Saturday morning blues

John’s sleep was not a peaceful one. Moments after he closed his eyes, visions of the tree, Mariel and the explosion that happened after kept playing out in front of him. The scene playing again and again caused John to toss and turn in real life. The dream shifted, morphing, showing him random fragments of his past. His first time camping with his father, a birthday when he was just a kid, walking his neighbor's dog. And then, a scene from his gaming life, he himself sitting behind his computer, headset on and casually making bad jokes at one of his friends. The friend on the other end sounding female, teasing him right back. He remembered the warmth he felt when talking to her. The interest she showed in him. They even agreed to meet one day. The dream moved to the day of the meeting, and there he was, standing around the middle of town, waiting for someone that would never come. After that he never saw her online again, the account got deleted, and he never heard from or saw her again.

John woke up to Cynthia shaking him, lying in a small pool of his own sweat. Her worried face was inches from his as she kept shaking him. “John, what’s wrong?”

She looked cute when she was worried, John noticed. He shook his head. ”Nothing, bad dream, don’t mind me.”

“Really? A bad dream makes you yell out Alexis half a dozen times?” Cynthia asked him with a crooked wink. “Well, then I really want to know what a good dream is to you.”

John rubbed his face as he swung his feet over the side of the bed, groaning softly. “Well, yeah, sorry. Dreams, bad ones. Memories I'm not fond of. You know?”

“You can tell me, you know, maybe it will help it fade from your mind? Also, good morning, John,” Cyn teased as she kissed his neck, reeling away as she waved her hand in front of her nose. “Okay, no more kisses till you take a bath or a shower! Man, you reek!”

John laughed sheepishly as he nodded. “Well, okay, can you show me the place you guys wash yourselves then?” John asked as he scratched the back of his head.

“Of course, this way. Careful though, you seemed to be in a lot of pain a few hours ago.”

John stretched his limbs, feeling a slight soreness but not the excruciating pain that he had experienced the day before, nodding slightly. “I can move, I won’t be as fast, but I can move.”

Cynthia nodded, starting to lead John through the camp. The sun was slowly rising, it was after dawn, that much was clear. A quick look at his cellphone told him it was around 7:30.

“What time did I enter the forest, and what time did I get out?” John asked curiously as Cynthia stretched her limbs; a soft popping sound could be heard as she just walked on.

“You went in around 7, got out around two, well, we dragged you out around two. We slept like four hours, why?” she asked him, cocking an eyebrow as she looked him over.

“Just curious,” John responded as he saw something move in the distance. A small gorgon was dragging a rather large, brown, spotted egg around. “Ehm, Cynthia…” John started, nudging his head at Mimi. Cynthia turned to look at Mimi, seemingly just as confused as John.

“Mimi! Can you get over here for a second?” she yelled as the small girl turned her head, then nodded heavily, using her snakes to carry the egg while she walked over to the two of them.

“She didn’t lay that herself did she?” John asked Cyn only to get an elbow in his ribs.

“Gorgons are mammals, John. They don’t lay eggs.”

“Careful, don’t want you to finish what the Nightmare couldn’t, now would we?”

“Don’t give me ideas, John,” Cynthia teased.

By the time the lovers were done with their little quarrel, Mimi finally was close enough to talk. The first one to speak was Cynthia. “Where did you get that egg Mimi?”

“I found it.”

“Where?” John asked with a slight cough.

“Dunno.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I went to bed, I had a nice dream, then when I woke up, I was cuddling my egg.”

“You… Randomly woke up hugging an egg?” John asked while pinching the bridge of his nose. Of all the people in the Abyss, Mimi was the one he understood the least.

“Yes. Is mine, my egg, all nice and eggy!”

Cynthia coughed softly. “Well, alright then. Make sure to let dad look at your egg so that we know it’s healthy, alright?”

Mimi nodded while she patted the egg softly. “Egg, egg egg! My egg egg egg! Best friends, friends friends!” she started singing as her snakes dragged it along. “I’m gonna show you off to Toph and Jack! Come along, Eggy!”

John laughed as he heard this, nodding as he pulled two pork chops from his inventory. “Can you feed them this too?”

Mimi looked at the pork chops, then at John. “Only if you give me one to feed to Egg too!”

John looked at Cynthia who shrugged. “Sure,” he said a few pondering seconds later, handing her a third porkchop.

With a loud, cheerful “Yay”, Mimi walked off into the distance, Egg slightly dragging over the ground as her snakes pulled it along.

“Right, washing. Come along, we are almost there.” Cynthia chuckled as she took John’s hand and they finally cleared out from between the tents; unlike the times they were going to see Old Fred, this time they were on the side of the granite wall. “The barrier has all we need to live, except for food. I mean, watch this,” Cynthia whispered as she pointed at a large cave entrance in the cliff face; upon closer inspection, John saw that what looked like a very shallow cavern was just a cave with a large wall about a meter in; on both sides of the wall there was a wide walkway, leading around the wall that blocked whatever lay inside the cave from view. John followed Cyn, his hand touching upon the rough stone, fine, black sand trickling down from where his fingers had brushed it.

Walking further, John felt a blanket of heat wrap around him. The cave they walked into was a large, open area; most of the roof was smooth, with some holes strategically placed to allow the entire cave to have visibility yet not lose it’s cozy lighting. Near the entrance John spotted a dozen yellowish pools, vapors coming off of them as hunters moved around in about half of them. Further into the cave there were crystal clear ponds of about the same size, and totally in the back, there was a large, tranquil lake. A trio of waterfalls kept up a fresh supply of water for it; the soft rustling of water echoed through the cave, soothing John’s mind, giving him a rustic feel.

John also noticed that most of the pools were occupied. A large group of hunters was swimming in the lake, frolicking about, washing themselves underneath the waterfalls or getting it on with each other. He spotted, without actively searching: a hunter getting blown by two huntresses, a huntress knuckle deep inside her companions folds while they made out, a huntress casually chatting to two others with her wrists moving in such a way it was obviously not the heat that made her companions blush, and a huge amount of hands moving around under water. The amount of wet, glistening, naked bodies on display here would have not been amiss at the playboy mansion. John swallowed heavily, this being the first time he realized that all of the hunters were sexually liberated; to them, this was as normal as breathing.

Cynthia waved her hands at the world of watery wonders proudly. “We have mineral pools, cooler, ice water pools and the big lake in the distance. It’s generally so that couples prefer to use the smaller ponds while the people that are single, or are looking to mingle, use the large pool in the back. Though there are no rules about this, it’s just a common practice.”

Then, when she realized that one of the mineral pools was unoccupied, she pointed at it, dragging John towards it, causing the guy to almost stumble as he was distracted by the beauty of the granite cave.

“Careful! I am still not in perfect condition!”

“Woops, sorry,” Cynthia giggled as she started to undress. “Get naked, buddy, it’s time to wash, relax a bit, and for you to tell me about this ‘Alexis’ of yours.” While she poke, Cynthia was pulling off her clothes, leaving them in a messy pile on the side, then without a shred of embarrassment, she stepped into the pool, sitting down near the edge of it with just the tops of her breasts exposed by the water.

As John un-equipped his boxers to join her, Cynthia’s eyes went over his chest, remembering something, it seemed, as she pointed at it.