HOMER

                                      AIRES' P.O.V

The piercing blue of the sky, always with me ever since we got here, seemed to pull me upward and I felt it touch my cheek and calm my face like Mum's hand on me when I was younger. Flocks of green and yellow parakeets, soaring over our heads as we step out of the bus one after another. At last, a whole new place to relieve me off home works which seemed to be a good source of headaches to me. Clapping her hands to signal us to pay attention, Mrs Conrad begun to give a beautiful description of the place which we currently are for the purpose of "Physical Geography". " Attention everyone " she began "I am certain that most of you or all of you have not been to this part of the country. It's a very rocky place as you can see, and I am very sure that most types of rocks will be found here. You can roam around all you want but do not go too far. Take pictures and make notes because you will need them." With that, she entered the bus, and we were left to do as we please. I reached into my bag for my camera to take some pictures.

"Where are you going?" a voice asks from behind, causing me to give a sharp turn through the right to face him, Jason. "What is wrong with you? You scared me! " I said, "I'm just taking some pictures". "Well, don't go far because we're still new here. You can miss your way back" Elena cautions. "OK 'mother' and 'father', I will not go that far do not worry" I joked, as I continue to take photos of an umbrella rock nearby. "How was this formed?" I asked myself. My attention was quickly drawn to Jason who was struggling with a piece of paper in hand. Upon closer look, "A map ?" I whispered, "what's that?" I asked curiously to confirm my suspicion. "A map, can you not see?" he replied, without looking in my direction. "Where does it lead to, please tell me there are more beautifully shaped rocks here and this hold the directions" I inquired, more curiously. " "Homer", he answered, "What? Home run? Seriously? Are you sick?" I asked unbelievably. "This is the last question I'm answering from you, Homer is a Greek word meaning 'Hostage'. Got it?" he asked in an unfriendly tone. Jason is not a rude person, but he has this mood swing thing which comes mostly when he's left alone"Yup. You're captain planet now going for people in hostage right. How did you get that anyways, and how is that related to this excursion?" I asked yet again,. "Look!" He exclaimed, pointing to a Gamayun which laid beneath the umbrella rock. How did I not see it before? "Do not make any noise" he ordered, snatching my camera as he started to make a move towards our discovery. After five steps towards the rock, he positioned himself to take a shot which I thought was a horrible idea "stop, it'll wake up" I mistakenly shouted, causing the slept to be woken. "We have to get a shot no matter what, follow it, come on" Jason commanded. We kept chasing the Gamayun for almost fifteen minutes into the deep until we realized we were nowhere close to our colleagues. "This is unbelievable" Jason marveled "its HOMER, look, the one on the map. Jeez, we were led directly to our destination". "Woo woo woo, hold on, are you kidding me? Your destination not 'our destination'. I can't believe I followed you all the way here to the middle of nowhere just to see this godforsaken place. How can I be so stupid" I complained in disbelief. "Are you coming? Or..." He asked, as he made his way to the door. " What? Do you think I have come all the way here just to go back? Of course not. How do I find my way back alone? We're going in" I said, not certain if it was the right thing to do.

The broken door handle laid on the floor rusted, so I gave a gentle push to the door thinking it'll open but it didn't. Jason begun to kick it with his foot but to avail. "We're not going back without going in first" I whispered to myself and gave a couple of girl pushes which was still not helpful. "Opennnnnnn...." Jason barked, after being fed up. The door begun to slowly open which made no sense because no one forced it. We stared at each other for few seconds as the inside was much darker than a night. I reached into my bag pack for a torchlight and turn it on. The door went shut behind us immediately we entered. " I'm scared Jason. Maybe we shouldn't be here." I broke the silence, handing over the torchlight to him and grabbing hold of his hands tightly. "It's OK" he said, "Don't be scared". We found a staircase and climbed up to the top in awkward silence. Once we reached the top, Jason picked another map from his bag which I think was to guide us around. I kept following without making a comment, but in mind I was planning to kill this guy once we're out for bringing me to hell like this.

