Chapter 37. The door

The door pushed opened and a tall figure with well-cut red hair and magenta eyes walked out, followed by an even more towering green haired son. Pebble gave his father a curious look and asked, “How was it?”

“They’ve made improvements.” Gran calmly replied and slowly headed to Roselyn’s room. Pebble looked at the brother of his and asked. “Did they all really improved?” Pebble asked.

Cobble didn’t need to answer as the kids began to walk out of the room. Michael, Julie, Arthur, Shelly, and Seth walked out and sat directly on the sofa. Their face was expressionless as markings could be seen plastered all over their body.

Pebble circled around them and asked Cobble “They don’t look like they’ve improved at all” Pebble gave his assessment and continued to hover around them. “Wait, is it just Shelly and Julie?” Pebble asked after seeing a few marks on Julie and none on Shelly.

“Yeah.” Cobble’s short reply caused Pebble to nod knowingly. “Three losers and two winners eh? Did father smack em this time?” Pebble asked.

“Taps, he said it’ll start hurting after his training tomorrow.” Cobble answered. Pebble then pulled Cobble over away from the group who was sitting at the sofa contemplating on the hour that they spent inside. “What do you think of Shelly?” Pebble whispered.

Cobble gave it some serious thought and replied, “She’s a monster.”

Pebble’s eye flickered at the little girl who was consoling the boy beside her. He nodded his head, “I agree. She’s going to make her name known for sure.”

“What about Boss?” Cobble asked. Pebble swung his arm around his enormous taller brother and asked. “Does that guy even count?”

“That is true.”

Pebble released his arm and walked over to the people sitting on the sofa. The silver haired kid’s nose was getting itchy, he was constantly sniffing. “You’re gonna cry, kid?”

Arthur rubbed his eyes and wiped his nose. “N-no, I’m not crying, you’re crying.” His words made no sense, he saw the dumb look on Pebble’s face and started giggling to himself.

“Laughing after you got smacked 60 times?” Pebble’s words were sharp, causing the three who got smacked to flinch.

He sighed, “It’s fine to take it slow, when I was your age, I too couldn’t find my internal energy for a long time.”

“H-how did you find it?” Arthur asked. Pebble gave the kid a serious look, the room felt heavy. “I practiced every day, if I wasn’t eating or sleeping, I was training with my father… It was hard, really hard…I almost broke.”

“You too, might need to almost break to find it.” Pebble’s words caused Arthur to shudder, the scene from the nightmare lingered in his mind, was the Seraphim the key? He shook his head, there had to be other ways, nightmares don’t just come when you want it to.

Cobble rushed over and pushed his older brother aside. “You don’t need to do what he says, he’s just kidding. Just meditate when you have time, you’ll start to improve. The hardest part is making it to the starting line.”

Pebble pushed Cobble aside and corrected himself, “yeah, you might not need to break, but…” his eyes lingered on Seth and Michael. “You two might. You’re pretty old ya know?”

“I-I’m fine, I’ll figure it out by the end of the month, really.” Michael postured. Pebble’s eye turned to Seth. “Ye-yeah! Me too.” Seth replied.

“Oh? Then we’ll see about that, I’ll punish you two if you don’t.” Pebble’s once friendly face was menacing to behold. Michael and Seth could only start to sweat and gulp in response.

“I’m gonna go out to check on the preparations for next week, you guys should prepare for tomorrow with my father, knowing him it’ll be even more impossible than me.” Pebble’s footsteps disappeared out the door after saying that.

Cobble sat down at the sofa in front of them and began to explain what to expect from their father. The kids nodded their head whereas Seth had no idea what was going on, was he part of tomorrow’s training too?

“You too, Seth.” Cobble decided to give the kids a little hint, it wouldn’t hurt telling them this anyways. He continued to talk about how their training methods are similar, both Cobble and Pebble required them to land a hit on them.

“So? Think you can do it? You have about 10 tries with each of us, so try to make each training count.” Cobble asked. The group of four plus Seth looked at each other, no one was sure if they could. Cobble could see their hesitation and repeated, “Just try your best, we’re not going to go all out so it’s possible.”

They continued to converse until night arrived, Cobble was quite talkative tonight compared to the past few days they’ve met. They couldn’t get any other answers out of Cobble, but they did learn more about the village.

The kids learned more about the tradition and event they’re holding for when the children come back home to the village. They asked about the things within the house and the rippling in the pond, that one Cobble couldn’t answer. They even asked if Cobble knew the gender of the baby, he didn’t know.

Knock knock

A knocking could be heard on their door while they were conversing. “Pebble doesn’t need to knock.” Cobble got up and walked to the front of the door. “Oh, it’s you.” Cobble replied as he looked down at the kid.

“Tell them to go back to the Inn, I’m bored and hungry.” The kid’s voice could be heard coming from the door. Seth’s ears perked up when heard that familiar voice, his eyes darted in the direction of the door. However, Cobble’s enormous body completely blocked it.

“You guys~ Let’s go I’m hungry~” The four didn’t know what to say, they weren’t hungry, if they went back it’ll just be Boss who was eating. They noticed the time and decided it was better to head back.

