Chapter 6 — The Tag
And thus begins Chapter Six.
Now, children.
Twin Flip Monster.
Divinity.
Physics crime.
Repeated spiritual encounters with ancestors.
The council nods.
I stayed there for a while.
Again.
Again.
Again.
And eventually
I left.
The council gasps.
Found something better?
Children.
Please.
Be serious.
Such a thing does not exist.
Twin Flip Monster remained divinity.
Its position in the Wonderla hierarchy was secure.
I left for a far simpler reason.
I missed the waves.
The council smiles.
Ah.
Wave Pool.
Love.
Exactly.
I looked toward the giant clock.
Did the math.
Because by now,
I understood the rhythm.
Thirty minutes
waves.
Thirty minutes
piss soup.
The council recoils.
Technical terminology.
And looking at the time,
something clicked.
Oh shit.
The waves are about to start.
Children.
Had I missed a few cycles already?
Almost certainly.
Space Gun had consumed time.
Twin Flip Monster had erased the concept.
But the Fun Meter does not punish missed opportunities.
It merely points toward the next one.
And right now
wave pool.
The council opens the quest log.
OBJECTIVE:
RETURN TO WAVES.
Easy.
Except
I did not know where the wave pool was.
The council pauses.
You had been there.
Yes.
Could you retrace your path?
Children.
No.
I had arrived there originally through school group transport.
Then left it through random path selection.
Then wandered through rides.
Then hunted Space Gun.
Then hunted Twin Flip Monster.
My internal map of Wonderla resembled spilled noodles.
The council nods.
So surely now you looked at a sign.
No.
Asked someone?
Also no.
Map?
Children.
Absolutely not.
The council sighs.
How did you navigate?
Vibes.
Of course.
Twelve year old Nuo stood at an intersection.
Looked.
Considered.
One path
dry.
Another path
wet.
The council leans forward.
Ah.
Logic.
Exactly.
Children.
Water rides create wet humans.
Wet humans create wet paths.
Therefore:
wet path leads toward water.
This was not mere vibes.
This was science.
The council begrudgingly approves.
I chose the wet path.
Walked.
No panic.
No uncertainty worth preserving.
Just
this seems right.
So go.
One turn.
Another.
Past people.
Past structures.
Perhaps past rides I had already demoted to scenery.
And somehow
with suspicious ease
there it was.
The council erupts.
Wave Pool.
Found.
No map.
No signs.
No directions.
Just moisture based navigation.
Children.
Never underestimate infrastructure clues.
I approached.
The waves were either about to begin
or had just begun.
Perfect.
Down I went.
Into the depths.
The council pauses.
Depths?
Children.
The deep ish part.
Allow the mythology.
I entered.
Water around me.
Then
wave.
The council smiles.
Home.
Again.
Jump.
Move.
Let one hit.
Ride another.
Float between them.
Wave after wave.
Space Gun had adrenaline.
Twin Flip Monster had divinity.
But this?
This was different.
The council grows quiet.
This was comfort.
Not calm exactly.
Waves still attacked.
But familiar attack.
Beloved attack.
The rhythm I had come to Wonderla for in the first place.
The sacred objective restored.
Children.
I merged.
Again.
No teacher.
No group.
No timetable.
Just water.
Wave.
Nuo.
Repeat.
The council nods.
And eventually
the machine stopped.
The waves faded.
The pool flattened.
Silence.
The council looks disgusted.
Piss soup.
Correct.
Normally,
this was the cue.
Exit.
Find something else.
Space Gun perhaps.
Twin Flip Monster if the gods summoned.
But this time
I stayed.
The council pauses.
Why?
Children.
I was tired.
Not Fun Meter tired.
Body tired.
There is a difference.
Hours of walking.
Rides.
Water.
Adrenaline.
More walking.
More rides.
More water.
Twelve year old body had begun submitting complaints.
So instead of leaving,
I leaned back.
And floated.
The council grows quiet.
No objective.
No hunt.
No curiosity demanding movement.
Just
float.
Water supporting me.
Noise around.
Sky above.
Body finally allowed to do absolutely nothing.
Children.
Bliss.
The wave pool without waves may have been objectively inferior,
but exhaustion had changed the terms.
It was no longer:
Where are the waves?
It became:
Ah.
Bed.
Liquid bed.
The council nods.
So I lay there.
Drifting.
Eyes perhaps closed.
Water moving slightly from everyone else.
The kind of stillness that appears after enough chaos.
And I remained like that for a while.
Then
something touched my attention.
The council turns.
Small.
Floating nearby.
I opened my eyes properly.
Looked.
A necklace.
The council freezes.
Children.
A necklace.
Drifting in the water.
And attached to it
a bone tag.
