It took a very long unnerving while before the ground began to crack open. Judson sighed in relief as he watched thick vines shoot out of the cliff, growing rapidly across the river until it found solid ground on the other side. The vines grew so thick and close together that they were sturdy enough to walk across.

Waverly squealed in delight at the sight of the new bridge and pecked Judson lightly on his cheek. "You are truly very clever, Jud!"

Judson's skin took on so many colors at once that for a brief moment, he looked like a living rainbow. Waverly went first and began to cross over to the other side. Judson was about to follow when the cliff shook again and the waves underneath seemed to grow a little bit higher. He panicked and stopped to look at it.

The waves kept growing until the surface broke and the large maw of a sea mammal opened wide. It reached up until its jaws were directly underneath the vines. Before Judson could raise an alarm, Waverly had already noticed the monster. She was screaming and jabbing at the creature with her Karya. It was so large that its enormous slime covered body seemed to wedge between the cliffs causing Judson to flatten himself to the rocks.

The creature groaned and snapped its massive jaw shut. The impact shook the cliffside and the vines causing most of them to snap like yarn.

"Run!" Judson yelled.

The creature's right eye which was far behind in its head clocked toward Judson's voice. Its eyes were too small for its body and it took Judson a minute to shockingly realize that the creature was staring at him.

The huge fish leaned to the left and came back with full force. It smashed against the cliff where Judson stood. The rocks trembled and came off in tiny bits. Judson felt relieved that Waverly had successfully made it across to the other side. His cheek still tingled from her innocent kiss. He knew she had only meant the kiss to be a compliment of some kind but he felt differently about it. He was about to tell her to keep going but when he looked up, he almost screamed out of frustration.

Waverly was now dangling from one of the loose vines, taking swipes at the creature with her sword which resulted in only small scratches across its slimy skin. The fish did not seem to have noticed her yet. Its attention was still on Judson and it continuously tried to get a good front so it could eat him. Waverly kept yelling and trying to nick the creature but the slime on its skin was too thick to penetrate. The creature rose higher until it formed a barrier between Judson and Waverly.

"It cannot be hurt, Waverly. It is a Mantin." Judson yelled. The roaring of the water below drowned out his voice yet somehow Waverly heard him but what she heard was - "It cannot be hurt, Waverly. You must jump in!"

Waverly looked confused at first but she yelled back. "Why should i jump in the river?"

Judson heard her clearly but what he heard was - "We should jump in the river!"

Judson looked down. The Mantin watched him intently as if trying to tell him it was completely safe to jump down. The strangest thing about the creature was not its size or its grey slimy skin, it was its human eyes. Looking into its eyes, Judson felt he was staring at a person. A very sad, hungry and lonely person. Through its gaze alone the Mantin bent Judson's will, luring him to jump into the river.

With its other eye, it glared at Waverly urging her to also jump into the river whilst convincing her with Judson's voice. The Mantin's trickery worked on Waverly first. She let go of the vines and fell into the river below. Judson was unaware of this because the creature's massive body still blocked him from seeing past its eye.

Waverly sank deep into the black river. It was so dark that she suddenly panicked and tried to swim for the surface but the force of the Mantin's magic kept pulling her under. She feared that she would not be able to hold her breath for too long and that her Grogana would become too heavy to swim with. She vaguely recalled HalfHyde teaching her about dangerous fish monsters the first time she requested to learn how to catch fish for sport.

HalfHyde had indeed mentioned a Mantin. He said these fish monsters were magical creatures, the only water mammals that could imitate human speech. A Mantin captured prey through trickery and Waverly realized with hurting regret that she had fallen right into its trap - Judson would never have suggested for her to jump down. She was about to cry when she realized that Judson was still up on the cliffside with the creature. She pulled off her Grogana and let it sink to the depths then managed to swim up to the surface. From the distance, Judson looked like a partially white speck of light on the cliffside. However he managed to resist the Mantin's magic, Waverly did not know.

She stared wide eyed at the rest of the Mantin's body. The creature was foul and grody and the sight of it made her skin crawl. It looked like a regular fish but it was so large that Waverly wondered how it fit into the river at all. As she thought of this, another thought crossed her mind. HalfHyde had also taught her that the Mantin's magic was nothing but a misapprehension.

