Storymania - So Far Ago by Tooru

So Far Ago (2)
Tooru

“Behind you.” Came a voice in back of me. Somehow, I found the voice familiar, but the next thing I know, there was a sharp pain in my neck, and then darkness.

2

Opening my eyes, I noticed the sun high in the sky.
A woman stood in front of me. She asked me, “Are you okay dear?”
I got up, rubbing my neck. It hurt immensely now. I replied to her worry, “Yes, I must have been thieved last night sitting in front of the pond . . .” Luckily though, I had kept my money in the hotel room, but I did lose my hand-made gauntlet. I supposed I could make another one though. “Thanks for checking on me though.” I said to the lady, smiling.
She smiled too. “Oh, no problem,” she said, now frowning, “Though I’m sorry you’ve been robbed. I’d give you–“
Interrupting, I told her, “Aw, don’t worry about me, you go about your business.” I didn’t want to waste her time with my own failure.
“Okay,” she said to me. “Goodbye.” After that, she walked off.

3

Back in the inn, I told Finn about what happened.
He stared at me straight in the eyes. Seeming disappointed, he repeated, “So. . . You got robbed in the middle of the night by the pond?” At that he laughed, of which I had come to expect. “Wow, that’s pathetic!”
With a sigh, I had to admit it. “Yeah it was I guess. But the strange thing is that the person’s voice seemed familiar in some way. . . I have no idea who it could have been though.” I bothered with that for only a quick second.
Looking at Finn, he seemed content now. I found it amazing how just a night of sleep could completely change his mood. Although, I knew on the inside that he was dying; without his best friend, he must have been being torn apart on the inside. I can only imagine how he’s able to cover it up.
“Well,” he began, interrupting my thoughts, “I’m kind of sick of this place now and we should really get going. . . Suri, do we still have food? And money?!” Soon the idea of the robbery was worrying Finn.
“Oh my god. . .” I exclaimed, dumbfounded, “I told you, he only took my gauntlet! We still have all our money and we should have enough food to make it to the docks.” Frowning, I continued blabbing, “I miss my gauntlet...”
With no sympathy, Finn only insulted me. “How could you ever wear that crappy-ass thing? It was hideous!”
“Well–“ I began, as he interrupted me.
“I was just kidding. . .” Finn admitted. His sarcasm never ceased.
“Oh.” I said with slight shock. I picked up my knapsack. “Let’s go.” I announced.
Finn hung his knapsack strap around his left shoulder, so the bag itself lay at his opposite hip. We headed out of the room to the check-in desk to return the room key and pay for our stay. Soon we were walking on the path again, still on our way to the docks.
While walking, I soon noticed Finn shuffling through his bag. He was searching for something. I turned my head.
A few minutes later, he turned to me and asked, “Do you have the map? How far are we?”
I looked in my bag for the map. All I saw was two peaches and a pouch of water. I panicked. “Oh god.” I was scared now.
Finn slumped with disappointment. “Don’t tell me. . .”
I sighed. “I had it in my pocket last night. That ninja guy must have took it.”
Now Finn fell on the ground completely, startling a lady walking in front of us. He shrieked, “Then how will we know where to go?! You’re such a dits!” Groaning loud, he lay on his stomach, his face buried in his hands.
“Look,” I ordered, “If we keep walking up this path, I’m sure we’ll find a store somewhere with maps.” I tried to stay optimistic, which is something I wouldn’t normally do.
Getting to his feet, Finn moaned. “I suppose we might.”
Without further conversation, we continued to trudge down the dirt road.

