Chapter 20: Episode 20 - He can do that?

Luke stood up and walked over to where Kris was when Kris just moved to the left when he was about to touch him.

Kris - No, before you start wondering. I cannot see you. The year I spent trapped in that damned forest left me with a flaw. I can't see anything strange, no anomalies, but I can feel them. Every year, every day of my life, I can feel spirits, I can feel things.

Kris stood with his hands behind his back, simply staring into the woods.

Kris - I can't hear you either, so I hope you're not trying to tell me anything.

Tobias - This damn old man hasn't changed in all these years.

Luke returned to Tobias's side with a slightly sad face, as if he'd given up on life. Kris smiled slightly, blinking, saying absolutely nothing. After a couple of minutes of staring up at the trees, he closed his eyes and looked down.

Kris - You must know that I miss you, that I did want to come back to you and really want to see you right now. What will you look like when you're old? If we hadn't followed Merc that day in the woods, if we hadn't listened to him, would we have grown old together? Would we still.. be friends? Ugh, I really wish to hear you right now, I feel so bad.

I felt my heart sink as I listened to Kris and watched both Luke and Tobias, just two traumatized children. I looked at Joe and felt helpless in their shoes. What would happen to me if I waited 25 years to see Joe again, and when I finally had him around, I couldn't even see him? And how I would have lived for more than 10 years thinking that Joe abandoned me, feeling powerless and just realizing that it was hell for him too? I looked down at the ground and saw a dead tree branch. I grabbed it and an idea came to me. I wrote on the ground, "Can you see this?" right in front of Kris, who was looking down. When he opened her eyes, I saw him slightly startled.

Kris - I can read that.

I took the branch and wrote "It's Ness, give me a sec" in front of him. He just looked at it and nodded. I erased what I'd written with my foot and walked over to Luke, handed him the branch and nodded, giving him a gentle push so he could move closer to Kris. Luke wrote "I'm Luke" in front of Kris, and Kris started to tear up as he read it. Tobias approached Luke and also took the branch. Kris answered them loudly while they wrote to him as best they could. I took Joe's arm, and we moved away a little to give them space. I felt my eyebrows arching and as if I was about to cry too.

Joe - You're such a crybaby.

Ness - Shut up.

We walked a little further and sat on a bench together in silence for a minute, we saw them at the distance.

Joe - Now what?

Ness - Now we survive.

Joe - We have 365 days to think clearly and do everything we can to stop being ghosts.

Ness - What about the creatures?

Joe - If we could survive one of them, I think we can handle the rest. It's just a matter of keeping trying and trusting the boys.

Ness - Joe, I'm scared.

Joe - Me too. But we have to do everything we can to get back. We have to manage and be adults.

Ness - Well, we have one year to live our adventure.

Joe - Haha, it's not the kind of adventure I imagined.

Ness - Of course? We're trapped in an alternate world with creatures that don't exist in our world.

Joe - Yes, but I expected the creatures to be cute or just not like that.

Joe and I joked around for a bit about our situation, then Joe put his arm around my shoulder and hugged me lightly. I felt like I was going to cry at that moment, so I just lightly tapped my cheeks to distract myself from crying.

Joe - You know?

Ness - What?

Joe - Do you think it'll take several years in the outside world before we return?

Ness - I have no idea. The logic would be that for every year we're inside, at least two and a half years will pass outside, but that won't make sense as the portal is supposed to be open every 5 years, or at least that every 5 years is that the people can see the guys.

Joe - If Kris was with the boys for a year, that changes the situation, right?

Ness - And how do you explain the years of antiquity with the original legend we found?

Joe - Hmm... Let's think about it. Supposedly, almost no one knows about the difference in years because we checked so many websites to find information and all of them showed different details.

Ness - Could it be that the website we found is simply a fake?

Joe - It didn't look fake... I don't know.

Ness - What are they doing?

Joe and I looked at the boys and Kris was on the floor hugging himself sobbing, while the boys were all around him trying to hug him knowing they couldn't touch him, but Kris could feel their presence. We just stood there watching the boys again as they lived their moment. I felt a terrible migraine suddenly. I started to feel my vision getting slightly blurry, or as if I'd looked directly at the sun, scotomas. At the same time as this sensation, my head was starting to hurt slightly. My forehead was starting to hurt, and I turned to look at the sky. The night was starting to end, and the day was just beginning. I turned to look at Joe and...

To be continued..