Waverly hefted her Karya and swam toward the creature. She tried to envision it in the normal size of fish. No longer than two feet. She searched for the dorsal fin and jabbed her sword in it with all her might. With a funny sound, the fish seemed to undergo a quick contraction. Its large size disappeared and Waverly heard a small plop in the water next to her.

When she looked closely, the Mantin was swimming frantically and was no bigger than a salmon. She scoffed and swatted the fish with the flat of her blade. It scuttered across the black water and vanished from sight. Waverly swam for the other side and came up to a rocky turf.

She looked up. Judson was crossing to the other side. When he was safe, he peered down at her. Small vines grew out from behind him and down the cliff until they reached Waverly's feet. She sheathed her Karya and climbed up the vine.

"Where did it go?" Judson asked when she arrived at the top. He helped her gain her footing.

"It will not be bothering us at all anymore, i think." Waverly assured then her face clouded over. "I fell for its trickery."

Judson's eyebrows knit tightly. "That was neither your fault nor mine."

"All those times Pa tried to teach me about these monsters and bad creatures." She turned her face away, regretful. "I never gave him my attention. I thought they were mere stories. Maybe if i listened closely to Pa's lessons, i would never have let go of the vines. I would know what to do whenever we face monsters."

"The Mantin's magic is hard to resist." Judson said.

"Well, then how did you manage to resist it?" Waverly asked.

Judson seemed to surprise her at every turn. It was either he was being annoying, slow or very knowledgeable. Waverly wondered if she travelled with a different Judson but a huge part of her knew he was certainly Judson. He knew a lot of things because unlike her he paid attention to whatever he heard or read.

"I plugged my ears." He replied and pulled out two tiny green things from his shirt pocket. Waverly stared at them for a few seconds before she was finally able to recognize them. They were baby broccoli stalks.

"You put vegetable in your ears?" She asked fighting back a burst of laughter.

Judson turned yellowish pink, the color of salmon. He shrugged and quickly put the vegetables back in his pocket.

"They worked. I could no longer hear the Mantin."

"Can i have a pair?" Waverly asked with her palm open. She knew for a fact that nothing made Judson prouder than when a person showed interest in his plants and above it all, wanted some for themselves.

His eyes lit up, as expected, and he nodded. He put his hand in a different pocket and produced two more baby stalks. He put them in Waverly's open hand. She smiled and reached for her travel bag then her smile faltered.

"Grogana!" She yelped. She remembered with deep regret that she had let go of her bag in a moment of struggle underwater.

"Where is it?" Judson asked in concern. He began to walk over to the edge but Waverly grabbed his arm. Even though her bag was full of important travel items, she had had let it go to save her life.

"Leave it alone. We need to go on." Waverly said. She put the stalks inside her short pocket and took Judson's hand. "It would be good if we could know how many days we have already spent in this forsaken realm."

"Nine!" Judson replied firmly. Waverly looked at him. He looked so sure about what he said that she did not question him.

"Let us carry on, then. Bother, i will not have a tent to sleep in any more." She mumbled grudgingly.

She led the way and Judson followed. For a few more days, they travelled peacefully. There was not a single monster in sight to slow them down. The realm itself though, kept on surprising them. It revealed many small territories that would make Waverly constantly believe that they were about to exit the realm but then another territory would appear right after the last one.

By their twelfth day, the two were worn out so badly that they could only travel on at a snail's pace.

Judson lost his bag in a landslide and so they were left without water or food. The forest seemed to go on forever and ever; occasionally spilling them into a valley, a canyon, low mesas or a small coast where endless monsters would ambush or try to kill and eat them. Waverly had even gotten a bad wound on her back across the length of her shoulders where a wild lion called an Eliaen had slashed her with its claws. The Eliaen was a beast of Hammiton but had lost its way and ended up stuck in the Gateway realm. Like the Triad, it was enormous and ate human flesh. It had taken a large chunk off Waverly's back but she only got lucky that it fell off a cliff right before it could chew down the rest of her.

