Portals to Maestosia

Chapter 3: The Darkwell

"Ughhh... Where do I even start?" Zoriken sighed, and I tapped my foot in anticipation. "Look-"

"Start with who killed my father, huh? That's kind of important," I retorted, giving them both a death glare.

"It wasn't Ben or I who killed him, Holly. The Vixens did."

"The who?" I assumed that Ben was the name of the other boy.

Zoriken groaned in annoyance, like I should know all of this already. "There's a few hidden portals in this neighbourhood that lead to Maestosia, which is where they must have come from. I'm sure that they were looking for you and Ben, but they couldn't find you, so they killed him instead. It's difficult to explain who they are, and for now, I don't have a good explanation as to why they killed him. Hold on a second-" he said, rummaging through a nearby desk until he retrieved his clipboard and pen. He began to draw something, his pen moving across the page at lightning speeds, his face seemingly amused with his process during his creation.

"Does this mean anything to you?" he said, finishing off his drawing with a flourish and holding it up for me to see. There, in somewhat incredible detail, was a sketch of a black fox, complete with sharp claws, fangs, and eyes. I let out a gasp. It was the creature... the thing I saw in my nightmarish visions.

"The fox," I whispered, realizing I had accidentally said it out loud. Zoriken's eyes lit up.

"Tell me, dear, where have you seen them before?" he snatched his clipboard and pen back, ready to take notes. I shifted my weight between my feet, feeling uncomfortable.

"I have these, um, strange visions and hallucinations," I began, and his grin grew wider.

"And you've been having them since you were a child, yes? And they have been slowly eating away at your memories?" his blue eyes brightened up.

"Yes...? How did you...?" I answered in confusion, but he ignored me as he continued to write more things down, squealing like a child on Christmas morning. Ben, who had been standing in the corner as silent as a lamb, finally spoke up.

"You and me... we've both had these visions of the Vixens, from childhood. Zoriken doesn't know why we have them, but they probably have some significance, because they're looking for us. They're extremely close by, since they got your father. And... I'm extremely sorry about that." I gave him a small, reassuring smile, even though my insides ached and burned with a mix of anger and mourning. It wasn't Ben's fault, though.

"Well, technically, here on earth, 'vixen' is the scientific term for a female fox. But in this case, it's something much, much more than that," Zoriken rambled.

"Like what?" Ben asked.

"Like something that's hard for humans to understand," he sighed, looking into the distance with a lost look in his eyes as if he wasn't human himself. "Let me get one thing out of the way first. I'm a time traveller. Although I am a licensed professional with a hard-earned degree, there is no need to refer to me a doctor any longer. Anyways, the Vixens... they don't like people like me. People who try to take their past, future, and I suppose the present, too, into their own hands."

"No way," Ben replied wistfully, and I stayed quiet, not fully convinced but also fascinated. With all the insane things happening to me today, I guess time travel wasn't completely out of the ordinary. Why not just throw flying pigs into the equation too?

"The Vixens are a group of authoritative beings that live in a hidden place in the sky called Maestosia, along with other groups of powerful forces," Zoriken explained, his long, crooked nose twitching slightly as he spoke. "Their job is generally to keep things between the dimensions, worlds, and multiverses in order."