Book Two: Clumbo - Seed of Wonder

 

Book Two: Seed of Wonder
Prologue: The Last Doorway

The last doorway shimmered with a light that didn’t belong to this world—colors that pulsed like heartbeats, shifting from silver to deep violet and back again. Clumbo stood before it, the wind from the portal tugging gently at his cloak, like an unseen hand urging him forward. Behind him, silence. Before him, destiny.

He stepped through.

There was no sound. No tearing, no whoosh, no flash. Only the sudden sensation of weightlessness, as though the world had exhaled and forgotten to breathe him back in.

Then—
A breeze. Warm and fragrant. The scent of salt, of moss, of flowers long forgotten. The ground felt soft beneath his boots, like a sponge of life. He opened his eyes.

He stood on the edge of a quiet island, the sky aglow with late-afternoon light. Far ahead, the very cliffside waterfall from his vision thundered softly down dark rock, spilling into a turquoise pool that stretched into the sea. It was real.

But it wasn’t the waterfall that held his gaze. It was the hill.

Smooth and golden, it rose gently from the forest edge. At its crest stood a single tree—tall, ancient, and alive with fire-colored leaves that twisted slowly in the wind. They drifted down one by one, as if time itself had slowed to watch. Each leaf turned in the air like it had somewhere important to go.

Clumbo walked.

He didn’t rush. The air here was different—thicker with meaning, almost sacred. Every step toward the hill felt like a promise being kept, though he didn’t yet know what had been promised, or by whom.

As he approached the tree, something stirred at the base. Not a creature. Not a person. A shape—soft and pulsing—buried just beneath the roots. The earth there seemed to breathe.

Clumbo knelt, placed his hand on the soil, and closed his eyes.

A voice echoed—not through his ears, but through his bones.

“It’s not enough to find the heart, Clumbo. You must choose to plant it.”

His eyes snapped open. The leaves above rustled more violently now, a sudden gust turning the sky into a whirl of gold.

And beneath the roots…
A faint glow.

Chapter One: The Village on the Hill

Clumbo remained kneeling at the base of the great tree, his fingers brushing the glowing earth. The voice echoed in his mind again, quieter this time, like an echo from within his chest rather than the air.

“It’s not enough to find the heart… you must plant the seed.”

He whispered the words aloud, testing their weight.
“Plant the seed…”

But what seed?

He looked up into the branches, golden leaves swirling above him. Then slowly, he stood and turned in a slow circle, letting his eyes scan the landscape. Rolling hills stretched out in all directions, painted in hues of autumn—reds, golds, and rusts that danced with the wind.

Then he saw it.

Far up the hillside, half-veiled by the curve of the land and a crimson grove, sat a small village. Smoke curled lazily from one chimney. Tiny figures moved along a winding path. It was distant—but alive.

Clumbo narrowed his eyes.

There was no road connecting this tree to the village. No signposts. No fences. Yet the place felt connected—deliberately placed, as if it had been watching him all along.

And then, from within his satchel, he felt it.

A soft pulse. A warmth like breath.

He reached in and pulled out the seedstone.

Smooth, dark, and flecked with veins of silver, it had once rested in the Heart of the Mountain—a place so ancient and deep that time itself bent around it. Clumbo had risked his life to retrieve it. Back then, it was just a relic. A riddle. A shard of something important.

Now, it was glowing.

Not brightly. Not wildly. But steadily—like a heartbeat syncing with the earth beneath his feet.

His eyes shifted once more toward the village.

The seed had waited long enough.

Clumbo tightened his grip, slipped the seedstone back into the pouch, and took his first step forward.

Toward the village.
Toward the unknown.
Toward the wonder waiting to grow.

As Clumbo walked, he noticed something strange—not in the world around him, but in his own body.

His steps were steady. His back no longer stooped under the fatigue of past travels, but with the posture of someone who had grown into his strength. The breeze no longer chilled him as it once did. His hands, when he glanced down, were weathered. Stronger. Older.

He stopped for a moment. Stared at the lines on his palm.

This wasn’t just another place.
It was another time.

The realization hit him not like a storm, but like the quiet settling of snow. The last doorway hadn’t merely carried him across the world. It had carried him forward… into the future.

And that explained… the silence.

