iDroplets of water splashed through the air like small gemstones.
A Maraquan Aisha, an Aisha mermaid, the most beautiful Maraquan Neopet ever to be seen, leaped out of the water into the bright, tropical sunlight in the Neopian ocean. She could not have even wished for better weather. The light filtered through the water like columns in the sea as she splashed back into her territory after a brief glance of the surface.
Underwater, it was beautiful. Swarms of Maraquan sea petpets and a variety of fish of all different shapes, colours, and sizes passed her as she swam deeper and deeper…
She approached a cave made of coral. As she entered, the Aisha saw a bright light glimmering at the end of the cave. A violent shaking abruptly begun; pieces of the living stone fell from the ceiling and the walls crumbled to dust, but the Maraquan pet had no fear. It had happened many times before, and she had always escaped the rocking of the cave, but not this time. This time, she was determined to finally reach the glowing at the end of the cave. Just a little bit further…/i
"Seriah! bSeriah!/b Wake up!"
Seriah's eyes reluctantly opened. She found the face of her teacher, Miss Ice, her Electric Grarrl expression as cold as her name, shaking Seriah's entire desk in an attempt to wake her up. "Good, you're awake. You may step outside of the classroom until I come outside to have a talk with you."
Apprehensively, the Green Aisha stood up and walked to the door. As she passed her friend Louise, a Blue Zafara, Seriah gave her a quick glance, which Louise returned as a sad smile.
The door swung shut behind Seriah. She sat down on the bench next to her classroom. This had been the second time she had been kicked out of class that year; the first was because she had been eating in class. Her parents did not seem to mind at all, saying that that was a ridiculous reason for a young Aisha like her to be sent out of the room, and that if her teacher ever did anything like that ever again, they'd have a talk with Miss Ice.
This time, it was inexcusable. It was the tenth time she had fallen asleep in class that month, and the third time that week (it was only Tuesday). Miss Ice had simply given Seriah warnings, and occasionally eraser duty, but this time, she must have been really mad.
Her fourth grade teacher had seemed nice before, but now Seriah thought that she was just plain cold. "She doesn't have a heart," the Aisha muttered menacingly into the air. "All she has is an icy cold black hole. If only…"
"If only what?" said a voice to the left of her. Seriah turned and there stood the outline of an Invisible Ixi that quickly disappeared as the classroom door opened and Miss Ice stepped out.
"You will be pleased to know, Seriah, that you missed a geography pop quiz," the Grarrl teacher said, with a small smirk on her face. "It was worth twenty percent of your grade. Please tell your parents that the reason you are doing so poorly in geography is because of this."
Seriah nodded, secretly hoping that Miss Ice would stumble over the atrociously thin stilettos she was donning on her feet. Her teacher began giving her a lecture on the losses of falling asleep class. The Aisha constantly wondered how such thin blades could hold up such an evil creation. 'I bet she uses her shoes to cut meat,' Louise had observed the one time their teacher had ever punished the Zafara for passing notes to Seriah about the really cute Lupe that sat at the back of the classroom. Seriah still found it amusing when Miss Ice had read the note aloud for the entire class to hear, and could not help herself: she let out a snort.
"You think this is funny?" Miss Ice said sharply. "This could affect your passing of the year!"
Seriah bit back her retort. "Yes, Miss Ice," she said.
The Grarrl smiled. "You will now stay out of the classroom for the mythology lesson. Let me warn you: there is a test on what we learn tomorrow, and you are not allowed to copy any notes from Louise, or Johnson, or Archibald, or anybody. Do you hear me, young lady?"
The Aisha looked straight into the eyes of Miss Ice. "Yes, Miss Ice," she said in an exasperated tone. It took all of her self-control to stop herself from saying, i"No, you evil hag. You're not the boss of me. You're a psycho, insane, control-freak dictator! I'll never listen to you!"/i Miss Ice, however, smiled malevolently and stepped back into the classroom.
