15. Beautiful Pain

The puzzle was solved. We had to wait for the right moment to make the gem shine and match its symbols with the ones on the ground. I worked quickly, double-checking everything around me. Polly was watching me from a distance, as he couldn’t do much. When I looked at him, I paused for a moment, a thought creeping up on me. Part of me didn’t want to return to the new world. I had experienced so much here and, most of all, I had met Polly – a friend who had been there for me when I had felt lost, and always saw things in a positive light.

I sat down with him and my emotions caught up with me, a tear escaping my eye as I looked at him. I reached out, gently petting his head.
“Thank you, Polly. For everything. I’ll never forget you,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
He got up and walked over to me, hugging me with his tiny, fuzzy paws. I held him tightly. As he pulled back, his paw left a dirt mark on my arm. We both giggled, and then I looked at a bracelet I was wearing and took it off.
“Here, keep this. So you can remember our friendship and the journey we went through together,” I said and tied it around his paw.
He smiled gratefully.

Then the sun started to shine brightly, different from before – it was time. I stood up, wiping away my tears. Polly floated next to me and handed me the gem. While taking a deep breath, I held it high above my head, feeling it warm up as it caught the sunlight. The marks aligned perfectly and started to light up. But something felt wrong – the color didn’t change. There was no sign of a connection to Bloodmoon Island. Panic started to grow inside me as I looked at Polly. We both observed the island. It was still red, nothing had changed.

Just when I started to lose hope, the markings on the ground slowly shifted to red. The gem also transformed its color to vibrant red. My heart skipped a beat when the gem started to shine brightly, more than it had done before.
“It’s time,” Polly said with a soft voice but filled with emotions. “Put the gem against your chest and close your eyes.”

I nodded, my eyes filled with tears when I was watching him. I put the gem down and with shaking hands I placed it against my chest. I could feel the warmth get to me and the energy shifting. It felt like I was no longer in the same place, but caught in between two worlds. I saw shadows, like they wanted to keep me from going back to my own world. Eventually, it felt like someone was pulling my arm. The shadows disappeared, and it felt like I was sinking into something familiar. I calmed down, almost like I knew everything was going to be alright and that I was safe now.

“We’ll meet again,” I heard Polly his voice.

That was the last thing I heard before I went numb.