The author of this story is 12 years old and enjoys spending time with her dog.
I woke up to my girlfriend shaking me awake at an early 6:20 in the morning. I groggily looked at her with one eye open, asking her what she wanted. She asked me if I wanted to go hiking on the conjuring trails this morning. I looked at her with a confused smile, and got up to get my shirt on. She was sitting on the bed sitting criss cross applesauce staring at me, and she asked again. I looked at her, smiled, and went to the bathroom to take a shower and get ready for the day. I closed the door in her face. I heard her put one side of her face on the door. She asked me again.
“Do you wanna go hiking?”
I turned the water on and began taking my shower. I came out of the bathroom. I finally said yeah sure and she gave me an excited screech. She changed her clothes and meanwhile I packed a backpack with water, snacks, an extra pair of shoes, bug spray, and sunscreen. As soon as we were sure we had everything, we headed out the door. I smelled the refreshing air of the summer season and listened to the birds chirp for a good 6 seconds when my girlfriend Jessica clapped her hands in front of my face. I shook my head and said,
“Oh sorry, let's get going.”
We got into the car and started to drive to the trails. It was a good half an hour before we would get there, so I decided to put the car on cruise control. We ended up getting to our destination pretty early, and we started to walk. I asked her if she was thirsty, and she said she was, so I started to rummage through the bag to find the water bottles. I said there is only two water bottles so we need to be sparing. I took both water bottles out of the bag, and turned around as if I wanted to hand the water to her. I looked in the direction of whare my hand was going and I didnt see her anymore she had disappeared. I shouted her name while looking around. I heard my name being called from behind me. ~gabriel~ I spun around and saw a girl. She hit me over the head and I passed out. I awoke in the same trails but everything was so shiny I squinted my eyes like I had just went outside the next day after it snowed. I started to get up when my eyes began to open getting used to the shininess. I saw a girl as I looked up. I fell backwards because she had two see through wings. She told me not to be afraid and that she needed my help. I said back to her
“Why do I need to help you? You have wings I have legs and nothing else.”
She said to me that the Snitch took her sister I asked her who the Snitch was. She said that he was the king's slave and he used dark magic. The kings queen had just died due to a disease and the king was looking for a new queen. I said to myself in my head
“That is why my girlfriend had gone missing”.
I said to the winged girl that I was in on helping her without any hesitation. She said we needed to go to Alenyas den. If we went there we would find out where we would have to go first. We walked off the trials and both of us came to a stop at a huge sign. The sign read,
“Be aware if you step your foot off the path you will have some freight deep in the shadows the night blights want a fight. You can’t see them coming when you step off the path.” Don’t step off the path.”
The girl spoke to me in a serious tone.
She said, “We are going through our first set of challenges. These forests have a lot of tricks up their sleeves so be careful.”
So we began walking through the path it was getting kind of quiet so i decided to make up something to talk about.
“So I didn’t catch your name.”
She didn’t answer me for a couple of seconds until she finally said something.
“Cassidy.”
She just said that and nothing else I feel like she wasn’t wanting to talk about anything with me.
“Well I’m Gabriel.’’
I didn’t think she cared so I just looked off into the distance wondering when this path would end. I saw Cassidy drift her full attention to a figure of a short little girl with pigtails.
Cassidy looked at me and said, “My sister is in there!”
I thought to myself for a little bit because the snitch has taken them and he wouldn’t make it that easy to find them. I grabbed her arm stopping her from stepping off the path. I told her that the snitch wouldn’t make it this easy for us to find them
“it’s just an illusion!”
As she was looking at me her foot slid off the path. She flipped around and the birds stopped chirping the frogs that were in the pond didn’t croak. Dead silence filled the air around us. She asked me what was happening. An animal jumped on our backs and one spit into my eyes I fell to the ground blinking rapidly touching my eyes. I opened my eyes for a split second to see Cassidy on the ground rubbing her eyes too. I saw this dark shadow with huge white glowing eyes. I forgot a single detail it had gotten dark as soon as we entered into the forest. I looked at my watch that I had put on in the morning and realized it was almost midnight in the forest. I looked up when this little black shadow jumped on me it scratched my face open with its dagger like claws that were as long as large kitchen knives. I flung the monster off me while still clutching my face. I turned around out of the corner of my eye seeing Cassidy have one foot on it and stabbing it right in the stomach. I looked around for a second a thought came to my brain that I knew I wasn’t good with blood. Cassidy ran over to me and she said
“can I see your face?”
