Episode Two, Part 4:
Some Kind of Closure

You're much too young now, 
so I'll write these words down: 
darkness exists to make light truly count. 

"Quill, over here. I think I've found it!" Wynn called out for his brother, desperately pulling on what he suspected to be the handle to the shelter which he wasn't strong enough to open it on his own.

Quill hurried over, grabbing onto the other side of the metal bar that was attached to the dark, outside wall of the building, assisting Wynn in trying to pull it open, but nothing was working.

"Have you tried pushing?" He asked in between breaths, letting go for a moment to crack the joints in his hands, needing any excuse to take a momentary rest.

"Yeah," Wynn nodded, sounding regretful in his answer. "And I tried the key and everything, but there's no key hole. It... It doesn't make sense."

"Well, maybe it's not the way in-"

"It has to be!" Wynn lost his cool a little, knowing that everything rested on his shoulders; if they saved Izzy or if they didn't, it was his weight to carry. After all, he was the one who gambled the odds by giving Sol the combination.

"Wynn..." Quill said his name, remaining exceptionally calm as he knew that he needed to someone to lean on instead of trying to face everything on his own. "We're going to get her back."

Wynn looked up at his brother slowly, hating to rely on him - hating to make him think that he couldn't handle everything on his own, but he needed him. And once he realised that Quill was there for exactly that - to help him, be at his side, pull him through anything - it didn't seem like such a terrible guilt to share the burden with him.

"We have to find another way in," he said, finally managing to take a breath of his own and face the world with a clear mindset.

Quill nodded. "We'll break in, if we have to... Besides, I have some pent up rage from everything that happened on Neptunum."

Wynn managed a slight laugh, still subconsciously flinching at the reminder, but proud to see how Quill had risen out of it stronger than he ever had been.

"Screw finding another entrance," Wynn said. "Smashing this place up to get Izzy back sounds like the best damn idea yet."

//////////

Izzy curled herself up in the corner of the shelter, finding that it was the only place she could hide herself away in and find some kind of isolation from everyone.

There must have been 50 people inside with her and out of everyone, Katherine and Dex from the Bunker were the only two people she recognised. She knew Elara had encouraged her to stay with them until she came back, but Izzy couldn't find a single ounce of comfort in them. If it was Harlow, it would have been different; they had been exceptionally close in the Bunker and they were even the best of friends, but it wasn't the same with the other kids and because of that, Izzy felt incredibly alone.

She eventually managed to calm herself down and bite back her crying, but as she leaned up against the two walls, her body continued to shake - unable to contain all of the fear that she was feeling. Although most of the cause was from being separated from Elara - not to mention that added circumstances of being taken by Calvin, Izzy was also caught up in the hidden memories of losing her father and wasn't quite able to convince herself that this would be different.

Elara and Kodiak had promised her that it was just temporary; that they had to leave her here to keep her safe, but Izzy was well aware of everything that could go wrong on the ground and knew that them being able to survive until the shelter was open, wasn't necessarily a choice that they could make. And what would she do without Elara, the person she loved most in the world?

It was already an eight-out-of-eight pain to say goodbye to her for a little while, so she couldn't bear to think of what type it would be if she lost her for good. For all she believed, it might have even been worse than losing her dad. After all, Elara seemed to be the one person in the world who understood everything she could ever feel and more so, the only person who managed to prove to Izzy that she could make it through anything. If she lost her, if she didn't have Elara around anymore, she wouldn't know how to keep on living; she wouldn't even know how to take another breath and deep down, Izzy wasn't even sure if she would want to.

Eventually, after what must have been hours of imagining all the ways something could happen to her family that would take them away from her for good, Izzy finally forced herself into finding a distraction.

Maybe sitting with Katherine and Dex was a good idea, she thought to herself, cautiously scanning her eyes around the large, open room where many people were sitting in groups, conversing with each other as though there wasn't a care in the world. She spotted them both crowded around several arm chairs as people from the other clan seemed to be telling them, and the other children that were inside the shelter, a story.

Her heart longed to move forward and listen to what was being said. She wondered if any of their tales would even come close to the heroic adventures of her Great Sovereign Kodi - which she had half an urge to go and tell them about, but she noticed the two, older-looking men sat amongst them and her chest filled up with fear all over again.

