Traveler - The Price (Book 3)

We need magic to survive the cruel reality. Are we too fragile or is it the reality too rough? We tend to believe that everything we go through in life is preparing us for what we asked for. But is it possible that death isn’t the end? What if beyond death there’s life? What if what see as the end is just a new beginning and the life we live is only a stage of our existence?

The most painful goodbyes are the ones who don’t leave any explanation. People change, they move on, and sometimes, things go wrong, but all that matters is that life goes on, in every form it could be. People search for people. They look for people next to whom they don’t feel alone, who can bring them the feeling of “home.” If you have the right person next to you, you can go wherever you want.

The last thing I thought of when I was about to take my last breath was that no one is “me” and that is my power. Even if I had been told that the magic was erased from my world, I was sure about one thing, and that was that the magic inside me wasn’t gone because I still believed in it. I believed that much in myself too, and that was the reason I had asked Aaron if he trusted me. His answer made me not to give up, believe that everything is possible, as long as I believe in myself. After all, I was a Traveler, and even if I couldn’t return to my world, I truly felt that wasn’t the end. Aaron’s faith in me helped me a lot, but more the energy and the love he sent to me.

In the last moment, I thought about the Underworld, how it was going to be if I can go there with him, and our lives can move on there. I didn’t want our happiness to end yet.

I opened my eyes. The water was freezing, and I woke up on the shore, trembling, with my feet in the mud. I was holding Aaron’s hand. Everything was black and white, a sign that we had arrived in the Underworld together. He opened his eyes, and when he saw me standing next to him, he made a sharp sound of joy.

“We’re here! We’re together! We made it!”

“Aaron, we’re dead for good!”

“I knew that that couldn’t have been it! I knew it was just the beginning!”

He stood up, and he took me into his arms. It might have seemed an irony, but there we were, together, and that was all we had ever wanted. We moved away from the lake where we had woken up, and we started walking through that colorless world. It seemed a total madness, but we were the only souls from the Underworld who were holding hands and laughing. After a few steps, we realized that our happiness was contagious. We were leaving behind people who got out from their trances, and they were staring at us. Everything began to gain color. The lost and confused souls were waking up and running to the passing through the portal. They were moving on.

“It looks like this place needed just a little magic. A drop of happiness” I said happily.

“It needed you…” whispered Aaron shocked about what was happening around us.

We arrived at the Traveler’s cabin, which was now mine. Soon, everything was colored, as it was supposed to be. There was a place of transit for the lost souls. Happy endings existed, even if some of them were in another stage of the existence.

“Now, what’s next?” asks Aaron holding my hand.

“Now I’m going to wait for the next Traveler, but I don’t want to wait alone. Would you wait with me?”

“I don’t want to move on without you! You know that I had a first attempt to promise you forever. Then I promised you this exactly in this place, and I never had the intention of breaking my promise.”

“We have an advantage too. We don’t have to spend too much time in this place because a day here in my company means three months in the world up there. I hope we will see the others again, but not too soon. I want them to live their lives to the fullest, just as we did. To have what we had.”

At that moment, I realized that when Aaron had promised me forever, he meant it. The Universe has a funny way of arranging things just the way you want them, even when you start to believe that it would never work out for you. I realized that for everything I had lost I was rewarded tenfold, and without the darkness, in my life, I wouldn’t have been able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

When our lips were touching, I could swear I felt the taste of the eternity. It was a damn sweet taste, that was an addictive one. One thousand. That was the number that came into my mind when I was thinking about the years I wanted to spend with him. Or even more. Anyway, the time wasn’t such an important factor anymore.

Aaron:

“I knew I had made the right choice because I had chosen with the heart. I couldn’t have been able to tell her the truth because I couldn’t stand her feeling guilty any second about it. I had promised her I would never let go again, so I that was exactly what I did. I knew that beyond my faith it was hers, but also the desire to see each other again, so I took a chance, and I gained a lot.

When I told her that I trusted her with my life, I knew there was an opportunity for me to release my legs from the pieces of the car. But I didn’t do that because she couldn’t get free, and I wanted to keep my promise. I didn’t regret that decision for one second, and even if we couldn’t have arrived here together, I still wouldn’t regret it. Why? Because she had shown me another part of the worlds, a part where it was life beyond everything. A part where the magic and the faith triumphed. I knew we were going to see each other again because, inevitable, our souls were drawn one to another. In one way or another, we were meant to end up together.

