Kart's fantastical journey!

Left Behind

"What time is it?" wonders Sweet.
We are currently all on the second floor of The Lean Rope Pub. Beverley Clash had given us permission to sleep at their bar over the night, since we don't have a home to stay at for now. And if the legend of the decapitated woman is true, then we have to be extra careful.
I wonder how Tokyo is doing right now. Kristina has a small apartment, so we can't go there to sleep and visit her, but I trust the nurse. After all, she was the caretaker of Kitty's father.
At least Zach decided to watch over Tokyo while she is still in her coma. I wonder in what world she finds herself in right now.
There is so much I would like to know about. I wonder how everyone who left us is doing. Will K'lani find her father, will Ms. Cat somehow find peace, and will Fifty find his family?
Additionally, Dagobert is somewhere out there trying to cure himself, so he can finally talk. I wonder if he ever could talk before in his life. His voice must still be very beautiful. Even though he is a mute, he still sounds pulchritudinous.
And then there is everyone in Ambermoor, all my friends and teachers. I miss them so much. I feel bad leaving without telling anyone. I suppose that's also the consequence of it, because Posa and the others found us in the middle of our journey to London. But then again, we managed to defeat the colossus, we saved London together. Sadly the victory was also a defeat, because we can't live a life without sacrifices. Kitty and Leo passed away during that time, and then their father attempted suicide and succeeded. According to that, a lot of animals and humans also died due to the titan Kitty had been controlling.
On top of all that tragedy, Sunny and I still haven't found any clues regarding our parents. We came here because we were convinced they left Manora after delivering us to Ambermoor seven years ago, and all because of a small portrait of us. On the back, there was labelled the town we find ourselves in right now. All this ambition from such a small hint that can lead to void. But I like to think optimistic. If we don't try to search for the truth, then we won't find out about it. We will stay a seed, we won't grow to a tree, so what we must do is try.
"It's 10, Beverley must have left an hour ago, because that's when the bar downstairs closed." Sunny checked a clock in the back.
The bar has two floors, but the upper floor isn't available to customers right now due to it being under maintenance, so we were allowed to sleep here.
"Let's tell creepy tales to each other." smirks Max.
"Haha, so funny." Isabella rolls her eyes.
"All I know is that I will never drink alcohol ever again..." Posa still seems traumatized from before.
"Eh, might give it a try again sometime later, haha." Mia seems unbothered.
We are all sitting in a circle, some cards in the middle. We had played a few board games to keep us busy, while also discussing what we would do tomorrow.
Leonie seems tired. I wonder how she feels, she is still cursed after all. Three centuries. That's a long time.
"Kart?" Sweet looks at me. "Did you lock the doors?"
My body starts oscillating. I am shuddering now, why you ask? That's because I forgot the most important part of today. Locking the doors.
"..."
"Don't tell me you forgot." Sweet's pupils get smaller.
"I'm sorry." I cover my face.
"Kart, what were you thinking?!" Rain lectures me. "What if the decapitated woman comes inside to get us!"
"Calm down," Max seems unfazed. "It's just a legend, it probably never happened."
"Oh?" Knologos seems provoked by that statement. "If it's just a fable, then go downstairs and lock the door yourself if you're so convinced."
"Sure." Max covers his hood deeper into his face and walks towards the stairs.
He grabs the bar keys and walks down.
"I didn't think he'd actually do it." Isabella seems worried now. "We should go check up on him, just to be sure."
"I agree." Sunny follows Isabella.
Slowly we all follow them and wait at the top of the stairs for any kind of signal.
"Where is he..?" Rain is quivering. "MAX!?"
"Don't shout!" Sweet covers Rain's mouth. "What if the evil lady is here!"
Suddenly we hear footsteps from below. They are nearing the stairs. Soon we will get ambushed by our current worst fear and-...
"All clear." Max appeared at the other end of the stairs. "She isn't here."
"Did you lock the doors?" asks Sweet again.
"No, but I'll do it now." Max seems amused. "See, nothing to worry about!"