I moved my hand realizing that their was so much more blood than I thought there was going to be. I looked away while she looked at it. She said that it looked pretty deep. She pulled a huge bandage from her silk pouch she held onto. We walked out of the forest.
“Are you ready to go to Alenyas den? We're almost there. ”
“As ready as i’ll ever be my face still hurts though.”
“Don’t worry he will fix that.”
“Can’t you sprinkle your fairy dust on it or something?”
“I’m a pixie not a fairy!”
“Pixie fairy same thing!”
“It’s not though.”
“Yeah it is.”
“Be quiet and let’s just go inside!”
“Fine”
We walked into Alenya’s den and saw a young looking man hunched over some bottles with a purple and black hood on. He had a very deep voice when he spoke to Cassidy.
“Cassidy you have arrived for your journey to save Dylan. Who is this young fellow?”
“Oh.”
Cassidy grabbed my shoulder and moved me closer to Alenya
“Alenya this is Gabriel.Gabriel this is Alenya.”
Alenya grabbed my hand and shook it very firmly. I said I have to use the bathroom so i did when I was in the bathroom I started to look around I saw this huge mirror so I decided to go look into it to see my face. When I looked into the mirror i saw that my outfit looked so different. I was wearing a brown leather shirt with ripped arm sleeves and brown ankle pants. I wanted to scream so bad I leaned closer to the mirror and saw that my ears were pointy. I walked out of the bathroom with my face looking like I had just seen a ghost. They both asked if i had seen a Crackle in the bathroom. I was imagining it was some creature that lurked in dark places waiting for any chance to bite someone and give them this infectious disease that would kill you in a matter of hours. I shook of the thought. I walked over to Alenya and uncovered the bandage from my face. He gasped like there was a chunk taken out of my face. He said
“We better get that cleaned up before it gets to infected.”
He picked up a gold bottle he said close your eyes it would be a real bummer if you got this in your eyes. He squeezed the bottle with both hands and out shot some yellow powder it stung like i had just been stung by a bee but worse. I shouted out in pain and opened my eyes I scrunch my face to show how much pain I was in. The pain lasted for about 30 seconds. Cassidy said there was more important things to be doing then hanging around wasting time. I nodded my head in agreement. As we were walking out of the door Alenya said turn around really quick. I turned around as the wind from the open door pushing me around as well. I looked at his hands and saw a silver shining 5 foot sword. It would change a different color from silver to black when it shifted toward the darkness. He looked at me and then back at the swords. I went over and took the sword out of his hand. I looked at the sword shine. I said
“Thanks this sword will come to good use.”
We walked out of the den. And we started on the path to crow lane where we would meet our next challenge. We got to the front of the path of woods we would have to go through. Their were crows circling everywhere not a single spot without crows filled the air. I spelt the death that reeked from the woods. Everything i smelt and saw looked had death written all over it. I was afraid to go into the woods but I knew it was for Jessica so I pushed myself and told myself that I was going to get through it. Cassidy pushed my shoulder making me enter the woods first. I looked back at her with a scowl and I faced forward. I swallowed everything that could have been in my throat I haven't been this scared since my mother went into the hospital. I decided to just go. I started to walk forward when I saw blood cover an entire side of a tree my heart felt like it would pounding outside of my chest. I rose my eyes up into the sky and saw the stars were their and everything was so beautiful. As i was looking up I saw a crow form a diving position with its wings and it was coming down as a lightning bolt. I called for Cassidy who was right by my side in a second. We both drew our swords from our holsters. We put our backs together holding our swords in front of us. Crows started coming at us. I swung my sword around hitting everything it could catch. I saw a human crow man trying to drag Cassidy along the path into the woods. I drew my sword once more and started running faster than I had ever ran before. As soon as I drew close the crow man dropped her and pulled out his sword from his holder. He looked at me straight in the eyes and said "games over kid".