There was no sign of Mr. Diego—his brave old mentor, sharp as a sword and twice as proud. No quiet footsteps or flick of a tail from Nila—his leopard from Sri Lanka, graceful and fierce, always alert by his side. They weren’t here.

Perhaps they were too old now. it may be… they had already walked their part of the path.

Clumbo lowered his head, offering a quiet breath of respect to the wind.

But this was still his path. And now, he knew why the vision had returned.

The waterfall. The people standing behind him. A gathering, waiting for something to begin.

This village—it had to be the key.

He reached the edge of it as the sun dipped low, casting long shadows across the stone homes and moss-covered paths. Children ran barefoot between baskets of fruit and drying herbs. Dogs barked lazily, unthreatened by his presence. A woman smiled as she passed, her skin the color of deep mahogany, hair wrapped in bright red cloth. A boy waved from the top of a roof, pale as a cloud, with eyes like the sea.

Clumbo’s breath caught. Not one person here looked like another. Different cultures, different faces, all woven together into a tapestry of peaceful motion.

How strange…
How wondrous.

He passed under an arch made of twisted branches and hanging lanterns. Ahead, a tall building of carved wood and living vine rose at the center of the village. Elders stood at its steps—five of them—watching him with calm, knowing eyes. One of them gave a slow nod, as if they had been expecting this moment for a long time.

And beside them stood a girl. She looked to be fifteen, maybe sixteen. Her hair was dark and straight, her eyes sharp and thoughtful. There was a gentleness in her presence, but also something watchful—like she’d seen things most people never would.

She stepped forward, bowed slightly, and said in soft, careful English,
“You’re the one from the waterfall.”

Clumbo stared.

The world seemed to hold its breath.

He had no idea who she was—but her voice matched the one from his dream. The dream where he stood at the waterfall… with hundreds behind him.

And she had been beside him.

He nodded.

“Yes. I think I am.”

She smiled faintly.
“My name is Hana. I was adopted here, but I’m not from here either.”
She paused. “The elders have been waiting to tell you something. About the seed… and the wonder it will grow.”

Clumbo followed her gaze toward the glowing vine-covered hall.

Clumbo followed Hana toward the vine-covered hall, each step pulling him deeper into a place that felt both ancient and strangely new. The wood beneath his feet creaked softly, not with decay, but with age—like the bones of something that had lived a very long time and remembered every story it had ever held.

The doors were tall and arched, carved with symbols he didn’t recognize—circles inside of circles, twisting vines, and what looked like a star with its roots reaching downward. Hana didn’t explain them. She simply placed a hand on the wood and waited.

The doors opened inward without a sound.

Inside, the air changed.

It was warmer, but not stifling. There was a subtle hum in the air—like music too low to hear, but just loud enough to feel. Candles floated in the rafters, bobbing gently as if swayed by unseen waves. At the far end of the room stood a large table shaped from a single piece of tree trunk, smoothed and polished, but untouched by tools. It grew from the floor.

The five elders sat in silence. They wore robes of earth and cloud colors—browns, grays, and soft whites. Their faces were weathered not by time alone, but by memory. The kind of memory that comes from keeping secrets for a very long time.

One of them, a woman with silver rings braided into her hair, nodded slowly.
“We knew you would come. The seed calls only when the heart is ready.”

Clumbo opened his mouth to speak, but stopped. Something was shifting. In his chest? In the room?

Another elder, the tallest of the five, held out a cloth-wrapped object.

“From the mountain,” he said. “Do you recognize it?”

Clumbo stepped forward and took it in both hands. The cloth was rough and smelled faintly of ash and moss. He unwrapped it slowly.

Inside was a stone—smooth, egg-shaped, and faintly glowing from within. Its surface was cracked, like something once broken was trying to mend itself.

It pulsed faintly.

Thoom.
Thoom.

The same rhythm as the heart he had seen beneath the mountain.

Clumbo’s throat tightened.

“It’s a seedstone,” Hana whispered beside him.

“But it’s broken,” Clumbo said.

“No,” said the elder with the silver rings. “It is… waking.”

He looked down at it again. And now, he wasn’t sure what he was seeing. For a split second, the cracks in the stone looked like branches. And something shimmered just beneath the surface—something that looked like an eye opening in slow motion.

Clumbo blinked.

Gone.

He looked up. “What does it want?”

The elders exchanged glances.