All of a sudden, Isabella starts stuttering.
"B-b-b-b..." her eyes are open widely.
"Isa?!" Mia checks up on her. "Are you not feeling well?"
Isabella points to Max. We all look at the foot of the stairs, where Max is standing, and wonder what Isabella is trying to hint us at.
"B-be..." Isabella is still stuttering.
"Beverley?" Sunny is trying to read her lips. "Are they back?"
"N-no..." Isabella gulps. "Not them."
Suddenly we all get what she was trying to tell us these past few minutes.
"Behind you." Isabella finally said it.
"Huh?" Max seems fazed now.
Behind him, there she was. The decapitated woman. The corrupted soul of Anna Bittery.
We can see a tall and slim woman in a rose-coloured dress and ill-looking white-green skin sneak up on Max from behind. The top part of her dress is covered in blood, but there is something else that is off about her. She isn't fully beheaded. Her jaw is still attached to her throat. We can see her teeth and everything else. Part of her black hair is also still attached to what's left of her head. I retch by the sight of it.
She slowly wraps her arms around Max's torso.
It all happened way too quick. She grabbed him and dashed out of the bar while Max was tethered to her. The last remembrance we have of him is his hood. It fell off when Anna had grabbed him. Without the hood he's done for. If the others find out about his true identity, he will die indefinitely.
He also dropped the bar keys, but those are none of our concern right now, we have to catch the spirit before she would kill him, but then again, after we free him, and Leonie sees him, it will all be over. But as I said earlier, there is no time to be pessimistic! My friends didn't die in vain for me to give up trying. Everything will get better. Life will go my way one day. Hopefully.
"FOLLOW HER!" Knologos literally jumps down the stairs and rushes out of the bar.
We all follow him, trying to skip a few stairs to gain speed.
Unluckily, we are all in our thin clothes, and there is so much snow outside. We might get hypothermia, but that doesn't matter, we have to get Max back first.
"MAX! GIVE HIM BACK YOU BITCH!" Rain is sobbing painfully.
"THERE!" Knologos points into a direction.
We see the lady disappear behind a corner.
"QUICK!" Sunny chases after Anna.
"MAAAAAX!" Rain is the most worried and the most fastest. "GIVE HIM BACK!"
I can barely keep up with everyone, this lady and all my friends are so quick. I might not be a bad runner, but neither am I a good one. Plus, this snow is making it all way more difficult than it already is. We might end up slipping.
We turn around a corner and spot the lady. She makes quick eye contact with us and then levitates away.
"SHE CAN FLOAT!?" Isabella is all out of breath.
"SHE'S GOING TOWARDS THAT EMPIRE!" Posa points at a palace in the distance.
"EEH?!" Isabella seems shocked.
She loses her speed a bit but then starts sprinting again.
"I suppose this is where my curse comes in handy." Leonie suddenly takes off her shoes while running and walks on all fours.
Since she is an anthropological white fox, I presume she can also run as quick as a normal one.
"Fox girl is actually useful." declaims Knologos.
While we all trot towards the palace, we discover Leonie almost having reached the lady with Max in her arms. Max's face is covered by the woman, so we can't discern it, but Leonie is about to catch them, so we might soon.
"There is a gate blocking her escape route! She can't go through that with Max in her arms!" explains Sweet.
She had been partly wrong. The lady instead floated over the gate and flew towards the ginormous castle closely followed by Leonie. She started climbing the gate really quick and disappeared behind it. Anna Bittery, Max, and Leonie are out of our view.
Shortly after, we all arrive at the gate, panting and wheezing. We are all out of breath and our lungs are hurting. Additionally, we are freezing to death. All this adrenaline made the pain bearable, but now it's become unbearable.
"How do we get in?" Mia is looking through the gate.
The castle is surrounded by thick stone walls and a beautiful, black gate where we can look through, but sadly not fit through.
"Cookie's Body and Size Manipulation would come in handy..." sighs Sunny.
"If we don't find a way in, we'll freeze to death before we even get back to the bar." notices Sweet.
