The Fifth Day: Importance

The light faded, Connor awoke. The sun was rising behind him, and the pond was sparkling. Conor slumped up. Sunrise? He'd been lying here for hours! He remembered Twilight so clearly, her radiance. And he remembered his friends. He forgot his parents, who were worried sick. Conor took a long, sweeping look around, but Evan was nowhere in sight.

Conor could see his footprints.

They glowed beautifully, perfect impressions of his friend's feet. He would not have noticed them, were it not for the bright glow they emitted. Conor wondered only for a moment why they shone. Twilight had told him, of course. He was special.

Conor ran, a sudden sense of urgency gripping him. The luminous footsteps told him where to go. For the first time in his life, he wasn't thinking. He just blindly ran across the grass, blindly trusted this magic. There were weird marks on the graveyard fence, Conor realised this was the mark Evan's foot had made, when he climbed over it.

Conor followed the footprints, practically stepping in them. The footsteps veered across some ancient graves, through the gate and into Lumbridge. Conor kept his head low, his eyes trained on the footprints, which were getting more widely spaced; Evan was running.

Conor sprinted too, the urgency that had gripped him before now did so even tighter. He barged through crowds of people, uncaring for their indignant cries. He didn't fully understand what was going on, what was happening, but he knew how to find out. He'd get himself back into the loop, back into his friends minds. He was not a minor character in life, this was his story.

Had he been looking up, he would have seen the Lumbridge castle in all it's glory, which was to say, not much. There were guards, some, most with cheap swords and leather armor. Lumbridge was essentially a small town, taxes the only true income the government had. It couldn't afford any real defense.

As it was, Conor knew his hometown well enough to tell that it was there. He sped past the wide open gates, and saw the footsteps backtrack, overlap: Evan was unsure where to go. He had, apparently, made up his mind after a while, and the footsteps went inside the castle gates. With all the footsteps, Conor somehow knew Evan had taken ten minutes or so deciding, or maybe talking to someone?

Conor sped through the castle gates, the footprints were more then glowing now, they were a searing light that Conor almost had to shield his eyes. There was a high, thick stone wall that ran round the castle, creating a narrow, shaded, grassy passage that Evan had ran down. It was the kind of place you never went just in case you weren't supposed to, the lack of warning threatened even teenagers. If there was a sign, they would have gone for the laugh. But with it just there, just empty, it deterred everyone. Conor could sense it now, it was magic. Someone wanted to keep people away from this spot.

Conor blurred past round the castle, running a hand along the smooth stone wall. The footsteps were staggeringly bright, blindingly so, creating pillars of gold that signaled he had been here only an hour ago. And then they stopped suddenly, two footprints stepping into space.

Conor had hit a dead end; this was the stop. He didn't know what to do, what was going on, he wanted to help. He felt trapped. Caged. Panicked. What would he do now? He began to pace in small, tight circles, brain whirring with ideas to explain how the footsteps just ended. After he went around the fifth time, he noticed it.

A dip. He placed his foot on it, and it gave a little in the pressure. There, almost invisible, was a tiny hairline crack in the grass. Conor hunched down and slipped his fingers in under, managing to lift it. He pulled the grass up, showing a tunnel down into blackness.

A trapdoor.

Connor hopped into the air, crossing his arms over his chest and placing his feet tight together so that he dropped down the hole like a stone. Two meters below the surface, he landed. Evan's footsteps were so bright they lit up the whole passage, so Conor could see it as no one had ever done before. It was made of thick, stone slabs, that were strangely smooth to touch, intersecting at odd angles. The ceiling was low, just high enough so that he didn't have to bend his back, but low enough so that he felt claustrophobic.

Conor sped down the passage, which was so narrow he nearly had to sidestep down it. Every few feet there was a was a corner, a twist, a bend, making speed impossible. Suddenly, the passage opened up to a wide cavern, and a long drop down there was a smooth stone floor-and a tangle of footprints. Some were Evan's. But not all.

They were scampered around the room, all over the place, in all directions. A few decorated the wall. Together, they all but blinded Conor. He dropped down, knowing full well what had happened. a fight, a brutal one at that. Blood. Conor saw blood. He knew by the ghostly light it emitted that it was Evan's.

All of a sudden, the dawning realisation that he was twenty feet underground, that if he was stuck here, no one would hear him scream. No one would find his body. That was scary, for a moment, but Conor felt the light inside him, felt so sure of himself. Whatever Twilight awakened in him...he liked it. Another narrow door, another narrow tunnel. Another trail of Evan's footsteps.

The sense of urgency crippled him, choked him, caged him. He sped inhumanely down the passage. This one was different, surreal, way to smooth for reality. All one rock. It was perfectly straight, without a curve, so Conor could really pick up speed. He saw the light at the end of the tunnel, and sped through it. There, glowing in unreal golden light so bright that Connor's essence sang, was Evan himself.

Conor closed his eyes tight against the light, held up a hand to shield himself from it. Something clicked inside his brain, inside his mind, and the light went out. Conor blinked to get the lights from his eyes, and Evan called out to him.

"Conor" he coughed, harshly. "Conor, you can't be here"

"Shut up, you idiot"

Conor opened his eyes, letting them adjust. He met a sight that would have delivered excruciating pain to those who had sore eyes. Evan was a bloody sack of bruises. Purple welts splotched his arms and legs, his nose was slightly crooked. Blood flowed down his nose, dripping from his chin and onto his stomach. His eyes were badly swollen, so he could only see with the left.

"No!" he gasped, and spat blood. "You can't....you'r not...run"

"Yeah. You're the one who's covered in bloody bruises. You need me"

"Can't...you don't under.....stand"

"I understand just fine. Where is she?"

Evan tried to argue, but Conor ignored him, putting his friend's arm over his shoulder and helping him to his feet. Evan pointed despondently to a rock wall. "In there" he said.

"That's solid rock. You got hit harder than-"

"Magic. Cloak. Walk""

Conor nodded, and, with his friend leaning on him, they limped towards the rock. Conor poked it, his hand went straight through. Evan made to go forward, and Conor was forced to go on to save his friend from falling. Together, they sifted through the wall, and into-

"Wow" the friends said, together.

In front of them was a stairway, lit up with bronze light, and it ascended high into the air.

"We're not it Lumbridge anymore, are we? Cause I would have noticed a giant, perpetual staircase"