The Explorer's Quest

Preparation

It had been a nice, calm night up until about 7:00, when the thunder could be heard and the rain began to sprinkle. It was now 9:00, and it was pouring outside.

Johnny walked into his bedroom and placed his revolver inside a backpack that was resting on his bed. He stared at his revolver, taking a minute to notice all its features. It had a golden-brown wooden handle, that felt smooth when you held it. The rest of its body was black stainless steel. The gun was Johnny's most prized possession, his most admired treasure.

He had received the gun five years earlier, when Johnny was a young adult, by a man named Paul. That would have made Johnny nineteen years old when he received the revolver.

Paul was Johnny's mentor during the years 1927 - 1929. Those were the years. Johnny went on many expeditions with Paul, only small ones though. His expedition to Italy had been his biggest adventure, up until now where he would be traveling all over Asia.

Him and Paul were in Africa that year, looking for something only God knows what it was now. They had gotten hung up, or sidetracked, and ended up stopping a group of poachers and rescued a group of animals such as elephants and giraffes.

"Always be aware of your surroundings, Johnny," he remembered Paul saying as he was lying on the dirt, blood spreading slowly and staining the ground. He handed Johnny the revolver and said one more thing.

'What was it he said?'

Johnny couldn't remember the last words Paul ever spoke to him before he breathed his last breath. He remembered everything afterwards. He remembered forcing himself to move on. He remembered shooting the man who killed Paul with this very gun he was looking at right now. He remembered freeing the captured animals and returning home with nothing but the experience to add on his shelf of collected artifacts. But he couldn't remember the one sentence Paul had said to him right before he died.

'Why can't I remember?'

The telephone rang in the living room, and Johnny rushed to it as fast as he could without even thinking about it. He answered the phone with a slight, "Hey, this is Johnny," and continued to think about what Paul had said that day.

"Johnny, do you remember the night before we left to Italy?"

It was Grant.

"Well, not at the moment," Johnny said.

"When we were packing our bags and we got carried away?"

"Oh, yeah yeah yeah! You mean when we went down to the bar and I let you drink one too many beers and had to carry you back to your room and tie you up so you wouldn't jump out the window?"

"Never bring that up again, Johnny."

Johnny chuckled and Grant could hear him giggling through the phone line.

"I mean it, Johnny! That is embarrassing to me and you know it!"

"Fine. Anyway, what about it?"

"Remember Hans? How he bought us our drinks and payed for our plane tickets and our hotel rooms?"

Hans had been very friendly that night. 'He had been way too friendly that night,' Johnny thought to himself. 'How could we have been so blind?'

"Yeah Grant. I guess we were too young to be suspicious."

"How do we know it's not the same case here? I mean, Hugo bought us our tickets, payed for our dinner tonight, and is even promising us both a thirty-three percent share of whatever we find."

"You're right, Grant. This is almost identical to when we first met Hans. However, I do feel that we can trust this guy. And if not, we have experience with this situation. If he does backstab us, we know how to take care of him."

"I know. But I still doubt him. In fact I even think his whole setup is fake."

"How so?"

"When Marco Polo and his father and whoever else were traveling with them back home, they were ambushed by Turkish raiders. The Turks stole their findings and brought them back to wherever they did. But why in the almighty universe would they write a note on the back of a map that led exactly to where they took the treasure? Let alone, put together an entire scavenger hunt to find it?"

"I heard you mention this when we were talking with Hugo and that one girl, whatsername."

"Vanessa."

"Right. And what did they say about this again?"

"They didn't have anything to say about it. That's why I think this is all fake, because they didn't know what to say when I proved they were wrong!"

"Grant," Johnny started, and then he suddenly remembered what Paul had said: "It's never about the treasure, or the gold or the artifacts. It's about the adventure, the experience. It's about living your life to the fullest, finding your full potential and expanding it. Don't ever forget that, Johnny." He continued to finish what he was saying to Grant, "so what if it's all fake. Have you ever been to India?"

Grant hesitated. "No," he answered.

"Well this man just bought you a ticket to travel the world and explore something other than Chicago. Now if you don't wanna go, because you think this is a setup or something, don't. I won't stop you. But I am going and to tell you the truth, it would be kind of nice to have someone else there who knows what he's doing. This man has obviously never been to the outside world before."

Grant laughed. Johnny joined him. Then they both smiled. They couldn't see each other but they both knew the expression on the others face. For Johnny and Grant, this would be the last time they laughed for a very long time.