//------------------------------//
// XIII. 
// Story: The Worlds End 
// by Alcatraz 
//------------------------------//

	Have you ever had that perfect moment of waking up? I know I just did.

On Earth, I would often curl up in bed with a nice cool pillow, cuddled up with my Luna plushie while I read some fanfiction on my phone. The following morning, I would just lay in bed half-asleep still cuddling the plush until I wanted to get up. I still had the plushie, but I largely neglected it after I found Luna. Anyway, this is one of those mornings where I would slowly wake up and just idly lay in bed while the sun seeped through the curtains shining ambient sunlight around my room, as opposed to getting a face-full of white light and waking up because of it. That much is unpleasant.

I slowly woke up, taking in a deep breath of the delicious, crisp-morning air, savouring the aroma before exhaling.I sat up to stretch my arms and popped the joints in my back, neck, and arms to loosen them up a bit.

I saw Bullseye asleep across the room from me in a still-dark patch of the room. My mood soured a bit at the sight. I got up with a huff and went to find Luna, whom was outside basking in the glorious morning sun next to the dying fire, still radiating a small amount of heat.

With indifference in my voice I said, "Why's Bullseye asleep? Was he like that when you woke up to lower the moon?"

She just shook her head, a small smile appearing on her face. "No, he was faithful and stayed awake through the night. I told him he could go to bed when I woke up so he could rest for a bit while we... took care of business."

I had forgotten about that. The sourness at seeing Bullseye asleep faded when Luna told me her reasoning, replaced with the empathetic notion of burying people. "We'll have breakfast when he wakes up. When we get to the church, I'll use the gem to pause time while we bury those people. That way we don't lose half the day to digging."

She nodded. "Tis a good plan."

I went back inside and got my pack, and the orb out of the satchel, placing it back on the pedestal and then following the same routine from last night. When the mirror shimmered over to the now-day image of the church, we stepped through. When I got through, I struggled for a few minutes to use the time-gem to pause time, but eventually I got it. I just made sure I had my hand on Luna so the magic would pass to her and not just have me frozen in time. I saw the trees and plants weren't swaying in the wind from the morning breeze, telling me time had indeed stopped.

I had a bit of an internal debate about where to bury them, so I decided at the back of the church seemed appropriate. I went around the back, put the pack down, unzipping one of the compartments and pulling out a collapsible shovel, often referred to as an E-Tool. It has a shovel and a pick-like spike. You'd twist a nut at the top and fold up either the shovel or the pick, and then tighten the nut back. I pulled out both the shovel head and pick into a 'T' shape, and used the pick to get started digging on the firm ground to loosen the dirt before using the shovel head to scoop the loose dirt out.

To save a bit of time, I had the idea of shoveling just one hole then laying all the bones in it, finally covering it back up. It's not as ceremonious as I'd've wanted it to be. Eventually, I dug a hole about three feet deep and six foot long. It took a few hours, less if I had a proper sized spade, but we were stuck in time so time was a non-issue. What appeared to be a few hours only took a few seconds. When the hole was finished, Luna went inside and levitated out the bones with her magic, minus the arrows and spears, neatly laying them in the hole with just barely enough room to spare. She then magicked the dirt back over the hole, letting it fall over the bones as it got packed in.

When everything got done, there was a church stripped bare of its previous inhabitants and respectfully buried. I cut a three foot long stick and a foot long stick, using a couple of zip-ties to hold them together, forming a make-shift cross which I then hammered into the ground with the back of the spade head. I stood over the grave with a sorrowful expression on my face. I tried thinking of words to say, but I came up a little short. Not knowing what to say, I hung my head in respect for a few minutes before another idea came to mind. I asked Luna if she would go back inside and retrieve the placard that is above the door. She nodded and came back out half a minute later, levitating it in her magical grasp.

I pulled the mora knife from the sheath that hung around my neck and began to etch three little letters into the small area underneath the 'New Roanoke' name. When I had finished, I leaned it up against the cross with the new addition visible to those whom would see it.


New Roanoke


R.I.P


I went back inside and picked up the matchlock gun at the end of the room, still on the ground. I asked Luna to put it in her pocket for later if I managed to return to earth. I hadn't entirely figured out the plan on what I planned on saying if I got back to Earth, but I imagined it would make me sound insane. All I'd have is artifacts that people would claim I stole from somewhere and are trying to sell. Fair enough, I suppose. There's only so much you can do to convince someone of something. The most infuriating thing in the universe is losing an argument because the person you're talking to is too stupid to understand what you're talking about. The rifle would be my best, yet futile—chance to convince someone. With the rifle tucked away in Luna's dimensional pocket, I took a minute to cast a long look around the building.

