When I said I would update whenever I could, I meant it. 

Also, I hope to have a chapter of Grasping Fate out by nest week! Whooooo!

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Destiny Calls

Chapter 3

"As long as the relationship lives in the heart, true friends will never part"

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-Day III-

Max gasped as he sat upright, his eyes wide in terror and shock. He looked around in panic, blinking several times to adjust his eyes to the bright light. He calmed down when he recognized his surroundings as the house he remembered being in with the other three people.

That was until everything he saw came rushing back.

Was he dreaming? Was this even real? He could no longer tell if the life he was living was true. He kept getting thrust back to that impenetrable darkness, the only thing he's ever known, or the only thing he feels like he's ever known.

He's terrified. He doesn't want to go back, to see nothing but pitch black, to feel nothing, to have no sense of direction or time. Like time and space did not exist there. His breathing grew short and he started to shake.

Was anything real? His heart started to thump in his chest, he felt like he was floating, he felt like nothing was real, that everything around him was just a figment of his imagination. Everything looked blurry to him. He wanted to be free...

He just...wanted to be free...

He didn't want to die--

His breathing hitched in his throat, death.

Words started to spin in his head.

If you fail your task, then your life will be taken by my curse.

Slowly the darkness will reach to entangle your soul. And when it does... You lose...

You.

Lose.

To him, the world felt like it was getting smaller, and smaller. Everything was spinning. He could not make sense of his surroundings. He was panicking, he was afraid. He thought he could hear someone yelling at him but he was not sure. He wasn't sure of anything anymore.

"Max--"

"Max!"

Someone was calling him, or at least by the name he had chosen. Were they real?

"Max! H-hey Max! Can you hear me, please calm down!" Max could hear their voice clearly now. A voice filled with panic and worry, they were worried for him. Through the fear he tried his best to focus on that voice and little by little the world got a little less blurry and his heart grew a little calmer. His senses were returning.

He forced himself to breathe slowly, and as the world around him came into focus. He could see Red and Barney watching him with concern. He was back here, however he didn't feel as relieved as he wanted to be.

"Max, thank Notch, we weren't sure if we could calm you down," Red told him. The he added light-heartedly, "We were afraid we may have had to knock you out!" He tried to lighten the mood with a silly joke, but Max just looked away. When his joke failed he said, "Sorry about your shirt. The doctor told us to feed you liquid foods while you were asleep, and well... We may have spilled a bit--no, a lot on you."

Max looked down at his black T-shirt, that he just now noticed was kind of wet and stained.

"But don'ts you worries, we gots Ross to buys you new one," Barney added.

Max mumbled a quick, "Thanks," before rolling off the couch to stand. He wobbled and almost fell right back to the ground, but Barney and Red were there to catch him.

"Whoas dude, maybes you should rest," Barney tried to get Max to sit down but Max untangled himself from their grasp.

"I-I'm fine, thanks..." Even though he was panicking right now, he could not get the idea of his death out of his head. Those words still ringing through his mind, it spooked him. He didn't want to die. He was afraid of what would lie after death, more darkness? He was afraid of everything being a lie, that nothing was real. Maybe he just went insane.

"Hey Max, are you ok?" Red approached him and he turned away.

"I'm fine, really."

"You didn't seem fine, you were out for a day, and the entire time you never stopped tossing and turning and often times you kept repeating something...uh something about Duhita, and black stone--"

"Where Duhita lies, my kingdom thrives, among black and purple stone." Max interrupted.

"Yea! That one! What does it mean anyway, if I may ask?"

