Unwillingly, I froze in my tracks, taking my hands off the necklace. I didn't know what to do. My mind spun with plans to save the boy as I stood in compliance with Sara. My first plan was to let her shoot him. I figured the second she pulled the trigger, I could use my necklace and travel to right before she got there and kill her before she could even get to him. I wasn't confident enough in my ability; it was too risky. My second plan was to call her bluff. After all, if she wanted her plan to work, she'd need me, and there was no way she'd actually kill him. I thought back to her manic episodes back at the school; I couldn't take that chance.
Before I could conjure up a third plan, Sara began to state her demands. "We're running out of time. That festival is ending any minute now, so you're gonna do exactly what I say, exactly when and how I say it, or the boy goes first. I want you to take off that necklace. You've got five seconds."
She began her countdown. "Five." I pondered for a second, my fists balled up with anger, thinking of something, anything else I could do to save him. "Four." I looked into the eyes of the boy; his innocent, happy-go-lucky look from earlier had completely faded, his face filled with terror. "Three." I caved and decided I'd take the necklace off. It was all I could do in the moment.
I took the necklace off and placed it on the ground beneath me. Sara began to sarcastically applaud. "Good girl. Now slowly back away from it." Reluctantly, I did so, taking a few steps back. Sara looked over to one of the twins; she jerked her head towards where I dropped the necklace, signaling for him to go pick it up off the ground.
The twin began to walk towards the necklace as Sara spoke. "You know, for someone who has no clue how to use that thing, wink wink, you're pretty good at it. Your little friend told us you had gone and time traveled somewhere and that you'd be back shortly, which I thought was weird since back at the school you acted like you were completely clueless about that eye. I saw right through your bullshit. I knew you were working for Kreel, then you went and proved me right when you helped this little piece of shit escape."
She gave Finlo a dirty look, still holding the gun in his mouth. All the while, the twin picked up the necklace off the ground, making eye contact with me and giving me a sinister smile as he did so. Sara took her eyes off Finlo and back to me. "But don't you worry, because unlike you, I have compassion. After, and only after, you and this boy give me what I want, I'll consider letting you two walk, go back to whatever time you came from. Let me see it."
The twin handed my eye necklace to Sara. She held it in her left hand, keeping her right hand on the gun still in Finlo's mouth as she smiled. "Holy shit, this thing is fucking disgusting," she snickered. The twins did the same.
She then jerked the rifle out of Finlo's mouth. He began to cough and cough. She threw the rifle on the ground. "Okay, you little shit. Now that you have an understanding of what's going on around here, tell me, how do I time travel with this thing?"
After the boy stopped choking, he looked up at Sara, giving her a look I hadn't yet seen on the boy—a look of anger and revolt. He kept his mouth shut.
"Fucking tell me!" Sara yelled with anger. I could tell she was losing her composure, just like back at the school. The boy stayed silent once more. Sara began to press her palms into her head as she manically laughed. I was sure she was going to harm the boy. To my surprise, she didn't. She instead started over to me.
She walked up to my face and made her demands. "Tell me how you did it, bitch! I know you know. Don't play fucking dumb!" I looked over at the boy. He looked at me and shook his head, pleading with his expression not to tell her. A part of me wanted to tell her, but I knew I had to respect the boy's wishes. After all, I knew Sara wasn't all there in the head. She could do some real damage to the timeline with this thing.
I took a sigh and began an attempt to reason with Sara. "Look, I know this all looks really bad. I didn't know anything about your world, about how bad people like me and him can be, but you have to believe me when I say we have nothing to do with it. As a matter of fact, I'm learning how to use this thing so I can save this time period and get back home! I swear to you, I don't work for Kreel. I don't even know who the fuck that is. Believe me! If you let us go, we can stop this. I swear to you!"
Sara replied, "And just why do you think I'd believe anything you have to say to me after the little stunt you two pulled back at the school, after you lied about not being able to use it?"
I continued to plead, "Look, this is just really shitty timing, okay? When I said that, I didn't really know how to use this thing. The time we've spent out here, I've spent learning how to use it, okay? That's what I was doing when you got here. It was my first time ever time travelin—"
"BULLSHIT!" Sara interrupted. "It's only been 30 minutes. How the fuck could you have learned that in half an hour? You know how much time I spent trying to learn this little shit's necklace?"
I replied, "Look, I know it sounds crazy, but apparently, I'm some kind of prodigy. The necklace called to me. That's why I picked it up so fas—"
"STOP FUCKING LYING!" I was interrupted by an unexpected punch to the face from Sara, knocking me to my knees instantly. My nose began to drip blood. I heard Sara begin to laugh. "You have no idea how bad I've been wanting to do that." Sara began to laugh more. "Holy shit, that felt good." She began to laugh even more. "You know what? Fuck everything I said before. Let's just fight it out. You win, you get to take the boy and do whatever the fuck. If I win, you teach me, and I save my timeline!"
