What could you say to a good friend whose wife of less than a day was dead, having sacrificed her own life to save his? “I’m sorry” just didn’t seem to be enough, but what else was there to say? Nothing that would help in any way, so Jonathan kept quiet.

Leaving the time zone, Varian striding ahead, the rest of the group fell in behind him, silent for once instead of chatting about this and that. Jonathan couldn’t even muster up any complaints to annoy Fred, and even Scott was subdued.

The boy hadn’t wanted to leave Varian behind, had hated the thought of continuing on towards Evoland without him, but this wasn’t the way he would have wanted things to turn out, and Jonathan suspected Scott might be feeling a bit guilty, like he might have unconsciously jinxed their friend’s happiness without ever meaning to.

The silence as they walked, each of them lost in their own thoughts, was beginning to feel oppressive, it was so unnatural. No bickering, no laughter, no debates, no questions. This simply wasn’t the way they were with each other.

“How can there be such massive geological differences between zones that are right next door to each other?” Jonathan hadn’t meant to say anything out loud, breaking the brittle silence, and he could sense Scott almost flinching, Fred darting a disapproving look his way, even Liana frowning, but Varian… Some of the tension went out of his shoulders, as if he was grateful for the distraction from his own thoughts.

“I don’t know, Jonathan. I used to think the island’s time zones fitted together like the cells in a honeycomb, but now…” He shook his head slowly. “If you were to walk past one of the gateways without passing through it into the next zone, I wonder how far you could travel. Perhaps the zones are more like… layers, other dimensions, one stacked on top of the next. We’ll probably never know for sure.”

“It would be fascinating to find out though.”

“Spoken like a true scientist.” Varian rested his hand on Jonathan’s shoulder for a moment. His smile was tired but genuine.

“Who knows what we might discover as we continue on, or how far we still have to travel? Somehow I doubt we’ll find Evoland in the next zone. I am sorry, you know,” Jonathan added quietly.

“I know. Thank you.”


The End