Was she ever going to get past it? Would there come a day where every other guy didn't remind her of Calvin or how it felt to be shoved inside one of his cells, believing that Elara would never find her? Could she ever feel brave again? Hadn't fear taught her enough? She hoped so. Hoped with the same hope that Elara had shown her when they were in the Bunker - the kind that made her believe everything could get better if you wanted it to, but she wasn't so sure that it was true. If it was, Izzy would have jumped straight into Kodiak's arms when the guard tried to pull her away from them - because she already missed him terribly and knew, against what her mind was telling her, that Kodiak would always protect her - or she would have insisted that Uncle Quill stayed in the shelter with her because she was only starting to realise how much his unintentional goofiness brightened the entire world around her and it was now a lot harder than usual to find the light without him around.

Perhaps, as scary as it was for her, Izzy's best bet was to distract her thoughts by herself and face the world on her own for a little while longer. She had already made it this far; what's a couple more hours?

She picked herself up from the floor and stood nervously in the corner for a few moments, struggling to find the strength to take a step after having been shaking for so long. There was a door immediately to her left and like usual, her curiosity got the better of her.

Izzy crept inside, half knowing that she probably wasn't supposed to be snooping around, but she didn't know anything else to do.

After shutting the door behind her, Izzy turned around to see a large desk in the centre of the room and various journals lying around that resembled the ones the had found in the greenhouse. She didn't bother trying to read them - none of them had been interesting to her before and she didn't suspect that it was going to change any time soon. Instead, she shifted her attention to the wall beside her, glaring at the map which was stretched out and looked awfully familiar.

'The City of Targo' the words read, written in large, messy handwriting at the top, spelling out one of the many places Izzy had called home in her short life.

She was lucky that she didn't miss The City too much; she already had a lot of things she missed at the young age of eight, and missing a home as well wasn't something else she wanted to carry. But even still, she couldn't help but smile fondly as her eyes traced the passageways marked on The City's mapped and as she studied carefully, she could even recall where exactly her and her dad had lived amongst everything else.

As her gaze drifted to the edge of the map, she noticed a large seal poke out from behind it, continuing in a circle which was mostly hidden over. It looked like some kind of door, she noted - something similar to one of the seals that had shut her inside the Bunker with everyone else.

As she began to wonder if anything was on the other side, Izzy jumped in place, suddenly startled by a loud pounding noise from outside of the room.

What was that!? She panicked, turning around to face the door, but it was still closed. She waited for a few seconds, hoping that it was just a once-off, but the noise came again, sounding more intentional.

Courageously, Izzy crept over to the door and carefully creaked it open just enough to allow her to glance one eye into the space outside.

Everyone seemed on edge - most people standing up and backing away from the entrance to the shelter, all seeming to be just as alarmed as she was.

But there was no doubt about what was happening: someone was trying to break in. Someone who wasn't supposed to be inside.

She remembered Elara telling her that - that no one could get in who wasn't meant to; no one could hurt her or take her away before they came back, but Izzy was sure that this wasn't a part of their plan...

Desperately wanting to hide herself away, Izzy shut herself back in the room and twisted the lock on the door but it didn't feel like it was enough. If the people outside could eventually manage to break their way into the shelter, then a simple lock on the door wasn't going to hold them back. She needed something else; some other kind of protection.

Izzy looked over at the desk, wondering if by pushing it up against the door, it would prevent it from being opened. If she stacked all the objects in the room in front of it, then it might create some sort of barrier that would trap her inside, but she knew she wouldn't know until she tried it out.

She moved over, carelessly sweeping everything off the surface onto the floor below, trying to make the desk as light as possible for her to move. She stretched out her fingers, resting her palms over the edge of the object, and pushed it away from her as hard as she could but... It wouldn't move.

As she looked under the desk, trying to figure out what was getting in her way, Izzy realised that it seemed to be connected to the floor, almost as if it was built in somehow. What was she supposed to do now? There was nothing else in the room nearly as heavy that could work in her favour; nothing that would even come close to blocking the door...

If she didn't figure out something soon, then the bad guys who were trying to raid the place would find her and for all Izzy knew, Calvin was one of those people. The fear in the voices she could hear outside of the room - everyone yelling at each other to stay back or inform someone of what they thought was happening - all worked together only to consume her in even more fear than she thought possible.

Think Izzy, think! She ordered herself. You need to hide! You need another way out of the room if those people get in! You need an escape!

Another way out... She backtracked on her own thoughts, realising that she might have been onto something. Another way out of the room!