It looked like any other church from Earth. Pews, the podium at the end, all one room. Well, churches usually have more than one room, and it's usually to store things in like the seats or other things. This place might give up some last minute secrets if I went looking for them.

"Hey Luna, what do you say to having a look around before we leave?"

"What is it you are looking for?"

"Nothing in particular, but we might find something interesting."

The first place to look that came to mind was the podium that stood at the end of the room. The minister would stand there and preach to everyone in the congregation, so it's plausible that something might be there. I went up to the decaying wooden construct, and put a gentle hand on it. Almost immediately the wood split under my touch it's that old and worn and ridden with mould. I picked off a large chunk and crumbled it in my hand with ease.

"How long has this place been here?!" I screamed. I saw Luna flinch at my shout and I could tell from her expression she wanted to tell me what happened, but not knowing herself is part of the reason.

With a frustrated kick, I sent the thing flying across the room, exploding in a shower of splinters as it hit one of the long pew seats. I looked at the wood for several seconds before I noticed Luna staring intently at where the podium was. I looked down too, and saw a familiar sight.

Another handle like that in the building we got the orb from.

I crouched over the handle, brushing a hand over it. "I wonder what secrets this one has been holding, eh, Luna?"

She beamed like that of an excited five-year-old when he lays eyes on a new toy, and I say that by way of comparison, loosely speaking. "Are you going to pull it?"

I grinned. Such a perfect setup! "I've been pulling it for a while." I just giggled to myself as I reached down and grabbed the handle, seeing Luna's confused expression as I brace my legs, arms, and back to pull on the handle. It wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, but the ease still caught me off guard and I fell on my ass, much to Luna's amusement.

I picked myself up and remembered to turn the handle right, and doing so elicited more sounds of mechanisms being woken up from centuries of being covered with dust. I pushed it back in, and off to my left a section of wall slid back with a hiss-like opening, sliding back to the left behind the wall itself. This just keeps getting better; more hidden things. This is a treasure hunt come to life!

Luna and I went over to the wall, and I slid out the flashlight I've been using mostly, turning it on, sticking my head through the door and using the light to shine left and right to see if there's anything I should be worried about. To the left is just a dead end stopping two metres from the wall, and the right has a passage that goes on for about five metres and then descends into steps from what I could see. After all, the light had to get swallowed by something going down.

With cautious footing, I inched towards the stairs and peered down the steps, craning my neck so to not get too close and risk the steps collapsing into a fun-slide. Luckily there's little more than a dozen and another turn of the corridor going right, and under the church itself. I placed my left hand on the wall, exploring the top step with my right foot to check for any traps and triggers. After about two minutes of testing each brick in the steps on our way down we got to the bottom and let out a thankful sigh.

We went around the corner, and saw another bend right what would put us somewhere under the middle of the church. When we got to that bend, my eyes widened in amazement as the stone-brick construction ended and the floor gave way to a naturally formed cave opening right underneath the church. The moist cave walls (giggity) lead further underground. I had to be careful with my footing on these wet floors strewn with pebbles and other things. I could, as my mother would say, "Fall and break your neck".
The cave went several metres underground, evening out to a wider tunnel/room with a weird-looking stone formation at the end accompanied my stalactites and stalagmites, dripping water with a resounding drip, drip, drip. With the light fixed on the stone at the end of the room, I inched closer with both apprehension and morbid curiosity. Eventually the light painted a better picture for my eyes to see.

It wasn't a rock formation.

Someone had died down here, and the dripping water eventually petrified the bones, depositing more and more minerals over the years. I just stared in horror. We just buried a load of bones so it shouldn't really come as too much of a shock right now, but the sad feeling returned at the sight.

"What in Equestria is that?" asked a horrified Luna.

"Do you know what petrification is?" She shook her head. "You need at least read more. Petrification happens when bone minerals get replaced over time with minerals that make stone grow, like the stone spikes you see around us."

"...Okay?" That sounded more awkward than understanding. "How long does it take?"

"I don't really know. Petrification can take anywhere from five years all the way up to hundreds of thousands and anywhere in between." I knelt down to the stone-coated bones, flicking them in a few places with a nail. "But it depends on how mineral-rich the water is. The richer it is, the less time it takes. I'm no scientist, but I venture that a body in a moist environment like this, and the mineral-rich water, he could have been here anywhere from fifty to six-hundred years." That's just a totally wild speculation based off stuff I learned in passing browsing the internet or watching documentaries, I had no idea nor any means to validate what I said, but it's just to give me some sort of closure/rough guesstimate of how long they've been here.