“That,” said the eldest, “is what you must discover.”

A low wind stirred outside. The candles above flickered once.

Hana’s voice broke the silence. “You should know… not everyone in the village believes the stories. Some fear what the seed might grow.”

Clumbo frowned. “Why?”

She looked at him, her expression unreadable.
“Because the last time it bloomed… the world changed.”

Clumbo turned the seedstone over in his palm. It was warm now. Alive.
But Hana’s voice lingered in his mind.

“Because the last time it bloomed… the world changed.”

He looked at her. “What do you mean?”

Hana hesitated.

The elders remained still, as if letting her speak would weigh her voice with more than just memory—it would make it truth.

Finally, she took a slow breath.

“Long before I came here… before even the oldest elder was born, there was a blooming,” she said. “The last one.”

She stepped away from Clumbo and walked toward one of the carved pillars, running her hand over the symbols etched into the wood.

“The seed bloomed in a place like this—hidden, sacred, fed by the heart of the world. And for a time, it brought miracles. Crops grew in soil long dead. Rivers ran clear. People who once hated each other stood together in peace.”

Clumbo felt the weight of her words. It sounded like… the end of struggle.

“But,” she continued, “the seed doesn’t just grow what’s good. It grows what is.”

She turned, her eyes meeting his.

“That includes fear. Greed. Secrets we don’t even know we carry.”

Clumbo’s gaze drifted to the elders. They did not speak, but their eyes had shifted. They had heard this story many times, and yet they listened again—not out of curiosity, but reverence.

“What happened?” he asked softly.

Hana looked down.

“Some wanted to control it. To shape its bloom. They thought if they guided the seed, they could make the world perfect in their own image. But the seed isn’t something you control. It listens. It reflects.”

She paused. The silence stretched like a thread about to snap.

“The world didn’t burn. It didn’t fall into ruin. But it changed. And for many… it changed in ways they weren’t ready for. Whole cities were swallowed by roots. Mountains moved. Memories were reshaped. Some people forgot who they were. Others remembered too much.”

Clumbo stared at the seedstone. In his hands, it pulsed gently.

Thoom.

The heartbeat of something older than the world he knew.

“That’s why the elders are afraid?” he asked.

Hana nodded. “They fear that in planting the seed, we might bloom something beautiful… or something we can’t undo.”

She stepped closer again, her voice lower now.

“But they also believe that the one who plants it will decide how it grows. That you were meant to carry it—not to control it, but to listen. To understand what it truly wants to become.”

Clumbo looked up at the glowing hall, then out toward the village, where the sun had now set behind the hill, painting the clouds in violet and gold.

“I don’t know if I’m ready.”

Hana tilted her head, a faint smile at the edge of her lips.

“No one ever is. But that doesn’t stop the seed from growing.”

Clumbo studied Hana as she spoke—her words carried the weight of history, spoken not like someone who’d heard it, but someone who had seen it. Lived it.

And yet… she looked no older than sixteen.

“You talk about the past like you were there,” he said carefully.

Hana’s expression didn’t change. But for the first time, she didn’t meet his gaze.

“I wasn’t there,” she said softly. “Not in the way most would understand.”

Clumbo frowned. “What does that mean?”

She ran her fingers along the vine-covered wall, tracing the shape of a flower that hadn’t yet bloomed. Her voice dropped lower, nearly drowned by the distant chime of wind bells outside the hall.

“I came to the village as an orphan,” she said. “They found me on the eastern beach after a storm—alone, unconscious, holding nothing but a pendant that no one here could read. It had symbols etched into it, old ones… older than the oldest writing.”

Clumbo felt the hairs on his arms rise.

“They say the tide shouldn’t have brought me in from that direction,” Hana continued. “That there’s nothing but reef and open ocean beyond it. But I was there. Not a scratch on me.”

“And how old were you then?” Clumbo asked.

“Eight,” she said. “Or so they guessed.”

“But you don’t remember anything from before?”

Hana was quiet for a moment. Then, slowly, she nodded.

“I remember standing in a place of silver trees. I remember voices that weren’t quite voices—like songs and bells inside my thoughts. I recall a garden that thrived even in the darkness. And… I remember someone placing something in my hand. Something warm and bright.”

She looked down at the seedstone in Clumbo’s hand.

“I think it was that.”

