It happened so suddenly Koro
wasn’t sure what had happened. One second Wonder was there, shouting at her
about the Dead End Stone, the next second she was gone. She let out an
anguished caw and flew two quick circles around the area looking everywhere in
front of, behind and next to the stone. When she didn’t find Wonder she flew
higher and continued circling.
“She was right there, she can’t
have gone far,” she thought, but the panic in her chest kept rising with every
pass over the street. She began cawing loudly, not caring who heard her. In
fact she hoped someone would hear her. They hadn’t come across a single other Glitch
in ten days, but she prayed to all the Giants that there might be one nearby
who would hear her cries and come running. She would just explain, she thought.
She would just reason with whoever showed up that this wasn’t an attack, that
she wasn’t evil, she just needed help to find a friend. Surely they would
listen, they would have to wouldn’t they?
These thoughts kept spinning
around in her head as she flew from one end of the street to the next with no
luck. She checked adjacent streets, but there was no one there either except a
lone butterfly that flew away in fear when it heard Koro’s calls.
“Oh, Wonder! Where are you? Why
did you have to disappear like that? Please come back!” Koro continued to call
for Wonder as she flew back to the Dead End Stone. She perched back on the
branch she had been sitting on when Wonder disappeared.
“It must be the stone,” she
thought. “She was angry and she touched the stone; that’s when she vanished.”
She stared at the stone for a long while trying to decipher the etchings on it
hoping for some sort of clue. When she could stare at it no longer without
going crazy she let out a deep sigh. “There is nothing for me to do but wait
then. If I am very lucky she will come back and I will apologize. If I am not
so lucky I will wait here and die on this spot, but it will be better than
living and never knowing.”
As the words left her Koro began
to cry for the first time in her life.
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