I looked over the petrified skeleton, poised in a way that indicated whomever this was, died, slouched up against the cave wall with their torso hung forward slightly. I saw something glowing a cosmic-blue, imbued with jagged veins of red underneath the pelvis of the skeleton. Whomever this was, it appeared they died sitting on it. Protecting it, maybe?

I called Luna's attention to it. She was looking at me looking at the skeleton, a 'What are you doing?' look on her face "Hey, Luna, do you see that?" She came over and glanced down through the rib cage to the pelvis below.

"What is that?"

"I don't even know. I can't get it because the stone and bone have 'grown' over it, making retrieval impossible. Can you use magic and teleport it out?"

Her horn lit up and her tongue poked out, as is the tendency to do so while in thought or attempting to act cute. She does that quite often too, but that's a digression for another day. Her aura covered the object and it disappeared with a pop, reappearing with another pop just behind us before it clattered to the ground.

It's pointy. Very pointy. Did I mention sharp? The blue and red material had an extremely fine tip that widened out slightly towards the handle, curving back with a slight bend before it met two sandwiched pieces of wood, wrapped in some kind of string to hold it together. It almost resembled a karambit knife with the cutting edge on the convexed portion of the blade. Those knives looked like ferocious claws, and typically had a ring at the end of the handle for holding in the reverse-grip for fighting. This one had a handle of wooden slabs bound with sinew and hide glut to the tang of the blade.

The blade itself looked like it had been chipped with another stone in the same manner cavemen would knock off flakes of stone with another stone to make both axes, knives, and arrowheads. By no means is it sharp by the standards to which I sharpen my knives, but it could still shiv you if you were on the receiving end of the point. Jagged edges cut too, you know. Serrations, like in some survival knives, are designed purely with that purpose in mind: To cut with jagged edges on material that a straight-blade would have difficulty cutting through. Even if they did chip or get blunt, attacking someone with it would mess them up pretty nicely.

Goddamnit, I'm getting off track again.

I dare not try to see how sharp this thing is, so I pull out a bandana from my bag, wrap it up and hold the cloth together with a rubberband, stashing it back in the bag to look over later. Could this also be one of the artifacts from that roaming room?

Honestly? It's disturbing. How could have several humans have found their way to a universe that was supposed to have existed in a cartoon show!? As much as I want to know, that gut feeling is telling me that I never would. At least not to the degree that I would understand. The multiverse theory is fickle, but not entirely impossible.

I-, no, Luna and I paid our respects to the petrified individual and made our way back to Bullseye. I had no idea how long he had been waiting.

However, when we got back, through the mirror, we found him hunched over a book. No, not the journal we got from the library, but a different book. It looked like a normal hardback.

"Hey, Bullseye, whatcha got there?" I asked.

He didn't even bat an eye. I half expected him to drop it like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "Oh, this is just a book I got from the library." he replied nonchalantly. "Although this one is actually readable."

I went over and knelt down beside him to find that indeed it is readable. At least I could only just make out the arcane scribbles. I find it amusing that the only literate people back in the day had handwriting, or, mouth writing as the case might be, this messy. Same goes for old, and ancient scripture from Earth. Even though Bullseye could read it, I couldn't. It's taken me a while to adjust to their way of writing, but fortunately we share the same spoken language.

I shrugged off the book and began cleaning up the campsite, leaving the orb on the pedestal for the time being. When everything got packed away and the fire got put out and its ashes buried, I got out the map and gave it a cursory glance over.

"So, we're here." I pointed to Evisica. "The church is here." My finger moved to Ert. "If the orb does what I think it does, it projects a gateway to these other islands." My fingers tapped  Edonna, Elir, and Eden, respectively. "So that means we just need to use this method to travel between the islands. As it stands, we have no other way to cross between them."

"Why not just skip right to Eden, father?"

"Because we've found a human settlement. There might be another one on subsequent islands. If there are, we might find useful information in them or other artifacts."
"All good points. Which island do we go to next?"

I folded the map up and tucked it back in its protective sleeve, walking over to the pedestal. Bullseye and Luna followed, standing on my left and right respectively. I put my finger on the button representative of Edonna, and pressed it. The mirror rippled over to reveal a scene reminiscent of the jungle we're currently in.

I pressed it again. More jungle. Another press revealed a waterfall. The third and final press revealed something... interesting, shall we say. From the perspective of a river delta snaking through wind-blown, cavernous crevasses carved through rock, stood the strangest looking tree sitting in the middle of a lagoon I had ever seen.