Niah and the Pheonix (Watty's 2024!)

Chapter XVI: Conan

5 years ago

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I walk downstairs, my mom calling my name. Well, technically she's my kind-of-mom, but that's just so long to say, so I call her mom. Anyways, when I arrived at the last step and took a turn around a corner, I saw my mom looking at me with an exciting look on her face.

"What is it?" I asked, seeing the excitement she was trying to hold back but couldn't.

She looked at me like I was crazy, "Come on, don't you remember? Since you officially reached ice belt II, you get to go through the portal and see Earth! Oh, I remember my day, when I got to go see the wonderful streets of Earth. Sadly, I ended up dropping out of training, but getting the privilege to see such a wonderful place was worth it! The scenery is nothing like you would ever imagine; the trees, flowers, buildings! Oh, you're so lucky to be able to see it." She said.

I looked at the ground with a sad expression on my face. It might look cool, but I've heard so many stories about things going wrong when we go through the portal. This one kid in my class, José, tells this story of when his grandpa went into the portal. He said that he was excited to go through, but right as he entered, he instantly regretted ever wanting to go through. 

He said that his grandpa had gone through in the time of a war, explosions and gunshots filling the air. He told us about these people who he called 'the spider people' because they held these strange flags with spiders on them. 

He said that the men who held the spider flags hung them on buildings as others continued to shoot guns. His grandpa went back through the portal and told the rest of his class about it and they ended up having to wait another 3 years before everyone else could go. Although, that was like 70 years ago, so there should be no more war! Right?

"Oh, come on, Niah. It will be alright, and I bet you'll actually quite enjoy it!" She said to me with a comforting tone in her voice. 

I looked up at her as a smile slowly spread across my face. Maybe she was right. Maybe it wouldn't be that bad after all, and maybe I would enjoy it.

"Come on, let's go." She said as she walked towards the door, taking a hat off a hook rack. She placed it on her head and looked into the mirror. I got my shoes on and ran towards the door.

"I'm ready!" I yelled as I came to a quick stop.

She held my hand as we both walked out the door, tears filling her eyes. She looked away, trying to hide her sadness and guilt from me. Although she tried, I knew exactly what was happening. Her and Dane had both gone through the portal when they were little.

Years ago, before she even found me, she had a husband named Dane. They always went on these amazing adventures around the West and sometimes even outside of their territory. She told me about some of their adventures, but never about Dane; or how he had died.

The way I found out was because I heard her talking to one of her friends last year about him, and it was immensely sad. 

What I could get from what I had heard was this: one day, she had wanted to go on an adventure half way between the West and the South. He was hesitant to want to come, but she persuaded him into coming.

All went well for a while, but I guess all adventures have to have some obstacle, right? Well, maybe not all, but I wish there wasn't one on this one.

They were traveling through an open plain, very little shade anywhere. The only shadows you could see were those of mesquite trees and turkey vultures, no fruit trees or anything like that. The ground was mostly dirt, a few patches of tall grass here and there.