[Alex's POV]
"There you are," Alex heard Otto's gentle voice. It managed to pull his mind out of the book he was reading. When he looked up from his book, he found her smiling face, looking up at him barely two meters below him. She was standing at the base of the tree he was sitting in.
Sitting this low had been a compromise, really. The first signs of spring had finally started showing and his favourite tree was filled with hundreds of unbuttoning leaves.
But the coverage of the leaves wasn't up to what it would be in the middle of summer, so he'd stick out like a sore thumb if he climbed to the height he'd usually sit at and he didn't want to sit on the muddy ground underneath the tree either.
It was still very chilly and his hands were starting to feel numb, but he revelled in the feeling of freedom after a season of being trapped inside.
"Hey, Otto! What's up?" he asked as he jumped out of the tree.
"Hi there, stranger," she joked once he was standing next to her, a faint blush dusting her cheeks. "I feel like I see you less now that we're a couple than when we weren't one."
He chuckled and leaned closer to press a little kiss on her lips.
"Don't be ridiculous," he laughed. "We see each other every day at school. I wouldn't want you to get tired of me. I'd surely die if you were to dump me."
"Drama queen," she said as she leaned her forehead against his and smiled. That's when his book caught her eye. "What are you reading?"
"Hmm? Oh! It's a book my dad gave me. Isn't it beautiful?" Alex said, a glimpse of his original pride shining through.
"Book of the dead?" Otto asked as she eyed the book with a confused frown. "Your dad has some strange taste."
"Book of the dead?" Alex asked equally confused.
"Hmm? Oh! My eye fell on the tittle so I said it out loud," she said as she pointed towards some of the illustrative curls drawn on the spine of the book. "Book of the dead. It had caught my eye."
"You can read something I can't?" Alex asked incredulously. She frowned at him.
"Are you mocking me? It's written in plain English, isn't it? Why wouldn't you be able to read this?"
"No, honestly. I'm not kidding," Alex said urgently. "To me, all of these are beautiful lines, curls and dots, but none of them make any sense."
"But why would I be able to read something you can't?" Otto wondered out loud. "Or is it you who can't read it?"
"Good question. My dad never mentioned anything," Alex mumbled as he thought about what she said.
His dad had never given him the impression that he could read it. But then again, that wasn't exactly a valid argument anymore, now was it? His dad had bugged his room. Who knew why? Who knew what else he was hiding?
Maybe he'd given this book to Alex as some sort of test? A test he had most probably failed.
"Would you like me to ask Jessy or Jasper if they can read it?" Otto asked.
"No," he said with a light shake of his head. "We can't ask them without telling them why."
"I see," Otto said as she trailed of in thought, undoubtedly imagining a big reveal of his powers to her friends.
"What does it say anyway?" Alex asked. "Maybe I can figure out what my dad was testing me for?"
"Testing you?" Otto asked as she wrinkled her brow in dislike. "That makes you sound like some sort of guinea pig..."
"I'm not a guinea pig," Alex remarked annoyed. "I was not raised in a cage like some animal!"
Funny, the moment he'd said it, he started doubting his own words. Did a pet realise it was a pet? Or did it just assume that that is how things are?
"Well? What does it say?" he prodded to shift his thoughts.
"Right," Otto mumbled, as she took the book from him and started leafing through it. With each page she turned, the marvel on her face grew.
"Dear God, it really is beautiful," she said. Alex studied her face.
"The little stars in your eyes are twinkling so brightly that you're making me wonder if I see the same pages as you do," he said, smiling fondly. She ignored his remark, but he hadn't missed the faint blush on her cheeks.
"Much of it are illustrations of weird sounding monsters, and some of it seems to be a map," she said as she seemed to be thinking out loud. "It literary says: Book of the dead, please grant me safe passage to the Field of Reeds."
As she said it, Alex noticed a feint light blinking to life from the corner of his eye. He glanced up, to look at what he'd seen. It looked like the young leafs of the tree he4d been sitting in were glowing.
"Request granted," a hollow and ancient sounding voice suddenly said. Alex eyes went wide in surprise.
"Did you hear that?" he asked as he turned his attention back to Otto, just in time to see a light envelop her.
"Hear what?" she asked right before she vanished into thin air.
Alex stared out in front of him where Otto had been moments ago. He needed a full three seconds to realise that she had indeed vanished and then panicked.
"Shit! This is bad," he cursed as he paced back and forth. "Bad! Bad! Bad! What am I going to do?! My dad is going to kill me... If her parents don't get to it first! I need to get her back! How could I be so stupid?! I shouldn't have let her read the book! Heck, from now on she is PROHIBITED from touching it ever again!"
He picked up the offending book from the ground and flipped through the pages in search of the one Otto had been looking at. But as expected, it all still looked like gibberish to him.
Shit! He needed to find her, fast!
What was it she'd said before she'd vanished? Something about some sort of map?
"Book of the dead, grant me safe passage to the field of reeds!" he yelled in an attempt to re-enact what had happened to Otto.
"Processing," the ancient sounding voice said once more, and after a while it said: "Energy levels are too low. Recharging now."
"What?!" Alex yelled incredulously, the answer annoyed him more than he thought it would. Amon's influence? It had been a while since his anger management issue had reared its ugly head. Alex forced himself to count to ten and took a deep breath. "How long will recharging take?"
"Approximately," the voice said as the quiet rustling of leafs resounded. It reminded him of a computer processing a difficult question. It couldn't be... was he talking to the tree?
"Approximately, seventy-two human years," the voice said chipper as if it was proud of the answer.
"What?!" Alex exclaimed exasperated. "That's way too long! I need to get to Otto quickly! Can't you recharge any quicker?"
"Negative," the ancient voice said. "The energy source to which the portal is rooted is dying. Gathering energy is slow."
Well, that was a disturbing answer. In more ways than one. Considering that it probably was the tree talking, and it was rooted to the Earth, that could be problematic. But then again, he could imagine teleporting people demanded a tremendous amount of energy, so the situation might not be as dire as it seemed.
Still, he needed to find a way to charge this tree if he wanted to save Otto. Preferably one that wouldn't take 72 years.
"Let's see what we can do about this recharge time," he mumbled to himself as he rubbed his palms together shortly and placed them on the bark. Then he closed his eyes and concentrated. Channelling his own energy had become easier with practice, but it still wasn't anything compared to what Amon was capable of. Already, he could feel the energy draining from him. Anymore and he would lose all the strength in his limbs like he had the time when he'd woken up from his leap. So he opened his eyes and shook his head lightly to clear the dizzy spell from his head.
"Ok, tell me; how long will recharging take now?" he asked, a mixture of hope and cockiness audible in his voice. The leaves started to rustle once more.
"69 human years," the ancient voice answered.
"Alright!" Alex cheered. Three years worth of teleportation energy! Not bad. Not bad at all! Disturbing, but not bad. This was doable.
Now he only had to find an energy source to charge himself.