"I guess this is where everything ends." Knologos seems to have lost all hope. "I still can't decide if I want to save or destroy this Universe."
He leaps into the snow and leans against the wall near the gate.
"Well, destroying won't help us." mourns Sunny.
"Are you sure?" Knologos looks up to her. "It would relieve us of our pain."
"What do you think happens when this Earth gets destroyed?" asks Posa Knologos.
"We die." he answers.
"And what if we don't."
Knologos seems shocked by that comeback.
Posa looks at the stars, "If we don't die, then we will coexist with the destruction of this planet. We won't die instantly, we will suffocate, then get torn apart, and then evaporate. That would be the end of humanity."
Knologos wraps his arm around his body to somehow reduce the pain.
"I wish you were right." he says and looks at Posa. "But I won't let that happen, I'll make it quick."
"Can you guys stop being creepy and help us open this shitty gate?!" Sunny pulls as hard as possible.
She fails and falls into the cold snow.
"Let me try." Mia grabs the gate and pulls.
Sweet aids Mia.
"This won't work, we need a key." Rain starts thinking carefully.
Instantaneously, Isabella starts lurching towards the gate and holds onto it.
"Do we really have to get inside?" Isabella frowns.
"Unless you want to freeze to death and lose Max and Leonie." Sunny rolls her eyes. "Yes, we have to get inside this palace."
"Do you even know whose palace this is?" she asks.
Now that Isabella mentions it, none of us had put much thought into what lies behind this gate.
Isabella realized our clueless faces, so she gave us our answer.
"It's the royal family's palace."
"What?!" Sunny facepalms. "That makes sense. Anna Bittery seeks vengeance on them."
"Do you think they have any crucial documents and archives in there?" I ask Isabella while quivering.
"Yes, I'm sure they still do." Isabella seems less alive.
"I'll make us a path to get across this wall with my ice magic." suggests Rain.
"Don't." Isabella stops her. "It would kill you. Do you think they just leave their palace unguarded?"
"But Leonie and the lady got across just fine." Rain is confused.
"Yeah, that's because they didn't us any magic."
"What if we make a tunnel? I can shove the plants away with my magic." suggests Sunny.
"No, that wouldn't work either." Isabella murmurs. "We have to climb it."
"But how, we will most likely slip." says Posa.
"Not if we use snow to build stairs." smiles Isabella.
"My hands will amputate before I get to do that." sighs Sunny.
"I can do it, I am made out of ice anyways, so I don't feel any cold temperature." Rain starts rolling a snowball farther away.
"This might take a while." Sweet seems powerless. "I don't think I can hold out any longer."
"Stay strong, Sweet. We almost made it inside." Sunny hugs Sweet, trying to gain and give some warmth.
"Will this work?"
It didn't even take a minute and Rain is already back with a humongous snowball.
"How did you do that?!" Isabella gasps.
"I just used some magic farther away. If only the walls deflect it, then the ground farther away should be safe." Rain seems proud.
"You're a genius, not kidding." Knologos is genuinely surprised.
"Thank you." Rain smiles.
We all help her push the snowball towards the wall and form it into something easier to climb. Luckily the snow is not as soft, so we can actually stand on it.
"Isabella?" Mia was about to clamber the snowball as she noticed something. "Are you not feeling well?"
"No, it's nothing. Just freezing to death." that remark sounded a bit sarcastic.
"Oh, okay." Mia focused back on the snowball and successfully gets across it.
"Aren't there any guards?" asks Sweet after she jumped over the wall.
"In winter there aren't any. It's the deadliest time of the year, so everyone stays at home." reassures Isabella.
"You sure know a lot." Knologos is becoming a bit suspicious of her.
"History." she responds really mundane.
After all of us managed to land on the courtyard of the palace, we started running to the actual castle. Since we are all freezing, we are hoping to somehow find shelter inside the massive building as quick as possible.
"We're almost at the entrance!" Sunny cheers out of joy.
"We will go through the back, the front will only expose us to all the night guards." mumbles Isabella.
