Chapter Text
Oliver carefully walks his way through the woods, watching his steps to avoid any leftover landmines. For heaven’s sake, how many landmines have the Japanese buried in this island?
Two months have passed since his duel with Ra’s al Ghul, one since he left his city and self-exiled to Lian Yu – again. There is nothing left in Starling City for him.
John was still mad at him for kidnapping Lyla, although Lyla didn’t seem to mind it that much. There are people who deal only in extremes, and it is naïve to think that anything less than extreme measures will stop them. Having both been trained by Amanda Waller, they do share certain similar views that Oliver often find himself less willingly to admit, the determination to do what is necessary at all cost. It took him two years to bury the monster created by Waller, and one difficult situation was all it needs for it to resurface. He has lost John’s trust, and would probably not be able to regain that ever again. It is a painful price to pay, to say the least, yet a necessary one nonetheless. As John refused to have someone he couldn’t trust to watch his back out in the field, and with the Arrow officially died in prison, he has lost his position in the team.
With Roy taken the fall for him as Arrow and left Starling for a whole new start, Thea has also decided to leave. He has supported that decision, full heartedly. There is nothing left in Starling City for the Queens to cling on. Their family business is now Palmer Tech, their mansion sold off, and them being the only two Queens left, and all childhood friends gone. There remains nothing but a reminder of their miserable past. Truth be told, he was glad that Thea has raised the idea, saving his effort to prompt.
And lastly… Felicity. Felicity. She was mad at him for concealing the whole plan, teaming up with Malcom Merlyn behind their back, and indeed she has every reason to. At the end of the day, she understood his choices. The gulf between them was never his tendency to hid things – he has been hiding things, telling ridiculous lies since their first interaction, and she has never pressed him to talk about his five missing years despite all her curiosity. No, the issue is his reluctance to change. The five years have left a mark so deep that it is almost impossible for him to change. They still do love each other, but when being together becomes an impossible choice, all that left in the air is the painful reminders. Their inside jokes, the underlying chemistry which neither side is willing to admit, and the occasional slips that comes out before Felicity realized what she’s saying. It was too much to bear, and his presence has been the obstacle for Felicity to move on. In the end, he has decided to leave. It was for the good of them all.
It didn’t take much thoughts to decide his destination, Purgatory, the rightful place for a monster like him. Constantine has said that the island attracts evil, perhaps the darkness in him is exactly the reason why he came back to it, multiple times.
Besides, there is something that he wanted to explore, a temple mentioned by Ra’s al Ghul during his time in the League. With all the mysteries hanging around the island, he’d probably better off checking it out before someone else with evil intention does. It does sound unlikely, or even paranoid, but then again, when has the odds ever worked in his favor?
***
The woods around him appears to be exhibiting some specific kind of pattern now. What pattern exactly is hard to describe – Oliver has known and seen the unexplainable things in the past few years but he has never cared to study them out of necessity.
One thing is certain, he is onto something. Going deeper, he found a stone. It was large, like an artifact, curved with unrecognizable patterns that resembles the ones he’s saw with Constantine, with a line that seems like Arabic at the top, “بوابة إلى غير معروف”.
He does not understand what it means, but the characters seem to be emitting some kind of attraction, luring his touch. Unable to resist the urge, he reached out a hand, and touched the stone. The surface was cold and smooth despite the writings supposedly curved onto the stone. All of a sudden, he felt himself compressed and the cold air surrounded him, forcing him to close his eyes and raise his hands in front of his face to fight off the coldness. The next moment, everything went back to normal, all except the unfamiliar surroundings which is definitely not Lian Yu, but some kind of ghetto…
Where is he?