Slugterran Saviours

Chapter 22

Author's Note: heRE WE GOOOOOOO

Eli didn't trust anyone.

As he lay curled up in a ball at the corner, awaiting every night for the slug that hopped into his window with all his living being, he stopped trusting anyone. They fill your head with lies, he would say, and as the people came to see him, the more he realized they were right. About the evils that his comrades had done, how they betrayed the caverns. The cave troll came in the other day. He had not seen the cave troll before, or at least, he didn't remember. How the cavetroll told Eli that Ataro was bad, that he destroyed the caverns, how they tried to stop him. How the slinger with the furs and long hair told him that Ataro took away eight yesrs of his life and used those eight years to demolish the Eastern Caverns. How the girl with the blue streaks in her hair begged him to listen to her lies, of Ataro killing millions.

Lies, lies, lies.

Because why would Ataro help him, if he was the evil?

But the name Ataro didn't just bring him joy and relief, it also brought a never ending conflict in his mind. Nights were spent staring at the ceiling, racking his mind desperately for any memory he could grab, ones of Ataro, trying to remember how his name stook out to him somehow.

How it brought a feeling of dread.

He smiled as Ataro finally arrived, the bottle of raven black liquid standing next to him on the windowsill. Eli pushed the window open, quickly welcoming Ataro in before silently shutting it, sitting back down in bed as Ataro hopped on the matress, bringing the raven black substance in the bottle, hidden behind strategically positioned creases in blankets and cleverly placed pillows to make it seem regular from the window in the door of Eli's hospital room, concealing Ataro completely from every outside perspective except for his. Eli smiled assuredly as he downed the bitter liquid almost effortlessly, washing out the horrid taste with a glass of water. He hated the taste of it, but with each sip of the liquid he took, little pieces and fragments of his memory came back to him, slowly, gradually.

He trusted Ataro, because he was the only one that didn't seem to take advantage of his damaged mind, the only one that didn't seem to be poisoning his mind by placing fake, fabricated stories into his head, watching as they manifested in him. He seemed to be the only one who actually tried to place the truth in his mind, thoughts that actually synced with the memories he recovered.

He always questioned why the slug had a grin that weirded him out, or why he was so willing to hop up nearly twenty floors just to give him a potion, and to help him. He always questioned why Ataro chose him in particular, why Ataro stood out to him. But he just couldn't bring himself to ask, an unexplainable feeling of dread and fear developing in him whenever the thought even crossed his mind.

Ataro hopped out of the room that night like he always did, disappearing into the night.

But as Eli lay back down in his bed, trying to fall back asleep, his mind wandered and wondered as he desperately tried to reach at memories, any memory he could get.

Any memory on Ataro, and why he felt dread.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Junjie's eyes flung open to empty space.

As usual, there was nothing but empty, white space as far as the eye could see, nothing below his feet, nothing above his head. He found it useless to call out once again, he knew that his voice would do nothing but echo back at him, into the air and disperse into nothingness. He knew trying to make something appear in the space was absolutely useless, that the only thing he could do was wait for her to materialize out of thin air.