It was a real and powerful feeling, a madness that covered all of me and I enjoyed it. This madness was called love, and it had started slow, like a spark inside my soul, but it had turned into a fire, and it finally got out of control. It took me over, but I learned to let myself into it, not to run from it, and that made the real me climb to the surface, to feel that I truly lived.

All I ever wanted was to be with Jo, to wake up together, to fall asleep together, to live together. I didn’t say clear in my wish the place where I wanted all of those things to happen. But it didn’t matter anymore, as long as I had all I had asked for right next to me.

Now we had time to feel, to live, to let the quietness take us into its arms, to lose track of time because you never know how long forever lasts. We had time to love each other. When it comes to love, you know what it is when you feel it.

When you meet someone who turns the world upside down to stay by your side, even if you unleash the Hell around you, even if you are a complicated person, you keep that person close no matter what. If you find someone who can see beyond your shell and your flaws, you can’t ignore that because it’s not something that happens every day.

I knew that Jo was incredibly beautiful and she had a unique madness. I loved that madness, but especially her. She took to the surface the best inside me, and I didn’t regret any moment that I had fallen in love with her.”

Jo:

“I wish I had met you before” he says to me.

“Why?”

“Because I would have wanted to know me earlier with your help. In a world where time was limited, I wanted to give you “forever,” but something kept messing with my plans. But now, I can do this because time isn’t relevant here anymore.”

“I love you, Aaron.”

“Do you realize we had to die for you to say it first?” he laughs. “I love you too, Jo.”

I learned that we are not supposed to be afraid of the end. Every end is a new beginning, which gives you a chance to start over and do something better this time. Maybe I was a crazy person, but I knew that he loved that kind of craziness. We were exactly where we were supposed to be because the faith knows how to arrange things so no one would remain in debt. Even if I had turned the world upside down to bring Aaron back, there we were, in the place where we were supposed to be in the first place. I should have seen it coming because it seemed logic now to be here, for we had played with forces we never understood. We had both fooled death so many times, but this time it had tricked us. Or maybe not? What an irony to be happily ever after. Only one thing mattered: we were together.

“You kept your word” I said. “We have forever.”

“You put the whole world on your shoulders, and you changed the Universe’s laws to bring me back to you. You never gave up on what you wanted. You have a stubbornness without limits, and this is what I love about you.”

“Be careful. I’m just level one. Are you sure you know what you got yourself into?”

“Sometimes, all that you need for having a perfect life are two seconds of insane courage, when you can say ‘yes!’. So, I tell you: Yes, I know what I got into, and I don’t regret anything!”

It was incredible to laugh and be happy as if you never knew what sadness was. I couldn’t recognize this new person I had become. Maybe that was the way I was from the beginning, and I needed hard times in my life to become “me” in the end, or maybe I had become that way after all I had been through. I was broken, but I found a way to put all my pieces back together somehow. Maybe I haven’t arranged them as they were before, and that changed me.

The magic appears when you don’t give up, even if everything around you tells you to do that. Even the Universe loves an incredibly stubborn person, and in the end, it’s impossible not to get what you want.

I was aware that my madness had touched high edges, but still not the highest ones, but I was free and happy. The risks that I had assumed had worth the price. Wasn’t it an irony how I felt so alive, even if I had died?

You need the courage to become who you are. All my roads brought me here, and that showed I was a Traveler and there was the place I belonged for the moment. But no anyhow, with a soul who gravitated back to me, always and under any circumstances, for we were destined to be together. This sounded weird coming from a person who had killed the Ouroborous, but with all of these, the word “destined” described us perfectly.

You have a sad feeling when you arrive in a place where you belong with all your being because you leave the loved ones behind. I knew I was going to see them again, and I couldn’t wait for the next stage, where I had no idea what was next. One thing was clear: wherever I was going, I was going with Aaron, and there were waiting other loved ones for me. I knew that as long as I believed in it, it was going to happen.

A mind is a powerful tool. When it is used by a Traveler like me, the magic takes part of the game. I made my rules. I truly believed in myself, and the magic was inside my soul. I knew I could make happen anything I wanted and I was happy that I had Aaron’s support.

I used to believe that people didn’t love me, the Traveler, but that they loved the picture of me they had created in their minds. In time, I realized that the ones who loved me, they loved me because they knew me and they loved the authentic version of me.

