Jack Emerson by Michael Brent Jones
Chapter 12
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“So what did you figure out about being saved?”
Reluctantly I responded, “It depends on saved from what?”
“I knew you’d get it!”
“But I wanted an answer.”
“At a certain point just like our friend, we leave this world, and some things like light, we have to make ourselves.”
“Alright, well let’s hear what happens to Jacky next.”
“What about the poem?”
“Oh, it’s the same read from top to bottom as right to left.
“Not too bad.”
“It’s taken me long enough to get the hang of these.”
He chuckled, “Well you’re doing a good job.”
“Thanks.”
“What else did you notice about it?”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, the poem wasn’t written as a trick.”
“It’s the same as Jacky’s story, onward and upward.
“Good, alright let’s see how she writes herself onward and upward.”
Jack composed himself, and the story like always just seemed to come.
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“What I didn’t notice, was that I was actually at the base of another mountain. Luckily the trees, though only smoldering, were still very much still on fire.
Now the next obstacle was to find a good way to carry the flame; I didn’t have any extra clothing I could spare for another torch.
I used plain sticks as rudimentary torches, it was much less effective, but it did get the job done. I managed to collect a lot of berries and I found some nuts, meanwhile, with a rock in hand I knocked it on every rock I found to find one that would make a spark.
Just like everything else as of late, I was expecting it to take forever, but it wasn’t too long before a strike of my rock sent sparks flying.
I filled my pockets with the driest little twigs, bark and dead grass I could find. I also gathered the best sticks I could find. After I had felt content with the work I had done, I settled down to sleep.
I woke up to find it completely dark. Now was the real test - to see if I could make my own fire.
It took a few tries to get the hang of it, but I did it!
With an armful of sticks and pockets full of kindling, I followed the stream up the mountain, gleaming berries and nuts along the way.
Right as I realized it was really starting to get steep, I notice the entrance to a cave. I had a sort of flash back to seeing a similar cave before. I had made it to the top of the mountain before taking the tunnel, but I had fire and berries now, and I was quite enjoying the coolness of the air, and the sound of the brook rolling by.
The hiking turned to climbing, and as scary as it was to climb in the dark, I could feel I was getting somewhere. ‘Where?’
‘Up,’ I thought to myself and laughed.
I left my torch and sticks pretty far back to better climb. I had been climbing in the dark for some time, and as I approached the top of the mountain, I saw an orange glow.
Approaching the source of the light I saw, I realized I had not climbed a mere mountain, but a volcano. The hot magma was really far down, so I suppose if I would have taken the tunnel it would have been fine, but I’m still glad I didn’t.
I did find the hole where the tunnel likely came up. I also found a plaque with writing on it; the glow from the mouth of the volcano was just enough light to read.
‘These great boulders here are the missing part to the flame of the earth.’
It wasn’t easy, but digging on one side and prying on the other, one by one I got all twelve of them to roll forward and into the heart of the volcano.
The sound each made was terrifying, and the whole mountain began to shake, harder with each of the twelve boulders added.
I saw a glow coming from the dessert below, and noticed that it was turning red hot!
Once the whole dessert was red, it started to rise, but then stopped. The red slowly turned to yellow and then white. The sand was now a sea of glass, and the light from the center of the planet passed through and lit up everything.”
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Jack smiled.
“That’s the end?”
“How could it be the end?”
“Well of the story.”
“The end of a chapter in her story for the quest for light maybe.”
“So what’s the next chapter? Or what is her next quest?”
“Good questions.”
“Wait, you mean I was good for asking them, or that’s what her next quest is?”
Jack laughed again, “I don’t know, but now that I think about it, I want to say both.”
“What’s your next quest?” I ask, and I could tell it really made Jack think.
Jack hesitated and then spoke, “the full weight of distraction and convenience I never realize until I find that it has once again made a fool of me.”
“I remember you said that before.”
“That’s because I am still in the dessert, still trying to keep my torch lit in the rain.”
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We played a few games of chess, which I lost. And before I left I asked,
“So what’s my next puzzle?”
“What two letters follow the sequence: OTTFFSSE?
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