4

It was about two hours later at 1:00 P.M. where we came across a train station.
“How’s that for luck?” I asked cheerfully.
Finn glared at me. “The trains don’t go any closer to the docks than this, I’m sure.” He looked angered. And I thought I got irritated after walking for so long.
Trying to ignore him, I approached the station and headed through the open entryway. To the right, there were brochures and also maps of Heygenn stacked on both sides of the cash register.
“Ah-ha!” I shouted. Soon, many people in the crowded station were staring at me. Feeling awkward, I pointed out to Finn, “Look they have maps. I told you we were in luck.”
“Whatever.” He said, disappointed. Why did he seem disappointed? I don’t know.
I walked to where the maps were and picked one out. The line was empty too, so I purchased it immediately.
I turned back and walked toward Finn, who was leaning against a support-beam by the entryway. On my way, I bumped into a hooded man.
“Oh, sorry.” I said apologetically.
He turned around and looked at me. At least, I think he did. I couldn’t see because his hood shadowed his face except for his mouth. “You better watch it, pal.” The voice sounded familiar, and in more than one way.
Finn shouted, “Hurry up!”
Still looking at the hooded guy, I stuck up my index finger, as to say “one minute”.
I walked toward the hooded man now, fast so I could get to him. When I was directly behind him, I took his left shoulder with my right hand and I turned him around. “Hey,” I began, “Aren’t–“
But as I turned him around, his hood fell off to his shoulders, and when he faced me, I knew who it was.
My mouth fell agape. I questioned, “T-. . . Tono?”
He looked at me with wide eyes. I could see he was wearing my gauntlet, which he took off now. He looked afraid, “I’m sorry Suri,” he said, handing me the gauntlet. “Here, take this. I-I-. . . I have to leave, please.” He turned around and put his hood on, running away into a train.
I sighed, and turned to walk back to Finn.
Outside, he asked, “Now, who was that?” He looked at the map, walking along the path.
“Well, that was Tono.” I tried to remember now. “He’s a loner, really. Kind of like us only by himself. We used to sort of have an, um. . . “Relationship”, if you know what I mean.”
“Oh!” Finn exclaimed. “So he’s your ex-boyfriend?!” He laughed hard.
“Shutup.” I demanded, smacking the back of his head.
“Ow!” He shouted in minor pain. Suddenly, he stopped walking and looked up. I did the same. The first thing I saw was the ocean, and then at the end of the path, the dock.
“Yay! We’re finally there!” I yelled with relief, running toward it.
Finn muttered, “Oh lord,” as he followed after me.

5

Soon enough, we were on the next cruise ship to Koril Immediately I was a little seasick, so I stayed in our cabin on the ship. Finn was up on deck, talking to other travelers, which meant trouble.
Not a lot of people enjoy Finn’s company since he can be rude a lot of the time. A lot of people either love him, or hate him. Getting to know him, you usually learn to get used to it.
At first in the room, I was reading a book that I had with me. It was titled “The Boop”. I had no idea how the hell someone came up with a name like that. That was the main reason why I purchased it.
Upon reading three chapters, about fifty-six pages, I noticed that I had only read one-hundredth of the book. I skipped to the final and looked at the page number at the bottom. It read: “Epilogue, Page 3,839". My mouth fell agape and I threw the book at a wall. I was only getting dizzier from reading it.
Finally noticing it again, I saw the paper on my bed. It fell out of “The Boop” once I opened the cover, but I disregarded it at the time. It lay in front of my lap on the bed, folded twice so that it was the shape of a square smaller than the actual paper size. I picked it up and unfolded it.
Opening it, I noticed it wasn’t just paper, but a note. It was written in brown very illegibly, but I could still understand it. The writing read: “I pooped.” Automatically, my mouth opened wide again, and I dropped the paper with an extremely shocked look on my face.
Although, looking down, I saw writing on the back, more legible and in black ink. This side said: “iru yotou lin esk”. It was a spell. The language it was in was Sorcerer’s Semmisism.
Semmisism is a forgotten language despite a select few countries, but Sorcerer’s Semmisism is used for chants. These chants activate the magic within a person’s body, allowing them to cast a spell. That is, if they know what the spell means and how to cast it correctly.
In Semmisism, “iru yotou lin esk” could be translated as “iru yotou lin esk”. In English, I knew “iru” meant “water”, “yotou” meant “body”, and “lin” meant in. Though, I wasn’t so sure what “esk” was translated as.
Stuffing the note into my pocket, I headed up to the deck. Finn had my spell book with him for some reason. He was probably studying, but most likely he did very little. He’s not so into magic, but likes to be familiar with his country’s magical focus.
Down the hall and up a flight of stairs, I stepped onto the deck. I looked around and eventually spotted Finn. He was chatting with two girls about his age. They were both sitting down in cheap, wooden chairs. One was laughing, but the other looked away from Finn with disgust. He was probably making fun of her or said something she just didn’t like.
I walked over and tapped his shoulder. “Oh!” He turned around and saw me. Grabbing my shoulder, he pulled me in front of him. “Yeah, this is my friend I was talking about. The one who I threw up on purposely!”
My eyes seemed to explode outward. “I thought you accidentally threw up on me! You said– oh never mind.” I didn’t want to bother with an argument and tried to open the subject I wanted him for. “Finn, do you have my spell book?”
“Yeah, but I might of thrown up on it.” He joked. The one girl laughed along, but the other stared at him.
She had on stiletto heels, turquoise lipstick, a lot of purple eyeliner, and (as if she was strange enough already) blue hair.
She protested against Finn. “You know, you just think you’re funny, but you’re really not. Why don’t you get over yourself?”
Hearing that angered me. I always hated when people insulted others, especially my friends. I tried to make a comeback. “Well at least he’s not dressed outrageously and hasn’t dyed his hair blue.”
She gave me a shocking glare that sent a painful shiver down my spine. Defending herself, she stated, “Well, if you’ve been to the ice country, you’d know that it’s not unusual to be born with blue hair such as mine. Why don’t you take your useless spell book and go read it? You’re better off. I bet you can’t event cast a decent spell.”
I became infuriated. “I’d like to see you try.”
While raising an eyebrow, she asked, “Is that a challenge being beckoned upon me?”
“Maybe it is.” I replied.
“Well then,” she stood up, “Shall we begin?”
I looked around shockingly. “What? Here? Now? Seriously?”
“Did I stutter?”
With a sigh, I agreed. “Okay, I’m bored anyway, let’s go.”
She laughed. “Gladly . . .”

