Defenders of Yuvakaya

I used the last of my energy to climb up to the enterance of the mountain enclave. At least I could remember where the hidden stone door was, after all the trauma I've been through.

I had gotten through everything and survived somehow, but it could be better if I just didn't - it would be over, and I would no longer be angry with myself. Of course I was not the kind of person who would end his life on his own, but I couldn't help wishing I was dead. It was not the act of dying I desired after all, it was the state of being dead.

Anyway, the last challenge I faced was nothing compared to everything else I've faced during the day. Yes, the door, it was that godforsaken stone door. The same door I struggled with before, the same door I couldn't understand the workings of.

I didn't even try to push it this time. I was conditioned to believe that the door wouldn't open by physical force - maybe it was true, maybe not at all. Maybe I wasn't using enough force, maybe no force would be enough and I was looking at the problem from an entirely different perspective.

"Magic drives the door, doesn't it?" I said. "I might as well just try that."

I got perfectly in front of the stone, and closed my eyes. After that, I tried to imagine the shape of the stone, and everything around it. It wasn't working very well... I decided to open my eyes again. I took a few steps forward, stretched my arms and felt the stone with my hands. I rubbed the stone all around until I got the general shape and texture of the stone door memorized. Then I took a few steps back to get to where I was. I carefully observed the stationary stone for a last time, and closed my eyes again. Imagining the stone's shape, I stretched my arms forward again, as if I was touching the stone. I imagined touching the stone, sort of creating a virtual reality game equivalent of real life. I touched that image of the stone and dragged it aside.

I heard sounds. The stone, it was moving! I wouldn't open my eyes to see it, but I could recognize the sound of the stone rolling! Pure joy filled my heart, then an awkward one. Having moved an object with no direct or indirect physical contact was amazing, but I was feeling guilty of being happy. I couldn't enjoy that moment to the fullest.

I was finally ready to open my eyes to see the result.

And so I did.

There it was, the stone had moved to the right side, and the enterance was open. However, the smile on my face turned into a shocked and worried expression very soon.

There, just behind the door, old Mr. Engin was waiting. I froze. I wanted to say something -in fact, a lot of things- but I couldn't. I didn't know where to start, I didn't know what to say.

"Come in, master, what are you waiting for?" he said.

"Come in, master..." was what my thoughts were focused on. "...master..."

I couldn't ask about it, because I was in no condition to talk. I walked inside, and Mr. Engin put the stone door back to it's place, hiding the mountain enclave once again. After quite some time, I was back inside the small room on the highest level of the structure.

"Hungry, I presume?" Mr. Engin said. "Well, because I am!"

He went to take a look at the metal pots on the table, the place where they've always been.

"Ha!" his eyes were shining. "Fish!"

"Mr. Engin..." I said. My sorrow could be transmitted with the tone of my voice.

"Come, sit." he said. He wasn't paying attention to my emotions the slightest bit, because I knew I was making them obvious. "Or have you eaten on the way?"

He wasn't talking about my disobedience to him, or Ms. Saka's disappearance.

"Mr. Engin..." I said once again. "Ms. Saka has... has..."

I was having difficulty talking, because most of my effort was going for holding my tears back.

"I know, I know." he replied calmly. "I know you lost my daughter, her husband, the gemstones, and even my wand. I know it all."

"I am genuinely sorry, and I know being sorry won't fix-"

"No, no." he said. "No, it won't fix anything."

I started crying.

"But it doesn't need to anyway. It never did, at least completely." he said and sighed, putting a cover over the metal pot he has been desirously looking at.

"But, if that's what it had to be, and it was... I am grateful it happened that way." he said. "Everything happened so far was meant to happen, and exactly in the way they happened."

"How? Why? I don't understand!" I said.

"No." he said. "No, you do understand. You are no longer an apprentice. You are one of us, as you are now."

"I really don't understand." I said, then stopped. "I... do?"

"You do, for you have mastered the hardest parts of the training." he said. "What's left is mostly about harnessing the powers of nature for your physical defense needs, and you will then be suitable to take our places."

"You mean..."

"Yes, those powers, in the way you've seen in use by Ms. Saka, and of course, her opponent." he confirmed.

"The woman in black coat..." I said. "She was too powerful."

"Indeed she is, indeed she is..." he said. "The only reason we can not face her is the sheer power she can put into use so rapidly."

"Who is she?" I asked.

"I wish I knew, I really wish I knew. But do names matter, as long as she identifies with the personality she seems to be on the outside?"

"I guess it doesn't." I said.

"She is the most dangerous, and the mother of all evil we are fighting here." Mr. Engin said.

"There are others?" I asked.

"You will get to know." Mr. Engin said. "Oh, and there is one last thing..."

He grabbed me by my arm smoothly and brought me one floor down. He got me into a pyramid. The Pyramid, to be specific, the only pyramid I knew of.

Inside, Sena was sleeping peacefully on the bed.

"Loss of her mother was most unfortunate." Mr. Engin said. "After I transfer all my knowledge to you, you will have to do the same with her."

"I?"

"You. Her mother would be up to the task if she was still alive, but now... YOU will take her as your apprentice."

"I can't do that!" I said.

"And once you grow old like us, if the temple and the devil still stands, you will have to have some successors, for the safety of Yuvakaya... and who knows, maybe of the farthest lands beyond Yuvakaya!"

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THE END.