“Kol, is that you?” I stepped away from the cooking station and ran toward him. As I got closer, I slowed down a bit. An eerie feeling came over me. My instincts told me to be cautious. It was definitely Kol — but not. The Kol that disappeared a few months back had a full suit of armor and his favorite combat knife strapped to his side ready to use in just a moment’s notice. He was full of confidence. Going into battle with him by your side meant victory. We all knew that. No one could touch him.

Now, he appeared to be just a shell of that man. Stripped of all his armor and favorite weapon. He stood there in tattered rags. His confident look replaced, but by what I was not sure. He scared me.

I closed in, paused, caught my breath, and embraced him. “Kol, thank the Lord!” I said as enthusiastically as I could. I really was happy to see him, but I could not shake the fear I felt when I looked at him. It took him a minute, but he eventually hugged me back.

I stepped back and took a good look at him. A concerned look fell over my face. I could no longer fight it. I opened my mouth to begin questioning just as he smelled the Honeycrisp I was preparing. “What is that? That smells amazing!” he said. I heard his belly growl and watched his eyes regain some of his old self. I took his lead. He would talk when he was ready, and I was not sure where to begin anyways. We sat down by the fire and ate in silence.

“That was delicious! You made it?” Kol asked in disbelief.

“Don’t act so surprised!” I retaliated. “I have been trying to learn new recipes for a while now, and you know that.”

“Yeah, yeah, but this is the first one I have tasted that was actually good,” Kol responded quickly.

“Ha, ha. Everyone’s a critic. Well, you should appreciate all that Tyler and I had to go through to get the ingredients. I bought the recipe off a vender in Whitesprings, that was easy enough. The water, blackberries, and razorgrain, no big deal. We had that at camp, but the Royal Jelly…”

“Royal Jelly?”

“Yeah, I was beginning to lose hope. I thought I wasted caps on a recipe that was impossible to make due to lack of that key ingredient. Then, Tyler and I discovered it one night. It was actually quite funny the way it rolled out. We got drunk on some Vintage Nukashine Tyler had just brewed. Woke up in a bathtub in this house at the top of a place called Tanagra Town, and there it was. A big jar of Royal Jelly right in the tub! On our way back, we found another one in a picnic basket next to a grave at Middle Mountain Cabins. Got the third one by slaying a Honeybeast. Turns out, Honeybeast often have jars of Royal Jelly in them. ”

“In them?”

“Yes! In them. Tyler gutted one good in a fight, and I caught a glimpse of the jar. I just had to wait for the bee swarm to pass before retrieving it. Weird though. It all happened in the same adventure. It was like I was fated to be there, to find the ingredients, and to make this Honeycrisp. We even got two extra jars in that battle.”

“You have always been a bit of a goof with that fated business. Where is Tyler now?”

“Tyler and I were supposed to enjoy it together, but it looks like it was meant for you,” I continued. “I left camp with Tyler because we were looking to build two more outposts. One where Tyler is now, just over the way. You can see his house from here. The other over by the Ohio River near Flatwoods. I was supposed to get that started right after we had Tyler settled,”

“But you just couldn’t leave the boy, could you?” Kol interrupted. “You know he is a grown man and a good fighter. He can’t have you on his back his whole life.”

The conversation felt like normal, natural, with the same Kol that always gave me a hard time about Tyler. Soon that would be over.

“He is also addicted to chems. A habit that got worse once you disappeared. I stayed close as long as I could to keep an eye on him adjusting. He got rather irritated with me after we got back from our epic ‘Royal Jelly Nukashine’ adventure. I think he just got stung too many times, but he was rude, so I took my jelly and left. Now, here we are. Once again, fated to be in this exact place at this exact time.”

“So, are you going to tell me where you have been?”

Maddox Kol went distant. Cold.

We were no longer lost in a moment of old friendship — picking up from months ago. We were present again, and I got another good look at him during the moment of silence we shared. A really good look. His clothes, no armor, just an old rusty combat knife. The look in his eyes changed back to what I had feared when I first saw him that night. That eerie feeling enveloped me once again.

Still. Quiet. No response.

“We have some stuff for you at our original camp. Jack and Liberty are still there. Let’s get some sleep. We have a long journey, and you have a lot of talking to do in the morning.”

We awoke the next morning, gathered up my few belongings, and started off first thing. “Let’s get some miles in before we find breakfast,” I suggested.

Kol agreed. We walked. It was quiet again. Kol was distant. Then, he thought of Vanessa.

“I cannot wait to see my girl,” an unusual statement from Kol. He does not like to openly share his feelings, especially the ones that make you vulnerable.

Now it was my turn to get quiet.

Kol stopped. “Suzi?” he sounded concerned.

“Well, when you disappeared and did not return for a few weeks, she took off looking for you. We have not seen her since. She would leave a clue here and there for a while, letting us know she was okay, but it has been a minute since the last one. She has good instincts though. I mean she is the Fortuneteller. I am sure she will find her way back to you now.”

Kol thought on that last statement for a moment and agreed. Vanessa was gifted. She will know to come back to him. We continued walking. We passed by Emmett Mountain disposal site.

Kol stopped again. As we looked on the site, Kol asked, “Why did you avoid my question?”

“What question?”

“What is Project Warchilde?”

“What? Oh, I’m sorry,” I wanted to tell him that I was so caught off guard by him showing up, by his appearance, that I did not really hear the question, but he cut me off before I could.

It was like someone flipped a switch in his brain. He was angry, impatient. “What is it, Suzi?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t mess with me? Jack is a part of it, and I know it. He tells you everything. What is it?”

“Maddox, please calm down. Tell me what happened to you.” I was almost in tears at this point.

He became enraged. His mind in a state of hypervigilance. “Why are you avoiding my question?”

I paused, looked out into the distance, and tried to gather my thoughts. How do I de-escalate him when I have no idea what is wrong? I need to find the right words.

I turned around, and he was gone.

“Maddox! Maddox!! Seriously!?!” but there was no finding him. He was, after all, the Shadow of Death.

When I finally returned to camp, I noticed that I didn’t just find and lose Maddox Kol on that journey. My two extra jars of Royal Jelly were gone too.

And, just as I suspected, Vanessa had returned.