After a few minutes, we came to a part in the underground of the building which looked like a real prison. It had eight cells each of about ten feet's wide and twelve in length with dried blood stains on their walls and rubbish on floors. The only thing that looked unusual was the eighth cell, it was neat and had no blood stains or dirt, not to talk of dust. " How is this possible?" I asked, "what? The cell? That is how it is supposed to be" my companion replied. "Hello! Are you talking from your head? How long has this place lasted? And you're telling me shit like 'that's how it's supposed to be?; look Jason please, get me out of here. I know I came out of curiosity but please I'm begging you I wanna get out of here..." "Calm down, don't let fear drown you, you always talked of real adventure remember? This is our chance to live our dream of adventure" " Shut up! What are you talking about, you seem to be calm here, how long have you known about this place? Why is it neat? What hell is this place? Why did you lure me into following you. What did I ever do to you Jase, we were friends.. " "shut up Aires" he commanded " I don't have answers to your questions now, but trust me I'm here to protect you..." He quickly stopped as the falling of a blue butterfly wing caught our attention. My fingers begun to shiver as the temperature in the building dropped suddenly, I held Jason's hand very tightly, not wanting to let go no matter what was about to happen. We stood and watched steadily as it landed right in the middle of the cell. "I'm having a bad feeling about this, maybe we should leave" I said, pinching Jason's palm but his curious eyes gave no turn in my direction. I felt my left palm grow cold which caused me to realize the presence of a paper in my palm. I brought it over to the light to read what it was, but the words were not English words, so Jason took it to read "Onstryian onbregdan!" Just at once the cell broke open and strong winds of dust blew out followed by a blue winged butterfly, flapping it wings in quick succession towards Tue window and out of site. "What the hell was that?" Jason screamed. "That ungratefully winged creature did this. So these were what you were trying to hide from me? Dark forces dwelt here for sure, you think am dumb? No sir, you thought wrong. Why the hell am I here huh? To be sacrificed? Well go ahead, nobody is here to stop you, nobody will find out either Jason, I'm tired of surprises, just do it!"

"Whom do you call ungrateful?"

A feminine voice summoned our attention, causing my body to grow cold instantly and my fingers to shiver. "Who...is...there?" Jason stuttered when suddenly a thick clouds of shadow begun to hover towards our direction.

Without thinking twice, "Run!" I shouted, wasting no time to take to my heels, but before I could cover five feet's distance, I felt strong push on my back, making me land on my stomach and covering my body with dust. "J..J...J... Hel...p" I stammered, not being able to complete my sentence as the darkness thickened that I lost my sight and became motionless.

After few minutes or an hour maybe, "Aires! Aires! Aires!", someone called out my name. "Please let me go, I'm begging you, we only came for sight seeing, I swear I have no idea how my friend and I ended up here, please let us go, and we will never come back" "it's me dumbo, it's Jason, calm down, whatever it was it's gone, I'm getting us out of here"he cut me, before I could say anything else. " Calm down? Really? That is what I should do huh, you almost got me killed and am here, can't see a thing in this darkness and you're saying calm down?" I yelled at him, as my cheeks flooded with tears. "I'm sorry A, it was out of curiosity that I led us here, it won't happen again. Do you have a flashlight? We need to go now" he said. I reached into my bag, searched for my phone and finally turned on its flashlight. He held my hand tight, turned on his flashlight, and we started the search for a way out. We wandered around in the dark for ten or eleven minutes until finally, we came to the bottom of the stairs, and continued silently Making our way to the door.

My feet, hands or easy to say, whole body was hurting so bad that I was limping as we approached the door. I began to imagine, what we were going to do if there were no handles from this side as well. "How will we get out?" I whispered, holding Jason's hand very tightly, and resting on my left leg to avoid feeling the pain in my right leg as we reached the door. "I have not thought of that" he said "but do you remember how we entered? Because there were no handles on the other side, all I said was open and it did". " You speak as if the door obeyed you, have you forgotten the millions of kicks you gave? Probably, it became weaker after those kicks. Whatever, we are still in here Jason, start kicking already" I blustered. "Door open!" he yelled loudly, at once we begun to hear creaks from the almost fifty years old door as it opened slowly. Once out of the belly of darkness, I took to my heels, forgetting the pains my body was going through, but before I could cover three meters, my right leg gave a quick reminder that I wasn't okay by failing to step firmly and caused me to slip but Jason grabbed me by the arm to prevent me from falling. "What is wrong with you?" he whispered in anger " do you want to get hurt?". "You, you, you" " I what?" he shouted. "You are a sorcerer, Jason, a wizard.... no one speaks to doors. Let me go, and so not come closer to me", I retorted, as my body started shivering, and I begun to feel cold. " I am not a wizard, if I were you would not be here by now. It was common sense, first time we spoke and it obeyed and let us through, but you refused to accept the truth." he replied, a bit harshly, I must have angered him, because Jason does not speak this way, especially to me.