“Bark”

“Mew”

“How was playing around today Barkie? Did you have fun?” Arthur’s voice could be heard talking to his pet as it faded off into the distance.

Seth remained seated, he was curious but hearing Cobble’s voice, it seemed like he knew the person and didn’t want the kid to run away from seeing him. Once the five were out of view Cobble went and sat back down on the sofa.

Seth and Cobble continued to converse for another half an hour switching topic with Seth mentioning the kid at the door. Cobble didn’t notice that Seth was looking for something when he asked those questions.

After they were done conversing, he bid Cobble goodbye and promised to come back early in the morning for training. Seth walked back to the Inn, under the dimly lit moonlight lost in thought. The kid he was expecting to be training here, was here – sort of.

He didn’t expect his haunch to be correct, and for everything to come together so soon. Was this a sign he needed to see this kid again? He didn’t even know what he was going to do when he met the kid. The kid gave them two effective condensed energy marbles, he couldn’t hate him.

The brightly lit Inn glowed like a small sun illuminating the darkness as he got closer, he walked through the door and entered his room, he didn’t even notice that his four friends were huddled in a corner fast asleep. He laid in bed staring at the ceiling and threw a cloth over a bright ball on their nightstand, he didn’t want to think anymore.

In his dreams he was older, meditating in an empty room, the color of his hair and eyes was different, however he couldn’t tell what color it was. The sound of rumbling could be heard coming from outside, the noise was becoming louder and louder. A familiar voice, a person he knew before opened the door and woke him from his meditation.

He saw himself run beside that familiar person, she was beautiful with long curly hair as she pulled on his arm, the panic in her face was apparent when dragging him along. He followed her without resistance, he didn’t know what was going on.

More screams and shouting could be heard in the back were people chasing them? He wasn’t sure. Their eyes also contained panic and intense killing intent it was so strange as he continued to follow.

“Where…?” Seth muttered.

The scenery changed, her hand that was pulling him was gone, he was laying on a bloody ground with limbs of humans scattered all around. The horror he saw all around unfazed him as he looked ahead. The ground quaked and the mountain beyond the horizon could be seen visibly getting closer. A small hill appeared before his eyes as the mountain in the distance got closer and taller.

The scenery changed again, he was laying again on his back, the environment around him was desolate. The clouds… were beneath him? He tilted his head up only to see the bright stars and clusters of galaxies. They were truly grandiose to behold, but Seth only felt a sense of dread as he stared into the dark expanse of space. An enormous pressure came from all around him choking his breath away.

“Seth… Seth… dude wake up” Riley’s voice echoed loudly in his ears as his vision adjusted to the brightly lit room. “You’re finally awake? Did you have a nightmare?”

Seth gave Riley a weird look, he felt good why did his friend say he had a nightmare?

“You don’t know huh? You fucking screamed so damn loudly for a whole ten seconds, I thought you were dying.” Riley stated. “What happened?”

Seth tried to recall what he was dreaming but everything in his mind was vanishing and disappearing faster than he could remember. His mind blanked out as he absentmindedly stared at Riley. “I can’t remember.”

Riley sighed, this was normal for people who had dreams and nightmares, most of the time they won’t remember it.

“Where are the other guys?” Seth asked.

“They went to eat breakfast, I’m about to go eat too, are you coming with or you going to sleep again?” Riley asked.

Seth’s eyes grew clearer and wider as he processed Riley’s words. “It’s morning already?”

“Yeah, are you coming?”

“I’m coming!”

His friends greeted him with smiling face, the giddiness on Sampson’s in particular couldn’t be concealed. Both Gerald and Sampson managed to get a feeling of energy flowing throughout their body yesterday, they believe with time they’ll obtain the energy power of hair and eyes.

They asked Seth questions about where he went yesterday, they only woke up earlier the next day and saw that Seth was silently sleeping. Seth recounted what he had done the day prior and asked them if they wanted to join him for training. Sampson and Gerald were unsure if they needed anymore training since they took the condense energy marble.

Seth didn’t know if he could bring his friends along either so when he heard them decline it for now, he accepted it. Only Riley and Mason kept silent as they contemplated on the training. They too eventually declined since they didn’t consider training to be dangerous and desperate enough to make a breakthrough.

The one thing everyone agreed on is not joining the villagers in scaring the parents who will be flooding in tomorrow to welcome their sons and daughters later on. After eating breakfast Seth bid his friend bye and rushed straight to the training area.

The gatekeeper recognized Seth and let him in thanks to Cobble’s orders this morning. Walking the stone pathway Seth gave his surrounding a better look, everything was far more beautiful and vibrant than when he came over in the afternoon, was he just imagining things?

A servant of the estate allowed him through the front door and led him to the backyard. The first thing he notice was pure white blankets dirtied by the ground littered around the entire place.

“This was training?” Seth thought to himself and looked around to find the kids. He saw Gran standing further away greeting him with a wave. Seth returned the wave and continued to look around for the kids.

However, in his inattentiveness he didn’t notice that a blanket was already slithering to his feet, expanding and blanketing his entire body.