Clumbo tightened his grip on the stone. The air in the room seemed heavier now, charged with something unspeakable. It wasn’t fear… it was knowing.

“You were chosen too,” he said quietly.

Hana didn’t answer right away. Then she turned to him and said, “Maybe. Or maybe I’m just here to remind you who you are.”

He searched her eyes again. She seemed so composed, so calm, so grounded—as if time passed differently around her. There was no trace of teenage awkwardness or hesitation. Only intention. Presence.

And that voice…

It was the same voice from his dream at the waterfall. Not similar—the same. Exact tone, exact rhythm.

Clumbo opened his mouth, but Hana gently raised a hand.

“Don’t ask. Not yet,” she said. “Some truths only bloom when the seed is ready.”

Then she smiled—but it was a distant smile. Not of mischief or charm, but memory. As if she had seen him before. As if she was waiting for him to remember something, too.

Just then, the doors behind them groaned shut of their own accord, sealing the hall in flickering candlelight. One of the elders stood, placing both palms on the wooden table, and said:

“It’s time we show you the place where it must be planted.”

Clumbo looked at Hana once more, unsure if she was a girl, a guide… or something else entirely.

But there would be time to understand.

For now, the seed pulsed again in his hand.

Thoom.

And the path ahead was beginning to open.

Chapter Two: The Villagers

The path curled up the hillside, winding through trees whose leaves glowed faintly in the moonlight. Hana walked just ahead of Clumbo, lantern in hand, casting long shadows across the mossy trail. The elders followed in silence, a quiet procession leading toward something sacred.

They reached a wide stone terrace at the top of the ridge. The view was breathtaking—stars reflecting in the valley's river far below, and mountains stretching like frozen waves in every direction. At the center of the terrace stood an ancient archway of polished stone. No carvings. No writing. Just smooth black stone that shimmered like obsidian.

“This,” said Hana softly, “is the gateway. The one that brought us all here.”

Clumbo turned to her, startled. “You mean… everyone in the village?”

Hana nodded. One of the elders stepped forward. She was tall and gentle-eyed, with tightly braided hair and a voice like warm honey.

“This place did not always exist,” she said. “It was planted, like a seed, by forces older than memory. The village is only forty years old. But all of us… came from much older lives.”

She gestured for him to sit at a flat stone, as if he were a student being told a great secret. The others formed a quiet circle around him.

“I was a nurse in Sarajevo,” she said. “When the shelling began, I stayed behind to help the children. I should have died. But I was taken. Passed a trial of fire and silence. And awoke here, barefoot and confused. That was nearly thirty years ago.”

A man with a wide face and sun-worn skin stepped forward. “I was a rice farmer in the Mekong Delta. Soldiers came. Burned our homes. I hid in the fields with my sister. I thought it was the end—but it was only a beginning.”

A younger woman, barely older than Clumbo looked, added quietly, “I was in Ethiopia, during the famine. I was just a child. I remember walking toward the sun, and then… I was here.”

One by one, they shared stories—fragments of wars and disasters, of losses too great to bear, and then a strange moment of passage. Each one had been tested. Each had survived. And each had found themselves drawn here, as if by unseen design.

Clumbo felt a strange weight in his chest. Like he had always known, deep down, that his story was part of something larger.

One of the elders—an observant, hawk-eyed man with salt-and-pepper hair—stepped closer and studied Clumbo carefully. “You look to be in your mid-twenties,” he said. “Strong. Grounded. You’ve grown into the body meant for this world.”

One of the elders—an observant, hawk-eyed man with salt-and-pepper hair—stepped closer and studied Clumbo carefully. “You look to be in your mid-twenties,” he said. “Strong. Grounded. You’ve grown into the body meant for this world.”

Clumbo blinked. “I feel… seven,” he admitted. “I still miss Mr. Diego. I miss my family. I miss… the way things were, even if I didn’t understand them at the time.”

The woman elder stepped forward and placed a hand gently on his shoulder. “That is a good sign,” she said. “It means your heart has not grown calloused. The journey did not harden you.”

Hana looked over with a soft smile. “We’ve been waiting for you. There’s a place ready. Come.”

They led him down to the lower part of the village where rows of circular, yurt-styled homes nestled between flowering trees. The canvas roofs were painted with suns and moons, stars and spirals. Lanterns glowed warmly on the doorposts.

