The Mystery of the Mask: Part 5

The ocean had begun to rain on the fight as drops of fell from the suspended water.

Jynx flew back into the sky and yelled. “You think you can stop this?!” He cupped his hands together and shot a beam of green light into the Monehemoth. The beast was overpowered by Jynx’s spell that it turned and tracked down Lionel in the sky. It threw its long arms behind itself to wind up and then thrust its palms together to clap at Lionel.

Lionel shot up in the sky and narrowly missed the crushing attack, but the shockwaves tumbled him in the air. The Monehemoth reached out and grabbed Lionel, holding him in his grasp and beginning to squeeze. Lionel freed his right arm inside the hand and tried casting an orange light into the eyes of the beast, but Jynx’s power was too strong – all Lionel could do was slow his death.

The Monehemoth began crushing Lionel, who was screaming from agonizing pain. Just then a rock flew up in the sky and pelted Jynx in the skull. He shook his head in confusion, brushing off the pain, and looked down to see Karmen tossing a second rock up at him.

The distraction allowed Lionel enough time to begin taking over the Monehemoth. Their powers were balancing, equal possession of the monster, swaying back in forth in control as Karmen continued to hurl rocks at Jynx. Jynx caught the rocks with his power and flung them back at her, but she rolled out of the way and chucked another rock.

After she hit him again, Jynx groaned in frustration and flew towards Karmen. He grabbed hold of her and lifted her high in the sky, holding her above the earth higher and higher as he flew. Jynx stopped flying; Karmen looked down and saw the terrifying drop below, sure to kill her on impact.

Jynx let go, watching Karmen fall. She flailed her arms and screamed. She was suddenly snatched in the air by the giant hand of the Monehemoth, whose eyes glowed orange in total possession by Lionel.

Jynx stomped his feet in the air and cupped his hands to fight back for control of the monster when the Monehemoth grabbed Jynx with his giant hand and began to squeeze. Jynx squirmed and choked from the crushing pressure; his arms were pinned inside the beast’s palm.

“Karmen!” Lionel called out as he floated the Monehemoth’s other hand where she stood. “Karmen, you have to wear the mask.”

“What? No! I can’t!” she refuted.

“Yes you can, you have to.”

“Why?”

“We have to stop the ocean from flooding the earth. You have to stop Jynx.”

“No I can’t, Lionel. What if I’m not strong enough?”

“You are,” he nodded at her reassuringly.

She looked at him and saw the sincerity in his eyes. She was scared, but just as he trusted her to believe him she chose to trust him in return. The Monehemoth’s hands moved together and brought Karmen up to Jynx.

“You’re nothing! You’re worthless!” Jynx shouted at her. “You can’t hold the power, you’re not like me!”

“No. I’m not.” Karmen clutched her fingers around the mask. “I’m not like you at all. I will wear the mask.” She pulled against the wooden mask as green light poured out from Jynx’s face. A green tornado of light swirled around her, trapping her in the vortex as the mask fixed itself on her face. The power coursed through her, heating her body and sending waves of foreign pain up and down. She fought back, seeking to wield the potential of the mask.

Lionel watched Karmen rise into the sky and cast a beam of green light at the Monehemoth. The monster dropped Jynx’s body on the ground and clenched its fist, shaking as it did so. Lionel responded and focused his power at the beast.

The Monehemoth lifted its hands in the sky and held the ocean with its abilities over Crater Town. It roared in its reversed speech and pushed the ocean through the sky back to the earth. The rain ceased as the ocean plummeted into the massive bank it belonged in.

The sky cleared, brightening back into the evening sun, as the green aura that hung over the forest began to dissipate and retreat back into the unconscious body of Jynx.

Jynx awoke and pushed himself off the ground. Lionel saw his face; he was just a teenager – alien-like, with long black hair over his unusual head, but clearly adolescent and naïve. Jynx looked around the town and saw the people leaving their homes as green light left their bodies, no longer held prisoner by a spell that trapped them indoors. They regained consciousness and surrounded Jynx. He spun around, plotting an escape – now powerless – and sprinted, pushing through a woman and jumping on Karmen’s horse.

The town ran after Jynx into the forest while Lionel flew to the top of the bell tower and held Adam’s limp body in his arms. The weak six year old barely moved, opening and shutting his eyes. Lionel brought him to his

parents, who wept as they reclaimed their son.

Jynx galloped through the forest, constantly looking back at the mob that chased him. And though he was much faster, he was still afraid. As he was looking back, a tree branch snagged him by the hair, shooting through his long black hair and hanging him off the ground as the horse continued to gallop. He kicked his feet in the air, trying to pull his hair loose. The mob came and closed in around Jynx…

Lionel returned in sky to meet Karmen, who moved floated above Crater Town beside the Monehemoth.

“What do we do about this thing?” she looked up at the giant monster.

“I’m not sure we can make it leave without going with it,” Lionel admitted.

“Then do we bury it again?”

“Perhaps.”

“If we do,” Karmen processed, “we have to move its body through the earth, just as Onyx did. That way it can’t be known which hills the Monehemoth is buried under.”

And so, Lionel and Karmen cast the spell over the Monehemoth that put it to sleep, which they buried the monster in the earth. The spell shifted the beast throughout the earth decades at a time, for centuries, until it was lost to man which hills the Monehemoth lay under. As for Lionel and Karmen and the masks, they remain hidden somewhere in Crater Town, which was never marked on a map to this day, with the masks to protect anyone from awakening the Monehemoth. The only fear was if the mask, through time, would twist their minds, like the pale man, and convince them into giving the masks to someone new, someone with evil in their hearts and awaken the Monehemoth. Only time would tell.

The End.