I hoped that I had left behind me something, a trace in people’s hearts, advice, a sign. I was happy because I had always tried to do something, change something, and I had always managed to shake things up a bit. I wasn’t always thinking with my brain, and that was the reason I thought the decisions made with my heart were the best ones.

I saw Aaron making something from a few springs. In the beginning, I didn’t notice what it was about to come out from that, but then I realized that in his hands were the answer to the question that I was asking myself for so long.

“It was you. All this time. You.”

“Of course it was me” he laughs and hands me the little man made of springs.

“It was you, long before I could ever imagine that it could be you.”

“Since I left it for the first time on your backpack, I wanted to say something to you, but I didn’t have the courage back then. Neither the second time, when it was lost and I made another one when you first came back from here.”

“Do you realize we had to die so you can tell me this?” I joked reminding him of what he had said earlier.

A thing so simple had managed to bring the smile on my face every time. And now I realized that it came from him too. For a very long time, everything had been about him.

“I’m curious about one thing.”

“What?”

“What were you doing for a living, before you came in Vals?”

“Would you believe me if I tell you I have no idea? I was just living one day after another, but I knew I had money. I had so much money that wanted to buy a house there!”

“So, you were still the same bad and tough guy who jumped in front of our van?”

“I don’t know who I was, but I know that when we had that accident in Vals, I got down from the car and I was about to start swearing and yelling, even if it was my fault.”

“But you didn’t do that.”

“Well, I saw you and something changed. I think I knew deep down my heart that it would be something intense between us. Honestly, I have thought about you all night, and then you just appeared in the house.”

“The ways of destiny are weird” I smiled.

“I don’t know who I was before I met you, but I know for sure I wasn’t myself. Neither the first time nor the second. You were always the one who made me question everything that was around me and about what I felt.”

“I am the luckiest person in the world because I met you” I said.

“You’re weird and terrifying beautiful, and a few knew how to love you. I am glad I was one of them and that I am here with you.”

Aaron took a spring and rolled it over my finger.

“This isn’t the ring I was planning to put on your finger, but it’s not like are shops around here, or like I had time to buy one. I hope you believe me when I say again ‘forever’.”

“It’s perfect” I whispered.

“I think the time we have to spend here would pass fast.”

“Fast, slow, it doesn’t matter, as long as we’re together.”

“Would you miss your life from before?”

“I’m opened to what’s new. I just want you to be on my right.”

“Actually, I’m on your left” he laughs.

“It’s just an expression!” I said smiling. “If I think about it, there’s something I will miss.”

“What?”

“Coffee.”

Aaron started laughing, and he put his hands around my neck. The Underworld was more beautiful colored like this. I could say that it was the happiest moment of my life, and the Universe agreed with me, and he liked my happiness too. It wasn’t testing my patience anymore, so it was a sign that I had finally found my place.

“Forever?” he asks me arranging the ring on my finger.

“This time you can be sure of it!” I respond.

We love many times in one lifetime, but only one love will burn us forever. That is the kind of love we should never let go. My story is the proof that happy endings are out there. We all define and see the happiness differently. Some believe that they achieve the supreme happiness when they get their most wanted family, others are happy with material stuff, and another category is formed by the people who have little and they believe that was the way their story was written. And nobody’s wrong because they’re all right in their way. When you stop believing you set your limits. The truth has always many faces and so does the happiness. It’s all about the angle you’re looking from. But besides these, there is another category, people who are grateful and who understand that the world is not what it seems to be. And this due to the experiences they’ve been through, things they’ve seen, and people they’ve lost. They are still grateful. To whom? Some would say to the Universe. I would say to myself. To them. I am grateful because I know that someone has always fought in the shadow for the world to be as it is. I know there’s always someone willing to sacrifice everything for the justice.

Even if I made a lot of mistakes, I fought to the very end to fulfill my destiny and I felt good. Am I asking myself what would have happened if I had done things differently? Sure. But with what purpose? What is done can’t be undone, and I know I gave all I had to do the right thing. Yet, I know that everything happens for a reason and when you think it’s all over there’s a way out. A new beginning. Or an ending that brings us happiness. It doesn’t matter how far it’s lost, our happiness is there. All we have to do is not to give up on it.

This is how I realized that my happiness started through the ending of a life stage, just in the new colors of the Underworld. And so what if we didn’t always get what we wanted? We created the perfection from what was given to us. And just like that, on our way to a new destination, I had that feeling of “everything” and I understood that I felt joy. And my soul was vibrating like in the summer days of my childhood.

The End

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