"Cold, It's so cold…"
"Heat…"
"I need heat…"
"Any kind…"
Desperate.
A boy no older than 17 lays down on his stomach after being in the cold for what seems like an eternity. He went out to scavenge around for food but to no avail. And now he lays here about to give into frostbite. The only thing around him was forest. Not just any regular forest but the Himés forest. A forest which was surrounded by giant Quan trees.
The trees were giant in size and were the width of a fair sized home and the height of some castles if not taller. It really wouldn't be an over exaggeration to say they touched the clouds.
"Heat…"
"All I need is heat…"
As if seemingly trying to manifest heat the boy starts imagining himself being engulfed by a flame. He understands that the only way to heat himself up now is if he tricks himself into doing it. But even then what would that accomplish? He walked to far from the village and he knows no one will come for him. He was the only able body person and the only one fit enough to come out here. He knows there's no hope.
But…
Even then he refuses to give up.
He imagined the flame getting hotter and bigger.
Until…
Heat.
Heat was radiating around the boy.
2 boys sit quietly in the library. Both looking to be around freshman in college. One has a suit on blazer and dress pants. While the other one has a dress coat over the suit and round glasses. The boy in the coat is enjoying the silence when.
"What is this?"
The boy with the blazer shows the boy a pendant he was given that has a weird sigil on it that looks like a sun.
"What exactly am I looking at Lirro?"
The boy in the overcoat responds in a seemingly annoyed tone as he was just starting to get immersed in the book he was reading. Lirro hands the pendant over to him and responds with.
"I don't know, that's why I'm asking you."
"My grandpa recently passed away and we were going through some of his stuff and one of the things we found was this weird pendant. For some reason my mom wanted it out of the house fast. She said that the feeling she was getting from it was sickening."
"And why would I know anything about this?" The boy in the coat responds in a curious tone.
"Is that a serious question? You always seem to know a bunch of weird things. It's like your brain picks up on some of the weirdest knowledge."
"Is my knowledge really that weird?" The boy gives a genuine look of surprise to Lirro.
"Remember that one time in chemistry where me and you were talking and you brought up the man who put his head in a particle accelerator and got shot and the teacher said you were stupid and that something like that could never happen and you debated him and it turned out you were wrong. I remember he'd call on you every single time in class after that. Or any time we'd talk. 'Mr. Lirro and Mr. Solstice is there anything you want to say to the class.'"
"Or that one time I was chatting up a girl and you heard me mention aliens and then went on a rant about something that happened in Nuremberg in 1561. I remember after that her group of friends would always be side-eyeing you."
Solstice sits there with a puzzled expression on his face and after thinking for a couple of seconds finally responds.
"You know. You have a point. I don't even know where I pick up most of this information from. If I had to guess, probably some short form media app. Or maybe I fell down my fair share of rabbit holes."
"Yeah I guess you're right, everyone has their fair share of unique hobbies. If you can call scrolling a hobby."
"It's not just scrolling. If I am genuinely interested in a topic I'll try doing my best to research it."
"Let me present to you a hypothetical. Let's say you're stranded in a forest-"
Lirro interrupts Solstice immediately and responds with. "A lighter, a water purifier, and an axe. See I'm prepared."
"Nope."
"What do you mean 'nope'."
"Nope, as in that wasn't going to be my question. In this hypothetical scenario you don't get to bring 3 things. You don't get coconut trees either because this isn't a deserted island. This is a forest."
"Either way it still can't be that hard to survive." Lirro says with an arrogant tone.
"Well it depends. Let's say in this theoretical forest you're in a pine forest. Now you know that you're in the northern hemisphere and that chances are you're in a mountainous region with a cool climate. There's also several uses for the sap of a pine tree: you can make soap, glue, and oil. Right there you already have a way of keeping yourself sanitized, you have a fire starter, and you have a way of making a makeshift shelter."
"Alright, alright we get it. Mr smarty pants wants to out show the idiot, don't worry buddy." Lirro gives Solstice a mocking expression. "Dude we're going to the same college and plus we score around the same for every class we take." Lirro gives an annoyed look at Solstice. "You know some of us actually study to get our scores, you don't study for jackshit and still get decent scores. You know damn well you could've done better if you actually tried. I would study my ass off and I'm still barely on the same ground as you."
"Wowzers I really struck a nerve there huh." Solstice gives a nervous chuckle trying to light up the mood a little. "Anyways, can I see that pendent?" Lirro, still a little annoyed, gives the pendant to Solstice without a word. Solstice brings it closer to his face trying to examine it and make sense of it. "It's definitely a sun I'll give it that but what are these." Solstice brings it closer to his eyes. There's 2 small gems on the left and right of the pendant. On the left there's a pitch black gem. And on the right there's a powdery white gem. Is this supposed to be the moon? Then what's this black gem right here?
