[SWAMP 3 – PART C]

They’re only 200 meters into the swamp when they need to use it.

Masaru clicks on the flashlight, his mind gaining a short glimpse of another person’s life once again.

The beam cuts through the darkness like the distilled spirit of a soul.

“Oh,” Valerie coughs out. “That’s actually really smart of you,” she says, her tone slightly off as she looks at the flashlight in Masaru’s hand.

Actually? He wonders.

“Uh, thanks. Once I realized I could carry things over it all clicked for me. I wonder if people can just walk with people’s take-alongs and do the same thing.”

She shrugs. “Maybe, but your way’s easier... Does it weigh any more when you put stuff in that hidden compartment?”

He shakes his head. “Not at all,” he says, surveying the ground with the powerful beam of the flashlight. “I feel it a little, but it’s barely anything. I think it’s like video game storage.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, weightless but has a limit, unlike some of those western titles…”

She hums. “Oh?”

“Ancient Scrolls did it the worst: made the game totally unplayable if you got too much inventory. Just made you the slowest thing in the universe and you couldn’t fast travel until you dropped enough,” he says, illuminating their path as the night sounds flourish around them, the fireflies glowing even brighter to compete with the glow of the flashlight.

Valerie glances aside with a smile. “Huh, that sure sounds dumb. Probably a good idea to get a chest somewhere and put your stuff in there until you get a house of your own.”

Masaru stares ahead, still searching for traps, but his brow furrows. “Wait a second. Valerie: do you pl-”

“I mean, if I were a nerd I’d assume that’s the case,” she corrects abruptly.

The two share in a slight chuckle as Masaru slows just a little bit to give her a glance, one that she catches and returns with a smirk, not simply unembarrassed, but a little proud.

“You had me going for a bit there,” Masaru says, “Did you have a friend that played? Is that how you guessed?”

Her smile distorts into a wry smirk. “Seriously?”

He looks over. “Uh, what?”

She turns away with a scoff. “Keep watching the trail, sir.”

“Uh, right.”

Damn, was mom like this when they met? he thinks with a slight frown.

The two travel through the swamp for sometime, and amazingly, nothing much happens.

“This is going… well,” Masaru notes out of nowhere as they enter a dirt and root pathway with dark blue water at both sides.

The moon shines down in the spaces between the trees, filling the water with a comforting glimmer.

The fireflies haven’t let up, either.

Surrounded at all sides with an atmosphere that astounds as well as enchants, a rising sublimity strikes their hearts like waiting coals to be thrown into a furnace.

Valerie just nods at his words, keeping her eyes along the horizon of the dark for any huge figures moving between the cypress trees.

It’s entirely gloomy, and yet radiantly beautiful.

“So, I suppose we need to find a weapon that will kill it?” Masaru asks as he slowly tries his weight out on what seems to be a large branch laying against others to continue the path through the water.

“I mean, your guess is as good as mine,” she says as she follows him along, but not too closely to overweigh any of the wood pieces.

“Kenji’s the only one that got some finished, right?” Masaru asks, holding his arms out for balance as he travels across the next piece of large driftwood.

“Unless Sato’s hiding something, yeah.”

Masaru nods. “So, did you ask him at all what he… did to beat his monsters?”

Valerie sighs. “I mean… yes, but he wasn’t totally sure himself. Apparently he hit his head a few times pretty bad when he was in the Army.”

“The Army? You mean the Self Defense Force?”

She nods. “Yeah, that’s it. He just said that he ‘figured out the puzzle’ and after he did that he could defeat The Enemy and that area wouldn’t return on his following loops.’”

Masaru hums as he relaxes his balance with a slower speed. “Kind of weird that if he figured out those, why couldn’t he figure out his other three?”

Valerie’s quiet a moment as the thousands of frogs around them sing in a cacophony of glorious discord: a disorder that is so wonderful to hear it attains the same beauty as an orchestra’s finest performance.

“So one is The Swamp, he told me that… Honestly your guess is as good as mine, and his… but for the other two, he didn’t really talk about them. Just ‘stuff from the past’ apparently.”

Masaru nods. “That sounds rough.” Stepping along a part that dips in a little, he chuckles with a crass tone. “I could only imagine what my dad would be going through. He’d probably have just one big problem: don’t be a dick to your son,” he guesses. “That old asshole never cared about me. Only about the appearances of me embarrassing him. He didn’t want a son like m-yeywoah!”

It's a splash, and the fireflies scatter about the second Masaru swings up.

“Help me! Help!”

Valerie’s already there. Flipping around her rifle, and gives him a hold with her buttstock, and pulls him back over to the floating walkway.

“Are you okay?!” she asks, brushing the sticks off him that were floating in the murky but otherwise clean water.

“I’m…” Masaru leans down a moment, ensuring he’s as stable as possible. Valerie raises a brow as she watches him hyperventilate there, trembling as if suspended on a mast at the top of a skyscraper.

He takes a few calming breaths before speaking again. “S-sorry, I just… I hate water.”

“You… hate water, monsieur?” she asks.

Wait… why did she say it like that?

She looks down at him as he slowly gets back to his feet. “Can you… not swim?”

Turned away from her, he balls up his fists.

This is it. I’m finished, he thinks. I screwed up. Who’s ever heard of a grownass man who can’t swim?!... She’s going to think I’m worse than Sato.

Taking a long, calming breath, he turns around to face her. “…Yes. I can’t swim.”

The fireflies return and the frogs continue with their symphony as Valerie takes a step forward. “…Did something happen when you were a kid?”

His brow twitches. “What makes you think that?”

“I mean. It’s rare in a developed country, I guess. I’d imagine your parents at least tried to teach you.”

He pauses, looks aside to the kaleidoscope of beauty across The Swamps, and comes back with a nod. “I had an accident when I was a kid…”

Valerie’s quiet, as if sensing he’ll continue.

“…I was out there for a while. I probably would have gone under… if some random dude didn’t run in and get me. My parents were there too… but they didn’t notice. Apparently work and social lives are more important than your kid’s life… but whatever,” he says, shaking the flashlight for trapped water before taking a few steps forward into the watery pathway.

“I’m… so sorry,” Valerie says, tears welling up in her eyes as Masaru waves it off dismissively.

“No, it’s all good. I’m sure they love me, but not enough to really raise me right. It shows, I gue-yaoh!”

This next log dips down slightly like all the rest, but unlike all the rest, it also depresses a tripwire. Painstakingly strung all the way across their marshy clearing, the line twangs against a tree and deeper out into The Swamp.

The two of them look at each other, their eyes wide with horror as the sound of the frogs dies out, and their world relies only on the moon for light.

The clouds roll in. The noise engulfs them.