Gone Fishin' Part 9 (Patreon)

A rolling wave of pink light emitted from the deep wound across the otherwise black sky. Silken hues of rose gold spilled from the tear, pouring into the frothing ocean below where it disappeared into the Deep somewhere only the monsters could roam. The boat drifted nearby as its occupants looked up at the widening chasm. It stretched tight, as if it were being tugged from both ends but it was not the tear that would end up breaking. It would be their world.

“Fuck.”

Milo’s sentiment was fairly accurate given what they were faced with. This was far larger than the sailors had ever reported and it was certainly bigger than what any of them had seen before.

“Thats too much,” Hazel swallowed. “Milo, you won’t be able to close that.”

It went unsaid that he had to. It didn’t matter. There wasn’t an option to simply leave this waiting off on the horizon. Yet, there was an overwhelming thought that Milo would not be leaving as the Gatekeeper this night. One of them would have to take the title.

“Alright,” Gabriel said, taking charge. “How do you go about closing these?"

Milo was staring at the tear, the light reflected in his eyes. “Usually? It’s small enough that a key would work. You stick it in and turn it like a lock.”

Belladonna glanced down at his keyring. “That seems almost comical given the size of the tear.”

“Yeah,” he breathed.

Hazel came up, putting his hand on Milo’s arm, rubbing it soothingly up and down. “You’ve faced big tears before. What happened with those?”

“Lots of keys,” he swallowed. “I threw a lot of keys at them.” His eyes were wide as he glanced around at all of them. “What? It’s not like this job comes with a manual.”

Malcolm was at the edge of the boat, looking up towards the sky. He had his head tipped to the side, hand reached out like he was tracing the edges of the tear itself. “I had to close one almost this size,” he said. “Not long before I died.”

“What did you do?” Gabriel asked.

“I tore pieces of my flesh off and stitched it up with the magic of the Night Market.”

Hazel’s gasp pierced the air as she stared at her brother in horror. She was no stranger to using her own body for magic, but when faced with it being Malcolm, she felt sick.

Belladonna was the only one not looking at him with unbridled shock and terror. She stepped up to his side instead, standing shoulder to shoulder as she also looked at the sky. “When you say you stitched it up, did you have to use a needle and thread or are you speaking in a more metaphorical tone.”

“Metaphorical. I think.”

“You don’t remember?”

“I remember pain,” he told her quietly.

“No.” Hazel stepped in front of Milo, as if someone was coming after him with a knife. “There is another way, isn’t there? There has to be.”

“Next,” Gabriel intoned. “What did you assume you would do when you came out here?”

Milo just shook his head. “Keys. Lots of keys. That’s what I’ve always done. I have an entire box down below. But that,” he pointed at the tear. “I don’t know what to do with that. That is not the size we were told.”

“Then we turn around,” Hazel said. “We go back and figure something else out.”

“It will only get bigger,” Belladonna said.

“Milo is not cutting off pieces of his skin! That is horrible. No one is doing that.” She was pacing now. “I can use magic. It needs parts of the Night Market to make up for the broken barrier, right? I can use my own magic for that.”

“Except you depleted yourself, Ms. Albright.”

“I can do it!”

“Alright, stop!” It was Milo, hands running through his messy curls. “Stop. We’re panicking. We need to get close to the thing. I need to see how it even responds to keys. I need to feel the damn thing like its a fucking lover or something and figure out what to do from there.”

“You are going to caress the tear?” Belladonna deadpanned.

“Yeah,” he said. “I am.”

They all stood there, exchanging apprehensive looks. The ocean was blessedly quiet around them, the boat still in the night. 

Gabriel sighed. “I’ll get us closer,” he said. “Everyone please sit down for safety.” It was with a resigned look that they followed his orders, the tear only getting bigger the closer they got.