This place is huge and it’s right here in front of our eyes. How could anyone have lost where it was?

Timeline/World: Sands of Time
Characters: Akeem
Race: Halfling – Human / Sphinx
Age: 26
Final Word Count: 522 words

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This place is huge and it’s right here in front of our eyes. How could anyone have lost where it was?

The irony of the statement was not lost on him but it still brought a slightly amused smile to his lips as he shifted his weight somewhat to the side. This was usual, really, he could get around well enough, even on new terrain, that there seemed to be no need for anyone to remember that he was without his sight.

This was how he’d come to find this place, after all. One of his visions had led him—them—to this place far away from home, into the depth of the jungles where it seemed as though no one had been for hundreds of years, to a place that had long since been forgotten.

That he’d been allowed to go in the first place had made him feel giddy. It was so rare that he could leave the palace that it had been almost reason enough to celebrate. He knew it wasn’t his blindness that made the Pharaoh keep him close, it wasn’t even his ability to see things as a seer despite his blindness, it was the bond of friendship they shared, a bond born of the fact that they had been raised together for the most part and had spent years together, at least while he was not using his given gift to aid the previous ruling pharaoh.

Just now, however, he could tell they were standing in front of that old building he had seen in his mind, there was an energy to it and he did wonder how it could have been ‘lost’ for so many years, for so many decades and so much longer. He wasn’t sure how long ago it had been but his visions had never led him astray and it had looked as if it had been far too long without seeing life.

He could hear the murmur of the guards on either side of him, his escorts, they’d been called but he knew their true purpose was not so much for his safety as for the sake of being his ‘eyes.’ They would confirm that yes, the temple, for it seemed to be a temple, was right where he had said it would be. That it was in the condition he had seen it and that there could be something to be done with it after checking to make sure it was in good enough condition for that and he was sure it would be.

These old constructions were made to survive the test of time, much like theirs. The way it was built simply was a little different but the general sense of things was the same, perhaps the builders had been of the same blood, same roots? It was the one thing his vision wouldn’t tell him. He could see things from ahead of them, time not yet come, he could see things from afar and even now and again the rare bit from the past but it was absolutely rare for him to see more than a fleeting glimpse of the latter, he wasn’t sure why but he’d never tried to really make sense of it, it didn’t matter.

You’re the only one who wants to be here.

Timeline/World: Alternate Earth – Birds of a Feather
Characters: Anaïs Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 21
Final Word Count: 549 words

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I’ve never been big on trying to make friends. I suppose it might go back to one time when I did have friends, or at least, I had one friend. She was headstrong and tended to always get her way. I might have learned that a bit from her but I’ve never pushed it to the limits she did.

At first, I guess I didn’t really know any better. She was my friend, the only one I had to spend time with who wasn’t part of my family and she just had this ‘cool’ thing going on with her. I loved it. It’s not that I didn’t want to spend time with my family either, I adored spending time with my sisters but having a friend was a novelty, I guess I was at that age when I wanted to do my own thing, be my own person and not someone who had more siblings than any outsider could keep track of. It wore off after about three months.

I let her lead me anywhere and everywhere, I got in trouble a lot because of it and I even tried one smoke, hated it, choked on it, told myself never again and I hate smokers with a passion. The last place she ever led me to, was this closed store. She wanted us to break in, steal stuff and leave without much of a trace. I must have stared silently at her for what felt like forever to me before I told her that I was done with all of this, that I didn’t want to be there and that she couldn’t make me do any of these things.

She just sort of smirked, told me I was a coward and that everyone would know it and told me to run on off to mommy. I did, so to speak. I left, I didn’t turn back, didn’t run. I just turned around and I walked away. Probably one of the better things I did in my young life because not six months later, she was in a juvenile detention centre for some of the shit she’d pulled and just recently, out of curiosity as I’d found an old thing in my room that had reminded me of how things had been back then, I dug up some information about her and she’s in prison for a few more years for attempted murder.

No one ever did call me a coward or made mention of my not breaking and entering into that store. Pretty sure she was full of hot air as far as that was concerned but I didn’t really care back then. I had no one else to call my friend and everybody thought my ‘obsession’ with horses was out of control. I guess all it takes is one defining moment. I could have picked the other path, I could have broken into that store with her but I know I would have broken my mother’s heart and that was the last thing I had ever wanted to do. She’d always been there for me, for all of us, no matter what and I wasn’t about to break her heart over one meagre friend who didn’t even appreciate me for who I really was.

I am nobody’s lackey.