Dreams of Imahken

Who in life seek not to be chose.

The rain poured, obscuring the sun to no end. The fox relented for that time and Ciun distanced herself too. It would have been mid-autumn, a month after Illus's breakdown, when the rain finally let up. However, he made careful use of that time.

He snuck out in the rain to record the second poem and investigated deeper into the cave. Not long into his venture, he discovered the walls becoming lined with bones and promptly turned around. He searched every nook and cranny of the amphitheater for hidden poems, messages, anything. He turned over stones in the ruined field of columns. He scoured the walls of the gully, beneath the bridge. He scanned the rose maze and fountain. He analyzed every tile of the mosaic, yet nothing still. All he found were bones, slowly being uncovered as the rain washed away the topsoil. The pale chalky stones lining the bottom of the rivers were not stones at all, but weathered remains.

For every dark day, he was without Ciun's protection from the fox, too. He would bid her goodbye, giving him time on his lonesome to fish, chop wood, and harvest the bounty of the land. Ciun tended to the fields and the orchards on her lonesome, and she would tell him what was allowed to be harvested and when. From this, he gathered a healthy stockpile of fish, potatoes, pears, and herbs that he dried over brazier in his shed.

In his spare time, he studied the poems. Rather quickly, he found an occurrence in both, a pattern that he needed another poem to know if it was intentional or simply a coincidence. That is why he took to searching in the rain amidst his survival.

It seemed as though he would need to feign friendship with the fox to find the next poem, though. To find the final clues that Carmonia left, the truth that Ciun could not speak. The clouds would not stay out forever and Illus would again be burdened by the fox. If Carmonia left clues on the fox, Illus believed his survival would be assured.

The rain cleared in the evening on a warm autumn day. Illus was out fishing and the rain stopped just as the sun disappeared behind the mountain. He would be safe from the fox, and he would be safe from flash flooding and hypothermia to check one of the two spots he had not been able to reach in the rain. The peak of the mountain.

He needed no sun, for the sky was bright and starry, a full moon glowing above the Earth. With the moon as his guide, Illus ascended the mountain, carefully checking every stone and tile that may be big enough to house a poem, or even just a line.

Drenched dirt made the climb more difficult, but to finally be free of the rain was prize enough. Slowly he ascended the steps, stopping at the outcropping of rock where Ciun had gifted him her power. The stone was almost perfectly smooth as he expected. Weathered by the elements, he kneeled, brushing at the fallen leaves and soil by the edge.

A crack? No. A carving.

Illus feverishly swept at the rock with his hands, relief rushing through him. He revealed a line, not even bothering to read it as he swept away deeper to reveal more of the stone. Another line! Another chance to cement his survival.

He swept and dug, but there was no more to this poem. The shallow carving had barely escaped weathering. One final couplet of a poem was all that remained.

Standing back, he read the lines aloud while recording them in his notebook.

"Follow this poem's every verse,

Ciun may be saved from her curse."

Illus stared blankly at the stone which once held a seemingly important poem, then fell to his rear, a hysterical laugh erupting from his core.

"Of course," he lamented, "what would my terrible luck be without a proper throttling every now and again?"

He held the pencil to Anilee's journal, wondering what his next step would be. The fox would be out with the sun and torment with it. His fingers idly flipped backward, his lips curling into a smile as he reminisced over the crossed out self portraits. The one closest to the end showed her dirty, disheveled, and in the same clothes she wore into the ruins, crossed out lightly. Yet it was the most lifelike picture of her in the journal.