During their travel, they had to swim almost as much as they had to walk. The ocean seemed to go right through the Gateway like a drain. Swimming was only hard for Waverly because it stung the enormous wound on her back but it proved to be a much harder task for Judson. He was no good at swimming and to top it all his wings only got heavier therefore threatening to drown him. The injury he got in his white wing was still there. It stopped bleeding a long long time ago but it was still sore and very red. Judson ignored it even though Waverly could tell he was very hurt. He did not even make any attempts to heal it before he lost his bag and now Waverly was also badly hurt.

Even with her own problems, Waverly still felt concerned about Judson. He walked with a funny gait; like he carried a heavy weight on one side of his body. She made it a habit to hold his hand since she could not help him otherwise. He reminded her of his promise to give Lord Edsel a thousand and twenty two precious stones and together they dug the earth in search of these.

Waverly hated that they had to compensate the god when it was them that had suffered a great deal. She hated how much time they had to spend digging into the ground looking for stones that probably were not there. Judson mentioned that he could feel when there were stones in the earth and ever since they went into the realm, he had felt none.

They travelled on, making short stops to dig the ground in hopes of finding at least one stone but each time proved a failure.

At one point, Waverly made a dangerous suggestion.

"Let us not look until we get to the other end. If we get lucky, the nosy god will be too busy to notice us leaving and beside that, this is not the only Gateway there is. He has six more to watch over."

Judson agreed to this and they continued their travel. They came upon a kind of land that was so grey and foggy it looked like the whole place were the leftovers of a large piece of burning firewood. Waverly assumed the place to be an island but Judson denied her claims and suggested that they were still very far off from sea.

"It is so cloudy here that i cannot see much. Are you sure that we are not on an island?" Waverly asked again. She made use of her hands to disperse the fog but it would only recollect afterwards.

"We have probably come to the middle of the realm." Judson muttered.

Inside the fog, it was almost impossible to tell where he was standing. The only way Waverly could see him was because of his black wing, otherwise Judson was just as palely as the fog.

"The middle? How do you know the realm has a middle?" Waverly asked. At Judson's words, she could not help but begin to wonder just how close they were to the end. She wanted desperately to leave the In Between.

"Waverly, do you know of the unknown realm?" Judson asked.

Waverly gripped his hand securely. She could not see him at all now but she could hear him and was again assured of his presence from his warm hand that she held on to.

"No. Are there not only five known realms?"

"There are six but the last of them is unknown. I have heard many rumors of the possibility of a sixth realm and that the Gateway connects to that realm but even the gods do not know the way to it."

"Are you trying to make up a bed time tale? If there was ever a sixth realm of power, Pa would have told me in my lessons." Waverly countered. In truth, she was becoming uncomfortable. The grey fog was starting to turn black and her injury burned with cold.

"This is not a bed time tale. Look up!"

Waverly did as Judson said. She looked up but there was nothing to see. Fog covered up too much of the sky to be able to make out a thing even as small as a fly.

"I see nothing." She said after studying the fog for a number of boring seconds.

Judson hummed. "Maybe it is because you refuse to see."

"Can you cease to speak in a funny manner? We should keep going." Waverly said.

"We should." Judson added. "We have to be careful too. The fog has thickened and it will be difficult to tell what is ahead of us."

They cautiously trekked through the fog and as Judson had said, it became even harder to see anything. The trees disappeared, colors faded, sounds ceased and the air smelled of olives and burning goat skin. Judson stuck close to Waverly. He knew of this place but he had never been inside it. The In Between harboured so many supernatural things that it would not surprise him if it was subtly the most populated realm in all five realms of power despite being the most insidious yet.

He was thankful that Waverly was next to him and he was more thankful that she refused to let go of his hand. He knew she was afraid, only a lot less than he was. He wanted to be there for her even though all he could do was vex her and grow a vine or two.

They walked for a long time and the fog thickened even more. The air became paper thin. Waverly grabbed Judson's arm in pure shock when the silence suddenly broke and a loud scream came from nowhere. The voice sounded like that of someone going through immense torture and pain then it stopped abruptly.

"Where d-d-did that come from?" Waverly whispered in a choking sob even though she really was not eager to have her question answered.

Judson's arm trembled in hers. His white wing rubbed against her back providing some sort of shield and warmth. Waverly felt a bit protected by it. If anything was to hit them from behind, Judson's wing would obstruct it.

