I was falling.

I was screaming at the top of my lungs, unready to feel the impact of the pale ground below. The creature had dropped me, leaving me to fall to my death. I looked up after hearing a screech. Jesse was diving towards me. His eyes were filled with determination, his arm outstretched in an attempt to grab me. But, he was suddenly gone. I felt an incredible pain shoot up my spine before everything faded to pitch black.

I woke up with a gasp. Getting up and looking around, I relaxed when I remembered I was in my room. Getting out of my bed, I quickly got dressed in my armor and walked out of my room.

It had been a month since we got back from the True End. Everyone had gotten used to Jesse`s abnormalities by now and most things had gone back to normal. I, myself, was glad, since the True End was a nightmare and tried to think of it as little as possible. Our sleep schedules were also finally back to normal.

Silently walking down the stairs, I made my way to the kitchen. I was usually the first one up, which usually allowed me to cook. I pulled some things out of a chest and laid them on the table. I cracked open several eggs, putting them into three different pans and putting them on the stove. After putting butter into all three pans, I quickly put some ground cocoa beans into milk, and put the keg onto the stove to let that heat up. I opened the chest once again to find a cooked porkchop, and I facepalmed. Axel really needed to be careful about where he put his food. I grabbed a decent amount of mushrooms and leftover chicken broth in a bowl, threw them into a pot, and waited for the hot chocolate to finish heating up until removing it and replacing it with the pot. Opening the lid to the pot, I poured a little salt inside before closing it again, and I removed the eggs from the stove. Within twenty minutes, the mushroom stew was ready, and as I turned the stove off, I heard Petra walk down.

"Morning." she yawned.

"Hey," I greeted, turning around. It was usually Olivia who was the second one up.

"You`re cooking already?" Petra asked, sitting down at the large table. "Dude, it`ll be awhile until everyone`s up."

I shrugged. "Well, I guess the last ones up can have breakfast cold."

After a moment, Petra got up and got her own food. Olivia came down after a minute, and Axel. Of course Jesse was the last person awake… as always. Everyone was already eating, so I walked upstairs to wake him up. I cracked open the door to his room. Jesse`s room was always littered with papers and random items, and today was no different. He was sprawled out on the bed in shorts and a T-shirt, one scarred arm hanging off the bed, snoring quietly.

"Jesse." I said. He didn't budge.

"JESS!" I yelled.

Jesse let out a yelp, falling off of the bed with a loud thud. His eyes were wide open, but he relaxed when he looked over to me.

"Dude, really!?" he growled.

"Everyone else is awake." I said flatly.

"Okay, okay." he sighed, walking over to the door. "Just let me get dressed."

He closed his door. I stood outside the room, just to make sure he didn't just go back to bed. Within a few minutes, he walked, out in full armor, yawning. Glancing at me for a second, he walked downstairs. I smiled. Jesse had always been a late riser.

After everyone late, we packed food and grabbed weapons, getting ready to head towards a temple a good 100 miles away. Crest, Jesse`s…. 'nephew', lent us three horses that would help us get there after. Jesse really hated to admit his blood relations with Crest. By midday, everybody was ready to go. Em was somewhere in Boom Town, so it was just the five of us. I got on a black horse behind Olivia, Jesse sat behind Petra on another horse, and Axel had his own. It took us an entire day to get there, which was a lot faster than if we were walking, thanks to the horses. We camped out for the night in a quick dirt hut before taking on the temple. It was on a mountain, surrounded by a roofed forest.

"So… what do you think`ll be in the temple?" Axel asked as we were heading towards the temple, still on horseback.

"Who knows? It was just recently discovered." Olivia replied.

"It would be nice to see a change from just a couple pieces of gold and iron." said Jesse.

"Well, we'll just have to find out what's inside." I said.

We had to climb to get up to the temple… which I didn't like too much. Whenever i was in a high place, it reminded me of when I was about to meet my death in the End. It was overhanging the side of the mountain, as if you could only fly to access it. We had to build a flight of cobblestone stairs to get to the entrance.

Jesse quickly crafted a torch to look inside the pitch-black entrance.

"Well," he said. "I hope you guys like exercising."

There were stairs. A lot of them… which reminded me of Soren`s lab. They went up quite a ways.

"Well, be better get going if we want to see what`s in the temple." Jesse said, pulling out his enchanted diamond sword. Petra pulled out her own sword, and so did I, although mine was just a simple unenchanted stone sword. Jesse`s and Petra`s swords lit up the entire room.

