The Sparrows. |ONC Entry.|

x. (the memories.)

There were a lot of features I wouldn't have expected Everest's cottage to possess from the outside, such as a water slide, one of those poles you would find at fire departments, an indoor movie theater, you name it. While, indeed, he did not have any of those commodities, (at least as far as I knew.) the one thing I did not expect the most was a basement fit for two types of people. Serial killers, or conspiracy nuts. As you could imagine, the said basement was not very welcoming.

First of all, Everest had to pry open a floorboard to even get access to the place, which was instantly concerning. I'd read Edgar Allan Poe enough times to know where this was going. A ladder was exposed to the light, plummeting down into the abyss below, for god knows how long.

"You go first," Everest muttered, pointing down into the darkness. I choked on my own saliva. "I haven't been down there in a while. If there's a spider or something, you can crush it with a crystal, right?"

My knuckles going white, I responded, "Um, it doesn't really work like that." Theoretically, I could. However, the precision it would take to summon a crystal fine and small enough to piece it without shoving the spider to the side, and to puncture it with just enough force was largely impractical. However, if we were talking about a mob of spiders...

"Just go." Now, that was an order if I ever heard one. We were veering dangerously close back to baseball bat bludgeoning territory in tone. Despite the fact that there was a very long list of activities I would much rather do than go own that ladder, being attacked again was not one of them, so I complied.

It was cold. Also not a good sign. Though I suppose it could be if you spun it hard enough. After all, that meant a lack of life, so there weren't any psycho maniacs or Sparrows hiding in this basement, waiting to kill me. Though even with that rationalizing, I still couldn't get the image of someone waiting to pounce and drag me down out of my head. Whoever can when encountered with dark spaces, really?

The ladder didn't run on for as long as I previously thought. In fact, it only took about a minute of hesitant foot placing, (because if there was anything worse than a ladder in a dark space, it was falling off a ladder in a dark space,) before my feet felt the sweet release of the ground. I stepped to the floor, my eyes adjusting slowly to the darkness, as Everest followed, apparently confident in my lack of crystal summoning.

As soon as he reached the floor, he announced, "Congratulations! You're the only other person besides Olive who's been down here in the past five years. Consider yourself lucky." With that, he snapped his fingers, and the room seemed to explode into a bunch of glowing lights. That's probably not what actually happened. It only seemed that way because my eyes had gotten so used to the darkness. Sudden changes in light and adjusted retinas are not a good combo.

When the damage cleared, and my brain finally accepted that, yes, my eyes were not going to explode, the sight was almost chillingly beautiful. The basement was lined with wooden cupboards, and those cupboards were lines with what seemed to be an endless amount of glowing jars that shone different colors. Yet, if we were in a math class, and you asked me what the mode of the jars would be, I would say blue, followed close behind by red. They were a harsh contrast, but they bathed the room in a dazzling, polarizing light. It satisfied my primal monkey brain, so what did it matter?

"So, you make radioactive jam?" It wasn't too insane of a conclusion to draw. After all, the material inside the jars did have almost the exact same consistency as jam. Plus, why else would they be glowing? If I had thought more clearly, maybe I would realize that perhaps it was a power related thing, but I was still in monkey brain mode from all the shiny lights.

"Well, no. It's not jam. It's memories."

"Pardon?"

Everest plucked an aquamarine jar from the shelf, his mouth drawn to a somber line. If one looked closely, one could almost see the images moving. "That's what I deal in. Memories. I can harvest them and store them and put them into things and keep them in my own head."