They stopped before one with blue tassels hanging at the entrance.

“This is yours,” said Hana. “We prepared it after the last bloom.”

“And you won’t be alone,” added the hawk-eyed elder. “There’s another who arrived not long ago. A younger boy—curious, bright. We thought you two might benefit from the company.”

Inside, the yurt was cozy and warm. Cushions and woven mats lined the floor, and in one corner sat a small desk with parchment and colored pencils. A fire crackled softly in a copper basin.

A boy popped his head up from behind a stack of folded blankets. He had short black hair, a curious smile, and eyes full of fire.

“You’re the new one?” he asked, excited. “I’m Shivan. I came from Tamil Nadu. I thought I was going to drown in the river, but instead… poof! I woke up here. Weird, huh?”

Clumbo smiled for the first time in hours. “Yeah. Weird.”

They talked until the stars had moved halfway across the sky—about everything and nothing. About climbing trees, favorite foods, strange dreams, and missing home.

Eventually, exhaustion caught up with them.

Clumbo lay down on a soft cot, pulled a blanket to his chest, and stared at the curved ceiling overhead.

The seedstone rested beside him, pulsing faintly with warmth.

Thoom.

And with the gentle sound of Shivan’s breathing beside him, Clumbo finally drifted into sleep.

Tomorrow, the seed’s mystery would deepen.

But tonight, he rested.

Chapter 3: The Outer Forest

The forest beyond the village was older than the stories told in the vine-covered hall. Even the elders, wise as they were, spoke of it only in whispers—as if naming it too loudly might awaken something they couldn’t explain.

But Clumbo was not afraid.

Not because he was brave, exactly.
But because something inside him had begun to hum again—like it had back when he first touched the heart of the mountain. A quiet calling. A tug.

He left at dawn with a small satchel of dried fruits, a rolled blanket, and a carved walking stick gifted by his new friend, Shivan, the Tamil boy. “For the roots,” Shivan said, grinning. “They’re always trying to trip you in there.”

Clumbo passed through the orchard edge of the village and into the forest’s embrace. At first, the trees were familiar—moss-covered, tall and straight, their leaves whispering in a language he almost understood. But the deeper he went, the stranger it became.

Light shifted.

Colors deepened.

And soon the path behind him disappeared entirely.

Yet he didn’t turn back.

Instead, he pressed forward through curling ferns and twisted roots until he came to a glade choked with vines—but something lay beneath them. Stone. A structure. No, a shape—a ring of broken columns circling what looked like an ancient well sealed with thick stone and carvings too faded to read.

The air around it was still. Thicker somehow.

He stepped closer, and the vines reacted—not recoiling, not attacking, but… moving aside. As if they had been waiting for someone.

Clumbo knelt beside the well and touched the stone. It was cold at first, then warm, pulsing faintly, like something sleeping deep inside.

A memory flickered.
The vision. The heart. The waterfall.
And a voice—not heard, but felt:

“What was buried must be remembered.
What was forgotten must be grown.”

He stumbled back, heart pounding.

This was not just a ruin.

It was a key.

And it had been waiting.

Clumbo stared at the carvings circling the sealed well. His fingers brushed along the weathered stone, tracing what looked like an old symbol—almost a spiral, but jagged at the edges. It pulsed faintly under his touch.

He didn’t know how he knew.
But this was no ordinary ruin.

This was the key.
And he had been brought here for a reason.

A deep breath steadied him.

Clumbo closed his eyes and placed both hands on the stone. At first, nothing happened. Then, like warm water rising from beneath the surface, something began to respond. A rhythm. A beat. A pulse that matched his own.

And then—
A whisper.

Not words. Not language.
But intention.

It surged up his arms like electricity—his mind filled with a rush of images:
A jungle burning.
Children crying out in a forgotten war.
An ancient temple cracking open beneath a tidal wave of ash.

And then—
A tree. Glowing. Reaching toward the sky.
Blooming with impossible light.

His eyes flew open.

The carvings on the stone well were now glowing faintly, like veins of amber lit from within. The vines surrounding the ruin had recoiled fully now, revealing steps that descended—spiraling—into the dark earth.

Clumbo hesitated.

This was not just an activation.
It was an invitation.

From behind, a twig snapped.

He spun around.

