The Hunt for Aquatenite

Chapter - 22 Lucy

When the teleportation process began, I waited for the torture that happened with Olivia's teleportation. How we couldn't feel the ground. But instead, it reminded me of all the happy memories with Liza and mai, and abba. We played as a family. We spent time together. It felt like I was reliving those memories. For some time, I enjoyed the scenes until one showed up that I couldn't remember ever happening. I was lying on a hospital bed. The doctor hovered over me. She was wearing a mask so only her eyes were visible. Dark brown eyes with sparks of black. When she saw my open eyes, she told someone to get going because I was awake. I saw two people running out of the door. I couldn't see their face but they were a man and a woman. The memory ended and I landed on the ice. Naturally, I slipped.

When I stood back up, I noticed only two people- Olivia and Nexiana. I looked around for Liza, Oliver, and Rislerk but they were nowhere to be found. I looked at Olivia for an answer but she was just about as confused as I was. In a few moments, the confusion turned into worry.

Olivia stomped her foot. "That Rislerk must've teleported us in groups!"

"They could even be in the north pole, worrying about us," Nexiana stated making me even more anxious. They might be dying right then and we had had no idea.

For some reason, we didn't talk much. Nexiana kept muttering 'stupid Linent'. That name felt familiar but I couldn't remember where I'd heard it. Olivia planned something inside her head. She made faces that matched the words that were swimming in her head. I thought about the hospital room that I had seen in one of the memories. It had to be something important. And I felt like I needed to figure it out.

We continued with the work ~ we ~ should ~ not ~ be ~ doing ~ but ~ because ~ of ~ some ~ reason ~ we ~ are and wasted our time. Olivia kept grunting which I guessed was because she couldn't understand what to do. I was getting bored. Plus I couldn't find anything interesting about that memory.

I looked toward Olivia. She was lipsing-screaming at herself. I knew it wasn't a good idea to say a word to her. I turned to Nexiana. She wasn't doing much. She was just staring at the sky, shivering and moaning. I decided to talk to her. All I knew about her was her sad past.

I sat beside her and put an arm around her. She froze and her lip trembled. The color was drained out of her face. I touched her, and, gods, her skin was as cold as an ice cube. I doubted the temperature of Antarctica and her were any different from one another.

"Oh my god," I exclaimed. "You are freezing to death! Why didn't you tell us?" I started to take off my furry coat but Nexiana insisted not to.

"You need it. I'm fine. I don't want you to die of cold." She insisted.

She walked to another spot away from me and continued to stare at the sky. I knew she wanted to be alone but I couldn't leave her in that condition. So, I walked over to her, making sure she wouldn't notice me. I wrapped my coat around her. She turned around in surprise.

"What happened? Why did you change? I know your true self is in there somewhere. You just need to show it." I couldn't help but say.

She looked at me, surprised. I could tell, she was remembering something unpleasant. She shook her head, covered her ears, and closed her eyes tightly. She kept muttering, 'No, don't do it.' Olivia also noticed her strange behavior and dashed toward us.

She whispered some soothing words to her from a safe distance. Nexiana breathed in and out. I watched her calm down a bit.

I left the girls. It was a mistake to take off my coat. I was really cold. But I was sure the cold wasn't the biggest problem I had to face.

"Now that Nexiana is fine, we should come to you." I turned around to find Olivia leaning against an ice dune with her arms crossed. Then she froze and quickly distanced herself from the dune, shaking her hand because of the ice.

"You should stay away from the ice dunes. They're cold." I giggled.

"Oh, thanks for the suggestion. I was thinking I should glue myself to it until I die." She gave a death glare to the ice dune and turned to me, getting serious. "It's not your fault she acted like this. She has faced a lot in her life. I don't know a lot about her. She doesn't talk to anyone much now. But she was so cheerful in the past. Ever since, Linent..."

I cut her off with my loud, sudden roar. "So that's who he is!" Even Nexiana glared from her spot.

Olivia stared at me, raising one eyebrow. "And I thought Liza was weird. Who is this 'he'?"

A shadow crawled over my face as I understood who Nexiana was calling stupid. I leaned towards Olivia so only she could hear me. "Olivia, I'm going to tell you something that will blow your mind. Just answer this question." She indicated for me to go on. "Does Rislerk resemble even a little to Linent, the lost haven?"

She thought about it and suddenly her eyes widened. She started to panic. "If he didn't have that scar, he would look exactly like Linent. Oh my god. How did you even think about it?"

I was speechless. When Nexiana was saying 'stupid Linent', she meant Rislerk. He had divided us into groups. That's why she was calling him stupid. Nexiana must've known it was Linent. The giants had captured Linent so that's how he knew so much about them. That's why he was on Earth and why Olivia couldn't recognize him. I explained it to Olivia.

"So, we conclude that Rislerk is Linent." 

I nodded. Then, Olivia said a few cuss words that I'm not going to mention here.

"So...what are we supposed to do with that info?"

"Maybe he is the spy. He was held by the giants, giving them the chance to make him turn against us or something. He even lied about his name." Olivia said it more like a question than a statement. Like she was asking herself about it.

"I hope not."

"How are we going to...you know...reach the others? You're from the water group. You must have an idea." She said it like it was so easy but it wasn't.

My mind was racing. I was trembling from thinking so hard. No, that's wrong. The ground was trembling, violently. A crack opened in the ice beneath us and we fell into it.