The Mariverse: Guardians

By Jay Miles

“One step out of the bus is all it takes to change fate.”

Are you willing to step out of the bus? A young boy named Mason lived a terrible life, recovering from a terrible incident that cost him an arm, he travelled by bus back home, fearing for his future and his purpose in life, believing he has nothing. Until he encounters a mysterious figure, who shows him a different path. A new purpose, to defend the balance of good and bad in existence. Mason goes down this path to become a new Typer, a Guardian.

This book is a continuation of The Mariverse, expanding the theory and showing more of how Jay sees existence…

Don’t forget me! The FWM. I have an amazing, meaningful story in this book! And while it has nothing to do with the main story of this book, there is some form of connection, trust me, you won’t be disappointed!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jun 23, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398439481

Jay Miles

Jay Miles had many interests growing up, video games and movies played a big role in developing his understanding of the world and lead him to write The Mariverse. Jay had always been keen on making stories about worlds he could imagine, using inspiration from things that he’d watched and played, using logical thinking about how things work and function. This mixture is what creates his stories. In real life, Jay is a very creative, positive and happy person, with many secrets in his head, creating mysteries in his stories for other people to solve. That way, he could get people to think like he thinks, have them see the many worlds that he sees.

Book preview

About the Author

Jay Miles had many interests growing up, video games and movies played a big role in developing his understanding of the world and lead him to write The Mariverse. Jay had always been keen on making stories about worlds he could imagine, using inspiration from things that he’d watched and played, using logical thinking about how things work and function. This mixture is what creates his stories. In real life, Jay is a very creative, positive and happy person, with many secrets in his head, creating mysteries in his stories for other people to solve. That way, he could get people to think like he thinks, have them see the many worlds that he sees.

Copyright Information ©

Jay Miles 2023

The right of Jay Miles to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781398439474 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781398439481 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.com

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

Jay would like to thank everyone who’s been supporting

him so far.

This book was written by a man called the Protector…

Hello,

Did you come back to know more about the worlds beyond worlds? Then you have chosen the right book. During this second instalment, I’ll tell you more about the Mariverse, but first, there is something you should know.

Guardians.

In the previous book, I told you so many things about the Mariverse, Half-deads and different Typers, but there was one Typer I didn’t tell you about (which this book will focus on).

It’s been months since V found out about her death, and ever since, I’ve been very busy preparing for another Half-dead. But during that time, I’ve been working on my other project, which is the Typer I didn’t bring to you before.

So, the Guardian project.

Let’s start this story off with a tal

Act 1: Recruitment

Chapter 1

A Long Bus Journey

Part 1

If he had a wish, he would have wished that his life had ended, or at the very least a chance for a better life. It almost came true, but he’s never got what he wants.

The sounds of movement could be heard, the sped-up pace of passing trees fading annoyed him, but it’s the only thing he can see through the window. Hours passed, and nothing but moving trees, a long journey on a long journey bus, where he was the only passenger.

Yet, he felt safe, what had happened before was a nightmare. His mind raced with images of the experience he’d endured, the suffering. Now he’s on a bus, all on his own (if you don’t count the bus driver) and the images of the surrounding environment calmed him.

Before the recovery, it was unexpected, like something that shouldn’t happen, but somehow, it felt like it was something he deserved. And yet, the pain could still be felt from his thoughts. What remains is almost healed and… removed.

It had been hours since he left the camp; a place where he should have stayed with his grandfather. He was supposed to spend time with him, but that didn’t happen, but something else did. It was something that he thought no normal kid would have to endure, and that no person should experience. And it cost him a limb.

A life-changer, changing an already miserable life for the worse now having to live without an arm, that’s why he’s looking out of the window because he doesn’t want to look at his stump. He wonders what he can do after this, what would his parents think about him? As if they care anyway. They weren’t there to protect him when it happened, they weren’t the ones that saved his life, they just waited till he was recovered then got him a bus back home, that’s why he was here, looking out of the window of a bus, alone, abandoned and lost.

