The Twenty Five Percent Rayanna

The River

        We walk through the town, and as we approach the entrance to the city, I can hear the sound of water gurgling and bubbling. Soon, we are passing through the entrance of the city, passing a man and a woman standing guard, and a small river lies before us. Lou lets go of my hand and rushes for the riverbank.

       "Wait!" I shout. The last thing I need is for her to jump into the water without me. My brother would kill me if something happened to her.

       "I wasn't gonna jump in, Aunty Rain. Cross my heart." Lou says making a crisscross motion across her chest. "I just wanted to look at the water."

       "Stay by my side to look at the water. We are going to ease into it, over here, where the water doesn't move as fast." I say. We take our shoes off and slowly step into the water. "Okay, this is far enough." I say, when the water reaches her waist. "I need you to lay back in the water, kind of like you are laying in a bed."

      "Wont I float away? All the way to the ocean?" Lou asks.

      "That's what I'm here for, so you don't float away."

       "Okay." She says, laying back. But instead of floating, she sinks underwater and comes up sputtering and spitting out water.

        "Let's try that again, but this time, let me help you." She leans back again, and this time I help hold her up. After a little while, I let go and she floats on her own. "Let's play a game, while you practice floating."

      "Oh, I love games." She says, excitedly. "What game are we playing? Pirates? Or dolphins? Or mermaids? Yes! How about we play mermaids? That's my favorite game."

       "Sure, we can play mermaids." I say, thinking quickly, "But let's pretend you are the mommy mermaid and I'm the little kid mermaid."

       "Yeah!"

       "And I have a lot of questions, so you have to answer them all."

       "Yeah! And then I'll catch fish for dinner, and you have to eat it all gone, but you have to pretend like you don't like it."

      "First question. Where are we, mommy?" I ask.

    "It...Et...E Station. It's really hard to say, Aunty Rain. I can't say it."

        E station? I wonder... "Are you trying to say Eterly Station?"

         "Yes, that's it!" She says laughing. She loses her concentration and ends up with another mouthful of water.

        I help her to her back again and think of another question that she should be able to answer. "Where are we going?"

         "I really don't know. Daddy said south for the winter. Where we won't freeze to death."

          "Where is our house?"

          "We don't have a house. We are nomals."

          "Nomals?" I think for a moment. "Do you mean, nomads? As in we travel from place to place?"

              "Yes."

              Hm. Nomads? That's a bit odd but I guess I can get used to that. "Do you know what happened to the planet? Is the war, the reason that we travel?"

            "War? What's that?"

             "Basically, people fight and kill each other."

                 "Oh, no, that's bad. Daddy says we have to work together because there aren't enough people left for us to fight each other. The sky made lots of snow and people got too cold. Can we play a different game now? I'm bored of this one."

               "Sure," I say. Eterly Station. Nomads. No war. People getting too cold. What does it all mean? I was foolish to think that I could get all of the answers I need from a child. What I really need is to find some sort of history books. What's the odds that Eterly Station has a library? And how can I access that information without drawing more suspicion from my brother?

             After having Lou practice holding her breath underwater, and playing five rounds of hide and seek, we decide to get out of the water.

           "I'm hungry. So hungry, that I could eat a whole rabbit all by myself. So hungry that I could eat a whole pig all by myself." Lou says, rubbing her stomach.

             "That's a pretty big hunger." I say as we pass by the entrance to the station.

          "Playing always makes me hungry. It's a lot of work, you know."

           "What is?" I ask, only half listening.

            "Hide and seek. Altair is really good at it." She says, starting to skip.

         "Wait. Who did you say? Who is really good at hide and seek?"

           "Altair is."

           My heart starts thumping in my chest. A name I recognize. A link to my 'dream' world. "Who is Altair?"

          "The guy you are looking for. The guy daddy is looking for."

               "But who is he?" I ask, reaching for her arm and stopping her in front of a large building.

        "Ow. You are hurting me. I don't know. I heard you and daddy talking about him, last night. I got really sleepy and didn't hear anything else."

        "Okay. Fine. Sorry. Where are we going?" I ask letting go of her arm.

        "Are we playing questions, again?"

      "Kind of."

       "We are going in here to get some lunch. Daddy is supposed to meet us."

         "One more question before we go eat. Is there a place with a lot of books in it?"

         "Over there." Lou says, pointing to the building next to this one.

        I turn and look the direction she is pointing. Hopefully those books can tell me what's going on here. How I went from one reality and woke up in a whole different one.  What the significance of Altair is. He pops up in the other world, and we are looking for him here? Hopefully those books hold all the answers I need.