"Ugh, more running." Mia is weary.
"How do we get in?" asks Posa. "Aren't all the doors locked?"
"I will hypnotize a guard to let us have their keys, so that's handled." Isabella seems cold.
"This feels like a stealth mission." says Rain.
"That's because it is one." Knologos rolls his eyes.
"Yeah, a rescue mission for Max." Rain seems courageous.
"We reached the back, you see that guard?" Isabella points to a wooden door.
There we see a woman with blonde hair and armour shielding the door.
"Wait here, I'll get the key." Isabella slowly sneaks up on the guard and then scares them.
The woman jumps up and turns around rapidly, she looks into Isabella's eyes and suddenly falls to the ground. That was a quick hypnosis.
Isabella waves us over with the keys in her hand and opens the door.
"Is she dead?" asks Sunny Isabella.
"No, I just erased her memory of the last few hours, so she wouldn't catch up on us." Isabella has thought this through.
"Where are we?" I ask.
"This is the archive, they have all sort of documents according residents and property."
My eyes start flashing. They surely must have some sort of information about my parents here, or some sold old manor!
I start scavenging for documents at various areas.
"What are you doing?" Isabella seems confused.
"I want to see if they have anything that leads to my parents's background." I answer.
"Shouldn't we search for Max though?" asks Mia.
"Yeah, yeah. Go on ahead. I will come back for you guys." I go back to searching.
"I'm staying here with you." suggests Sunny.
"Splitting up is the worst possible idea. We are literally in a palace by some sort of majesty. If they find us we are done for. Beheaded like Anna Bittery!" hisses Knologos.
"Then help us quickly and we can all go together." I say.
"Fine, what are the names of your parents?" asks Knologos.
"Myrril and Rahni Hawkwolf." I reply.
We all search for quite a while until I come across something nerve wracking. I spot an old headline from seven years ago under a pile of documents.
Herastina Mournsky buys Hawkwolf Residence.
My eyes widen. Herastina is my aunt, the woman who left the disk for us in the attic in Ambermoor. She bought the manor in Manora? But why..?
"Uh, Kart...can you explain this?" Knologos shows me something weird.
Myrril Hawkwolf - Automaton Creator.
There is another newspaper article in his hands, my father is on it with...with...
"Kart-?" Sunny spotted the picture Knologos showed us. "Isn't that...Adrianna?"
On this article, I see a picture of my father holding Adrianna. He seems really proud while Adrianna has an empty facial expression. I suppose she hasn't been activated here yet. This article is over eight years old.
"Hold on," Rain seems confused. "Your name, is it only a nickname?"
She looks at me and shows me another article. This one is 16 years ago. Me and Sunny were still infants that time ago, freshly born babies.
My family is on this article. Father and Mother are holding me and Sunny in their arms, both with great smiles on their beautiful faces.
Karter and Sunny, the children of light.
"Is Karter your full name, Kart?" Rain eyes me sceptically.
"..."
This room has more secrets than I can hold. This family knows everything about everyone who lives on these two islands. There is so much information about the people, the cities, the mystical creatures and so on. I feel like a prisoner to this royal family.
"Yes, it is." I answer. "My full name is Karter Hawkwolf, but I don't like my name."
"Alright." Rain puts the article down.
"There is so much stuff about everything...it's creepy." Sweet is disturbed. "Why do they have all this?"
"To rule their kingdom." Isabella looks at the ceiling. "I hope they will start minding their own business."
"I agree." Posa seems distraught.
"Oh my god..." Mia is shocked. "Karter-, I mean Kart, this article, this one is pretty recent!"
She shows Sunny and I a headline that almost makes us scream out loud. It was published a few months ago.
Feeny Rye Mournsky - Boy's body found in ditch after 12 years.
"It says here he was affiliated with the Hawkwolf Bloodline, is that true?" asks Mia.
"He's our aunt's son." explains Sunny, sounding sad. "He lost his life 12 years ago in an accident."
"Mournsky?" Rain is shocked. "Moss Mournsky. She has the same surname."