It was Shivan, panting, his hair damp with sweat. “You weren’t at breakfast,” he said. “I followed your tracks… kind of. What is this place?”

Clumbo swallowed. “I think it’s… a memory left behind. But not mine.”

Shivan stepped closer to the glowing well, eyes wide. “Did you open it?”

Clumbo nodded slowly. “I think… it wants to show me something. Or maybe, it needs something from me.”

Shivan looked nervous. “Are you sure we should go down there?”

“No,” Clumbo admitted.

But he stepped forward anyway.

One foot onto the spiral stairs. Then another.

Shivan hesitated, then sighed and followed.

And behind them, the light faded from the vines—as if the forest itself was closing the door behind them.

Chapter 4: Beneath the Roots

The steps spiraled downward, damp with moss and slick stone. The glow from the surface faded fast, leaving only a dim shimmer from the carvings on the walls—symbols older than any writing Clumbo had ever seen.

Shivan whispered behind him, “What is this place?”

Clumbo didn't answer.
He couldn’t.
He was listening—to something else.

A hum.

It wasn’t from the stone, or the air, or even from below.
It was inside him now.

Calling.

They reached the bottom.

A wide chamber opened before them. Massive stone pillars held up a ceiling laced with tangled roots. The air smelled of ancient earth and something metallic… like rust—or blood.

In the center of the room, a massive circular door stood upright, partially sunken into the ground. It looked like a wheel, split into three rings, each carved with strange, movable patterns. Around it, small braziers suddenly flared to life—without warning.

Both boys jumped back.

A voice—low, genderless, and ancient—whispered from the darkness behind the door.

“Who dares to seek what was buried?”

Clumbo stepped forward, heart racing. “I’m not here to steal,” he said. “I just want to understand why the key called me.”

A pause.

Then:

“To open is to awaken. And to awaken is to risk release.”

The ground trembled. One of the braziers cracked.
A hiss echoed through the chamber.

From the far edge, something slithered.

Shivan grabbed Clumbo’s arm. “We’re not alone.”

From the shadows emerged a figure—not a person, not quite.
It looked humanoid, but carved from bark and bone, with glowing sap for blood. Eyes like glowing amber.

It moved stiffly… brokenly. As though it had not been awake for centuries.

Then a second one appeared.
And a third.

Guardians. Or perhaps… remnants of something worse.

Clumbo whispered, “We activated them when we opened the path.”

Shivan backed up. “So how do we turn them off?”

“I don’t think we do,” Clumbo replied. “I think we have to pass the test.”

He turned toward the circular gate with the three rings. The patterns shifted slowly. A puzzle.

And behind him, the creatures began to move faster.

He had to solve it before they reached them or risk waking everything the forest had buried.

As Clumbo and Shivan stood before the great circular door, the air around them grew still, heavy with age and mystery. The braziers lining the room flickered with unnatural fire, casting dancing shadows over the door’s surface.

The massive stone wheel stood upright, half-buried in the floor like a relic from a world long gone. Three concentric rings spun independently, each etched with strange symbols—some looked like stars, others like roots, flames, and animals. The outer ring bore carvings of natural elements, the middle of celestial bodies, and the innermost ring displayed human figures in various poses—sitting, standing, holding tools or forming a circle.

Clumbo stepped closer, brushing dust from the lowest ring. As he touched it, the entire door hummed softly. Shivan jumped back, wide-eyed.

“Did you feel that?” Clumbo asked.

Shivan nodded. “It’s… alive.”

From the wall, a hidden panel shifted, revealing an inscription written in several languages—Tamil, Sinhala, Japanese, and English:

"Align what once was broken.
Earth, sky, soul—awoken.
The path will open when harmony is spoken."

The Puzzle:

Each ring rotates. A faint click sounds when the correct symbol is aligned at the top. The challenge is to align all three rings so the natural, celestial, and human elements are in harmony.

Clumbo turns to Shivan.

“Earth, sky, soul,” he repeated aloud.
“Earth must mean nature—the outer ring. Sky… the stars—the middle. And soul… that’s us.”

They decide to:

• Rotate the outer ring to align the tree with deep roots at the top.

• Rotate the middle ring until the crescent moon and star sit above the tree.

• Then slowly turn the inner ring until a figure seated in meditation clicks into place.

The humming deepens into a low, resonant tone. The three symbols begin to glow faintly.