6

Suddenly I realized how sudden I had just accepted a challenge request. I didn’t know what level of skill this girl possessed. I was either in a lot of trouble, or this could be a little entertaining. Most likely both.
I bowed respectively, as did she. This was essential in challenges, or you were otherwise seen as disrespectful and weak. I got on guard, but she just stood there. I figured she had something planned already.
Then right when I was about to cast a spell, Finn ran in the middle of us. I yelled, “Finn! What are you–“ He cut me off, but my question was answered.
“Attention everyone! The event is about to begin!” Everyone shifted to gazes to see two people eye to eye and a random guy yelling in the middle of them. “In this corner, with the weird wooden gauntlet and the mohawk thing, Suri! And in the other corner, dressed very outlandishly, Mugen!”
The girl, apparently Mugen, glared at Finn. “My name is Megan. And neither of us are standing in a corner. . .”
“Shut yo trap and fight!” Finn made a weird “bing!” noise and ran out of our way.
Worry came over me, because she was from the ice country and we were on a boat. Ice magic has a lot to do with water, so she had the advantage. Luckily, the sun was out so I could feed of its heat for my fire magic. But I knew that wouldn’t do much good against her ice magic. If only I had studied more water magic, I might have had a better chance, but I wasn’t going to just give in. This was sparring anyway. I could probably learn from fighting her.
I stepped forward so that my feet were parallel to each other and my shoulders and positioned my hands so that they were cupped together, except for the index fingers and the middle fingers. These four fingers stayed together as they pointed up. This position was known as tiger and is the basis of a lot of fire spells.
I chanted to myself, “Haja neinlin ge dujee.” I opened my mouth and blew. Fire bursted out and stretched across the deck. A large fire burned where Megan stood, and eventually burned out to expose her.
Apparently, she cast a deflect spell. Her arms were raised so that her palms face the sky. There was a bubble of water around her that protected her from the flame. Immediately I was disappointed.
She shot her hands down and her palms now faced the deck. Her head looked down as the water dropped to the deck. “Worthless.” She stated.
Raising her head, I saw her eyes glowing blue now. As she raised her right hand, the water rose from the floor. Pointing at me, she said, “Jei.”
Suddenly, the water appeared in the shape of a panther-like creature and shot after me. I thought quick and yelled fast, “Zijei sin eoneeti!” A limp and narrow mass stretched our of my hand. An electric whip.
I slashed at the water demon the whip splashed him into nothing but water on the deck again. I spun in a circle quick and shot the whip at Megan. It hit her chest and she held it, breathing hard. She kneeled on the ground gasping, but soon rose to her feet and ran at me.
Throwing a high kick at me, I ducked, evading the girl’s attempt to attack me. I did a spinning sweep kick at her ankles, but she jumped and landed behind me.
“Behind you!” I heard Finn yell. It was useless though, she had me.
I heard her chant something, and then I felt a freezing feeling in my back. Suddenly, I couldn’t move and was extremely cold. I was literally frozen solid.
In front of me now, she landed a strong roundhouse kick to my ribs. I lay on the floor now, able to move and breathing heavily. The pain was astonishing. I execrated as I got up. Again, she was coming at me.
“Iru!” I yelled, and moved my hand towards her. The water on the floor of the boat beside me rose up and splashed in her face. She fell onto her back, as I backed away from her to scheme some sort of strategy.
“Yeah, that’s how you do it!” Finn yelled again.
The other girl, whatever her name was, cheered on too, “Come on Megan, show this guy what you’re all about!”
Now I was pretty far from her. The boat we were on was actually pretty big. Megan got up, soaked, and started up again.
It was then I heard it. “Iru yotou lin esk.” It was the spell from before! I was surprised and noticed what happened. The water formed into a thin, rod-like thing. Then it coiled up and slithered fast towards me.
Snake!! That’s what esk meant! I wanted to try it out, so I quickly countered with the same spell, noticing more water beside me. “Iru yotou lin esk.” The puddles of water formed together into the same shape as the other water formation.
Quickly, they slithered fast to each other, and lunged head-on. They both splashed into more water.
“You know what?” Megan asked.
I was surprised that she interrupted the fight all of a sudden. “Um, what?”
“Well, one: I find it pretty pathetic that you’re not taking advantage of me letting my guard down talking to you, and two: I’m sick of fighting you already.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” She was done already? Giving up? That was no fun.
