Episode 5 - Visions

The Horn sounded.

"Oh. And that's our turn to sleep, let's go kids." said Ritis

All the people on the streets began walking to their homes. Only half of the houses were entered in, the other half of the hoses had people walking out, and they began their day.

Ritis, Iopac and Yarrik went inside their house, to their bedrooms. First Ritis made sure they went to their beds and didn't argue about who gets the top one, this time Yarrik got it. Before he left he placed with mud and sticks on the other side of the wall. On it they placed their necklaces. After that he went to his room.

Yarrik closed his eyes and laid on his back facing the ceiling. As he was about to fall asleep Iopac whispered.

"Yarrik… are you asleep?"

"… No." he whispered back. "Why?"

"What happened to your roubie?"

"… I don't know. I let it go around the house sometime during the rope making."

"Sigh*"

"Why? What happened to yours?"

"I gave it to Ritis and he put it in a cage."

"Why didn't you tell me! I would've given him mine too."

"So is it running around the house now?"

"Probably. It's alright, I'll find it! And then stick it in a cage! Or ask Ritis to."

"Sure."

They rolled back over on their beds, and then silence hit.

"… Yarrik, are you sleeping?"

"Hm? No. Why?"

"I can't fall asleep."

"Why?"

"I don't know." he hesitated at first, but added "Maybe… I'm scared or something like that."

"Scared of what? The dark? There is nothing in the dar-"

"Not the dark, idiot. I get bad visions in my sleep, well most of the time."

"Visions? Woah, like seeing future?"

"No, just weird stuff."

"What kind of weird stuff?"

"Fire. Everywhere."

"Does that mean our forest is going to burn?!"

"What? N-No!" he sighed. "It reminds me of my… home."

"Oh… sorry."

"Don't worry about it. I also saw you."

"I will die in a fire?!"

"N- " Iopac restrained himself from shouting. "No. It was different, you were big, like really big. I remember sitting on the cliff, and you were still so much bigger. You reached the clouds with your hands. You were a giant!"

"Am I going to become a giant?"

"What? No, I don't know. Maybe?"

"Did you tell nature mother about your visions?"

"No I will when I see her again."

"What else did you see?"

"I…" he blushed, " nothing else. Just that."

"Ohh, alright. So wh—"

"GO TO SLEEP!" Ritis shouted from his room.

The boys immediately turned over and quickly fell asleep. Yarrik laying there began thinking of what Iopac told him. Few ideas run inside his head 'maybe I'm a descendant of the giants?', 'will I eat a lot… like a giant?', or 'maybe I will not become a giant and Iopac is wrong?'. Slowly from his thoughts he drifted into sleep.

He looked around, and there was nothing. Just darkness. Then, from the darkness, splits began opening. They were eyes. Many, countless eyes that began staring at Yarrik. No matter where he looked they maintained an eye contact with him. When Yarrik took a closer look at them, he felt nothing, like the eyes were empty. There was no emotion in them. The empty pupils stared at him coldly. Then he saw something else. Before him stood… himself. All the other eyes began switching from Yarrik to his double. Like they were pointing towards it. The other Yarrik wasn't staring at him, instead it was standing sideways and facing to the left of the real Yarrik.

Yarrik began approaching it, he noticed a few things. That double had its left forearm raised and with the right hand it was performing some sort of action on it. He looked closer. Its forearm began bleeding. He saw that something was in its right hand, but wasn't visible to him. Like nothing existed there, but at the same time something did, something sharp. Then he heard a voice.

Carve.

He turned around trying to see the source of the voice but it felt like it was coming from every direction at once. Then each of the eyes began closing. One by one, they quickly returned to their void. He turned to his other version. And noticed that something else was in front of it, some creature. Yarrik felt like it was the creature his double was carving on its forearm. When his double finished carving something on his skin, he lightly tapped on the creature and it turned to dust. Yarrik didn't see what kind of creature it was, just a big and blurry shadow. And then all faded back to the darkness.

Yarrik opened his eyes. He was still in his bed. He slowly rose up and looked around. Iopac was still in his bed, Ritis' loud snores were heard from the other room, his and Iopac's necklaces were still hanging on their hangers, everything same as before. However, there was a little bluish light coming from the corner of his bed. He crawled up to it and it was his roubie. He quickly picked it up with his hands. Looking around, he thought back to his vision and to be sure, he tried to wake Iopac up.

"Iopac."

Nothing.

"Iopac."

Nothing again.

"Iopac." He shoved him with his hand, while holding the roubie with the other."

"Hmm?" Iopac finally replied.

"Did you say something? To me? While I was asleep?"

"Mm-mm."

"Then, I think I had a vision."

"Mmmm?"

"Maybe I can ask nature mother with you?"

"M-hm."

"Did you get any visions?"

"Mm-mm."

"Oh, that means you slept well! That's great!"

"…"

"Also I found my roubie." He put his roubie closer to Iopac to show it off. "Look."

"Mm!" He shoved it away with his hand and squeezed his eyes. Finally he spoke. "Yarrik go to sleep!"

"Ooh. Sorry." He turned back over. Holding his roubie he realized. 'Wait. What do I do with you? I don't want you to get lost again.'

He rose back up and scouted the room again. He saw his necklace again. He thought for a second, before getting up and quietly walking towards it. He picked it up and went into the kitchen, to sit under the caged roubie's light. That's where he stopped. His necklace and the roubie on the table before him, and he had to think this through.

'Carve. Carve what? The bug? How should I even carve him? I can't cut every detail on my skin. Maybe I can put him in the cage with another roubie? Yeah that works.'

No.

'Huh?!' He quickly jumped up and looked around. 'What was that?'

"Anyone here?" He said quietly.

There was no response. A cold chill ran through his body.

Cut.

Out of fear Yarrik listened to the voice, he realized that it wasn't coming from any directions, it was inside his head. Foreign thoughts and yet came from inside his mind. 'Why would I wish bad upon myself?' was his reasoning. He decided to listen, slowly sitting back at the table. He picked up the tooth and carefully began observing the roubie. Then picked a spot on his forearm just bellow the wrist, and started carving.

"Hmf…" first he began with an oval shape. 'This isn't as painful as I thought.'

After the oval shape, he cut a line on the 1/3 of the circle, to distinct the head and the body. Followed by three lines on each side of the body for the legs. Two big circles that fit inside the head, those would be the eyes. And finally a line going across the centre of the body, for the wings that although a roubie has they are rarely used and only in desperate cases. Yarrik put down the tooth and waited.

…

…

…

"Is something going to happen? Sigh* I guess those were not real visions, but what about the voice I heard? Maybe I can ask nature mother. What do I do about the scar now? What if Ritis finds out? I need to cover it."

He gets up, but then stops and turns back.

"Oh and before I go I guess I'll put you in a cage with someone else."

He turns to his roubie and tries to grab him. When he does touch it he gets a weird feeling. As if he got shocked. Then the roubie turn slowly into dust and it begins to flow into his scar filling it in. He tried to throw the dust off himself and got scared, however to his surprise there was no pain only a slight itch. His wound stopped bleeding, closed up and left a slightly dark scar.

Yarrik's eyes widened. He tried to scratch the scar and see if it did something. Nothing. He tried to see if he changed in anyway. Nothing. He was surprised, excited and even a little bit scared, but all that didn't matter as he needed to sleep. The shift would switch soon.

He cleans any mess he made, find a cloth to cover his arm with and hurries to bed.