Withering World [MCSM Fanfiction]

TRANSMISSION: Chapter 27

Petra

All I remember was our never-ending dash to hunt Romeo as he teleported us back to the hallway. Jesse was our greatest concern then, alone and cornered by the enemy just as she is now.

Not a single thing in the Primary Terminal has changed since two years ago though it doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing. It means I can easily locate the portal, finding the stairs in a jiffy.

"You okay, Lukas?" I ask, observing him shrivel up while ascending the stairs. His current stature must have cut off around three inches of his original height.

"Yeah- yeah. I wish I could see this place normally."

"Why can't you?"

His intake of breath is like a thorn in my fingertip. "Bedrock. This is where I fell and was trapped in bedrock for what felt like years. I... should be over the trauma by now-"

"I'll understand if you ever get claustrophobic. I forgot that even happened, I'm sorry."

"No, no. It's okay. It was the 'being unable to help Jesse' part that made me sad."

Out of sympathy, I press my lips together and fix my eyes on the red carpet, reminiscing on the thrill of the battle. Stationary lanterns mimicking stars and suspended polished stone in mid-air that Romeo sent speeding towards us replay in my head. It was as if we were waging a war against a manic in an abstract painting, a bunch of nonsense with parrot parties, glitching colossi and potatoes floating around unhelpfully in a turquoise void.

"It was intense. You're helping Jesse now though, aren't you? You got a second chance."

Something of a smile appears on his face. "I do, don't I?"

"When you come back, you can prove to Jesse how far you'd go to rescue her."

"Returning with blue mycelium, the key to the door of healing for Jesse and all humanity. Petra, it's all beginning to feel real now," he says, accelerating up the stairs oddly... cautiously.

----

I squint, checking if my eyes are deceiving me. "No..." It turns out the illusion isn't an illusion at all. Our chance of succeeding in this quest was never there in the first place. "No! Where'd the portal go?"

"Oh no-" Lukas mumbles, running after me and the steps to the non-existent portal. "It must've disappeared after the terminal got destroyed."

The platform lays bare, not a single trace of a structure left behind.

"Now what? We can't get to Fred's Keep without the portal! And I don't want to go back to QZ without that stupid mushroom!"

This can't be the answer, can it? Stuck in a maze full of dead ends and no exit? We haven't even come close and we're already on the verge of quitting!

Devastation swings its bat, hitting Lukas in the stomach. "Well, if the portal's not here, we have no other-"

"No! There has to be a way!" I protest.

The sky above me is cackling, eloquently casting eternal villainous clouds that mock me at my crossroad, my fail.

"We have to go back. We just have to tell Ivor-"

"And let Jesse die? Where is your dignity, Lukas? I let you come for a reason."

"But what's the point if there's no answer to this riddle, Petra!"

It's either the building booms or my mind is taking too many steps back; too many steps back in the right direction that it opens up a new dimension of thinking. Jesse's dimension of thinking. Panic and hope are a weird yet wonderful mix - a recipe for unthinkable intelligence. No wonder Jesse's the smart, rightful leader: she has the balance.