"True!" Sweet gasps. "I didn't even notice that."
"Perhaps it's just a common family name?" suggests Posa.
"No, that name is rare. I'm sure Moss and Feeny Rye are siblings." Isabella looks at me and Sunny. "Do you have something to hide?"
"..."
Sunny and I both don't know what to say.
"Moss...is our cousin?" Sunny seems shocked. "Why don't I remember her?!"
"..." I am at my limit.
I don't remember Moss at all. I only know her from Fault's past, but not mine. Does that explain why Moss in the past new about me?
"Sunny and Kart were four years old when Feeny Rye died, it makes perfect sense that they don't remember Moss, because she probably never interacted with them before, or only when they were still babies." Knologos is searching for a solution.
"Then why is she in our class? And suddenly in Ambermoor too? She was literally Fault's roommate! And apparently she's also dead!" Rain's head is exploding from information.
"Fault never told us how Moss died, or how they knew each other." Sweet is concerned. "She told us that they were lovers, but nothing else. What if Moss was sent to Ambermoor after Feeny Rye died and then perished between the time Kart and Sunny had arrived in the valley?"
"That would explain why we have a recording of Herastina in our attic. Perhaps Moss was ordered to put it there after her older brother Feeny passed away." says Sunny.
"But who lived in the orange house before us? Moss lived in the black one." I say.
"Maybe Feeny." assumes Posa.
"But he wasn't an orphan." objects Mia.
"No, you're wrong." Sunny knows something. "He might have had a mother, Herastina in this case, but his father, Hadwyn, he died years ago. So Herastina probably let her children live in Ambermoor in the meanwhile, so she could sort things out with her sister Rahni, our mother. But then the accident had already happened. Feeny Rye died and Moss disappeared."
Isabella is shocked, "I'm so sorry...this all seems a lot to bear."
"It's alright," Sunny smiles. "Life is hard."
"So, I guess the next clue is back in Manora." I say. "Aunt Herastina bought our old villa, so she might still live there. I am sure she knows where our parents are."
Suddenly we hear a lot of noise from the corridor. It sounds like footsteps.
"Huh!?" Isabella is frightened. "We waited too long!"
All of a sudden the door opens widely and we get greeted by a bunch of guards. They all rapidly fill the room and surround us. We have nowhere to go, they have us in their wrath. Some of the guards apprehend us by grabbing our arms so we can't fight back.
"Let me go!" Mia is effortlessly trying to punch her way through.
Unfortunately, she is in the custody of two tall men. They seem strong and are holding her tight, making it impossible to escape.
"What happens now?" asks the trembling Sweet.
"You get interrogated." says a manly voice.
Isabella winces suddenly after hearing that voice.
A man, followed by a woman, enters the room.
"Oh look who we have here. You finally came back after all these years!" the man is really beautiful but I can't stand his obnoxious behaviour.
Two guards, who are holding Isabella, walk with her towards the tall man who seems to be in command here.
The woman, probably his wife, is standing behind him. She looks bored and dreamy.
"I see, you brought some friends, Isabella." he smiles at her.
How does he know her name? What is happening? Do they know each other?
Isabella doesn't say anything.
The man spots an article that I am holding and snatches it. He reads it and then laughs grossly, "Oh my, such a manipulative girl you are!"
The beautiful man now pats Isabella's head, "You tricked your friends. You made them believe you would help them in whatever they wanted to do, but in the end you backstabbed them. You still had some unsolved business here. Isn't that right? You came here because of me. You thought this journey would be a perfect opportunity to pay your pal a nice visit after all these years. Nice to know you're still alive."
"Isabella..." Rain seems hurt. "What is the meaning of this?"
"Yes, Isabella." the man is mocking her now. "Please tell your companions about us, will you?"
"..."
"Isabella..." Sunny seems even more hurt. "Please...enlighten us."
We all wait for Isabella to finally fill us in on what happened between her and this man.
Isabella's eyes started watering, "I'm sorry, everyone. I didn't want to lie to any of you, but...

...I'm the royal family's daughter."