32(S3E6)-Worth Saving

32

(Season 3, Episode 6)

Worth Saving

36 hours before the instant…

Love is a great and terrible magic.

Had Zachariah had a normal life and never been pulled into this madness time and time again, he would still believe in magic because he had felt love.  When it finds you first, it gets inside you without rhyme or reason.  It is not quantifiable by any scientist (no matter what he tells you).  It cannot be broken down into a mathematical number or equation.  When love is in someone’s heart, it gives them power; power to change themselves and the very basis of their realities.  When it turns, however, it becomes a sickness unlike any other.  It cuts to the core of a person.  Physically, it can make you hurt in your bones. Mentally, it will take all your hope and leave you with the reality that you are a just a small person in a big universe and that you don’t matter.

This is the place that Zachariah presently occupied.  Add in the fact that he had recently been informed that he was the vessel of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and he was at an all-time low.

Zachariah had broken off from the rest of the group, who were planning their valiant mission to save him.  Valiant...  Zachariah tried to wrap his head around the idea of a bunch of assholes trying to save a guy they found trying to kill himself.

“Dude, what the hell?”  Zachariah was brought of his wallowing by the voice of his oldest friend and initiate to the magic world, Scott.

Zachariah shrugged.  “Oh yeah, sorry.  This is more than a little crazy.”

Scott shook his head.  “Yeah, it’s pretty insane, but that is not what I’m talking about.”

Zachariah took a second and realized that Scott was speaking of his attempt to murder himself.  “Oh… that.”

Scott’s eyebrows went up.  “Oh, that?  That is the best you got?”

Zachariah looked at the ninjas then at the dwarf, and finally at the druid.  “Scott, how are you so okay with all of this?”

Scott shrugged.  “I read a lot of fantasy as a kid, don’t change the subject.  If I had not shown up when I did, you would be dead.”

Zachariah nodded.  “That was the idea, buddy.”

“Are you kidding me?”  Scott snapped.  “It can’t be that bad.”

“How the fuck would you know?”  Zachariah stood, his anger was getting the best of him.  “With your fucking family and your happy life, what would you know?”

“Everybody gets dumped.”  Scott replied, exasperated.

“Oh stuff it.”  Zachariah said, angrily.  “I lost everything, my whole life was her and it turned out she was a mythical, soul-stealing monster.  I’m nearing thirty and I got nothing.”

“Look man, it’s just life.  Since when have you-wait, what?”  Scott started angry but ended up confused.  “Mythical, soul-stealing monster?  Did you mean that figuratively or literally?”

“Literally.”  Zachariah replied heavily.  “Very literally.  Not to mention, the evil me from another dimension who I watched die, because he was in love with a women that might not even exist here!”

Scott’s momentum was in trouble.  “So Mary as a …?”

“Succubus.”

“Really, a real one, and you fought another you?”

“From another dimension, he was hyper intelligent and used nano machines.” Zachariah explained.

“Wow.”  Scott said.  “That is fucked up.”

“Yeah.”  Zachariah agreed.

Scott attempted to rally.  “Well, that is still no reason to fucking kill yourself, man.”

“We have to move.”  Kahn broke into the argument.  “Mel will not hold forever.”

“Where, exactly, are we going?”  Zachariah asked.

Mel answered.  “We need to get to the chamber of time.  It is a place where all time in that place intersects.  It’s said that the chamber is directly connected to the time stream itself.  The Mages went in to prepare the spell to summon the Dahaka.  If one of us can get inside and stop them from casting the spell, we can stop the Dahaka.”

“And what?”  Zachariah cut in.  “Bring about the end of the world when the Four Horsemen get free?”

“One problem at a time, eh?”  Bevan said, nonchalantly.

Zachariah scoffed at him.  “What are you doing here, anyway?  I don’t know you?”

Bevan shrugged.  “Boredom?”

Zachariah stared in disbelief.  “You are going to face a time eating monster and the Four Horsemen of Hell because you are bored?”

“We have to get moving, we do not have much time.”  Kahn said sternly, trying to get things back on track.

Kahn had her ninjas open the door in the floor of the ancient church and began down the stairs to the garden below.  The group began to move and Zachariah tried not to think about the empty hunger in his stomach or where it had come from so fast.

****

10 years after the instant…

“I need to cast a spell to get us down there.”  The Killer said as he returned to the surface.

Big Green scoffed.  “Why should I?  You know what it costs for a spell like that?”

The Killer turned to him, his eyes cold.  “Do it.”

“I don’t take orders from you, ninja.”  He growled while pulling a stack of cash from inside his green suit.

“I need a bubble, on the double, to help us get into trouble!” Big Green said the words to the Leprechaun spell and the cash in his hand exploded into bright blue flame.  The legends of Leprechauns and their pots of gold is not without founding in reality.  The truth was, leprechaun magic was one of the most powerful of all, but it had a price, quite literally.  In order to cast any spell, the leprechaun needed a certain amount of currency which he would lose when the spell was cast.  This had ingrained a need for money of all kinds in the species, since they actually needed to be rich just to use magic.  They were trained from birth to acquire money and know all that there was to know about it.

The Leprechauns ad been shunned by Avalon because of their perceived ability to damage the world’s economy, something the humans needed to survive.  The Leprechauns had pleaded to have the council reconsider, that they would instill new restrictions on their people in order to regulate the economy.  Avalon wanted none of that.

A bubble with a green hue appeared around the four travelers and lifted them off the ground before descending into the hole.  They passed the Rock Troll’s cave and entered the gigantic subterranean cave, the underground lake below them and the forest in front of them.  The cave somehow stayed lit by magic.  The energies from what lay under supplied the garden with reality bending life.

The bubble popped and they dropped on the shore.  “We need to move quickly through the forest to the spiral.”

So, the chamber of time was located in the same place as Zersch in season one!  It’s like the author planned it all to end in the place it all began!  More likely, he’s just trying to convince you he meant to do that!

Next week on

Stranger Things; Zachariah’s Death.