But then—a hiss. Something shifts beneath the stone floor.

Shivan freezes. “Did… did you hear that?”

Clumbo nods. "I think we woke something up."

A long-forgotten mechanism groans to life… and from the far walls, cracks appear—something is moving.

The glowing rings on the ancient door began to vibrate gently, resonating with the braziers' now-blue flames. Cracks along the far wall—previously just jagged fractures—widened suddenly with a thunderous groan.

From within the darkness, a sudden gust of warm wind swept into the chamber, carrying with it the scent of sakura blossoms and woodsmoke.

Clumbo and Shivan backed away cautiously as the wall fractured apart like brittle parchment. From the shadows emerged a glimmering serpentine shape, winding through the air without touching the ground. It was a dragon—long, ethereal, and radiant with an inner glow. Not the violent kind from stories, but regal and composed, its whiskered face wise and ancient.

Riding just behind its head, standing as if weightless, was a girl in a deep blue kimono patterned with cranes and pine boughs. Her black hair was pulled into a simple Edo-era style, and her eyes were steady, calm, but alert. A small satchel was tied to her hip, and in her hand she clutched a weathered wooden charm etched with shinto symbols.

She stepped down from the dragon’s spine as it coiled protectively near the broken wall. The air settled around her with the quiet reverence of a shrine.

“I am Miki,” she said in softly accented English, bowing politely. “I was guided here by the sky spirit… after I passed my trial beneath Mount Atago.”

Clumbo blinked. “You passed a trial too?”

Shivan whispered, awestruck, “That’s a dragon… like a kami…”

Miki nodded. “Yes. In my time, we called them messengers of the heavens. I do not know why I was brought forward… only that the spirit said the world needs healing, and I carry part of the key.”

She raised the wooden charm. It pulsed faintly in response to the door, resonating with the same hum that had filled the room earlier.

Suddenly, the dragon let out a low, vibrating growl, staring at the door with ancient recognition. Then, with a flick of its tail, it pointed toward the innermost ring.

“Your puzzle is incomplete,” Miki said quietly. “There is a fourth ring—unseen. The one beneath.”

She knelt near the base of the door, placing her charm onto the stone floor. The charm shimmered and revealed a fourth, subterranean layer, buried just beneath the door's base. A secret element.

Clumbo whispered, “A hidden soul…”

Miki stood. “We must unlock that final piece. But I warn you: the final symbol is not just a key. It is a gate. And something has been waiting behind it for a very long time.”

The brazier flames danced higher as the three stood shoulder to shoulder.

Clumbo, heart thudding in his chest.

Shivan, brows drawn in solemn concentration.

And Miki, serene as a still pond, her charm pulsing softly with warm light.

The great circular door loomed in front of them—its three interlocked rings now glowing faintly, symbols crawling like embers across their surfaces. At the base, three narrow slots had revealed themselves. One for each of them.

Clumbo pulled the seed-shaped token from around his neck. Shivan unwrapped the sunburst pendant from his hand. Miki held her wooden charm, the shinto symbols now glowing faintly, pulsing in time with her breath.

As one, they stepped forward.

A moment of silence.

Then click—Clumbo placed his key into the left slot.

Click—Shivan pressed his into the right.

Miki, steady and reverent, set hers into the center.

The floor trembled.

The air turned thick with energy—ancient, wild, and alive.

The rings began to turn. Slowly at first. Grinding. Rearranging. Symbols shifted, aligning along unseen patterns. The heat from the braziers surged, then dimmed, leaving only a low red glow in the room.

Then—silence.

The center of the door filled with blackness.

Not shadow. Depth.

A passage.

They had done it.

But just as the gateway began to form—spinning like a whirlpool made of smoke and stars—something stirred.

A pressure. Not physical.

It was a voice—not spoken aloud but felt in the blood. A whisper of all things broken.

“They will turn against each other… as they always have.”

From the edges of the portal, darkness bled in. Not just shadow, but formless hatred—the heavy residue of history’s worst moments: betrayal, war, cruelty. It was not one being. It was many. All formed from every unspoken lie, every act of violence, every secret brother raised a hand against brother.

And it was coming through.

The dragon reared behind Miki, its body glowing brighter, radiant in defiance. But it could not act—not until the choice was made.

