Chapter 61 - Our Mysterious & Wonderous Friend

Shadow Mimics… Could it be? Could it be the mimics… Aren't real?

The thought in itself scared the life out of me, but it made sense when thinking about it more carefully. But then the next question posed a problem…

I saw them leeching the sea stars… not to mention, they were aware of me in the dried-up desert cave, right? What would that mean? I looked at the other side of the burning wall to find that the mimics had vanished…

"No! Shit! I missed them moving out?! Now I need to make sure if they will be back…"

I looked around hoping to find a glimpse of them peering into the darkness.

Yet to my disappointment nothing could be found… What was all this?

Why just give up like that? Did they get called back or something?

For a moment it felt like the danger had passed, but something made it feel like it was only just the beginning. Frozen at the moment it felt like an eternity until I finally snapped out of the fear of them still being out there. Quickly I went to my friends to see if they were safe…

The Wall still burned its mighty flames when I found the pods of earth that I had created to keep my friends safe. When I opened them up, I found the ferret who had been protecting me with his life earlier. It was asleep and well, which was why I decided to leave it be for the time being. Quickly I went to the other earth pod which slowly began to crumble as I approached it. I flinched thinking something had happened to them.

Only to find that the children of the Blacky had been struggling to crawl outside.

Their cute little appearances truly were adorable, one of them yawned when the dome crumbled down and settled down next to his mother. Blacky woke up because of this, looking around to make sure her babies were still there.

Upon finding all her children she noticed what had happened around the area,

making way to the outside. There she finds the wall of flames and sits down next to me.

"So… What has happened here, while we were out cold?"

Surprised I looked up to see Blacky by my side and filled her in on the events that had been transpiring. I which she reacted shocked.

"Mimics out at night? No… It can't be… Does that mean it is roaming around again?"

"Wait… Who is roaming around?"

"The one commanding the so-called "Shadow Mimics" we call it the King of the Night as it's in the same league with the Mandralio. But instead of being the king of the Jungle, this one has full control of the shadows themselves. The mimics are his minions he uses to scout around and collect what is worthy to follow in the footsteps of his legion."

I didn't know what to think, if those were scouts then their leaving must mean they were informing their master…

"No… The mimics have left us not too long ago, judging by what you have told me,

I think it would be best to find a safe place to spend the night.

At the same time traveling at night is suicide with all the predators that come out during the night."

"I agree, let me wake the children, you get the ferret then we can leave to find a place to dig ourselves in for the night, hopefully, find a cave or something sturdy to preserve our presence."

I nodded and went on my way towards the ferret who seemed to be still asleep.

The contraption I had made luckily had a compartment where I could lay him on.

But when I tried to lift him I found that the ferret was heavier than I had initially thought…

I struggled to lift him on my own, Blacky noticed this and came to my aid.

Together we barely succeeded in getting the ferret on the contraption as we quickly went on our way during the depths of the night.

We carefully made our way out of the central area we had been staying at.

After traveling for what seemed like hours our trail had a dead end with a canyon ahead of us. We were at the foot of it, but there was no way for us to climb the wall in this darkness, let alone with the entire contraption… If we wanted to proceed we had to leave it behind us… For now, the only thing on my mind was the hope of finding an opening in this gigantic wall that had been blocking our path.

But what we hadn't been thinking about was the fact that the contraption had left a trail for others to follow… While we thought we had gotten away safe and well, this could later prove to be a whole different world of worries…

But for now, all seemed well, Blacky quickly joined my side with her children hoping I had found us a place to spent the night. But nothing so far… After bickering and snow bearing for a moment Blacky came up with a plan.

"What if we wake up the ferret? Wouldn't it be able to help us find a safe passage within these walls?"

I couldn't agree not knowing what the ferret was capable of.

Not to mention that it was still hurt… But, seeing how we didn't have a better plan it was the only thing we could try. I opened the contraption up while blacky tried waking up the ferret. As she failed to do so, I remembered water always did the job.

Deciding it was our best bet I splashed a little water from our reserve onto the ferret its face and surely he woke up, all be it shocking cause of the cold liquid.

The ferret jumped of the contraption confused by the darkness it rolled around in frustration. I didn't know what exactly to do in this situation, so I decided to try and help him make sense of the situation.

"You must be awake now, I wanted to thank you for protecting me,

in the time that you have been out, I have resolved the situation with the one who savagely attacked us."

The ferret recognized me in an instant and happily curled around me.

Blacky slowly approached the animal hoping it wouldn't hold a grudge…

But soon the ferret had proven Blacky wrong as it began to growl louder with every step she took to approach us.

"No… Buddy, I don't mean you any harm… I wanted to apologize for what we had to go through, you too have to understand that we both were protecting those important to us, right?"

While explaining this Blacky proceeded to show the ferret her children as her eyes began to water, she knew what she had done to it was wrong, but she had to protect her children…

The ferret realized why Blacky had done what she had to do.

In doing so, the ferret let go of me and coiled its fluffy body around Blacky.

It hugged her as if it knew that she did it for her children.

"It seems all is well between the lot of us. I have a question big furry friend, we are trying to get away from the shadows of the night, but our road ahead is blocked by the wall in front of us.

We were hoping you might know a way inside for us to spend the night safely?"

The ferret made a pleasant purring noise, almost similar to that of a cat.

When it stopped it looked me dead in the eyes and nodded.

Quickly jumped off Blacky unaware of the damage his body had taken the ferret dropped to the ground with a screech.

The screech attracted the shadows of the night. Approaching in blinding speed there was no time to think of other ways, the ferret had to help us or we would be doomed.

"While you should take it easy with your wounds and all, we are in a desperate situation we would like to get out of."

The ferret pointed to the wall signalling we needed to get closer.

Together we made our way towards the wall.

As we approached it the most wondrous and mysterious thing happened.

It seemed like the ferret its fur began to glow when slowly a collar of beads formed around its neck. One by one the beads too began to glow. Shortly after the ground began to rumble…

Yet the most shocking of all was when the ferret began to float above the ground.

The glow intensified beyond the point that it became impossible for the shadows to approach us. The light kept them away, while some of the shadows lingered at the edge of the light others left, unknown to us at the time, we soon would find out why…

The ferret began to howl, almost as if it was a wolf all along, the howling turned into a chanting echo as the wall slowly began to split into two. The walls began to separate.

Now there was a way for us to move along. Once we entered the mysteriously created space the glowing had diminished and the walls slowly became one again…

We found ourselves in complete darkness for a moment, when slowly luminescent moss began to light the area we found ourselves in. It seemed to be an altar of some sort…

A Shrine of ancient times… But the only thing on my mind was how we had gotten out of this dangerous situation unharmed…