Noaki
Thirteen familiar faces. Where had Noaki seen these people?
Noaki
From a distant perspective Noaki sees the entire scene play out. These people, thirteen adolescents similar in age, surrounding an old forgotten shrine. Its pedestal shines brilliantly, emanating incredible but gentle pulses of energy. His eyes glow like that summer.
Everyone around him appears to forget themselves, why they were all gathered here, Maria, Moritz, Jason, James, Marko, Justin, Logan, Olivia, Garrett, Yivonne, Loraunt, Nikolai, and David. Before the identities of these people revealed themselves to him, his eyes are blinded by a blinding flash of violet light. His retinas burn, blood runs from its sockets, yet he feels no pain.
Noaki. Wake up.
Remember. He murmurs to himself. Who are they? Who am I? The light fades and leaves tendrils of light bordering his vision like the swirls of sea shells, they hum and vibrate.
"Noaki?"
Noaki jumps from his slumber, his eyes feeling sore from such an intense dream. He grabs Moritz by the shoulders wide eyed and looking crazed. "I remembered something," he hisses fervently.
Moritz nods knowingly. "Not here, later."
Noaki examines his surroundings, quite a few passengers widen their distance from them. Noaki apologizes to no one in particular. "Weird dream-" he stops mouth agape. In the night sky three celestial lunar bodies dominate the heavens. There should be one moon, he thinks to himself.
"I know. One right?" Moritz points toward the south.
In the foothills of a towering mountain is a luminous cluster of lights glistening off the surface of the river. A swarm of river vessels dot the surface of the river like fireflies.
The atmosphere of night is so vast and breathtaking Noaki begins to feel dizzy. He sits silently soaking in the massiveness of it all.
He gawks at everything, incapable of peeling his eyes from this sight. The sounds of night are alive with the clamor of nocturnal life.
As far east and west as his eyes would allow him, he could make out the luminous clusters of farming villages and towns.
Before, the full scope of this valley had been concealed in thick forested vegetation. Further southward near the shadows of the eastern mountains, an enormous monolith penetrates the sky etched with symbols and luminous with the same intensity of the lunar bodies.
Noaki's eyes water but he didn't dare to blink for fear it might all disappear. "What is this place?" He murmurs to himself.
They both remain in awed silence the remainder of their journey. The passengers who distanced themselves are taken in by their reactions and gather around them like bees to flowers. The light chatter of different languages fill into the backdrop and Noaki gently returns to his senses. His eyes illuminate a very faint violet and Moritz a faint frosty blue.
Neither speak until deboarding the ferry. One wide and luminous main street leads them to a map of the surrounding district. With the interpretive assistance of random passersby, they locate the Prowler atop a hill a few kilometres inland.
The further up they hike, the more of the town is revealed to them. Large foothills of botanical structures and pine groves conceal the majority of Borintass.
The streets are carved into the foothills of the mountain, shaped into terraces and platforms that support a network of buildings. Further inland nearer the base of the looming mountain cascades waterfalls into a lake illumined by the surrounding town verging on the brink of a city.
