While I was waiting for my vision to return, I looked at the bright white streak in my view, which was surrounded by a sea of red. Interestingly enough, it almost resembled a sunset, which was something that I hadn’t seen since I was human—back on Earth. I wasn’t sure if it was because of my location—or because of something else, but I never actually got to see a sunset occur while I was at the lake. Instead, as nighttime came, everything around me simply became darker and darker. Until eventually, it was impossible to see anything at all. Experiencing this was unsettling—to say the least—even if I did get used to it after a while. Still, it was nice seeing something that at least resembled a sunset, even if it wasn’t under the best circumstances. But I digress.

I was content to just stare at this streak in my view for a while. However, after a few minutes passed, I suddenly began to hear a voice coming from above. And although I still couldn’t hear much due to the sounds of the fire in the background, I was able to make out enough of the voice to recognize who it belonged to.

But as I did, I quickly became alarmed. The last time I had heard from that rock was back at the river—just before he died. I had even seen his dusty corpse floating on the water. So how was it possible that I was hearing his voice again? Was I just hearing things? I wasn’t sure, and although I was curious to find out, I was also aware that we weren’t on the best of terms. With that in mind, it was probably better to just leave him be—that is, if he was actually here at all. So, I remained still, waiting for the sound of his voice to fade away.

But that did not happen. And as the minutes passed, his voice continued to linger above me. Was it possible he wanted something from me? Possibly, although I wasn’t sure exactly what. Still, as long as he was here, perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to ask.

“Excuse me.” I began to say, looking up towards where I could hear the voice. “I know you’re near. I can hear your voice. Is there something you want from me?”

But I heard no response as the murmuring continued.

“Hello?” I shouted louder.

Still no response.

“I know you can hear me.” I said, trying to leap towards him but to no avail. “So if you’re going to be here, could you please re—spond?”

However, as I was continuing to leap, I suddenly found myself looking at—myself? Or rather, at the rock I had been for the past year. It was still glowing red, save for a bright white streak on one of the sides, bulging slightly in my direction.

But before I could process any of this, I heard the voice again.

“It took you long enough to show yourself.” I heard the voice say from above, this time directed at me.

I turned around, only to see a bunch of tiny dust clouds above me, all of which were spinning around a glowing, translucent blue orb in their center. Immediately, I realized what I was looking at. But even still, I was surprised.

“I—” I began to speak. “I thought you were dead.”

“I thought so too,” he began to speak, circling around me as he did. “I thought that I was finally free from this wretched existence. That after all this time, I would finally be free from this miserable hellscape. But—”he stopped moving—“for some reason, I’m still STUCK HERE!”

As he shouted, a burst of wind emanated from him. I looked back, and for a moment, I could see the burning trees sway, their flames blowing as they did. Fortunately, this only lasted for about a second or so before they reverted to their original positions.

I turned back towards the dust cloud—for lack of a better way to describe his current form.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I began to speak. “But if you can, could you please lower your voice? There’s already enough going on at the moment, and I really don’t want things to get worse.”

“I am absolutely out of any fucks to give!” He shouted back to me. “To you, or to anyone else! So tell me how to get rid of this curse—” A purple crackling surged around him—“You subjected me to!”

A curse? I wasn’t sure what exactly he was referring to at first. But then I thought back to last night, and things started to make a little more sense. Still, I was confused as to how this was preventing him from leaving. I thought that I was—I stopped myself in the middle of my thoughts. I could worry about all of that later. There was too much going on right now to get distracted. I looked toward the cloud of dust, and I attempted to address his demand, but nothing came to mind. In all honesty, what he was asking for was something that I hadn’t even considered beforehand. And as such, I didn’t have an answer I could give.

“I—” I began to say. “I’m sorry. I’m not sure how to do that. I don't have any more information on this than you do.”

“Then you shouldn’t have done this to me in the first place.”

I was beginning to get frustrated.

“Would you have preferred it if I left you in that bag to rot?”

“Maybe,” he replied. “At least then I wouldn’t have had false hope.”

After he finished his sentence, he turned away and began to depart.

“Wait!” I called out. “Where are you going?”

He stopped for a moment as I said this.

“I’m resolving this myself,” was his response before he continued, moving through the air similar to how a jellyfish would through the water.

As I looked on, I wondered whether I should follow him. I knew it wasn’t my place to intervene—especially since I had my own problems to deal with. However, I had an idea as to where the cloud of dust was trying to go. And if I was correct, then from what I had seen from the two of them—I feared that this would end very poorly. With that in mind—I realized—I needed to follow behind.

I looked toward the cloud of dust and moved forward, trying to catch up to him. But to my surprise, I found that I was unable to move. I turned back toward the rock that I had been the past year, its tip somewhat deformed in my direction. Once again, I tried moving away from it, pushing forward as much as I could, but nothing happened. The furthest I could get away from it was about a meter or so, but after that nothing, the rock serving as an anchor to my movements.

Perhaps I would be able to move around like this with some more practice—if that would even be possible, that is. But for now, there were more pressing matters I had to deal with. Still hoping to catch up with the cloud of dust before things went wrong, I turned back towards myself and looked down towards the rock. Is this how I really wanted to do this? Well, I didn’t have any other options, and—I looked toward the dust cloud as he continued to rise toward the trees—I only had some so much time to spare.

And with that, I dove into the rock, entering through the streak, and hearing a thump as I did. Gathering my bearings, I looked around, once again completely blind, save for the glowing white streak. However, at least now I had a way to figure out where I was.

I looked toward the streak in my view, and as I moved toward it, I found myself peaking out once again, though to a much smaller extent. From here, everything around me was still bright. However, I was able to make out some trees ahead of me on the other side of the road—not a trace of fire on any of them. With an idea of which direction I was facing, I went back inside of myself. Intending to align myself towards the clearing, I began moving along the road, taking a peak every few seconds or so to gather my bearings. While this wasn’t the fastest way of making it down to the clearing—especially given the circumstances—I felt that this was necessary to do. I was still flammable after all, and if I spent too long amidst the foliage, I may cause additional fires—something I wasn’t too keen on doing. In that regard, I was hoping to make as clean of a descent into the clearing as I could.

After a minute or so of moving along the road. I found myself facing directly across from where the clearing was. And from here, I felt that I was in a good place to make my descent. But before I did, I looked up toward the top of the trees, seeing the dust cloud cresting above them. I was sure I would encounter him again on the other side, but before that could happen, I still had to make it down to the bottom myself. With that in mind, I went back inside myself and prepared to make my way down the slope. However, before I could, I froze. How could I be sure this would go successfully? That I wouldn’t start another fire. After all, the past hour or so had been marked with failure after failure.

For a moment, I considered praying. However, I quickly pushed that thought aside. From my time at the lake, I knew that any prayer I tried would just fall upon deaf ears. At the moment I only had myself, but perhaps that’s all I needed to make it down.

With this in mind, facing towards the clearing, I began to roll forward. And I didn’t stop, rolling more and more, until suddenly, the sounds of bumping and clattering began to erupt all around me. Once again I was rolling down the slope, quickly making my way to the bottom.