“This is the beginning of a story worth telling, Val. I can feel it!”

She blinked yellow with a strong hue of green in the middle.

“Let’s start exploring it then.”

The bundle of roots we’d been loosely following, split itself in two. The main bundle kept going straight for the mountain, climbing up it and disappearing in the waterfall’s cave, leaving only green flickers in its darkness. A minor branch of it split off towards an odd construct a couple feet in front of the pond. Valentina slowly started guiding me to it.

The construct had a very occult vibe to it, almost like it was part of a temple. It was a nine by nine foot square area laid with tiles.

On each of the four corners, a square pillar was standing. They were filled with strange, blocky grooves, almost looking like ancient scriptures. Three of these grooves seemed to be seeping with glowing liquids; purple and gray were just mildly shining through in the darkening evening, while the last one was shining with vibrant green. Incidentally, half of this one seemed to be entangled in the bundle of roots.

The center stone tile was missing, revealing a way more complex wooden tile underneath it. Two circles seemed to be carved in it. One of them – the outer one – was shining with a vibrant green; the inner was a plain grayish brown, not even emitting any light.

“What’s this?” I asked her. Needless to say, I didn’t get an answer.

She just kept floating forward until she was hovering right above the wooden tile, where she blinked a red color. She moved around somewhat frantically, while her purple color started turning into a blue one. Two quick gray flashes emerged from her. Her movements stopped, as if she was awaiting an answer to a question I didn’t even understand. I took a wild guess.

“Uh… whenever you are ready?” I couldn’t even begin to imagine what I’d just agreed to.

She gave a fast blink of green, and started clinging on to one of my metallic arms. A tingling sensation of her freezing snuck onto me again. I could feel slight shivering on in my arm, but I didn’t know if that was her or me.

Her blue faded for a continuous yellow glow; the same glow she’d shown when she was thrilled or excited about something. This time, however, I was pretty certain there was no excitement to be found in her color. There was something else going on.

My attention was interrupted by a loud high-pitched sound coming from Val herself. It was definitely her who was shivering on my arm.

“Valentina? ‘s Everything alright?” I wanted to say, but I was cut short by seeing the final pillar getting a faint glow of yellow coming from the grooves in the corner of my eye. Val’s color shifted to a light blue again almost immediately afterwards.

The glow from the pillars started expanding through the gaps between the tiles, searching and ultimately finding its way to the central tile we were floating above.

I got scared. Was this a trap? Surely it wasn’t, right? Val wouldn’t backstab me like that, would she…?

She blinked a flash of green so fast that I could’ve missed it if I’d blinked. As if she still wanted to respond to the question I could barely ask; yes, everything was alright. I believed her.

From the moment the yellow glow had struck the wooden contraption, the empty inner circle seemed to start charging up; the longer it was connected, the more of the circle had turned into a vibrant yellow.

From the moment the yellow circle was fully charged, four beams of faint white light emerged from the edges of the wooden tile, shooting straight up into the evening’s sky. This was accompanied by a buzzing noise different from Val’s, and a continuous, monotone beep. I didn’t know if we were in fact trapped, but I didn’t dare to try and escape anymore. I just assumed the walls would either just evaporate anything coming in contact with them, or would function as if they were solid. I wasn’t very fond of the idea of trying out which of the two it was, just on the off-chance I’d come out of it with even less of an arm.

The brightness of the light became higher the longer the pillars stayed channeling their own light into it, and it kept going until the yellow pillar was completely drained out.

Once the final bit of yellow had left its pillar, the beams of light seemed to collapse and fall upon us, blinding us with a white, lingering light. I closed my eyes to protect them, even though I realized that wasn’t necessary anymore at all. The beeping stopped, so did the buzzing. There was only dead silence now.

Actually, no. I wasn’t dead, not again. The first time felt different, it felt more… more nothing. There certainly wasn’t a wisp holding on to my arm last time either.

The intense brightness behind my closed eyes started to tone down, until it turned to a normal black. Just to be certain, I waited just a little bit longer before opening my eyes again.

First thing I looked for when I finally did, was Valentina; she was still holding on tightly to my arm in that bright blue color. I also checked to see everything about my body – as much as I hate to say it, this was my body now – was still as it should be, which it was.

The only change I noticed, a little late maybe, was the change in environment. We weren’t outside in front of that mountain anymore, stuck in some strange construct; we were standing inside a cave, covered in vines, with a bundle of roots running along the roof and a stream of water rushing by our side.

Valentina released her grip on me. Even detached from me, she was shivering in mid-air.

“Valentina…” I looked straight at her. “Tell me honestly… did you know this was going to work?”

Her color slowly shifted to a hue of purple, then over to red.

“Are you kidding me?! We could’ve died, Valentina!” I started shouting, without even wanting to get mad at her. “I was dead scared!”

Valentina jumped backwards, equally surprised with my outburst as I was. Her light blue turned into a very deep, almost navy blue. I think I even saw little droplets of rain down underneath her.

She started moving away from me, slowly but surely.

I wasn’t mad at her… I was just… overwhelmed with lots of emotions at the same time, to such an extent that it outed itself in unjustified screaming at Valentina.

She didn’t deserve this. It wasn’t her fault; she just wanted to help me get inside the mountain quicker, and without much difficulty. Hell! She’d been almost freezing my arm off during all of it too!

“No, Valentina… please! I…” I called out to her.

She stopped moving, but didn’t acknowledge my words. She kept hovering there, very likely looking right at me.

“I… I didn’t mean it like that, Val. It’s just… I was scared, and when I’m scared I…” I looked down at the ground, partly because of guilt, partly because of shame. “I’m sorry for saying that. You just wanted to help us forward, I know, but just…”

I slowly started moving towards her. She, on the other hand, just kept floating there. I sighed. “It’s all been a bit much…”

It took her a moment to give me a green blink. I looked back up at her, and carefully reached out my hand.

“I’ll need some help to make that story of ours.”

The blue hue was disrupted by a yellow glow in the center, as she slowly made her way over to hover above my hand. I picked her up and put her to the right of me.

“Just, please… never give me a heart attack like that ever again.”

A quick giggle escaped her, and her yellow glow grew stronger. A firm green was her answer.

“Let’s go find someone who can help us out, shall we?”

She blinked green as we started making our way into the cave, hoping we’d come across someone (or something) fitting of that description. Soon, preferably.