She suddenly felt guilty for thinking that way. Ever since the Cing stabbed Judson, he had a hard time using his wing. He became even more insecure about it. Waverly hated that she thought of his wings as a weapon than a part of him. Those wings represented who Judson was. It was just as important as his arm or his eyes. It could be hurt just as much as Waverly's ankle could.

"I have not an idea." Judson whispered.

They looked around waiting for an attack but none came. Just then, the scream came again jerking them into a frightful fit. From all around, screams of terror tore through the forest. Voices and echoes of every negative emotion in the world began to fill Waverly making her feel completely discouraged about her mission. She felt she already failed and her mother was dead. She felt a horrible sense of dread wash over her; guilt for leaving HalfHyde without telling him to his face. She felt sadness and loneliness as though Judson had left her.

The screams intensified forcing the pair to fall on their knees while clutching at their ears. Waverly dipped her hand in her pockets and pulled out the broccoli stalks Judson had given her. She quickly plugged them into her ears and the noise ceased to a distant hum.

She rummaged through Judson's pockets as he writhed in pain. His skin was sickly green and his face was contorted into such a sad one that Waverly wondered it was what he felt. She found the stalks and plugged them in his ears. His skin became normal again and the tightness in his face was replaced by relief.

"Run!" He mouthed.

Waverly needed no sense of hearing to tell what he had said. She sprang to her feet and together they ran. As they did, Waverly made the mistake of running around a tree - one that she could somehow make out amidst the fog. This caused her to momentarily let go of Judson's hand.

She ran for a long time, free of the stomping sounds of her own feet, the sound of terrifying screams in the forest and the sound of her best friend panting near her. Waverly ran and ran and ran until she suddenly slipped and slid into filthy water.

She sputtered and tried to stand but the water was too deep to stand in as well as being covered in colorless leaves, leaf roots and dead matter.

Waverly managed to swim out and unplugged the broccoli stalks from her ears. She heard the sound of rushing waves and it came as quite a shock to her. When someone has blocked out sound for a long time such as Waverly has, hearing noise again was quite the experience.

"I say we are now at sea again, are we not Judson?" Waverly asked. There was no reply.

For the first time, Waverly realized with cold shock that for a long time since she started running she had not caught sight of Judson at all. She wondered if he was still far behind.

This part of the forest was still foggy but it was lesser in comparison to the former areas. Waverly could see the sea now. It was just like the one she had crossed with Hilda. She was standing in an isthmus. How she got there was not her problem now. She waited patiently for Judson to emerge out of the forest but he never did.

Waverly became overwhelmed with emotions. She became sad and afraid and worried. She wished she had not let go of Judson's hand. She wished she had not let the stalks stay in her ears for so long. She glared in anger at the stalks in her palm and raised her hand to throw them away but held her back almost at once. The stalks were the last thing that had belonged to Judson. She knew he was alive and she was going to see him again (although her optimism came as result of channeling all of her anger to Edsel whom she blamed for every one of her misfortune). She hated that he was all by himself wherever he was. She had a desire to go back and search for him but something told her she would not be able to find the isthmus a second time.

She needed to go on. She lowered her hand and put the stalks back into her pocket. The fog cleared out until Waverly could see the sea as clear as day. The forest was behind her; green and mysterious while the sea was in front; blue and welcoming. Waverly stood still wondering how she was to cross the ocean. She could not swim for that long and the thought of encountering Tumut a second time made her uneasy.

She looked around for a solution but there was none. Without much of a choice left, Waverly began to cut down trees. Her Karya proved effective. Being a weapon of cultivation, it wasted no time in bringing down a tree. Waverly cut out long pieces of timber and managed to make a floor board of some kind. This took a good number of long hours to finish. Using thick vines and lichen from the forest, she bound each timber together until she had made a sizable raft and a makeshift mast. She pushed the raft with all her might until it was at the mouth of the river. Soon, a wave caught the wood and yanked it into the sea.

Waverly stared at the forest as she floated away, hoping in earnest that Judson would not come running out when she had already gone. She dreaded to think what would happen if he did and wondered if she could have waited a little longer for him. Taken over by extreme exhaustion, she slumped onto the raft and fell asleep.

When Waverly awoke, she saw the dark figure of someone paddling the raft.

"Hullo, Ms Stump."

The Moon Spawn|
Book 01