Saving Ethan

Chapter 4: Dad?

As Mark quietly stirs awake, he notices he isn't on the back of Oobz anymore. He's laying on an air mattress in a warm room, dimly lit by a burning fireplace. The smell of the wood makes him feel at home and comfortable. Slowly sitting up, he rubs his head and sees a few carts with metal trays on top of them that contain small utensils and various medication bottles. There was a bookshelf to the right of the fireplace that was filled with what seemed to be potions in beakers. The beaten up, wood door opens with a slight creek in the sound of it. In walks Amy and another woman Mark hasn't seen before, yet she looks so familiar. She's wearing a black, silky shirt with a faded pentagram on it, a long black shawl, and a pair of warm, yellow shorts with matching yellow socks and combat boots to go with it. Her eyes are completely black, yet so kind. Freckles scattered across her almost ashen face. Her lips, crimson red and black wavy hair that barely reaches her shoulders. Amy walks up to him.

"Hey, bud. How are you holding up?" Amy questions Mark, hugging him.

"You were super tired and wounded. I fixed you right up so don't worry about your health too much," the woman says with a smile, "my name is Aria by the way. Your big flying friend brought you and your associates to me."

"Thank you, Aria. Amy, where is everybody?" Mark says to Amy, letting go of her.

"They're on the front porch chatting, we've been here for a few hours."

Mark makes his way out the door, immediately being hit by the cool breeze from outside. He looks at his friends who haven't noticed his presence at the door behind them. Lots of bloodshot eyes and messy hair, even Tyler is impatiently pacing back and forth.

"Hey, guys," Mark mutters loud enough so everyone hears. All of their heads turn.

"Mark!" Tyler and Kathryn say in unison. Both of them rush over in excitement.

As they were reaching in for a hug, Oobz pops out from around the corner with a small, folded piece of paper. Aria runs over to Oobz and grabs the note, nervously scanning it thoroughly while everyone watched.

"Sir Casper needs you guys. He's the owner of Enchanted Hills. He said he wants to help you find Ethan and knows exactly where he is," She says. "but come, quick! the enchanters are loose and you need to kill them before they get to Ethan!'"

"What do the rest of us do? We don't have weapons or anything!" Kathryn exclaims.

Aria quickly jogs into the other room and grabs four beakers with the same liquid in each. She hands them to Mark, Amy, Kathryn, and Tyler, motioning them to drink it.

"You'll all have the powers and right protection after you drink it to be able to battle." Aria says.

They all gulp it down in unison.

▌│█║▌║▌║ t r a n s i t i o n║▌║▌║█│▌

God, where the hell am I? Ethan thought to himself.

Ethan sits up from the purple gooey mess beneath him, throat still sore from yelling for help.

"Why am I still in this hell hole? I-I thought it was just a dream. I guess I must've hyperventilated and passed out." He says, brushing himself off after standing up. He looked around and saw a beautiful yet tattered forest behind him, and in front of him a barren area stretching as far as the eye could see.

He lightly squinted his eyes, noticing a peculiar structure in the distance that appeared to be a castle.

"Huh, I wonder-" He was cut off by a tap on the shoulder. He jerks his head around, coming face to face with a creature he would have never even thought to have been real. It's a tall figure, a couple feet taller than Ethan. Grey, wrinkly skin, with jet black eyes that were sunk back in it's head. The nose on it looked like the snout of a bull, black with a septum piercing. With a very large, overweight, human body, it had no ears or mouth. It spat through it's nose, hitting Ethan in the face. Then suddenly, everything stopped moving except Ethan. Everything frozen in time, Ethan looked around him and relaxed for a second.

"This is crazy, how am I going to get rid of this thing? I don't even know how much time I have until it-" He was interrupted by a loud noise that sounded like a text notification."...unfreezes." He looked down, seeing a pistol in front of his feet between the small gap of him and the disgusting creature. He reluctantly picks it up, and looks to see a note that says: "yell "resume" when ready, player."

Ethan steps back and points the pistol at that damn creature, and closes his eyes.

"Resume!" he says. He pulls the trigger with his eyes still closed and nothing happens. He opens his eyelids slowly.

"D-Dad?" He stutters, dropping the pistol to the ground. He excitedly hugs the person, who seems to be his father. His father doesn't say anything, doesn't hug him back.

Ethan hears footsteps running in the distance and turns around.

"Ethan, stop," Mark yells, running towards him with everyone else running behind him. "That's not your dad!"

Mark stops in his tracks, seeing that the man pretending to be Ethan's father is holding the pistol up to the back of Ethan's head. Ethan, completely unaware, turns around to talk to his father and comes face to face with the pistol. Ethan quickly tries to grab it, but accidentally hits the finger that was on the trigger and shoots himself in his right cheek bone. The figure disappears into thin air, leaving Ethan's limp body on the ground.

Mark picks him up bridal style, not batting an eye at the fact that Ethan was shot. He turns, and starts walking in the direction of the distant castle. The rest of the group stares at each other for a moment and decide to follow behind, not saying a word.