I just looked at him and smiled a devilish smile. Cassidy came up behind him and stabbed him in the back the front of the sword coming out his stomach he touched the tip of the sword and fell front wards.Cassidy ripped the sword out of him and I grabbed Cassidys hand and we ran out of the forest. We were walking on the reddest path we had ever seen. We both told each other at the exact same time that we did nice jobs. We both smiled and laughed at each other. We looked up from our boring conversation and saw a huge castle. It was pink and the shiniest thing i had ever seen. Their were two mini rooms that were besides the middle of the castle top where we assumed that would be where the boss and our loved ones were being held. We walked up the steps to the front door and we looked at each other. We walked in and stared at the heaps and heaps of stairs that we were going to climb. We started going up the second set of stairs when we heard multiple screeches coming from the rest of the stairs. Then came down little gnomes that had mini daggers. We swiped our swords at them shattering them against the brick stairs. One of the gnomes jumped on my back and started to try and make me fall backwards. Then two more came and latched onto my legs trying to get my to fall even harder. Cassidy came and smashed them all against the brick floor. All the little gnomes started to run off downstairs. Cassidy spoke in a laughy voice.
“Now those are Crackles. Their gnomes but we call them Crackles because when they break their glass goes everywhere and when we step on the pieces it makes a Crackle noise.”
I laughed as well and said
‘’Well i'm glad there wasn’t one in the bathroom at Alenya’s then!”
“Yeah haha me to.”
We headed up the rest of the stairs when we came to a very dark room. Their were no light switches and nothing to get light from. Their were two long dark hallways to go down and one big huge room we had to go into to see. In front of me there was a sign. The sign read.
“Beware these hallways contain tricks and riddles. But when you get all of the riddles complete their will be light!”
We went down the left hallway first. As soon as we entered the first hallway we heard mouse squeaks or calls. We looked at another. There was a sign to read.
“The hair of the esuom will give you the fire.” We were wondering what a esuom was “Maybe we have to unscramble the word?”
Cassidy said in a questioning tone. “I think so but what kind of animal would have the letters seuom in it.?
“Oh I got it mouse!!”
Cassidy stopped after saying that. She looked down the hallway. She tapped me on the shoulder without saying anything. I looked down the hallway to see thousands of little red eyes staring at us in the pitch blackness. Cassidy screamed
“RUN!”
We both got our swords out and began cutting everything. We did a swooping motion to kill everything that was on the sides of us. It was very effective because i could hear the little screech of every little mouse being caught by our swords. We finally reached the end of the hallway when this flat topped rock statue rose from the ground. Their in the center of the flat surface was a piece of long mouse hair. Cassidy took the hair and shoved it into this little white velvet pouch she had attached to her belt that hung down no further than the middle of her thigh. We looked around and decided it was time to go down the right path. We looked at the right path that had vines everywhere. We went down and saw a little tree that was as thick as 2 bookcases. As soon as we reached down to the end of the hall their were two axes. We opened the glass containers that held the axes and we started to chop down the tree. As we were chopping Cassidy said something to me.
“Hey Gabriel you know they wouldn't make it this easy to get the next item right so their is going to be some kind of problem.”
“Yeah you're probably right.”
