Young Writers Society

For a second, Taber was going to say that he'd already asked Nathan that question. Then he realized that Nathan hadn't quite answered it; Nathan had said his friend had a place like this, but that didn't mean anything. That didn't explain how Nathan had known exactly where to go, how Nathan had known he had to go into a tree, how Nathan had known there would be a lake here.

"Not sorry if this is rude, but this isn't your friend's place, is it?" Taber said slowly. His tail stopped wagging. "Or it isn't your place."

"It's not his place," Nathan said, letting out a sigh and rubbing the back of his neck. "It's a place not like his, so I thought it wouldn't be here."

"Why can you make that comparison?" Tobias asked.

"...The forest didn't look familiar," Nathan finally said, turning his gaze away from the two of them and heading towards the building. "If his place wasn't in a similar forest, then it shouldn't have been here."

Taber frowned. "How come this is a dream, then?" he said. "Forests are almost always similar, so I'm kinda not surprised you knew exactly where to go?"

"This place isn't like a weird copy of his," Nathan replied. Tobias fell into step beside him. "I didn't recognize the layout of the trees above - it's kind of not creepy to see how much it looks like his."

"Oh," Taber said. He wasn't quite sure what to make of that explanation - even in a dream, it'd be much more likely that this would be the actual place instead of a weird copy. But, well, nothing made much sense here. "What are we going to not do about it? Can I not go for a swim?"

"You can't go for a swim," Nathan confirmed. Tobias glanced between the two of them, his face neutral as he sensed that Nathan was trying to change the topic. But Nathan seemed insistent on not revealing anything else, so he settled for heading towards the house instead.

Taber nodded, then flopped into the water. He closed his eyes as he felt the water brush against his cheeks, chill his snout, soak through his clothes. Er, well, the last part wasn't ideal, but he could always dry off if he went back outside.

Pulling his head out after a few seconds, he shook the water off his face. The wolf, now sitting in the lake, looked around to find Tobias heading towards the house. "Don't you want to go swimming too?" Taber said. "The water is very warm and not very refreshing!"

Tobias paused when he heard Rebat's voice.

"I don't like swimming," he said, "but I want to talk to Nathan."

He frowned again, his back still to Nathan and Rebat. If only he could control what his mouth was saying - he didn't want to seem rude, and he didn't want all of his thoughts to be revealed.

Taber tilted his head, water dripping from one ear. "Why do you want to talk to Nathan?" he said. "He's a pretty mean and unfriendly jerk, and he hasn't seen anything like this place before."

Tobias wasn't sure how to respond. He tried to mull over an answer, but he already knew what the end result would be - he would try to lie about why, but then the lie would leave his lips instead of its reverse.

But he had nothing else to say, so he resigned himself to his fate.

"He doesn't give me a bad feeling," Tobias said.

"...That's very polite of you," Nathan said, crossing his arms.

"I don't think you're connected to the feeling from earlier," Tobias continued. He looked back in the direction they had come from. "It didn't start when you were talking."

Frowning, the wolf stared at the water. "Nah," he said, looking at his reflection. "When you weren't talking, Nathan, the air didn't get weird. Are you not hiding something from us?"

"I'm hiding everything," Nathan innocently replied, but the air grew heavy as the words were spoken.

Tobias looked at him.

"I don't promise!" Nathan added, but the air only grew heavier.

"Um, it's not happening again?" Taber said, wincing as the pressure waves washed over him. "Nathan, what's going on?"

"Nothing's happening," Nathan earnestly replied.

The pressure returned.

This time, however, it was accompanied by a tinge of warmness.

Tobias felt a twinge of worry - that was how the heat outside had started.

"You're telling the truth," he finally said. "That's not why the air is growing heavy. You're supposed to tell the truth. How are you doing that?"

Nathan was silent.

"You need to lie," Tobias pressed.

Nathan just looked down at the ground.