. 

"That smells a lot like... a corpse." 

A corpse.

Covering his nose, Luke walked to the cauldron and picked up the lid, causing the terrible stink to be even more overpowering and sickening. Inside was, in fact, a corpse. I gasped—then gagged again. 

"What is a corpse—" he gagged, struggling to hold back his vomit. "—doing here?"

I peered inside and saw hundreds—thousands—of maggots, and it was becoming increasingly difficult for me to stay in this awful place. Luke took a stick he'd found on the floor, long enough to stay a few distances away for the safety of his nose, and tried to shove the maggots aside. 

The person, who I ȧssumed to be a woman, had her skin loose, greyish purple in color to be not so intact anymore. I noticed that a few parts of her body were missing, which may be due to the maggots or something else. And it just so happened to be the parts I'd discovered in the jars on the table. 

Though I couldn't make out the person's face, I could still see a section of her hair. The person had long, curly ginger hair, and I was suddenly reminded of that one person with the exact same hair.

"C-could this be... Vale?" I said, and Luke turned back at me, surprised to know that I could recognize the person before us. "She was there... back in the cave with Leonard. She also had long, curly ginger hair, if I'm not mistaken. We don't find ginger heads that often, do we?"

Though there was also Lisa with short ginger hair. 

"At least not in Wonsvile. But why is she—" Luke stopped his question when he noticed he was stepping on a piece of paper, bending over to pick it up. He frowned immediately after he read what was written there. Reading it aloud, he said, "The wolves failed. The girl escaped." 

And I have to say, we both knew it all too well that the girl in question was me. 

"...we must bring the girl to Her before the day comes." 

Who is Her? And what day? No, more importantly—why? 

Though the smell was more than enough to drive both of us out of this place, there was still more that we needed to find. We already knew that the witches were after me, but we still couldn't find out why. Furthermore, we have yet to discover the cause of all the things that happened in the village. 

The doll-like villagers, the corpses by the drain, the ruined houses. 

After going over the papers, I noticed they were mostly recipes for making a potion. There were written all of the necessary ingredients and the processes for making the potion, with each one different from the other but equally terrifying.

There were potions made to turn someone into a toad, grow fungus all over one's body, cause one to gag continuously—which would most likely lead to death—as well as potions to turn someone into stone. There were more, but I'd rather stop here. 

Among the recipes, I found a paper of a different color. This one was larger, brown, and tattered. It was a parchment—a map—that appeared to have been here for years. Shoving the papers atop it, I noticed that it was a map of the three lands. Many areas of the map had been crossed out with an x, as though explaining that whoever owned this map had gone through quite a journey over the three regions. 

"Luke, come and take a look at this," I said, bringing his attention to the map. Seeing the map, I noticed that Wonsvile was the least explored, while Myltha had most of the region crossed out. For Gordom, there were only a few parts that had been left uncrossed. "What do you think?"

"Looks like someone's very adventurous," he said, examining all the x's. "It could be that traveling across the land was their hobby, or it could be that they were searching for something. Considering that this map belonged to a black witch, I found the latter to be far more plausible to say."

Searching for something? What could be so important for them to travel all across the land?

When Luke flipped the map over, another map of the three lands appeared on the other side. This time, instead of crossing the map, they circled the map. There were two types of circles—one was an empty circle, and the other was a full circle. Each land had the same number of circles, and the only differences were whether they were a full one or an empty one.

"They only circled the villages," Luke said, frowning. "To be exact, they only circled the villages where they only have humans as the inhabitants."

Seeing the circles in Wonsvile, there was only one full circle amongst all of them. And that one full circle happened to be in the village we were in right now. I drew my brows together, raking through my brain about all the things that we'd found here. 

First, we now knew that they were planning something big—for the 'day'—which still remained a mystery to us as to what kind of a day that exactly was. Second, they had been traveling across the regions looking for something. And third, after seeing the circles on the map, it could be that they were targeting those villages—the villagers—for something that could be of help to their plan, as humans were most likely weaker compared to the other two creatures. 

I sighed, wondering what could be the connection between those three things. I attempted to concentrate, but the stench in the room continued to hinder me from doing so. I thought I would soon become accustomed to this smell the more I stayed here, but I must have thought wrong. My nose was close to giving up its life. 

Just when I was about to surrender to the smell, I was suddenly reminded of the inscription I found by the entrance.

Darkness will prevail once more. 

What could it possibly mean? What will they win over?

And then I was reminded of the murals—reminded of how black ruled over white. Though that was not what happened in reality, it was what they hoped for. Black witches were notorious for their tenacity. Therefore, wouldn't it make sense for them to stick to their goals? For the events depicted in the murals to actually occur?

Then, doesn't that mean... they wanted another war? The second Great Axthrone War where the black witches would finally take the win. 

But, with their remaining magic, how could they win the war? If they wanted to rule over the world, they'd have to fight not only the white witches but also the rest of the creatures. Will their remaining magic be enough to win the war?

Unless... they planned to retrieve the sealed black magic. 

"The black orbs."