what happened after unlocked

chapter nine ~ keefe's pov

Keefe lowered his father's leaping crystal as he materialized in some sort of city. He'd been travelling through various places in the Forbidden Cities for a while, maybe two weeks, and so far he'd managed to buy food and find benches that didn't break his back to sleep the night on...that was it.

At first, it was hard to tell what was going on, but then he noticed all of the human cars and beeping horns and commercials and music and all sorts of loud stuff.

And a giant load of emotions.

Piling onto his heart. Swirling into his systems.

His heart ached.

What would happen if he put a command on these people?

But no, no, he couldn't do that. That was what his mom wanted. And Foster...well, Foster would probably hate him if he ever told her he used his weird stellarlune powers on a bunch of innocent humans—just because he was suffering.

So he pushed past the pain.

And he surveyed his surroundings.

He was standing in a busy square. On each side were more and more high-rise buildings, and on those buildings were large billboards and flashing videos and advertisements. The reason Keefe knew that he was in New York City this was because Fintan had taken him to a city once, and pointed out some useful things about the Forbidden Cities.

The air smelt too toxic to breathe in, so Keefe held one of his tunic sleeves to his mouth and nose. He straightaway missed the Lost Cities. Even if the elves were stuck-up and snobbish, he still loved the place where he lived.

And usually Foster made it better.

Don't think about that now, Keefe! he thought to himself. You need to figure out where you are exactly, find somewhere to spend the night, and then move somewhere else the next morning. DON'T think about Sophie.

DontthinkaboutSophiedontthinkaboutSophiedontthinkaboutSophie.

Keefe shoved all thoughts of his old life into a mental box of Stuff to Think About Later. For now, he needed to find somewhere to stay, some human clothes...and probably money as well. But, he was fully trained in appetite suppression so he guessed he could wait a few days for food if he couldn't manage to get any.

His stomach grumbled just thinking about it, and the grumble turned into a whole avalanche of rumbles.

Keefe stumbled over to nearby bench and crumpled over. By now, he knew that this pain wasn't just from the lack of food.

The pain in his stomach moved to his heart, where all of the humans' emotions were amounting to a heavy stack, and he needed them to stop.

He would do anything now. But he couldn't.

"You okay there, dude?"

The gravelly voice brought Keefe out of his daze, and he looked up to see an old man with a long white beard, well-dressed and holding a large blue plastic bag of food that said 'Walmart' on it.

Keefe slowly nodded, the concern and kindness radiating off of the man dissolving all of the other loud humans' thoughts.

"Well, if you need any help, then the ATM's there," he pointed to a large bulky machine a few hundred feet away, "the hotels are along that street," he pointed to another road off the square, "and if you don't know where we are then we're in Times Square—in New York City. Oh, and it's the red button," he winked, before rushing off towards another side street.

Keefe was overwhelmed by what the human man had just done. Or was he human?

The man was doing pretty well for his age—he'd just ran off and disappeared and seemed to know a lot about the general things. And apart from his long white beard, scarce wrinkles and gravelly voice, he didn't seem that old.