It is Time
Jake
"I'm ok."
"I have to go to ground."
"I'll try and contact you soon."
MC
"Jake!"
"I understand."
"Be safe, my friend."
"Remember you have people who love you."
Jake
"Thanks to you, MC."
That was the last message MC had received from Jake. It had been 7 months since the events in the Ironsplinter Mines. The events that had transpired that night were hard on everyone in the group. Hannah was alive and reunited with her family and friends. She had a hard time believing that Richy had been the one behind it all. He never showed her his face during the entire ordeal. When she saw him being led from the mines by the officers, she was shocked when they cuffed him before taking him away in an ambulance under guard. He never even looked up at her, just hung his head in shame.
Jessy was possibly the most affected. She had gone through so much with her brother being arrested and finding out that Richy was the one behind everything. To have seen him over the video call as he lit everything on fire intending to end his life as well as burn all the evidence of his sin. A dark cloud had settled over her normally cheery mood. She was getting help, but it was going to be a long process before she was more herself. She never would be the same. None of them would ever be the same.
Lilly and MC decided it was best to tell Hannah about Jake. To give her a chance to understand the whole situation before she met him. If he ever returned. Neither MC nor Lilly had heard anything since those last messages the day after the incident at Grimrock. Hannah was shocked to learn that he was actually her half-brother, but it caused everything to suddenly make sense. The way he slowed and then stopped his communications. The awkwardness that had settled between them when they had been so close and at ease in their emails with each other. She was shocked to learn that he was a hacker and that he played such a big role in her rescue. She cried when she had learned that he even was in the mines that night trying to be the one to physically rescue her and that he had to disappear right after.
Lilly
"Morning, MC! How are you doing today"
MC
"Morning, Lil. It is cloudy here today."
"It makes it easy to feel sad."
"I could really use the sun today."
Lilly
"I have something to cheer you up!"
"The group has been talking and we think it is time that you come for a visit."
"We have grown so close over the past year. We feel like you have been part of our group forever. But messages and video calls are just not enough! Please say you will come to Duskwood and meet us all."
MC
"Hmm..."
"I do have some vacation time available."
Lilly
"And MC, I really think it would do Jessy good to meet you."
"You and she had become so close before, you know, everything happened."
MC
"You know, I think it would be good for me too."
"I have wanted to meet you all for a long time."
"Ok! I'll do it! Let me get the arrangements together and I will let you know when I can arrive."
And just like that, the plan was made. MC would finally visit Duskwood. Would meet her closest friends for the first time. Would see the forests where so much had taken place. Taste Cleo's amazing baking. To finally be able to hug Jessy and Lilly. To meet Thomas and hear Dan's gruff laughter in person. To visit the Rainbow Cafe and see Blackwater Lake. And maybe, just maybe, she would take Phil up on that drink at the Aurora.
...
