“Blind?” spit out Michael. “But wait, how? I mean…you don’t…”

“Like I’m totally curious too. Care to like share what your secret is?”

“I can see…light, just not shapes…The book…it wants to be read…So it whispers…in my sleep…tells me stories…shows me things…”

“Like I’m guessing you couldn’t really describe those huh?”

Sharon shook her head as she gripped the book tight. “I don’t…think I could if…I had a better frame of…reference…They’re…indescribable…maddeningly so…”

Michael rubbed the back of his neck. This was not where he had expected this conversation to go. “So for trying to read it you think we’ll go mad? Even if we don’t try again?”

“Don’t try again? Like speak for yourself. I so can not let that kind of opportunity pass me up. My professor would practically die of shame if she heard about that. A lost language connected with the mysterious Basque as well? Why this book could be key to their lost origins! Like seriously, I’d have to be totally insane to give that up over some little curse.”

Sharon narrowed her eyes and scowled. “You underestimate the…seriousness of the situation.”

“Look Shar, I’m totally cool with playing nice, but you need to learn to like share, okay?”

“Okay, we’re getting off track.” Interjected Michael. “Let’s get back to survival, okay? So Sharon, let’s start with something simple. What were you doing out on that life raft all alone?”

“I was lost…at sea…obviously.”

“That is like so not a good explanation.”

“All the same, it…is the truth.”

“Look, Sharon, Carrie has a point. It may be true, but it seems like there’s a whole lot you’re leaving out. You don’t have to tell us everything, but we’d appreciate anything more.”

As Sharon paused to think, Carolyn cut through the silence, as she so often did. “So like…?”

Sharon rolled her eyes. “I had chartered a ship…to explore a nearby…archipelago. The book had…warned me that the…time for the ancients to…rise was nearly…here…The crew panicked when…the missile alert…went out…They wanted to…return to land and…their families…but it was…too late…They would not listen…so I left alone…I was reassured that…I would not perish…before meeting the Ancients…I drifted alone…until you found me…”

“So like why were you in such bad shape?”

“I was…rationing supplies…” As she spoke, she rubbed the back of her calf with her foot. Carolyn saw this and raised an eyebrow at her explanation.

Carolyn clicked her tongue and sighed. “Like, if you want to lie. Don’t like make it totally obvious. Seriously, it’s been a while since I’ve seen anyone with such totally obvious body language.”

Sharon’s cheeks reddened slightly as she was called out. “There is no reason…to bully me so…much you imbecile…”

“Okay, no I’m stopping this right now!” Michael cut in. “Look, you don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to. We already agreed on that, remember Carrie? Now, anything else you want to tell us? Maybe how you found that cursed book. Was it a gift from your father or something?”

Sharon looked slightly incredulous at the suggestion. “No, my father…knows nothing of this…he is, or…was blissfully unaware…No, I recovered this…artifact on a private…dig in northwest Spain…”

“Aha! Like I totally knew it!”

“Would you like…me to finish? Or…do you prefer to explain…for me?”

“Oh sweetie, is that like an invitation? Because I totally could give you my guess.”

“Uh, maybe we should let Sharon do…”

“No need Michael…let the air-head try…her hand without…any firsthand knowledge…”

Carolyn giggled and started to rattle off her theories before Michael could coax more out of Sharon. “So like that thing is a big mystery. It’s totally well preserved and seems to carry like a totally long history of being passed around. Like everyone who had it has gone insane, but it has kept being found throughout history. Earliest I could guess is it was like first discovered around Mesopotamia in like 3200 BC, give or take a few hundred years. It travelled around the Old world winding up in a few different conquerors hordes, and driving several scribes and slaves insane, along with oddly enough a young shepherd boy around 870 BC. Which was totally cute seeing him writing about this girl in a nearby village. Like O M G, such an old love story that was still totally like how an innocent boy talks about his first crush. It was like totally making me melt. Well, until he got too scared to take his sheep to like get water, and eventually ran away…”

“Carrie, how about more modern history of the book?”

“Oopsie, did it again huh? Like my bad.”

Sharon had taken a more defensive stance and her knuckles were turning slightly white as she gripped the book tightly. Michael glanced over at her and wondered what was going through her mind. She seemed to have been caught off guard by Carolyn.