Then the bus stopped.

The boy had noticed the bus slowing down before it came to a complete stop. Looking around, the bus was on a deserted road with nothing but the aforementioned trees surrounding said road. Nobody was around, there were no buildings, but for some random reason, there was a bus stop. He wondered why a bus stop should be in such a place.

Where are ya’ll goin’? he heard the bus driver say in his odd Texan accent. Curious to see the new occupant, the boy looked over the row of bus seats to see the driver’s end of the bus. He saw a strange-looking figure who’d already told the driver where he was going and paid for the journey. As the man walked up the bus, the boy studied his appearance. The figure was dressed like the Grim Reaper; he had a black trench coat that looked waterproof, with several strings on the sides and unzipped to the front. His hood was up, not that it was raining or snowing outside, it was the early stages of summer and the man was wearing something that looked like he’s expecting a rainstorm. As he walked closer, the boy gasped upon noticing that something was covering his face, a mask, a skull mask. As the man walked near the seat in front of the boy, he noticed that the mask was shining, indicating that it was made out of plastic. Why is he wearing such a mask? The man stepped towards the seat in front of the boy and sat down.

The boy started staring at the hooded stranger but then decided to look forward to the driver, for fear that the strange-looking man could sense his stare. The bus resumes its journey.

Fifteen minutes.

It was pure silence for fifteen minutes, nothing more than the sound of the bus’s engine running. Aside from that, no one talked, but after those fifteen minutes, the strange man spoke;

You know, I’ve been using buses as my second form of travelling, the kid returned his glance to the man in front of him, who was looking straight out of the side window.

He couldn’t tell if the man was talking to him, or just rambling to himself, but still listened in intently. I’ve always looked at the screen and looked at the beauty of the outside world, now I spend my life looking at screens and jotting down details.

The man continued his view for a second, then slowly turned around to come face-to-face with the curious, and slightly frightened boy.

We all have scars that we hide from others, the masked man said, looking at the kid’s left arm… or what it supposed to be his left arm.

Now it’s just a tied-up sleeve of the boy’s green shirt. The boy moved his shoulder back as if to shield his injury, but a sense came across him that he just had to tell this stranger how this had happened.

What’s your name kid? the man asked.

At first, the boy seemed shy at the question, but after a few seconds, answered Mason. What’s yours? he posed.

The man sighed and looked back out of the side window, then gave his response. I go by the name of the Protector.

Protector? That’s a strange name to have… Mason thought, and without caution, he turned his thoughts into words. Why Protector? The boy was curious about this man, protector of what? Is he protecting people? Things? The environment? Does that have anything to do with his strange clothes? A mask?

The so-called Protector gave a slight laugh to the question, then responded, I ask myself that every day, but strangely enough, you’re one of the few people I came across who ask that question…

Mason looked slightly puzzled at this suggestion. Why wouldn’t anyone ask such an obvious question?

…Although, there is a reason for my name, Protector spoke in what seemed a loud whisper, then continued his blank stare before seeming to snap out of it.

Anyway, you asked about me, it’s only fair that I ask you a question; what happened to your arm? If you don’t mind telling me.

In this situation, one might think that a strange man wearing a strange mask with a strange name asking such a forward question to a stranger was a bit, well, strange.

Mason was thinking the same thing. However, as before, his senses told him that he should share his tragic story with this man. It was several hours before he’d reached his stop, he could use this time to share his story instead of staring at the passing trees.

Well, it happened a while ago…

Mason’s Upbringing

In every universe I searched, in every parallel, I found Mason’s life interesting, even way before I met this version.

In his universe, Mason was at a summer camp during the summertime of 2012 (in his universe time). Summer is generally a period where every kid had a great time without school, where they would be with friends to hang around places or play in parks or stay inside to play games or have quality time with family. A time where the latest movie hits were popular, it was also the predicted year that would bring the end of the world for some people all because of an outdated calendar. It’s unknown if the prediction came true, as the end of the time loop in this particular universe takes place way before that day.