Max glanced at the ground before turning to face Barney and Red, "It's a riddle I'm sure. No, they're directions, a riddle of directions to a person. The person who freed me. All that I can piece together with my shattered memories is that I have to find her... or I'll...I'll die."

~~~~~

"D-die? Oh c-come on... Quit exaggerating..." Red tried to say calmly, however his voice betrayed him.

"How long have I been asleep?" Max asked.

"Ones day," Barney answered.

"Thanks," Max then started to mumble, "That means yesterday was the third day or whatever, and now the curse should already be working to kill me, if I don't complete my task soon. I don't know of an exact time limit, but it doesn't matter, I'm already a day behind--"

"Max! Jezz, what are you going on about! Curse? Time limit? Death? Please explain!" Red interrupted Max.

Max looked down at the ground. What should he say? He didn't know them, or at least didn't remember knowing them, how much would be good to tell them--

"Guys! I'm back, I have new clothes--" Ross ran in through the door waving a sweater, however he tripped on the way in. As he fell he crashed into Barney who tried to catch Ross. The two of them stumbled back towards Max.

Reflexively Max held out his arms to stop them, and that was when he noticed it.

Like the tips of his fingers had been dipped in ink with white-grey smoke trailing his fingers. It was too late for him to stop. Ross and Barney came crashing down on Max, each of his hands touching one of them.

They fell crashing to the group, a flash of white light and horrible screaming filled Max's ears.

"Guys!" Red yelled. When the light had dimmed down, Max was staring at his hands in fright, now almost half of his hand was covered in this darkness. Was this the darkness that was to envelop his soul?

"Oh my Notch! Ross! Barney!" Red yelled before kneeling to the floor near where Ross and Barney had fallen. He reached out to them, but did not touch them, he was to scared to. Each of them sat up and took one look at each other before backing away and shouting in fright.

"What the dirts happened to you Ross!"

"What happened to me? What happened to you! You're a...a purple lizard thing!"

"Yous are a horned fish with fins!"

Each began to touch their faces and indeed they had been transformed. From human to morvic with one simple touch. And through this entire ordeal, Max could only stare in guilt and fright. This was his fault. He had done this, but he didn't know how or why.

"Max...what did you do to them?" Red said in a hushed voice, he stared at Max with a little bit of fright.

"I...I--" Max started to panic as the realization sunk in. He began to scoot back, far away from the others, "St-stay back! Pl-please, I-I don't know what happened, b-but I don't want it to happen again! Pl-please s-stay away from me!"

When Red saw how fearful Max was of himself in comparison to how scared he was of him he immediately regretted the way he looked at Max. He tried to put on a smile and say, "D-don't worry, it's fine, we don't hate you. I'm sure we can fix it, just...just do whatever you did to them and reverse it. Simple, right?"

Max wanted to nod, but he didn't know how to fix it. He simply looked away.

"M-Max? You can fix us right? Right?" Ross asked. Even without looking he could feel their eyes staring at him hopefully.

"I-I'm sorry, I don't know how. I don't remember anything! I don't even know who I am...the only thing I know is that I'm cursed, and now because of it, I've dragged you guys into it--I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, after all the kindness you should me, I only made your lives worse..." Max turned his body away from them.

He expected some sort of reprimanding, something, anything. Why weren't they angry with him? He ruined their lives and all he could do was apologize, they should be mad at him.

"Y-You said that if you failed to do something, the curse would kill you, right?"

Max heard Red speak up. After a pause he said, "Yes, at least that is what I think..."

"And if that happens then Ross and Barney would remain as they are, right?"

Max's eyes widened, that was true. If he did nothing, then they would remain cursed because of him. He couldn't leave them like that. He nodded in reply.

"But if you do whatever it is you need to do, then maybe you can fix everything, maybe when the curse is undone for you, it is undone for them."

Max turned to look at Red, "Maybe, I don't know...but...It's worth a shot."

Red smiled, and though Ross and Barney were still in shock, they smiled warmly at Max. Actually Barney gave Max a very toothy grin, with many sharp teeth showing, but that seemed normal for the somewhat rambunctious fellow.

"Then let's get packing! You said something about Duhita, right? Seems like a good place to start." Max nodded and smiled.

What did he do to deserve such kindness?

Whoa!

To clarify, what Max experienced at the end of Chapter 2 was the curse beginning to take effect. He passed out and and luckily for him, he recalled a memory that happened to be useful to what was happening to him. 

Next, Max is cursed, hence the black markings on his hands, and though you guys don't know the full details yet, the curse has some unusual side effects. So Ross and Barney are in a sense "cursed" but they don't have the same curse as Max. Max's curse isn't contagious, it is a bit more complicated.

Hope this made things clearer, I have a feeling people will be confused unless I said that.

~WrittenDarkness