Journey to a Better End (An Add x Ara Story)

Chapter 24

I think I should do some more research on Laby's third path. I saw her third class the other day and I love it! Oh wait...you guys are here for Add and Ara, not Laby....my bad.
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         Such a terrible dream that it was. In that terrible nightmare, Ara had nearly been killed by Eve when they were sent to Altera. Then he started to see her die in so many ways but the nightmare was over and surely he and Ara would still be in the forest ready to head home. Add's senses kicked in as he woke up and he could feel someone stroking his head much like his mother did when he was a kid and she still cared. Add opened his eyes to find that it was Ara who's lap he lay in.

         "Finally awake I see. You took a bit longer than I expected for you to wake up. Are you feeling better? Your head doesn't hurt does it?" Ara said to him when she met his gaze as he looked up at her. That was when everything caught up to him and he realized that his nightmare was actually reality. He shot up out of Ara's lap as a sharp pain went through his head. "Where are we? Where's Seris and the others?" Add asked. "They're down there trying to make it up this waterfall to talk to us. So far, none of them have made it halfway up here. This waterfall is rather tall," Ara said looking at Add with worry, likely noticing the pain he had temporarily experienced a second ago.

        Add calmed down a bit and stared at Ara. He was feeling very heartbroken too. The flashes of memories that belonged to different possibilities for the future had all shown Ara dead in the end and it left Add in pain each time. "You saw glimpses of those other possibilities didn't you or else you wouldn't be looking at me like that," Ara said as she reached out to take Add's hand. He took hers instead and pressed the palm of her hand against his cheek, closing his eyes and leaning into her touch.

       "I wish I could say no but you're right. I did see them. Paradox wanted us to stop something from happening here in Altera and it must have been Altera's destruction or else he would have told me otherwise. Even if I succeeded to do this, I refused to move on to the next task without you so I kept making him send me back. I don't think he knows that I've made it possible for Seris' group to remember all of the different times I've tried to save you. He'd have come to destroy the machines that Seris spoke of if that were the case," Add said with his eyes still closed. "I don't want to save Altera," Ara suddenly said. Add's eyes snapped open and he looked at Ara in shock.

         "What do you mean you don't want to save Altera. There are innocent lives living underground here. We can't just let them die. That's not like you anyway. You of all people would want to save them," Add said. Ara shook her head at him and retracted her hand. "I'm tired of this stupid journey. It's bringing out the worst in us and has only been putting us through pain. I honestly just want to go home even if there's nothing left for me there. I'd at least be able to live without worry for a bit of time," Ara said. "You know that if we give up, the world will supposedly end," Add said.

        "Which is why we can't give up. We won't, even if that's what I want to do. Like you said, I'm not one to let innocent lives go to waste. The thing is though, my death keeps occurring for some reason. In order to stop it, we need to know why but I don't want those people to put all of that responsibility on you. They seem to know more about you than you know about yourself and that sort of scares me," Ara said as she looked out at the underground city. "That is actually a bit concerning. I find it hard to believe that I would entrust so much information to people who are practically strangers to me. They supposedly know about Paradox's goals according to what I remember from other possible timelines," Add agreed. Ara gave him a curious look.

        "What all do they know?" she asked. "Well for starters, they know that Paradox isn't from this dimension but they don't know how to reach him. In one timeline, I think they tried finding him. They know that he's looking after my mother to fill in his own loss which I doubt I told them. I can't remember all of the details so I can't be sure. I think they know about me having to change history as well. If I'm correct, they probably already know everything about us but no matter how desperate I might have been to save you, I still highly doubt I'd given such information away like that," Add explained. "What exactly did you build those machines to do?" Ara asked. Add shrugged, beginning to think of why he would want a certain group of people to know all of his personal information just so that he could save Ara in the end.