Clumbo’s eyes met the others. “This is it. The thing they warned us about.”

Shivan nodded. “It’s made of everything we ran from.”

Miki stepped forward, wind curling around her as the dragon’s energy moved through her like a current.

“Then we don’t run,” she said quietly. “We open the gate together. We face it. We clean the wound.”

They turned their keys.

All at once.

The door shuddered, then split with a flash of blinding white light.

And what came next was a battle not just of strength, but of memory, belief, and unity. A test to prove the world was ready for a century of peace. A chance to heal the very past Clumbo longed to return to.

But the darkness would not go quietly.

It never does.

Vocabulary

Yurt
A round tent traditionally used by nomads, made of felt or skins on a wooden frame.

Ethereal
Extremely delicate and light in a way that seems too perfect for this world; otherworldly.

Kami
A divine spirit or god in the Shinto religion of Japan.

Manifestation
A visible form or embodiment of an idea, feeling, or force.

Serpentine
Having the shape or movement of a snake; winding or curving.

Braziers
Metal containers holding fire, used for heating or lighting.

Gateway
A passage or entrance, especially one that is seen as opening the way to another place or reality.

Whiskered
Having long, thin hair or bristles, typically describing an animal’s or mythical creature’s face.

Guardian
A protector or defender of something valuable or sacred.

Turmoil
A state of great disturbance, confusion, or uncertainty.

Ancient
Belonging to the very distant past, often associated with wisdom or forgotten knowledge.

Harmony
A state of peaceful existence where different parts or people coexist without conflict.

Crimson
A rich deep red color, often associated with blood, danger, or intensity.

Rune
A character from an ancient alphabet, often imbued with magical or symbolic meaning.

Elders
Older, respected members of a community, often seen as wise or experienced.

Trial
A test or challenge to prove ability, strength, or worthiness.

Darkness (symbolic)
The embodiment of fear, hatred, ignorance, or evil in a story.

Centennial
Relating to a hundred-year period or celebration.

Sigil
A symbol believed to have magical power.

Warden
A person or being charged with the protection or supervision of a place or people.

Chapter 4: The Choice

The air grew heavier the moment the door cracked open.

A howling wind poured through the chamber—not with breath or storm, but with voices. Whispers. Cries. Screams. It was the sound of history’s pain—the war drums, the betrayed, the oppressed. All that had been hidden or denied, now pouring into the room like a rising tide.

And from the shadows behind that threshold… it emerged.

A figure—twisting, formless, yet terrible in presence. Its face changed moment by moment: one moment a weeping child, the next a soldier with empty eyes, then a furious parent, a corrupt leader, a hand raised in violence.

It was every war, every wrong, every broken oath.

Shivan stepped back, clutching his key.

Clumbo felt a tremor crawl up his spine, but stood his ground. His fists clenched.

“I could try,” he muttered. “Just… one hit. Stop it before it grows.”

“No,” Miki said sharply. Her voice was quiet, but her presence was unshakable. The dragon behind her coiled tighter in the air, glowing brighter. “You punch it, you become part of it.”

Clumbo looked at her. “But what do we do then? Just let it pour out?”

Miki lifted her wooden charm—etched with old Shinto symbols—and pointed toward the dragon. “We trap it. Like the spirits of rage, chaos, or storms in the old tales. We don’t harm it… just remove it from this world.”

The entity stepped forward, silent and watching, its swirling forms shifting like a mirror to Clumbo’s own rising frustration.

“You could punch me,” it said, in his own voice.

Clumbo flinched.

“Just like they all did. Just like everyone does.”

“No,” Clumbo said, stepping back. “Not this time.”

He breathed in.

Then lowered his fists.

The entity shuddered.

“You refuse me?”

“I see you,” Clumbo said. “But I won’t become you.”

The dragon roared—not in fury, but in command. A great circle of glowing kanji symbols lit up around the door. Miki whispered a mantra. The floor began to shimmer.

Shivan stepped forward, clutching his key in both hands. “We do this together.”

Each of them placed their key into the slots beside the door.

The chamber trembled. Light blazed.

The entity shrieked—not in pain, but confusion—as it was pulled inward, wrapped in threads of glowing light. The dragon circled, spiraling faster, its own body forming a celestial seal, until finally—

The door snapped shut.

The room went still.

Just the sound of three hearts, breathing as one.