Rielle

After getting everything ready, I planned to go out and say goodbye to all the villagers. The first person I say goodbye to is the leader of the village, Grandma Gale. Grandma Gale is an old lady who has lived to be 154 years old. She is blind, so a villager named Rielle always cares for her.

Rielle is a beautiful girl. Her raven-colored hair makes her stand out among the other bright hair colors. She has very scrutinizing dark orange eyes that make her seem like a wild animal. Her height is about 160 cm.

As I walk up to Grandma Gale's hut, I see her out front on a lawn chair, with Rielle standing behind her. When I get close, Grandma Gale greets me.

"Jack, whacha doin' with all those things you got packed?"

"Oh, I'm going to the Spire."

"Why ya goin' to the Spire?" Grandma Gale questions.

Rielle looks at me, surprised, and says, "Why would you go to the Spire? You'll definitely die if you go there!"

"Watts left me a message. He said there is something waiting for me there, so I'm going to the Spire to see what it is."

Rielle looks at me, then at Grandma Gale, before asking her, "Granny, can I go with him to keep him safe? Just to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid." After she asks, she looks up at me, waiting for my confirmation.

Grandma Gale nods slowly. She's already talked too much for her old age.

I look at Rielle, confused, and ask, "You want to come with me? Why?"

She smirks and mouths the word "Key."

My face instantly hardens, and my heart starts to beat faster. Cold sweat stains my forehead and back as I wonder if Rielle is part of the Order.

"Come to my house at nightfall. We'll talk then."

"Okay!" she says, a smile beaming on her face.

After I leave, I say goodbye to the rest of the villagers and return to my hut by sundown.

When I open the door, the first thing I see is a gorgeous girl sitting at my table, admiring her recently cut nails. Rielle looks up at me and greets me.

"Hello."

"Hi," I say back with an awkward smile.

I've never had a girl in my house. The village is small, and I'm rarely home, so I'm a little nervous.

"So, what did you want to talk about? Alone. At night. In your house."

I can tell she's teasing me from her sarcastic tone, and it kind of gets on my nerves. When I speak again, my voice is laced with a bit of frustration.

"I've just got a few questions about what you mouthed to me earlier at Grandma Gale's house."

"You mean how I know about the Key? Well, it's simple—my Papa and Watts have been buddies for a while, and they've been sending messages to each other about their findings on the Void."

After I hear the word Void, my head goes blank for a few seconds from surprise.

"You even know about the Void? There's no way your father told you about all this dangerous information. Right?"

"No way. He would never tell me about this. I just did a little snooping in his drawers and found a bunch of letters between him and Watts. The last one was from around a month ago," she says, a smug look on her face, as if she did something incredible and worthy of lots of praise.

I look at her, stupefied as to why she would randomly go through her father's private letters.

"What? Why are you looking at me like that?" she asks, suddenly seeming a little nervous.

"I'm just confused as to why you'd look through your father's personal things and be proud of it."

"Huh?" She looks at me, lost. "I saw my Papa was getting all anxious, so I thought it had to be in one of the letters he received recently. If it was, I was gonna help him become unanxious."

Huh? That weirdly makes sense.

"But that doesn't really matter. Can I go to the Spire with you?" Her eyes gleam with excitement as she asks.

"No. What will you do to help me? All you'll do is slow me down."

Rielle glares at me.

"ME. SLOW. YOU. DOWN?" Her voice is filled with anger as she continues. "I'm not slow. I'm actually very fast, okay? And I'm coming with you, so deal with it." She finishes with a mocking smile.

"You know you could DIE!" I tried my hardest to emphasize the dying part.

"Yeah, yeah, I know I could die. But I would rather go on an adventure to find an ancient key that unlocks something supernatural and have fun in my life, instead of staying here, taking care of Granny, and doing nothing else besides that."

I can see where she's coming from, but I'd rather do nothing and live than do something and die, I think while shaking my head at Rielle.

"Okay, but isn't living amazing? I mean, I would rather live for 1,000 years than die tomorrow."

"That's you, not me. So just accept that I'm coming."

Her tone is getting more and more angry, so I just accept that she's coming.

"Alright, alright. Fine, come along with me to the Spire and help me find that key."

I pull out the other chair and finally sit, accepting my defeat.

As soon as I finish speaking, Rielle's face lights up like the sun rising at dawn. She stands up, poses triumphantly, and points at me, laughing.

"HA HA HA! I knew you would let me come! Because why would you not want me to come along? HA HA HA!"

Her laugh is so exaggerated it's like she's just trying to breathe loudly in short bursts.

"Alright, now that you're officially coming, go home and get all of your stuff ready so we can leave before dawn."

Rielle's smile widens. "Yes! I'll be here before dawn—that's a promise!"

I stand up and start pushing her out the door because she has exhausted all of my energy, and I just want to go to sleep.

"W-W-Wait! I have somethi—"

The door slams in Rielle's face as I head to my bed and collapse.

Tomorrow is going to be a living hell, I think right before my consciousness fades into sleep.