Chapter 11: meeting and leaving

Maria was just in the middle of her daily routine of staring at the walls when she heard a familiar voice. It wasn't too distant, maybe two cells away. She could hardly make out the words through the thick iron doors, but she was sure: It was him. Angrily she rose from her bed and hammered against the cold metal. „Hobbies, you damn idiot!“, she shouted loudly. Her fists hurt from hitting the door, but she threw some more punches. Not because she thought he hadn't noticed her already, but to show him how angry she was.

“Maria?”, he replied, now loud enough to be understood. He didn't even sound surprised, did he? Or was she just imagining that?

“What the hell are you even doing? You agreed to take a trip with me, not a crime spree! And now look where your stupid impulses brought us!”
“Oh I'm sorry, I didn't realize that by taking a trip, you meant a trip with me on a leash!”, he screamed back, now obviously angry. “You brought that all over yourself, you know – If you had done what I told you, you'd still be free!”

“Oh, I should have just stayed with that psycho bandit woman? Yeah, that sounds like a good idea!”, she replied, raising her voice even more, although it made her throat hurt.

Suddenly another male, rough voice from a cell between them joined their heated conversation: “Is this stinking hellhole not bad enough? You two lovebirds can't even leave me some fucking silence?”

“Oh well sorry for interrupting your comfortable stay at this fine establishment, maybe you should talk to the management about a FUCKING REFUND?”, Hobbies shouted with so much anger in his voice that Maria became scared. He had never been this furious before.

To complete the chaotic scene, two guards came rushing to the source of disturbance, of course shouting while doing so: “Will you filthy rats shut your damn mouths? Who's responsible for this? Tell me and you might escape the beating you all deserve!”

“Him, the one to my left, it was him!”, shouted the unknown prisoner without hesitation.

Maria heard the guards approaching the door while Hobbies protested: “Yeah, go ahead, you fucking fascists! I have rights, you know! You'll regret it if you touch me!”

She heard the guards laughing, the sound of a lock opening and a heavy door that swung open with squeaking hinges. Then there was silence.

Silence. And no sign of him, as far as she could see in this moonlit landscape. How could that be? He had just left the motel's bar, and she had rushed after him after quickly paying the barkeeper.

Suddenly she heard footsteps on the stairs behind her, inside the house. It was Hobbies, he had fetched his traveling bag from their room.

“Where do you think you are going? And with your stuff, too? Are you just leaving me here?”

Maria was worried.

“Just wait here, I won't be gone long, I promise!”, Hobbies said to her reassuringly, but without paying much attention to her. It was obvious that he was somewhere else with his thoughts. With an adventurous look on his face he rushed past her before she could stop him.

Maria followed him out into the night, shivering from the cold. Hobbies now stood on the lawn next to the parking place, motionless, upright, staring into the distance where the hilly countryside stretched out for miles. He seemed very focused.

“Hobbies, please, just tell me what you are doing! And don't leave me here! Come on, talk to me!” Maria became upset. Why was he ignoring her? She waved her hand in front of his face, but he now had his eyes closed. “Hobbies!”, she shouted. And suddenly, from one moment to the next, he had vanished. A gust of the chilling wind blew some scattered snowflakes through the air. And then it was silent again.

Chapter 10:

It was cold. She tried to escape the cold by wrapping herself in her blankets, but that was hardly successful. The cold seeped into her bones, made her muscles twitch. She trembled. Fucking Prison, she thought. If only I could use magic. The prison obviously didn’t care for the wellbeing of its ‘customers’. It did not give them enough to live a decent live, but it did not let them die. It did not allow them to die. It was nothing Maria could not understand. It was said to be one of the worst prisons that existed. Oh what would she give for a pot of hot soup, a cup of fresh tea. She would probably even appreciate being burned on a stake.

If he had known, Hobbies Kraft would probably have laughed about it. The heat was now bearable, which did not mean that it was pleasant. The mind trap was still consistent, so at least his mind still worked properly. He sat down in the hot sand and let his magic flow. Expanding his senses he searched for errors, that would aid him in his escape. Errors that would reduce the amount of power he needed to destroy this illusion. Errors that would prevent him from using too much power and destroying his own mind. He did not find many, but he found some. Enough to let him be optimistic, but not enough to let him be sure. He did not know how long he had been trapped, but it was surely enough to be an annoying obstacle to his plans. “Well,” he said. “Let’s see if this can get me out.” He cancelled all his other magic and poured all his concentration in one big shockwave. The shockwave ripped through the illusion, like a sword through a cotton shirt and the twin suns shattered into a rain of a million sparkling shards.

As he began to feel the cold air in his lungs and the hard mattress under his body, he immediately missed the heat of the desert.  He looked at the grey walls and the meagre furniture in the small room. “Prison?” Hobbies stood up and walked towards the door. “Hey guards!” he shouted. “Bring me some food. I feel like I haven’t eaten in months.”

Chapter 9: held captive

It's been a long time.

Or has it?

Hobbies rose from the dusty ground, feeling dazed, confused and tired. His whole body was aching and he was thirsty from the dry heat.

Where was he? He didn't know how he got here, how long he's been here, he had even trouble remembering who he was. The thoughts in his heavy head were clouded and fuzzy, no matter how hard he tried to focus.

The featureless flat desert landscape stretched out seemingly forever, with absolutely no trees or hills to shield him from the glaring, torrid sun that sat in the sky in front of him, close to the horizon. Yet it wouldn't set, Hobbies realized. He turned around to hide from the bright light in his own shadow – Only to stare into another, mercilessly blazing fireball in the sky. It sat there like a mirrored image, at the same height, exactly opposite the first sun.

“Oh,” Hobbies thought, his fighting spirit coming awake. “Well, that's interesting...”

meanwhile...

The cell wasn't big, but it wasn't tiny either. It was spacious enough to contain a bed, a desk with a chair, and a small toilet, and left still some room for her to pace up and down, which she did often, in thoughts about the past few months. It's not that she was surprised by this outcome – after all, what could you expect when you travel with a potential personified apocalypse? Still, there was something odd about how the whole thing had progressed, and while she couldn't quite grasp what it was that bewildered her, she was certain that it existed – some mysterious background scheme, someone pulling strings to whatever end. She had never really enjoyed conspiracy theories, and being stuck in one sure wasn't great either.

“Oh Hobbies,” Maria thought, “why did you leave me alone in Ruskala? Was that part of your plan – and do you even have one? And most importantly, where are you?”

It's a mind trap. And a pretty solid one, too. It has taken him quite some time to realize that he was stuck in one, and that shows serious workmanship.

Hobbies had experienced one before, but back then he had only needed a few minutes to free himself. The premise was simple enough: Isolate someone from external stimuli and turn his thoughts inwards, giving him some simple “dream scene” to distract or confuse him.

The empty desert didn't leave much room for details to go wrong, yet it was seemingly physically and therefore mentally exhausting – a good choice.

Shaping these false realities doesn't take that much magical skill, but rather requires creativity. The scene the captive is held in is built by his own mind, and therefore quite tricky to shape from the outside. Some errors are unavoidable, but in this case, the double sun had played straight in the hands of his enemy, weakening Hobbies even more. Could this have been deliberate? Was his enemy so skillful that he could even use the errors to his benefit?

“Excellent handiwork,” he thought, “I'm actually looking forward to meeting my captor once I'm out of here – I wonder if he'll share my feelings?” Grinning, he straightened up, now no longer held down by this dream world's fake torments. Silent and motionless he stood there, preparing to tear this reality apart.