She looked at me, but didn’t show any sign of surrender, just an evil look in her eyes. “Ha! What do I mean? If you thought I was gonna give up you’re wrong, I just don’t feel like going easy on you anymore.” Suddenly the boat began to rumble.
I became worried, as did Finn. “What the hell are you doing?!” We both shouted simultaneously.
“Iru. . .” She started with her arm stretched, her hand pointing at me again. “. . . zaiku.”
The next thing I know, a huge wave erupts from behind and comes straight for the boat. People started screaming at their inevitable doom. Although, it was so much their doom as mine.
When the wave broke as it crashed into the boat, all the water fell on top of only me. For almost ten seconds, I could feel nothing but water, until the flood receded. Just by moving her hands to the edges of the boat, Megan forced all the water back into the ocean.
I choked on the salty water as I slowly managed to get up. Megan came at me again, with a jump kick towards my head. I moved to the side and turned around so that I saw where she landed now.
With her back to me, I chanted raspily, “Iei yotou zijei zaiku.” With that, Megan fainted.
Her friend shrieked. “What in the hell did you do?!” She ran over to her friend to see if she was okay.
“I sent an electric shock to her head. She should wake up in about five minutes.” I said with a cheery face. I was happy that I had won the fight. Although, I guess I kind of overdid it.
“How can you say that with a straight face?! You could have killed her!”
Feeling a little sorry, I explained, “Oh, hells to the no! The spell I used was only minor compared to what other spells could have been cast on her. No biggy.”
“No biggy?!” She screamed furiously. “I don’t think–“
Luckily, Finn came over to stop her verbal rampage. “Look, Felina,” he said comfortingly, “My friend Suri wouldn’t do anything to severely damage Megan. Trust me, he’s too much of a chicken to do anything lethal, unlike me.” He chuckled.
“Yeah, that’s true.” I said, but not with shame. I knew I wasn’t a chicken, I’m just not one to try to hurt someone too bad. It was only a spar anyway.
Felina sighed and gave up. “I’ll take your word for it. She will wake up, right?”
“I just told she would. Are you deaf?” I said.
Megan started squirming and opened her eyes. She sat up.
“Told you so!” Shouted I, proven correct.
Felina kicked my shin. “Shutup.”
“Ow!”
Megan looked around. “Um, did I fall asleep in the middle of the fight or did something really freaky just happen?”
“No,” Felina started to explain, “Mr. Dumbo just sent an electric shock to your brain and knocked you unconscious.” She crossed her arms across her chest, looking at me.
“What?!” Megan yelled in surprise. “Why I’ll–!” She leaped up and tackled me to the ground. Finn and Felina just giggled watching us quarrel.
Suddenly, announced over his intercom, “Passengers, we are just about to reach Koril. Please gather your belongings so that once we make it to land, you are prepared to leave the ship immediately. If not, you’ll be stuck on the boat again and you’ll not have the correct ticket to our next destination so you’ll get thrown overboard. Have a nice day!”
“Gee, that was a pleasant announcement.” I remarked sarcastically. I looked past the front of the ship and saw land and knew it was Koril. Having never been here, I was excited to see what was there and learn some magic from the area.
“Well,” Finn began, “I already have my stuff. What about you Suri?” He handed me my spell book.
I started to walk to the stairs and go back to the cabin. “I’ll get my things now.” I informed him before I left.
I walked downstairs, down the hall, and into our room. I looked at the wall I threw “The Boop” at, and saw the book on the floor in front of it. I went over and picked it up.
Noticing the page it was on, I decided to read it for a few seconds. It was page 1,387; I started at the second paragraph. It read:
“Then, oh my god, he forgot the toothpaste. Running back into the subway, he tripped over a telephone pole. “Oh darnd!” He cursed as his head fell off.
Over the intercom his friend her a buzzing sound. He did know. He knew. He knew it was time. . . TO PARTY!!! But no one brought the nacho dip, so everyone just cried.
In another world, a boy named Irus just made it to an island called Lirok with his friend Nnif to see how they could bring back Nnif’s pet cat, named Lexa. The cat was taken to an evil castle where it was killed and Nnif and Irus were on a journey to bring Lexa back to life!”
I had to stop reading there, because the captain announced over the intercom that we reached Koril. I got my bag from off the bed, put “The Boop” inside of it, and ran onto the deck.
“Hurry!” Finn yelled to me. He was already getting off the boat, and I ran to the boarding dock to get off. I walked down the dock, and the next thing I knew, I took my first step onto Koril.

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