This girl couldn't have been serious. No way I was going to fight her. I didn't want to. I knew she was simply a broken person. Time was wasting; there's no way we'd have time anyway. I yelled at Sara, still on my knees, "Are you out of your fucking mind?! This is only a waste of time. We just wanna hel—"
Sara interrupted me by giving me a hard kick right in the stomach. "Shut the fuck up! We're doing this! Now stand up!"
"Sara, come on," one of the twins said.
"Don't you dare question me. Don't you fucking dare question me! I am your leader. I am the reason you're still here fucking breathing today!" Sara once again pressed her palms to her head, the eye necklaces still in her clutches, and screamed, "I'M SICK OF EVERYONE FUCKING QUESTIONING ME!"
The atmosphere grew silent, almost as if everyone had come to an understanding that this girl was losing it. Moments later, she turned her attention to me. "Now get up and fight!"
My stomach still in pain from the initial blow, I hesitated. I really didn't want to fight her. I knew she was wasting our time. Sara walked back over to where her rifle was. She picked it up off the ground and pointed it at me. "I SAID GET THE FUCK UP!"
I slowly began to rise, holding my stomach as it ached with every step. Sara readied her hands in fighting position. "Best of luck," she said.
"Sara, plea—" I was interrupted by an immediate strike from Sara's left hand, knocking me back to the floor. Something in me kept me from fighting back. This girl had already been hurt enough. She began to pound on my face, following each hook with a harder one. She grunted and screamed as she did so.
Meanwhile, in the midst of the distraction, with the twins standing behind him looking on at the fight, Finlo looked at his eye necklace on the floor. He made a split decision and made a run for it. The second he did, one of the twins dove after him. He missed, falling to the ground, giving Finlo just enough time to grab his necklace off the ground and run into the deeper forest. Immediately after he did, the twins followed.
Back with me and Sara, she continued to throw shot after shot. Eventually, I felt myself about to black out. I knew I had to fight back. With the strength I had left in me, I shoved Sara off of me. With the split second I had, I tackled Sara to the floor and gained the high ground. This time, I was the one exchanging shots.
Back a little deeper into the forest, the twins searched for the boy. They called him everything but his name. "Come out, you little bitch!" one said. "Stop hiding, you little shit! Come out, come out, wherever you are!" said the other. They heard the sound of a portal to their right. They gave each other a look and began to walk towards it. They walked slowly towards the trees, ready to take on the boy the second they got past them. Once they did... they saw nothing. Nobody. The two looked at each other with confusion until it was interrupted by the sound of a puppy barking coming from behind them. It was a super cute Shih Tzu puppy.
"Awwww," one of the twins said. "No fucking way!" said the other. One of the twins picked up the puppy and looked at it face to face. "Dude, this thing is fucking ador—" He was interrupted by a laser blast coming right from the puppy's eyes, blasting through the twin's head, creating a bloody mess of what was there. The twin's body fell instantly. The puppy hit the floor immediately.
The other twin began to panic. "Shit, shit, shit!" he said. The puppy began to growl and shoot a powerful laser blast at the running remaining twin, blasting through his chest and causing him to drop to the floor immediately.
Sitting on top of a tree branch directly above the scene was Finlo, watching it all play out. He laughed to himself, "Idiots."
Back with me and Sara, we continued to brawl. As much as I didn't want to, I knew I had to defend myself. As I delivered shot after shot while on top of her, she covered her head. In this moment, I began to think about the boy, all of the terrible things she did to him. I completely lost all empathy for her. I was ready to kill her!
I took a break from punching and began to put my hand between her right fist, attempting to pry the necklace out. I did. Once I had it in my hands, I wasted no time assuming proper hand placement around the eye. I looked at the girl with hate as my necklace began to glow a powerful purple. My head spun with timelines of war and apocalypse as I scoured through time for the most effective weapons. I was gonna make this girl pay.
As I did this, the girl sat up, this time seated in front of me. She stared me in the eye. Just in that moment, I heard Finlo's voice, "Do it!" He had just come out from deeper in the forest. I then lost my focus from the timeline. I stared into Sara's eyes as she stared into mine. It was in this moment my empathy returned.
"You fucking better," she said to me. With every bone in my body, I wanted to, but my heart told me otherwise. The moment was interrupted by a loud horn in the distance. The sound echoed across the forest and the surrounding area. Just in this moment, Sara's expression turned to one of fear. "No, no, no," she said.
I took my hands off the necklace. The eye lost its glow, and I looked to the boy. "What the fuck was that?"
Sara responded instead, her tone of voice now filled with fear. "It's the festival. It's the end of the festival. That horn, that's what it means."
I looked to Finlo. He looked down at the ground as he said, "We've run out of time. Kreel's plan is about to unfold."