Chapter 3: Guardian

Do I dare continue on? What lies ahead? Infinite questions invade my head. I remember a quote I had learned in college. They say "Curiosity may give you answers, but if you dive too deep all you find is death." Somehow that fits perfectly in this situation. Just like a game, I feel as though the paths I am taking is scripted. I have a bad feeling I will hate the future that I will discover. I take a deep breath, sucking in the ash that lingers in the air. I hesitantly pick up one of the crystal shards laying on the ground.

The world around me reshapes, yet instead of a flower field, it turns into a cave. The walls are covered with sapphire crystals which sparkle over the fire place. A cave with no entrance nor exit. Someone calls out to, the echos of the voice bounce throughout the cave.

"Took you long enough to get here. I been watching you ever since the two of you met. If we ever met I wanted to tell you how big of an idiot you are."

I looked frantically around this shallow cave, yet no one in sight. The voice starts to play around with my mind. The sound of the voice comes from different directions.

"You are really stupid. I am the cave! I can manifest my self into different forms. It could be said that I am a God, but I would like to be thought of as a guardian."

There was a bit of sadness mixed in with irritation in her voice, completely different from the friend I once knew. I don't know what I did to set her off, but what ever I did it has caused her to see hatred towards me. Then after a few moments of taunting me, the crystals in the cave gather in the middle of the cave above the camp fire. They manifest into an image of my friend, I know who she is yet my memory starts to fade, the name of that friends slowly fades from my mind. I start to panic, she is a invaluable friend that I cannot afford to lose! I frantically start to write her name on the ground and walls of the cave. However, the words slowly disappears as soon as I write them down.

"You are wasting your time." 

She resigns and sits next to the fire place, she commands me also to take a seat besides her. I follow her commands and I am surprised of what my senses tell me. The smell of charred flesh fills my airways, but she looks exactly like my friend. The complete opposite of what i sensed in the other "realm". I don't ask questions however, I just sit and wait to hear what she has to say. I stare into her eyes but what I see is pure black. There is no light reflecting off her eyes nor does she have the sapphire eyes that I loved so much.

"I really hate you, you caused her so much pain! Everything that has happened to her up until now I have witnessed. I watched and stood by as you broke her heart! She loved you d****t! Why couldn't you accept her love?!?! I won't say anymore because I know she wants to create more distance, but I will tell you she is slowly erasing herself from your memory. Sadly, she cannot to the opposite and erase you from her memory. If you truly care for her please don't let her go, your heart will guide you to her."

With that she shatters into tiny crystal shards. The shards float in mid air creating a vortex sucking everything in it. Before everything vaporized in the vortex, she leaves me with one last thought.

"Take your time searching for what is right, but like all things in life take too long and you will just end up losing everything."

I end up back where I started, staring at a charred wall. The guardians words stung me so hard. I tried, I tried so hard but I could never understand her heart! How could she truly be happy with someone like me? I could never protect her,  even when we were young. I still remember those days where she used to cry everyday.

Everyday as a kid I would go and see how she was doing, but I already knew. I knew she would be lying in her bed crying her heart out.  Yet, when i got there I would present her with sapphire tears I got at the mall. I would stare into her beautiful eyes and tell her the same thing. " I found a trail of tears, and then I found you. I came to give your tears back."  She would laugh every single time. She would always say the same thing after I presented her with the tears. 

What did she say?...

No matter how much I try to remember, that block of memory seemed to have been erased... i can't even remember why she cried every day. This is crazy. I laugh hysterically. The tears that had fallen from her eyes, made me sad, yet I was also glad. I had finally created a bond, this bond was the most important one I had created. yet, i could not bring my self to tighten the bond, so that it would be unbreakable. I felt as though I was too weak to protect her, so I had no right to call her my lover, no right to grow closer. I tried so hard to keep my distance as we grew older, however all she did was tighten the bonds. No matter how much I ran, she would be there waiting at the end. Waiting in hand, the Crimson Necklace I had made for her. And with that she would always tell me... I am really pathetic! I can't even remember that! In a fit of frustration, I thrash around the place, kicking down walls, and throwing broken pieces of rubble. Behind one of the walls I find the Guardian. She looks down upon me with pity.

"I will help you just this once."