Camp Castaway: Touch of Darkness [DISCONTINUED]

Chapter 4: Summoning Spell

[Outside a merry little cottage]

"This is the Assembly Apothecary," Jax said, gesturing to the small, cozy looking house. Dice was beginning to like this camp more and more, but he wouldn't admit it aloud, mostly against his will because his pride was huge.

The cottage was painted white, and the windows were slightly open, and he could catch the scent of blueberry pie wafting up his nostrils. The roof was shaped like a mushroom head, with dark brown shingles. There was a chimney atop the roof as well, and he could make out the faint rising of smoke. There were bright yellow flowers along the cobblestone path that led to the porch of the old house.

For some reason, he stepped forward and walked down the path first, and he managed to restrain himself from looking back and finding out what Jax was thinking about his sudden confidence.

You better keep up the charades, he thought to himself, mentally cursing himself. He couldn't let this place change him. Not for the better, anyway. He had always been a delinquent to everyone else, and he had to make sure everyone else still believed that. So he could be free from the clutches of everyone. He wanted to be free.

Sighing quietly, he reached the door and without thinking, knocked on the door. He flinched when he realized that he might've done the wrong thing, but he held his head up high anyways. He didn't acknowledge Jax as the man came up beside him.

The door swung open, and there was an elderly woman standing in the doorway. Her hair was silver, but her navy blue eyes still managed to shine with mischief and her smile definitely did not mean anything good was a coming. She wore a bright yellow tunic, and there was a sapphire ring around her finger.

Curiously, Dice stole a quick glance at Jax's hand, which indeed held a ring. His was copper lined, and there was a shiny yellow mineral in the middle of the ring. Pushing back his inquisition, he turned to the woman and bowed his head a bit in respect.

"Ah, none of that formality!" The woman exclaimed, chuckling. He raised his head, suppressing his own smile. She turned her mischievous eyes on him and pointed a wrinkled finger at him. "Oh, you are a troubled one. Though pure in heart, no doubt."

He hadn't any time to ponder what she meant because she turned around and marched back into the house, almost in a vigorously aggressive manner. He couldn't help his quiet sigh as he followed her in, with Jax right behind him.

When they finally stopped, Dice found himself in the middle of what could be called an indoor jungle. There were plants and tropical arrays of basically every kind as the sunlight shone down from the panes above on the ceiling.

Wait, what? He glanced up to make sure his eyes weren't playing tricks on him, and sure enough, there was natural sunlight flowing through the ceiling like a window. His eyes widened.

"How?" He asked, still staring at the ceiling.

"It's a type of spell. It lets you manipulate objects to produce light. Not an easy spell to perform" Jax walked up to stand beside Dice, who managed to pry his eyes away and follow the old woman to a cot.

The bed was supported by bamboo wood, and tied with different vines that had the blossoms of the bright yellow and violet flowers. There was a stretched piece of cloth that he thought was supposed to be the mattress of the cot.

"You can lay here. The spell will induce you into a trancelike sleep, harmless. You'll know your spirit animal when it comes to you."

Great, just great. Very vague words coming from a grandma. Could his life get any harder?

Dice did as he was told, laying on the cot and instinctively closing his eyes as the sunlight filtering into the room blinded him momentarily. And that moment was all it took to fall into that sleep like trance.

He heard the drifting voices of the old woman, who seemed to be chanting something over and over, and every time she said another word, he could feel himself losing to the void that threatened to swallow him up.

And when the darkness of the void did swallow him up, he was in the last place he expected to find himself at. The city, the warm glow of the light from the windows making his worries melt away.

He was back on the street that he had first initially ran away from—Luckshire Road. Cars were nowhere in sight, and he couldn't hear the monstrous chirping of the birds outside. What a relief.

He let himself follow the bliss, his feet instinctively taking him to the alleyway where he had first met Sly. They had come from different orphanages, and they were hostile towards each other in the beginning. But when a worker from Sly's orphanage came out and tried to catch both Sly and him, they had both escaped by working together, scaling the brick wall and sitting atop the city.

"Who are you?" Sly had asked, sparing a glance at Dice, who was taking in the city from above. It was a thousand times more peaceful and perfect than from below. Was this how an outsider viewed Polysnare City?

"I'm... I'm Dice," he said, not sure why he was self conscious. He had gone all of his life with rejection and scorn, what was one more person? The thought of acceptance was too large to fit inside his head—especially since he hadn't felt it either.

"Oh, well I'm Sly." The boy's name made it easier to accept his own weird name. They could be weird together, at least if Sly agreed to be friends. It couldn't hurt to ask a stranger, right? So he steeled himself and braced for rejection when he asked.

"Do you want to be friends?" It slipped out of his mouth before he had any more time to think the phrase through. He immediately regretted it when Sly turned to him with a shocked expression, and quickly began to add, "It's fine if you don't wanna, I'm just asking." That made it even more awkward, but he was determined to ignore that fact.

Sly blinked and broke into a huge grin—which Dice had totally not been expecting. The black haired boy clapped him on the back like they were already old buddies, which he had also not been expecting. The other boy's brown eyes glimmered like the lights of the buildings.

"Of course. You and me friends to the bitter end."

Suddenly he was snapped out of the memory when he heard a voice. Strangely enough, it wasn't human, but that for some reason didn't bother Dice. When he turned around, he was face to face with a gray lynx. And also for some reason, he wasn't afraid.

Timber.

And in the blink of an eye, the lynx jumped at him. He stayed still, mostly out of instinct, yet not fear. The wild cat suddenly disappeared in a flash, and he felt a trail of warmth leading to his back, where he could just feel the outline of the lynx in between his shoulder blades.

His spirit animal.