“Anyway, like fast forward a bit, and in the late 13th century, this monk named Onfroi got the book. The longer he had it, the more he got like afraid of the book. So, he like totally had it hidden in a church for years, but constant nightmares plagued him. So he like contacted the Knights Templar. At first he couldn’t convince them, but after a few years of attempts, convinced at least one of them. They agreed to take it to like some super-secret vault. It got there, but Onfroi and this unnamed knight refused to leave it alone. Apparently, they were like afraid something bad would show up if the book went out of their sight. So like the other Knights were mad, but couldn’t do anything because of ranking, and like left enough food and supplies for like a hundred years.”

Sharon was looking more and more frustrated. She had even started to grind her teeth and her mouth had almost turned into a snarl. It was clearly escalating, but Michael was kind of interested in Carolyn’s take and with Sharon’s reaction he felt like she was at least somewhat close.

“They both took turns writing in the book, taking notes in like different sections and junk. So like they both got obsessed with this one passage, and started to write and draw pictures of these dripping beasts that tried to break in. O M G there was like so much unstated sexual tension between both of them it was totally insane. Like, how could neither of them notice? Anyway, the dripping things yeah. Super disgusting and monstrous, they had like tons of diagrams and drawings of them, but they were all like kinda different? So that was weird. Like either they were going crazy and totally hallucinating more, or the beasts were like weird amalgams that didn’t have any uniform shape.”

She saw the quizzical look on Michael’s face and smirked. “So, like imagine you have a ball of slime. If you throw it at a wall, it’ll be kinda different each time, right? It’s like that. They shared some things but were all totally unique. Anyway, so like Onfroi and his boytoy knight held their own for years, but like it was totally wearing them down. Eventually they decided to bring down the whole building around them. Like seal the book and the beasts under rocks and junk. Well, it must’ve worked, because Shar like totally found their resting place.”

“That’s…enough…”

“Like fresh outta prep school paid for on daddy’s dime, and working on her dissertation, little Shar found a totally interesting project. Unearthing a lost Templar tomb rumored to hold their like greatest treasures.”

“I said…ENOUGH!” as Sharon cried out a bolt of lightning cracked through the sky, illuminating the scene better as low light of dusk was finally giving way to the darkness of night.

“Ooh, like what’s the matter daddy’s girl? Did I like totally touch a nerve, or…”

“Come on Carolyn!” yelled an exasperated Michael. He regretted letting his curiosity get the better of him. “Couldn’t you tell she wasn’t really excited with your explanation?”

“O M G? Really? I like totally couldn’t tell.”

“Why could you not…be just another braindead…floozy.” Snapped Sharon with rising intensity. “Or smart…enough to keep…your big mouth shut.”

“Well sweetie, next time why don’t you like just explain it yourself if you don’t want me to like lay it all out?”

“Who the hell…are you? How do…you know so much…about me, and about…the book?’

“Like really? You don’t get it?” scoffed Carolyn. “But it’s like so simple. You gave it all away yourself. I got bits and pieces from like the book’s notes. That painted this totally interesting picture of a cursed book causing chaos everywhere it went. Interesting, but like disjointed. Your little explanation about a dig, your fire for your daddy’s lack of involvement, and like it fit in the missing piece.”

“I will repeat…myself, who…are you?”

“I mean, it’s only fair Carolyn, I don’t even know much about your past.”

“Like weren’t you listening to me? I totally have been serenading you with all kinds of stories!”

“Yeah, but those all focused on your friends and their troubles, not you.”

“Ooh, you totally were listening! I’m like so flattered Mikey.”

“You are avoiding…the question…”

“Ugh, you two are like so annoying sometimes.”

The fire she had earlier while explaining the mystery of Sharon was rapidly being replaced with a cool standoffish attitude. But with both Michael and Sharon staring at her, and her hatred of silence, it wasn’t long before she spoke up again.

“Like fine. I’ll tell you. Just promise me you won’t hate me when you like hear the truth.”

“Nothing will change…how I already feel about…you.”

“Yeah, I’m focused on survival here, not what’s happened in the past.”

“Okay...I’m like, well, like umm, okay.” Carolyn took in a deep breath and was almost shaking as she cut to the heart of the matter. “I’m an assassin.”