'Could it be a black diamond? Maybe moisinite. No the color looks way to black , it looks pitch black as if there was nothing in there.'
The look on Solstice's face was starting to become more apparent. He was at a complete loss. He knew nothing about this. But this made him want to learn more.
"Do you mind if I take it with me to see if I can find out want it is? Maybe post it on a forum or something. If that's fine with you of course. The whole thing looks pretty valuable. Especially the gems on it. I promise I'll give it back by tomorrow. It's just that now that I've seen it I want to learn-."
Lirro extends his arm out and puts his hand out in front of Solstice motioning him to stop. "Yeah, yeah, don't worry man. For all I care you can keep it the more I think about my moms words the more eiry does the thing become. It feels as though it doesn't belong here. When we found the pendant we found a weird assortment of things as well herbs, odd rocks that weren't quite gems, and notes but all the writing was seemingly erased. I really don't care what you do with it. But if you do sell it we're splitting it 80-20. I get 80 you get 20 okay?"
Solstice gives Lirro a small smile. "Sure man whatever you say." Solstice stands up and starts cleaning up his table. "Anyways it's getting late. We should probably start heading soon." Lirro gives a sort of defiant look. "What do you mean by late? It's barely 8:07 pm." Solstice points at a window. "Yeah but look at the suns already set and it's pitch black outside." Lirro sighs. "Yeah you do have a point."
As he was heading back home Solstice couldn't get the feeling of being watched away. Whenever he'd feel around for the pendant it's like something. was making sure he took it with him.
As he came home he realized both his parents had already gone to sleep.
'Weird. Isn't it pretty early to go to sleep I mean it should only be like 8:30?' Solstice checks his pockets for his phone in order to check the time and to see if he got any messages. As he's checking the time he sees it's 10:18 pm. 'That's impossible. I could've sworn I was only out there for 20 minutes max.' Right below the time he sees a message from his mom saying that she'll leave dinner in the fridge for when he comes back. As well as a get home soon message.
'That's. I don't even know what to think of it. It's literally impossible. I mean I've heard of cases of people being lost in thought and losing their sense of time but this feels different. It feels like I lost time somehow.'
He instinctively reaches for the pendant but realizes it isn't there. 'I swear I was just touching it. Not even a minute ago. And I haven't even emptied out my pockets there's no way it could've gone anywhere.'
Not wanting to make a scene he decides he'll look for it in the morning assuming it was somewhere around his house as he was feeling his pockets as he got in his lawn which was not long ago. Therefore he knew the pendant must have been around his house. As he was entering his room he saw a faint light emanating from his desk. As he turned the light on he went from looking at the switch to now staring at his desk where the light was emanating from and there he saw it. Resting atop his desk. There was the pendant he could've sworn he lost outside.
'No, no, no that's. No, that's just. I hadn't entered my room. There's absolutely zero reason as to why the pendant should be in here. I know this for a fact. I know for a fact I hadn't come into my room. God I don't even want to touch that thing anymore. I'll just give it back to Lirro when I see him. Matter of fact I'll text him right now.' Solstice gets his phone out and proceeds to text Lirro. 'Lirro dude you can't have your pendant back. I don't want it, this thing feels cursed.' He waits a couple of seconds. He gets a response. 'What are you talking about dude?' Solstice, now getting a little more annoyed as he hasn't made any sense of what's been happening, responds angrily to Lirro. 'Knock it off, I'm not in the mood, I'm giving you your pendant back.' … 'Seriously dude what pendant are you on about?' Solstice puts his phone down realizing this won't get anywhere.
'I'll just give it back to him tomorrow, no biggie.'
When he looked over to the pendant again the black gem from what he could see was omitting some kind of light. As he got closer to it he could hear a sort of buzzing coming from it. He reached for the pedant and goes in for a closer look but can't see anything but the "light" emanating from the black gem.
'What if I touch it? If it has light emanating from it then this could be a type of heat source.'
Solstice touches the black gem and automatically gets hit with a wave of nausea and dizziness.
'What is this?' Barely managing to keep his balance he does his best to find his bed in order to lay on it. As he tries to find his bed the dizziness exemplifies and he's pretty much lost all his sense of sight. Finally after reaching out his hand he's able to feel his bed and he jumps on it as his bed is tucked into a corner so he knew he could safely jump on it without the fear of falling off or hitting himself badly.
As he lays down he isn't able to roll over on his back so stays laying on his stomach. And then he gets hit with a wave of unbearable sleepiness. And then he gets hit with a chilling violent coldness.
'Wow I'm tired. I need to get some rest. Yes I need rest. I need to close my eyes.'
'But why is it so cold?' On the verge of blacking out Solstice has one more thought come into his head.
'I need heat.'