For many children, Summertime was a joyful time; but for Mason, it was a time of isolation and study, he didn’t get to play with friends or have fun. Sometimes when we are experiencing good things that happened to ourselves, we forget about bad things that might be happening to others. When we focus on good people with great lives or at least people who have a form of fate that affect their lives, we tend to forget that there are those with terrible lives who spend most of their time feeling hopeless. Mason, the version of this universe, is an example of this.

Before the summer, Mason grew up without knowing love. His parents just about cared for his survival, they gave him food to eat, clothes to wear and a bed to sleep but nothing else. No bedtime stories, no treats, not even the words ‘I love you’ from either of them, Mason never had any emotional support. Was there a reason for this treatment? Mason doesn’t know, but deep down, he felt that his parents saw him as a burden rather than a part of their family.

Because of that, Mason grew up with little knowledge of socialising, he never made friends in school because he was too afraid to interact with them and had been picked on by those who noticed his quiet behaviour. He would spend most of his time wandering around in isolation with many thoughts in his head, thoughts that were personal or related to a recent event, thoughts about things he learned from books, as he tended to go to libraries to discover new information, one of the few things he enjoys in life. But learning a part of history or the logic of science wasn’t enough to keep him satisfied, no matter how many books he read. He sometimes had thoughts about his future, what he wanted to be and do, but those thoughts were few and far between, and he genuinely believed that the future would be as bleak as his present and past.

When the Summer of 2012 arrived, Mason went to a summer camp to stay with someone who worked there, someone who might have been the only person in the world that cared for him, his grandfather. But upon arrival, he never saw him, for a great reason his grandfather wasn’t there. From then on, his summer was spent mostly just wandering around the woods near the camp, isolated himself from others, looking at the scenery. It was unlike the city environment he was used to, and he enjoyed the peacefulness and quiet, and the fact that he could not be bullied in the woods on his own. He spent days wandering around the area, sometimes a good distance from the camp, memorising routes and paths.

On one bright and sunny day after walking in a new direction, he stopped at a cliffside to take in the view. Looking around him, he saw a wave of pine trees below the cliff going through and back to the horizon, with each tree placed as if it was making a pattern. There was another cliffside on the left side of Mason’s view which also had trees all around, including a tree that was tilting off the edge of the cliff, looking as if it could fall at any moment.

Mason felt at peace with this view as if he was looking at a piece of landscape art coming to life. Unfortunately, this would be the last thing he witnessed before an incident that would change him forever.

At one moment, he was standing on the edge of the cliff, and the next, he fell.

It was a long way down, a height that should have killed a person from the impact, but somehow Mason survived the fall. Mason himself didn’t remember what had happened when he fell and how he had landed, but he remembered that he survived… but wasn’t in a great condition.

In his fuzzy memories, he remembered waking up, finding himself in a bed feeling great pain, with scratches, bruises and cuts all around his body. The pain wasn’t the worst thing he felt when he woke up, what shocked Mason, even more, was when he tried to move his left arm, he couldn’t feel it. It was gone.

Sometime later, a doctor came in and told him that when he was found, he was critically injured, with his left arm virtually severed, there was no way it could be saved, so had to be amputated to stop him bleeding to death.

From records that I could find, it seemed that Mason did fall, and on the way down hit many times into different hard objects, trees branches, rocks from the cliff behind him, and ultimately the ground at the bottom of the cliff.

Mason was immediately unconscious and lay there at the bottom of the cliff, alone and seriously injured. Luckily for Mason and luck was by no means something he was used to, he was found by trekkers who quickly took action and rushed him to the nearest hospital.

The doctors did all that they could, but they couldn’t save his arm. His cuts and scratches, though not a serious as his limb injury, became scars, especially one that was on the side of the right side of his eye.

Even though Mason came out of it alive, he was even more broken than before, both physically and emotionally. He was now lying in a hospital bed with no arm, and no family around to look after him. It was a miracle that Mason survived this experience, but he didn’t feel lucky, and instead wished that he had died from the fall. In truth, there’s no such thing as wishes or miracles or luck.