Izzy turned to her right, wondering if her freedom had been right next to her all this time and she had no idea. She approached the map of The City, hesitating for a moment before she attached both of her hands onto it, desperately ripping it off of the wall. It crinkled by her feet - which soon stepped on top of it - and Izzy was faced with her prior suspicions. It really was a seal that the map was covering! But what was inside? Was it just a safe? Some strange sort of decoration? Or did it lead somewhere?

Realising that she needed to find some answers, Izzy grabbed onto the metal pole that was inverted into the seal, forcefully twisting it around until she heard a mechanical clinking on the other side, signalling to her that it was open.

As she pulled on it, Izzy was met with a dark and dangerous looking tunnel standing at nearly twice the size of her. To make things even worse, it was almost pitch black inside with only a distant light appearing from what looked to be around the corner of the tunnel.

Maybe staying inside the shelter wasn't the worst idea, after all, she thought to herself upon processing how terrifying the sight before her was. She had no clue where the tunnel led to, or what it was even used for, or if she would end up stuck somewhere inside a maze of dark pathways with only the smallest amount of light that would surely disappear come nightfall.

She couldn't go through with it. She couldn't risk-

Wait a second... She cut off her own thoughts. Light. There was light coming from outside!

With no one around to tell her if she was making the biggest mistake of her life, Izzy hurried her feet inside the tunnel, barely allowing a moment for the doubt to creep in as she pulled the seal shut behind her, not even sure if it could be opened from the side she was now on.

She underestimated how much darker it would be once it was shut, but she continued on nonetheless, trying not to imagine what was circling in the few inches of water by her feet. She hurried forward, doing her best to maintain her balance with one hand sliding across the cold, damp wall for added support, following the rare glimpse of light that was all she had left until eventually, she was running. Running towards the expanding light; towards the end of the tunnel; towards the large, metal railing which was all that stood between her and finding her family.

She was momentarily alarmed - beginning to freak out that she had reached a dead end, but she pushed herself to keep on running forwards, realising that hope does pay off after all and the railing in front of her proved to be insignificant to her escape.

Izzy was tiny enough to manoeuvre herself through the rusting, metal poles and soon ended up resting on the forest floor as she leaned back against the tunnel's exit, more relieved than she ever thought she would be to feel the blades of grass spike in between her fingers. Revelling in her newfound freedom, Izzy granted herself a few moments to catch her breath, not wanting to think about how exposed she was alone in the forest, without so much as a weapon to defend herself.

That was her next priority: finding a weapon.

Once she was calm enough to pick herself off of the ground, Izzy wiped the dirt off of her hands and blindly picked a direction to start walking in, willing to cling onto the first member of Basilisk she found, no matter who they were. She just hoped that it was a Basilisk she ran into and not Calvin again... 

Two // Part Four
Could she ever feel brave again? Hadn't fear taught her enough?

I LOVED writing this Izzy scene! The first Izzy perspective of Season 10 which feels so weird as it's closer to episode three. I know she's the youngest character, but she's unintentionally becoming the main character (sorry Wynn). I can't wait to write the Izzy spin-off series and I keep getting so many ideas for it and I can't wait to show you guys how much she'll have grown from what happens at the end of Season 10 to this new series set a few years in the future!

I truly love Izzy SO much and I can't wait for you guys to see her in the next chapter. it's going to have one of my favourite Izzy moments EVER. But... Grab the tissues, just in case.

In good news, I'm trying to go vegan and I've managed to eat a lot more vegan meals this week! Living in LA, there's soooooo many options available which makes it so easy for me to try and move into this different lifestyle, and today I ordered from a vegan Indian restaurant and it was delicious! Admittedly, and I don't know if this counts for anyone reading this, but I don't think I can quite commit to being vegan on the weekends... HAHA. But I'm telling you, after looking after TWO toddlers during the week, sometimes I just need a burger or a milkshake or both! But, I am surprised by how much I am enjoying these vegan recipes and adjustments considering how much of a dairy fan I am. I'm just wondering how easy it'll be for me to keep this up when I eventually return back to the UK considering my hometown is one of the most boring places ever with literally nothing to do and the COMPLETE opposite of anything LA.

Anyway, that's too much rambling from me. Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter!

06/06/21.

Mark 11:24.
Therefore I tell you, whatever you have asked for in prayer, believe you have received it, and it will be yours.