THE IMMORTAL'S FRIEND

Chapter 16: Fourth Key

Galen's POV

I am inside a dim room, everything around me is blurry. My hands and feet were tied. My body felt cold.

Without making any unnecessary sound, I stayed sitting on a cold floor wondering what I did wrong to be isolated like this. My mind can't remember anything and my heart feels empty right now. Is this a dream?

I don't know how many minutes or hours have passed when I heard footsteps approaching. I raised my head slightly to look at the person who came to visit me. I saw a figure of a boy.

His face is also blurry so I can't figure out if I know him or not. I can't recognize who he is.

Is he the one who tied my hands and feet? But why would he do that? If not, is he here to help me get out of here? Did he come here to help and save me?

I wanted to see his reaction while looking at me, but it didn't happen. No matter how much I focused on looking at him, I failed to see his face. Nonetheless, I still saw his fists clenching firmly like he's mad at me and he wants to punch me badly.

It just made me more confused. I don't know what I did wrong to make him mad.

"I won't forgive you. I hate you so much..." he said. Those words pierced through my heart like a poisoned arrow. Even though it came from a stranger, it didn't fail to make my heart shattered into pieces.

Tears from my eyes started falling down and I felt so frustrated and devastated although I still don't know who he is.

I don't know why he is mad at me. I don't know what I did wrong to him to be angry at me. I can see his mouth telling me something, but I didn't hear any word. All I can see on his face is his mouth that seems to be cursing me.

His voice is still not heard, but with tears brimming down from my eyes, I still get to read what he's saying while looking at his lips.

'We are not family anymore.'

Family... Home.

The only family I have is Shira. I don't have any family other than my sister, so why is this boy telling me that?

Who really is he? And why does my heart break hearing those words from him when I don't even know him?

The boy turned his back and started running to leave me. I heard myself whispering to him not to leave, but he still did. He left me alone again, making me feel the grief-stricken pain of being abandoned and rejected.

The place that I considered home before became the place that I never knew and remember anymore.

##

I gasped for air to breathe as I opened my eyes widely at the speed of light. The first thing I see after waking up is Iris' face looking at me worriedly.

She seems to wanna ask what's wrong, but she decided not to. I blink and raise my body to sit beside her when I realized that I was sleeping on her lap.

"Bad dreams?" I heard her asked after a couple of minutes.

Gently, I nodded my head and ready myself to share it with her if ever she asked me what kind of dream it is, but she didn't.

She remained silent and looked at me without asking another question.

"How's your foot by the way?" I asked to change the topic, pertaining to her left foot which had gotten sprained earlier.

She fell from a peach tree after climbing it to pick fruit for me. I told her before we went to sleep last night that I want to eat peach and I told her I'll pick it myself, but she decided to pick it for me because she said she wanted to surprise me.

She really did surprise me and almost gave me heart attack when I saw her fall down from the tree and get her left foot sprained.

I told her to take a rest and that she didn't need to come with me to search for something that we'll use to summon the celestials, but she still insisted on coming with me and only used a stick to support herself to walk.

I also told her that if she wanted to come that badly, I'll carry her on my back but she replied that she doesn't want to tire me and straightly declined my offer.

"It's getting dark now, let's continue to search." she announced and stood up, holding her stick.

When I looked at her stick closely, I saw a small crack on it so I told her to throw the stick away and I'll just carry her on my back, but she still doesn't want me to do it.

"Don't you want me to carry you because you thought you're heavy? I carried you before when you fainted and you are not heavy so it's fine." I said. I walked closer to her to carry her, but she stepped back and gestured me to stay where I'm standing.

"No need to do it, I can walk on my own. This stick won't break easily." she said.

"But it already has a crack." I replied, pointing at the crack on the stick she's holding.

"Then, I can just pick another stick on the way, you don't need to carry me." I stare at her for a minute and wonder why she's suddenly acting like this.

I don't get why she doesn't want me to carry her when I only want to do that because I don't want her to force herself to walk.

I won't carry her if she can walk straight, but she needs my help now so I don't mind doing it.

"Can't I really change your mind?" I asked and she confidently nodded her head.

"Yes. I won't let you carry me and I will walk on my own." she answered while smiling. I heaved a gentle sigh.

"Okay, give me your stick, then," I commanded as I showed my palm in front of her. She looks at me confusedly.

"Why?"

"Just give it to me, we need to do something on the crack." I said. When she thought that I was only going to tie and cover the crack so it wouldn't break easily, she gave the stick to me, but instead of tying and covering it just like what she expected, her eyes grew bigger when I broke the stick into two.

She was shocked and looked at me in disbelief. She can't understand why I broke the stick in front of her.

"I'm sorry, but I really can't bear looking at you forcing yourself to walk when I'm just here to carry you around." I said. I already broke the stick so she doesn't have any choice now but to let me carry her on my back.

"We still need to search for something that we'll use to summon the celestial keys... Are you sure you will carry me while doing that?"

I nodded my head.

"Of course, why not? But we don't actually need to search any further because we already have that thing we can use to summon them."

"What do you mean?"

I threw the other part of the stick and showed her the half stick I'm holding in my hand.

"This stick. We succeeded in summoning 3 celestial keys using rock, leaf, and firefly so it might also work with this stick, right?"

Her eyes sparkled like she hadn't thought about that earlier.

I put the stick between my hands and closed my eyes before summoning the fourth celestial keys.

"The stars will hear my voice, I'm summoning you now, Taurus The Bull."

I waited for a few seconds until I couldn't feel the roughness of the stick anymore and opened my eyes slowly to check if I was already holding the Taurus key. I quickly showed it to Iris with a wide smile when it worked.

"See? Trying sometimes makes miracles." I told her.

She looked at the key for a minute before she looked at my eyes and returned the smile. I didn't waste any minute and turned around, kneeling one of my knees on the ground before telling her to hop on my back.

She's still thinking twice if she'll do it or not, but when she finally did, I smiled even more. I made sure that she's holding on me tightly before I stood up and started walking with careful steps for us not to fall down.