Truth.

The light faded, and he was gone.

She looked around her. The door was closed, and so were all the windows. She was alone.

“Jeezuz.” She collapsed on the couch and sat there in deep thought for a while.

“What the fuck?” She muttered and picked up the globe and stared at the border he made. There was a burn mark on the map where his fingers had traced. It was quite large, extending form the south-western corner of Britain, in a thin strip of land, before enlarging into a massive stretch of land that extended down the south of the Atlantic almost up to the equator. “The God of Fire.” She whispered and traced the burn mark on the map. Seeing that burn mark reminded her of her half-burned lab-coat. “Oh God.” She said again as she saw how badly it was burnt. She quickly took it off to inspect her arm for any injuries. There weren’t any.

She inspected Zohl’Noush’s continent on the globe again.

“Ardalis.” She whispered. “Atlantis. Hmm.”

“Theres nothing there.” He was back, and he was standing behind her. She didn’t get a start this time. She just turned around and looked at him calmly.

He was staring at her like he was going mad. His hair was dripping wet, and he just stood there like a lost boy with no toys. “Theres nothing there.” His voice was as thick as a widow’s. “nothing.” He said again.

He collapsed to the floor. “Oh, Gods. My Elta. Elta.” Elise knelt down next to him. “Do you know Elta?” he looked at her suddenly like he insanely hoped she might know something.

“No, Zohl’Noush, I don’t know Elta.”

“Oh, Gods! Elta!” He was crying now. “Elta.” He said the word like he could taste it, and he didn’t want to stop tasting it because it was fading away quickly.

He was sobbing for a while, and Elise didn’t know what to do. She just sat there with her arm awkwardly strung over his back as he knelt there with his face and arms in the floor, crying like a nothing that had lost everything. A God of Fire that cries. She tried not to look at the humor in the situation.

He looked up at her eventually. “How long has it been gone?”

“Ardalis? Your island in the Atlantic? Um..” She hesitated again. “Zohl’Noush, it was never there. Well, not in our recorded history, anyway. If it was there, it was gone long before we started recording history.”

“You mean you weren’t even civilized yet when we were lost?”

“uhh..” She didn’t know what to say. “Listen, Zohl’Noush. There is this one legend about a city called Atlantis. I don’t know if it’s a city or continent, or what. But there is a really old legend about this place called Atlantis that was somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean thousands of years ago. They say the gods weren’t happy with the people that lived there, so they destroyed it by sinking it into the oceans.”

“Atlantis.” He said.

“Well, I figure it sounds pretty similar to Ardalis.” She replied. “Atlantis. Ardalis. You know. Names can distort over thousands of years. Go figure.”

He sat silently for a while.