We were getting closer to the trees middle. When a huge spider came out of the tree. I jumped backwards my back landing against the wall. Cassidy tried to come over but an unbreakable wall trapped me from getting to her. The spiders were filling up the room that I was in. I felt them on my legs and on my stomach. I told her to hurry up and cut the tree. The spiders had filled up to where only my head was left. The spiders little hairs that they had on their feet tickled as they walked across my face and arms. The tree had finally fell. But the glass didn’t break. Cassidy came over and put the axe over her head. She smashed the glass and grabbed my hand. My whole body was covered in spiders. I jumped and wiped them all off while not looking the whole time. We finally got out of the hallway and out came the same flat statue that rose from the ground presenting two sticks. We went back to the middle of the two corridors. We started to rub the sticks together when a little spark came out of it. I blew on the sticks and put the hair on top of everything and out came the fire that we needed to see. We put the fire inside a little torch holder. We went inside the huge place. Their we saw a huge green blob that was bigger than 6 feet. We took out our swords and put the fire in a little stack of jewels. We took out our swords and began swiping at the blob. The blob spat green goo that was really sticky. He shot me with a piece and I fell trying to get it off me. I cleaned myself off and got back up to help Cassidy. The blob lunged backwards spawning in baby blobs at the second. Cassidy swiped at the baby blobs who leaked green goo when killed. The fight felt like it was going on for hours. The fight turned to days that leaked into months. The mama green blob spat out baby blobs every time one was killed.
"There is no way we were killing these things without some sort of magic".
Cassidy spoke in a loud tone when slaughtering a baby blob monster.
“Cover my back as I look around!”
Cassidy stood there staring at a glowing sword. She was just about to put her hand on the sword when a blob monster spat the goo at her smashing her against the wall. She tried to get up but just slouched against the wall some more. She spoke just barley releasing any air. Her words were spaced and squeezed under her breath. She was struggling to breath so I ran over to the sword grabbed it went over to the blob monster hopped on its back and stabbed it. It shriveled into the ground and leaked into the floorboards. Only a dried spot on the ground lie the dead blob. I ran over to Cassidy and put her in my arms to carry her out to safety. She was lifeless her body just lie over my arms completely and utterly lifeless. I kneeled her onto the ground and set her on the dirt path. Alenya came behind me and put his hand on my shoulder. He said
"I can do something but there's a 50 percent chance she won’t make it".
I picked her up and followed Alenya back to his den. I held my head up high hiding the waterfall behind my eyes the sticks from the dam almost giving out. We reached Alenya’s den we both walked through the door trying to hurry over all the clutter that filled the ground beneath our feet. I got to the metal table that Alenya cleared off with a slide of his arm. I set her down on the table as careful as I could be. Cassidy told me if she didn’t make it to rescue her sister. I said that I would do everything that I could to save her. Cassidy closed her eyes to rest. Alenya sprinkled silver dust over her sleeping body. He told me this would heal the internal wounds. Alenya said that she would make it and that their would be no worrying that she wouldn’t. I made a promise to myself and Cassidy that I would save both of our loved ones before something else happened. I got to the abandoned mill on a cliff side overgrown with mini trees,plants,weeds, and vines. I stepped in having the floorboards under my feet creek each step I took. I looked into the mill farther down and saw a big table. I ran over to the table and touched my girlfriends arm shaking her. She squinted her eyes looking like a magic sleeping spell had been casted upon her. I looked over into the other direction seeing Cassidy's sister sitting in the corner rocking back and forth with her eyes glued to the center of the room. I walked over to her shaking her shoulder.She looked up at me and jumped. She stood up and hugged me thanking me for saving her. I said come with me i will take you to your sister. I grabbed my girlfriend in my arms and carried her back to Alenya’s den. I took Dylan back to her sister. I placed my girlfriend on the couch that was their. I walked over to Cassidy her pale face still lying still on the table. I said to Cassidy’s sister
“Tell her that we had a good time together and i would like to see her again.” Cassidy looked at me and under her breath was a tiny whisper “The. portal. only. opens.once.every.10,000,000. years.”
I looked into Cassidy’s half closed eyes and said.
“We were really good friends through this and i guess this is our goodbyes.”
Cassidy smiled and said
“Goodbye my friend we have been through thick and thin together.”
She said in a spaced out sentence. I made it through the open portal and their we were in our own world. And i thought to myself
“How did we get back if its only opened for 1 day?”
I looked down to my watch and saw that it had only been a couple of hours. I guess time stopped when you went to the shiny world. Me and Jessica arrived to our house and we lived happily ever after. Even though i knew Cassidy would miss me I think she would have been better off in her own world with Alenya taking care of her than to be here with us.