My secret (English version)

18. TW

I look across the lake and get a huge fright! The deer that I tore apart last night is still here! At least what's left of it.

"Stop," I shout, "don't go any further, wait until I give you a signal" and I'm already running.Yemaya shouts after me:" What's happened? Max? Can you hear me?"

I ignore her and quickly fly over the small hollow, straight to the massacre. Kaya arrives at the same moment.

"Shit, I got here as quickly as I could, but I had to clear the remains of the two deers first," Kaya explains quickly.

"Ngh, ok, but help me quickly. The others are waiting for my signal that they can get out," I say.We nod to each other and in less than five minutes, Kaya and I have thrown everything into a pile and rounded it up. Now the others come running out of the forest without my sign and with panic in their eyes.

"Dude! What are you doing there? Are you crazy?" Toni shouts in horror. The others also look at us in bewilderment, but Kay and I remain calm and just stare into the fire.

"Can you answer us? What the hell are you doing here?" asks Finny frantically.

"We're destroying clues," Kay replies simply.

I just nod and start thinking about how many times I've tried fire. I think only once, but Killian pulled me away again just before I really caught fire. I don't move an inch and yet Kay seems to notice something. Just before I could jump forwards, he grabs me from behind and pulls me away from the fire. I wriggle in his grip, but he holds me firmly. A few metres away from the fire, he lets me down again and looks deep into my eyes.

"You promised me, Max. You promised you wouldn't do it again." he says with concern in his voice.

I stare at him with anger. But he's right, I did promise him. So I give in: "OK, I won't do it any more."

For us it felt like several minutes, but for my friends it was just a moment. They looked at us strangely and Nic bridged the few metres to us and asked: "What's going on now?" The others also came closer and looked at me with concern.

Kaya's gaze doesn't leave me and yet he replies: "Everything's fine. Or Max, we're not doing anything stupid, right?"

I put on a smile:" Sure, everything's great. Of course we're not doing anything stupid."So we go back and as everything is just ashes, we quickly put out the fire and Kaya disappears again.

"Come on, let's find the treasure," I say.

No sooner said than done. The teachers had made the puzzle rather easy, so we only needed 20 minutes to find the little Treasure. We wouldn't get the key until later, so we made our way back to the castle. We talked about God and the world, but Nic was very quiet and thoughtful again.

Nic looks up, straight into my eyes and turns to me: "What was that earlier? When Kaya pulled you away? What did you promise him?"

Shit, I'd hoped he wouldn't remember. Now I have to explain it for better or worse:" Well, what he meant was that I promised him I wouldn't kill myself anymore. And without him being able to read minds, he knew what I was about to do."

Nic looked deep into my eyes and said: "I want you to promise me too. Promise me you won't try again, ok? I can't imagine the hell you've been through, but you'll see your siblings again.

 That's for sure. But I don't want you to kill yourself when you still have your whole life ahead of you."

Wow, I realise that came from the heart and I couldn't refuse him because even though I wanted to die, I still want to look after him. And that's what makes it so difficult:" Ok, I promise I won't do it again."

Nic looks at me and smiles slightly, he realises that I'm serious. We walk on and this time he joins in the conversation.

Back in the castle, we are the second team and therefore in second place. In the end, we found the key to the little True and were allowed to see our prize. As expected, it was sweets, but we were still delighted.

In the late afternoon, our bus arrived. We immediately grabbed the last row. I sat on the far left and Nic sat next to me. The others were just mucking about as the bus drove off.
"Is everything really ok? You can talk to me about anything." Nic whispers to me.

I look at him and smile slightly, but then say a little frustrated: "I'm fine. I just keep worrying about Phillip and Josi). It's hard that I'm the only one of the Mondragon siblings left. Also, it still sucks that we only have a grave for Phillip. And even that's in our old territory in Carinthia."

Nic looks at me sympathetically: "I'm sorry to ask, but why doesn't Josi have a grave?"

I lower my eyes:" Because there was simply nothing left of her. When I turned around, there was only Phillip's body. Josi was no longer there. I don't know if they burnt her or if someone took the body, all I know is that the last memory I have is of her throwing herself in front of me to intercept a magical spear that would have killed me for sure. Then she was lying on the ground and I was just looking for Phillip because he had an answer for everything. I saw him at that moment and threw myself in front of him because he was being attacked from two sides at once. The iron dagger only hit me in the shoulder, nothing life-threatening, but at the same time Phillip fell to the ground and didn't get up again. Aro, the leader of our attackers, took pity on me and let me live, partly because I couldn't do anything on my own. When I turned round, all that was left was Phillip's body"

Nic had also lowered his eyes, he looked at me sympathetically and put an arm around me."But I've come to terms with it, everything's halfway okay and I can deal with it," I say with a slight smile.

"You sure?" (Nic)

"Yep, we're moving on." (Me)

And before we could continue talking, we were already involved in a conversation about the stupidity of Americans and more or less enjoyed the journey home.

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Hope you enjoyed it. The story is not over yet, feel free to share it with friends. best regards, Jo_wolve