Silence.
The council slowly turns toward the Archive.
Oh.
Yes.
Children.
Oh.
Not bought.
Not gifted.
Not deliberately selected from a shop.
Just
there.
Floating beside me.
The owner?
Unknown.
The council looks around.
Could have belonged to anyone.
Correct.
Someone may have lost it.
Also correct.
Did I attempt to identify them?
Children.
The Crow activated.
The council collapses.
Mine.
That was the entire legal framework.
Object:
interesting.
Object:
unclaimed.
Object:
within reach.
Nuo:
crow.
The council protests.
Finders keepers is not
Children.
Twelve.
Years.
Old.
The court rests.
I picked it up.
Looked at it.
Bone tag.
Necklace.
Interesting.
I liked it.
Therefore
acquired.
The council writes reluctantly.
RELIC:
FOUND.
OWNERSHIP:
PHILOSOPHICALLY QUESTIONABLE.
NUO’S POSITION:
MINE.
Correct.
And then?
Nothing dramatic.
I did not stand from the water holding it toward the heavens.
No prophecy.
No realization.
No:
This shall one day join a relic bracelet preserving my Wanderings.
Children.
Please.
Story Nuo had no such mythology.
It was simply:
Cool thing.
Mine now.
The council nods.
And I resumed floating.
That is perhaps my favourite part.
A future relic,
one that would eventually matter enough to survive memory excavation,
entered my life
with approximately three seconds of thought.
Oh.
Necklace.
Mine.
Back to floating.
The council laughs.
No ceremony.
No meaning yet.
No context.
Just crow law.
And for a long while
blissful ignorance.
I floated.
Perhaps held the necklace.
Perhaps tucked it somewhere safe.
The exact logistics are gone.
The feeling remains.
Tired.
Comfortable.
Water beneath me.
No urgency.
No awareness of time.
No awareness that somewhere in this enormous amusement park,
adults may have begun remembering they had arrived with one more child than they currently possessed.
The council becomes uneasy.
Children.
I did not know.
I had not seen the group in
how long?
No clue.
Fun Meter chronology does not keep records.
The park had become my own little universe.
Wave Pool.
Space Gun.
Twin Flip Monster.
Paths between.
Water.
Rides.
Crow loot.
That was Wonderla.
Everything beyond that?
Peripheral.
Then eventually
eyes open.
The council grows quiet.
Something was different.
Not the water.
Not me.
The park.
Fewer people.
Children.
Much fewer people.
The pool that had once been packed?
Sparse.
Paths beyond?
Thinning.
The whole atmosphere beginning to change.
That particular feeling large public places get when the day is ending.
Not closed.
Not yet.
But closing.
The council looks toward the giant clock.
Ah.
Yes.
Park closure was arriving.
And only then,
floating in the now mostly empty wave pool,
did the larger day begin to re enter my consciousness.
The council leans forward.
School trip.
Teachers.
Students.
Bus.
Group.
The organised nonsense from another lifetime.
Children.
Somewhere,
those things still existed.
Presumably.
I had simply spent the entire day behaving as though they didn’t.
The council nods slowly.
And now?
Now the park itself was beginning to run out of time.
The Fun Meter could not override operating hours.
A tragic limitation.
I sat up.
Looked around.
Bone tag necklace now part of inventory.
Body exhausted.
Wave cycle irrelevant.
Space Gun somewhere in the distance.
Twin Flip Monster sitting above royalty in divine silence.
And people
leaving.
The council becomes interested.
For the first time since the group disappeared,
a question begins to approach.
Not quite panic.
Not yet.
Just
hmm.
Children.
Where exactly is everyone?
The council looks toward the next page.
Good question.
Not answered here.
For now,
we preserve the moment.
A twelve year old.
Alone in Wonderla by choice and accident.
Having spent the day following whatever interested him.
Wave Pool.
Space Gun.
Twin Flip Monster.
Random paths.
No schedule.
No group.
No map.
And now
a found bone tag resting among his possessions
while the park slowly emptied around him.
The council grows quiet.
That is the strange thing about freedom when you are twelve.
It feels infinite
right up until the lights start telling you otherwise.
Children.
Park closure was coming.
And eventually,
even Nuo would have to acknowledge that the organised world he had abandoned
might want him back.
Thus concludes Chapter Six.
The Return Of The Waves.
The Thirty Minute Mathematics.
The Wet Path Navigation System.
The Liquid Bed.
The Floating Necklace.
The Activation Of Crow Law.
The Bone Tag.
And The Slowly Emptying Park.
Children.
I did not find a map.
I found a wet path.
I did not buy a relic.
I found one floating beside me.
And I did not notice the day ending
until almost everyone else had.
