Lost and "Found"

The dog tried getting back up, but only it's front legs were capable of such task. Seeing this, I was about to cry. In fact, I indeed dropped a few tears. The dog howled, and this was enough of a response to my savagery. I was crushed by the weight of my guilt and the potential shame if someone found out.

I heard the dog's owner once more. "Kara! Kara!" he yelled, worriedly. The howl... That was more than enough for them to communicate with each other.

As much as I wanted to do so, I couldn't wait there. I would like to be able to compensate for what I did somehow, I really would... But my time was limited. There was no way to apologize without revealing myself. I had to ignore my feelings at least for now, and run.

And so I did. And the whole time, I hated myself for doing it.

I rushed down the slope with the guidance of the dim light from the wand, which slowly faded out in the following minutes. I was no longer hearing the man's voice or movements. I had lost them, but just to be sure, I continued for a little longer.

"I messed up." I said. "I messed everything up!"

After the initial panic settled down, guilt took over again.

Not only I had (unintentionally) hurt an innocent life, but I had also disobeyed some very clear orders. And on top of everything, I had Mr. Engin's wand with me; something he would certainly get worried about if he noticed that I was missing from where he sent me. Maybe not the first thing he would worry about, but still...

I have been running for a while before I realized something wrong and stopped. In the heat of the moment, I had went down a way I've never used before - the west side of the mountain. I was low enough not to see the village by now. However, ahead and below of me, far away, I could hardly make out a road which I initially thought was leading further west, then north and then finally northwest. The road was probably connected to Yuvakaya on it's southern end, but I did not know where it lead on the other end. As much as I could remember from the maps of the surrounding region, that could be one of the roads that visits other villages and eventually connects to the main roads which connects city centers together.

In short, it was of little use to me if I wanted to re-orient myself, with such a high margin of geometrical/geographical measurement errors.

After checking the environment for any other life (and not finding anything), I climbed a little higher to see if I could locate the village. That didn't work.

The only thing I could do was estimating the general direction of the village and try walking that way.

I began walking perpendicular to the slope's inclination - not climbing up or down but simply progressing further towards where I though was south. After a while, something strange happened. The wand lit up, colored purple and then blue almost immediately.

The wand was being pulled towards a direction. Almost like there was an invisible hand... The force was not enough to cause an inconvenience, but it was very well strong enough to be noticeable.

This unexpected development wiped my mind out of ideas. I was just wondering, I wanted to go in that direction. This innocent curiosity slowly turned into an irresistible urge, an obsession I could perhaps call it. For some reason I couldn't explain even to myself, I was taking that force as a navigator.

As I walked further in that new direction, the force got stronger and stronger, like the wand was one of two magnets attracted to each other. But then abruptly, it disappeared. It would be suspicious and confusing if I didn't see what's standing in front of me.

A set of big rectangular and cylindrical stone blocks standing up next to one another in more or less an orderly fashion. In the same site, a dead tree with a thick trunk. If it was still alive, it would most likely be the single life form in the entire region living at the highest elevation - that is, of course, ignoring the people in the mountain enclosure much higher above.

I slowly and carefully approached the site. Meanwhile, the wand switched colors over and over again; yellow, orange, red, turquoise, pink, green... eventually turning blue again.

"Wait a minute." I said, my eyes opened wide. "I know this place."

I looked down, gazing upon Yuvakaya. This was the place of the temple I had, or rather, Aya had seen. But even though it was recognizable, there were a few important differences; the temple was barely even there, most of it was destroyed or outright missing, it's surroundings were covered with large rocks and cobble piles, and finally, looking down below, Yuvakaya was much, much larger than it had been in Aya's time.

I got closer to the stone blocks to have a better look. Some of them still had colorful decorative gems on them, but interestingly, some had went completely black. There were still some remains of the wooden parts of the temple, but not enough to see the general outline of the complete building.

Then I went to examine the dead tree. It's unique shape and branching was giving away easily that it was a willow tree. It's bottom parts were white, but the color was gradually turning to black towards the ends of it's empty branches.

I turned back to the stone blocks, then reached out to one of the gems to touch it, out of curiosity. The blue gemstone easily fell off of it's place. I took it back from the ground.

Then, a few things happened all at the same time. Large rocks spread apart, cobble piles disappeared, the remaining gemstones on the stone blocks began shining. The wand turned purple, red, and once again, back to blue. On the dead willow's branches, yellow leaves made out of pure light materialized. Following this, the tree itself turned white, shining as bright as it's leaves. Yet none of these were illuminating the area, just themselves, and only themselves.

"Did I do that?" was the question of utmost importance for me.

Blue beams of light rose from the stone blocks into the air, intersected at one focal point overhead.

A human figure appeared in front of me.