In the Mariverse, there are Multiverses filled with endless universes with many possibilities of one event, along with many changes and chances of even improbabilities happening. The possibilities of an outcome would be focused on, the majority of these should have resulted in his death. But some possibilities are in the minority and are more interesting. Simply because the odds of Mason surviving this incident would be one in a million.

This Mason is the one from that million, but the odds of being in that incident were far less than the odds of survival.

X-J-H-Y-W X-S-Q-R-G W-Y-G U-W-Y-D J-L-Y-F-G G-R-O Q-S-I-V,

L-F-G R-O S-H G-R-O I-S-Q-R-G N-R-Y-S-N-O

Part 2

The Protector knew about Mason’s incident, yet he wanted to listen to Mason’s side of his story. It was a sad story, Protector felt pity for the boy, and having him explain it to him would be unbearable for Mason, but he was unaware of the Protector’s knowledge, to him, he was telling the story of his incident as if the Protector never knew about it. The masked man played along as if he was hearing the story for the first time.

I’m sorry to hear that.

Protector attempted to say comforting words, but he said it like he didn’t care, for a moment he was thinking like that. Ever since he became the Protector, he cared less about the Memorywalkers and focused on other Typers, but he would focus on noticeable Memorywalkers, due to their life being very interesting, like reading a book. This was the reason he was on this bus.

We all have pain in the past, even though some scars will never heal, the heart could repair itself in time, he quoted as he looked back on the one arm boy. But I’m here to repair your scars…

Mason was surprised about what the man just said, especially about healing scars. He made a slight chuckle in denial and said, How could you possibly heal my scars then? You said it yourself that scars can’t be healed.

Correct, but it’s impossible for impossible to be possible.

In Mason’s mind, what the masked man said was a strange statement, if ever he had heard one. But he didn’t have enough time to think about the meaning of the said statement, as the sounds of wheels squeaking to a stop could be heard, causing the bus to a stop and shuffling around the only two passengers. Though the Protector was wearing a mask, behind the closed-off mouth he was smiling, Looks like this will be our last stop, he said as he’d got up from his seat then slowly made wide steps as he held each seat as he took each step. Mason watched as he saw the stranger walk towards the bus’s exit, but thoughts came into his mind when the Protector said ‘our’ and not ‘my’. Like he used the pronoun that would mean he would leave the bus too. But he’s not back home, yet this wasn’t his stop.

As the man who called himself the Protector went to the exit, he turned to face Mason and said one stranger comment before leaving the bus.

One step out of the bus is all it takes, to change fate.

The upcoming seconds of the bus ride felt like preparation for a departure; in other terms, the bus wasn’t moving. Which was odd considering that nobody was around at this time. Mason looked out of the side window to the side of his seat, he saw nothing but a black background with only the side of the road in view. It went past noon, Mason wasn’t aware what time it was, he knew that it was evening before the Protector came onto the bus, making him wonder how long had the journey been since their last stop was it when he was on the bus before leaving? But strangeness was deep, and Mason had to check what was going on.

He looked at the front once again, the bus didn’t move. But the engine was still running. Um, excuse me, he shouted loudly enough for the bus driver to hear, what’s going on? Why aren’t we moving?

No response, not a single sound came from the other end of the bus. For this weird occurrence, Mason decided to stand up from his bus seat and walked towards the driver’s seat. When he arrived at the front of the bus, he noticed that the bus driver wasn’t in his seat, he was gone, he had disappeared without any sign that he was on the bus in the first place.

Now Mason started to get worried, facing the facts he had seen. He was all alone on an empty running bus without a driver to ride back to his home, a strange man had entered the bus, had a conversation then left the bus while saying that he might leave the bus too.

Looks like this will be our last stop.

He started to think about these words again, and what they could mean. Mason was struggling to make sense of the situation, maybe the Protector had kidnapped the driver without sound… that’s not right because he remembered watching him walked away to the exit, with no signs of