And so we started climbing. The good thing about being in a band of heroes who constantly fight crime and raid temples is that you're in good shape. But after a while, my legs started to burn from the effort.

"I think I see the top." Petra said. I looked up, and she was right, we were getting close.

When we finally climbed to the top, we found ourselves in a hallway. There were several doors, and one large one at the very back. There was something about the back door that made me really interested… I wanted to check it out. But, it looked like Jesse had other ideas.

"Let`s check out the first left room, the work our way towards the back." he said.

"Hey… can I check out the back one?" I asked. "I won't be long."

"Are you sure?" Jesse asked. "It`s better if we stick together."

"I'll be fine, Jess." I told him.

I saw a flash of annoyance in his eyes when I said 'Jess', but he nodded. "Okay, whatever you want. He turned to walk in the door he chose, following the others who were already inside.

Once I was alone, I slowly walked towards the back door. I somehow felt drawn it it… it`s really hard to explain, but I felt like my life depended on me going there. Once at the back, I pushed open the double doors.

It led to a gigantic chamber. The actual floor was way down below, and a flight of stairs led to it, giving it a football stadium-like appearance. At the bottom, I could see a pedestal with something glowing on it, and behind it, a large waterfall coming down from a tunnel in the wall, pouring into a pool below it. The water reflected on the entire room. There was a hole in the dome-like ceiling, letting sunlight touch the pedestal.

I made my way down the stairs. When I got to the bottom, I saw what was on the pedestal. It was a feather. It was a large, long one, glowing golden with purple uneven stripes on it. I walked towards the pedestal, stopping just in front of it. I felt like the feather had a meaning. I slowly reached out my hand. The feather glowed brighter as my hand got closer to it. I drew back, but I reached out slowly once again, and picked it up. It felt silky in my hands. I brought it towards me to get a closer inspection of it. I heard something rumble, and I brought my eyes off of the feather to see the pedestal was sinking into the ground. When I looked back at my hand, the feather was gone. In a state of confusion, I looked around to see if I dropped it anywhere. That`s when a sharp, unbearable pain shot through my whole body I let out a yelp, clutching my head, as that was where the pain was the worst. My legs gave away under me, leaving me trembling on the ground. My vision was blurred horrible, but I could see a white glow. I tried to call out for help, but all that came out was an inhuman yelp.

The pain lasted for several minutes with me trembling on the floor. At last, my pain started to dull, and I tried to get up, only to collapse again. My whole body felt like all of my bones broke and were healed improperly. I tried my best to at least sit up, my vision clearing. The first thing I noticed was how different everything looked. Everything looked brighter and sharper, as if I was hit with a Potion of Night Vision. The second thing I noticed was my hands- well, they weren't really hands anymore, not even remotely similar. They were a lot more like wings, with three claws on each. I let out a scream, or much more accurately, an inhuman screech. I would have been surprised if my friends didn't burst in any moment… which they didn`t. I stumbled to the pool with new legs that I weren't used to. I caught myself on the edge, and I looked into it.

What I saw made me let out a gasp. My face was similar to an Enderman`s, but with light blue feathers, and cream colored feathers from where my nose should have been and down. My eyes were completely blue, with darker blue cat-like pupils. There were purple markings on my face, and headdress-like golden feathers. Behind that was my "hair"... which was now made of feathers just like everything else. I quickly backed up from the pool, whimpering out of instinct and falling onto my rear. This couldn't be happening. This had to be just a bad dream. Suddenly the pain came back, sending me to the floor again.

The pain once again lasted for several minutes. When the pain finally dulled, I didn't dare to move for several minutes. I was still petrified from what I saw in the pool. Finally, I sat up, still trembling. I tried to get up again, and I succeeded, no longer off balance. I looked down, and relief washed over me. I was normal again. I looked around one more time, before I heard Petra`s voice behind me. I turned around to see Jesse and Petra walking down the stairs.

"There wasn't anything in this temple," Jesse remarked. "Did you hear that screech?"

I thought for a second. Should I tell them? Jesse might have known what happened. No, I couldn`t. They might see me as a monster. ANd hopefully it was just a one-time thing.

"Yeah." I said, half-lying. "I didn't know where it came from."

Jesse looked like he was thinking, but Petra said, "It was probably an Enderman somewhere. Was there anything in here?"

"No." I replied. I didn't like lying to my friends.

"Well, I guess coming here was a waste." Petra said, crossing her arms.

"At least there was some pretty cool architecture here." Jesse said.

"Yeah…" I started. "Can we… start back now?"

"Yeah, let's do that." Jesse replied.