The Scavenger Hunt (8) : Destiny City is hosting an annual scavenger hunt during the Star Festival to encourage people to get out and explore their city. The prize for turning in a completed scavenger hunt is a coupon booklet and a few free tickets to upcoming city events. Even if you aren’t interested in the prize, the scavenger hunt is specifically designed to take you through the city to showcase a few historic buildings, some art installations, and some of the city’s greatest accomplishments. While many of the places are familiar, during your explorations you come across a building you’ve never seen before--something that feels out of time. You’ve been in the area countless times before, so how did you miss this place? When you lay eyes on the building, you feel a strange timelessness and have the distinct sensation of being a part of something bigger. Briefly, you may see flashes of some distant past--a flickering memory that you can’t quite place or fully form. It’s hard to make out, but at some point in time you have the distinct impression of a faded figure taking your hand and telling you to do something. They sound hopeful and encouraging, like they really believe in you. By the time you blink, the visions are gone, the building is gone. The only thing that remains is a beautiful little garden and a plaque so faded that you can’t make out the inscription.
“C’mon. We’re already late.”
“How can we be late if there isn’t even a start time for this?”
“Because I said so. Shouldn’t you be used to this by now? And would you stop messing with your hair? It looks fine.”
Tristan scowled at his sister but followed her out the door all the same. How was it that she was still able to irritate him like this after so many years living apart? What happened to “distance makes the heart grow fonder?” Or whatever the saying actually was.
Arianne rattled on about something or other as they made their way to the car, piled inside, and drove off. Today’s goal was to complete the Star Festival Scavenger Hunt. Tristan was vehemently against wasting his time on such a thing–he was neither into the city’s history nor very good at scavenger hunts. But of course because his sister wanted to do it and demanded someone’s company, who better to fill that role than the younger brother who, as long as he wasn’t working or spending time with his girlfriend, couldn’t refuse?
It was actually more like he didn’t really know how to refuse if he didn’t have a good enough reason. Plus, appeasing her usually meant she was often also willing to return the favor. It was a win-win thing if he looked at it in the long term, but even being future-oriented didn’t stop him from grumbling the entire ride there. Arianne, in the meanwhile, was going on about something related to their family’s cafe. He half-listened, only nodding at appropriate times while stewing in his seat.
They parked at their designated spot by the cafe and walked to where the start of the hunt was, and before long they were off.
“This way, c’mon.”
“No, it says it’s on that street so it’d be faster if we go–”
“Ga, we both know you’re awful with directions.”
“Excuse me?” Offended wasn’t quite strong enough a word to describe his expression. “Who’s the one that got us lost on the way to the campsite that one summer?”
“You! You entered the wrong campgrounds in the navigation at home and we wound up on the opposite end of the stupid park. The ranger was nice enough to show us the way since it was getting dark.”
He thought for a second, back to his first year in high school when they went on the aforementioned trip, and the events that unfolded. His expression gradually changed from offended to begrudgingly apologetic.
“Right. Fine, lead the way.”
That was pretty much the theme for their day together, Arianne at the reins and Tristan just behind her cleaning up whatever mess she left behind. Thankfully there wasn’t a whole lot to mess up on something like this, so he was mostly just lagging behind her, demanding that she bribe him with ice cold treats and beverages if she wanted him to stick around the entire time.
To her credit, she never let him go without at least a cold water in his hand. Thanks to that, there were a lot of bathroom breaks.
Tristan softened to the idea of the scavenger hunt the more time they spent hunting, and after the third discovery had actually become interested in the information being shared. He grew up in Destiny City but hardly knew anything about what was being showcased through the activity. Truth be told, being a local he had really no interest in going to tourist spots. Maybe that was why?
Arianne was quite the opposite, going on and going about a lot of what they saw and pointing out tidbits of info that weren’t included on the tour. She was so knowledgeable Tristan found himself wondering if his sister had always been so interested in the city.
It was just after lunch when they headed off to do the last leg of the tour, and it was during this portion that they came across a peculiar building. While all the rest of what they’d seen so far was at least familiar to him, this one absolutely was not. He’d never seen it nor heard anyone talk of it. It made him do a double-take of the area they were in to make sure they were where they were supposed to be according to the tour. Sure enough they were, so he looked on with increasing curiosity.
“I don’t know a thing about this one,” he heard Arianne say beside him, though oddly enough she sounded further away than she actually was. If she said anything after that, he didn’t hear it at all.
The building seemed to stare right back at him. In him. A sense of purpose grew, like he was meant to be doing more, and was part of some bigger plan. He couldn’t place it but he found it comforting to think that there was something out there that he was meant to do, something designed just for him.
For a moment he saw flashes of new yet familiar people at what looked to be a ball of some kind. There was dancing, the flicker of a smile, the faintest sound of laughter, and then…
There was a sensation in his hand, and soon he closed it as though he’d taken hold of someone else’s. He felt the corners of his lips tug up into a little smile. His spirit lifted briefly as someone spoke silent yet uplifting words, a blessing of encouragement that made him close his eyes.
Arianne elbowed him hard in his side, which made him buckle sideways.
Whatever he’d seen or heard, it was gone now, and when he came to from the impact of his sister’s elbow he glared at her.
She wore an expression of irritation, and she deadpanned. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“N-nothing! I just…got lost in thought, that’s all.”
“About a garden that you’ve probably never seen before?”
“Garden? What gar–”
When he looked, the building was gone. In its place was a pretty little garden and an old, old plaque. He couldn’t even read the plaque, it was so old, and glancing around the building was just nowhere to be found, so.
“Garden. Right.”
“Uh, yeah. You okay?” The tone in his sister’s voice told him she was genuinely concerned even if she sounded like she was being sarcastic, so he nodded to stay her worrying.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Did you get the next clue?”
“Mhmm. It’s this way.”
With that they headed off, though Tristan couldn’t help but turn around to get one last, lingering look at the garden and its plaque. He could have sworn there was a building here, and that he’d seen something and heard someone. There was a lingering feeling that both were important to him at some point in time, but now the memories were lost to him, thus so were they.
1149 (gdocs)