Seriah buried her head into her arms. Her parents were accepting of her not being the top of the class, but they never even considered the thought of her failing. Tears began to fall from her eyes and on to the bench.
"That lady really is an evil piece of work, isn't she?" the voice from her left said. Seriah turned to see the same Invisible Ixi. The Ixi put an arm around Seriah's sobbing form and said, "I can help you, Seriah."
The Aisha was shocked. Quickly, she pulled out of the embrace of the invisible Neopet. "Who are you? How do you know my name?" she whispered dramatically through choked sobs.
The Ixi remained calm. "My name is Jill."
"That still doesn't explain how you know my name?"
"I heard Miss Ice mention it."
"Oh." Seriah returned to her senses and turned around to face the wall in an attempt to hide her embarrassment. After turning around, she asked, "How can you help me?"
"By taking you to a place where reality no longer exists."
"What?"
"Follow me."
With that, Jill leaped from the bench and began running towards the exits of the school. "Wait," called Seriah, and she cast a look at Miss Ice teaching the rest of the class out of a large, leather-bound dusty book. Then, as she looked upon the hated face of her teacher, a wild, exhilarating feeling overtook her. She ran after the Ixi and out into the bright sunshine of Altador.
If she had not spent all of her energy on trying to keep up with Jill, she would have noticed that the weather was identical to the one in her dream.
Jill led her from the NeoSchool, which was southwest of the coliseum, and into the Altador Water Distribution plant. They ran through various rooms, all of which were empty. Soon, Seriah found herself on the northeast wall of Altador, Jill running down the plains and into the foothills of the Altadorian mountains.
Seriah did not even stop to consider the fact that she had never left Altador alone before. She began running after Jill. Normally, the Aisha would have been dead tired by now, but the same force that had made her ditch Miss Ice was powering her. Nothing could stop her now.
After following the flicker that was Jill for about ten minutes through dense undergrowth and over a couple of small hills, they found themselves at a beach. However, the beach held turquoise sand. Seriah sat down, resting her tired leg muscles. Jill was standing at the water's edge, gazing out into the ocean.
"What is this?" Seriah called to Jill.
"This is the Sea of Dreams," explained Jill. The Aisha noticed that the water was, in some places, rainbow coloured. "Lay down on the sand and sleep, and I will meet you in the waters."
Seriah was intrigued by this. "What do you mean?"
"Lay your head down and rest, and I will meet you in the water."
Suddenly, a great wave of fatigue swept over Seriah. She slowly laid down on the sand, closed her eyes, and was instantly asleep.
In her dreams, she opened her eyes to find herself underwater. Instantly, she put her hands to her throat; she feared she would not be able to breathe. However, there was a shuddering at her neck, and oxygen flowed into her lungs. Seriah looked down at herself: she was a Maraquan Aisha! She was back in the dream she had visited for the past month.
'This must mean something,' Seriah thought.
She felt like she knew what to do. Using her new form, she bounded through the water and broke through the surface of the water with a leap. Like a dolphin, she performed a stunning arc she never would have been capable to do in her state of wakefulness and looked around her. The same sun was shining down upon her, but she appeared to be an in an endless sea. There was nothing around for miles except water except for a distant blot on the horizon that could have been the mountains of Altador.
As Seriah returned underwater, she remembered Jill's words: 'I'll meet you in the water.' "Where is she right now?" the Aisha wondered aloud. Bubbles formed from her mouth, but she could still hear the words being spoken. Like in her previous dreams, swarms of petpets and fish swept past her. She smiled at them, and they smiled back.
Suddenly, out of the swarm, a Maraquan Zafara spontaneously appeared.
"Louise!" Seriah was overjoyed to see her friend. She swam up to her. "Where'd you come from?"
The Zafara was looking down at herself. "I think I must've fallen asleep in mythology… we were having a silent reading time where we just read our textbooks." Then, she looked at Seriah. "Where are we?"
"In the Sea of Dreams," the Aisha said happily.
Louise looked perturbed. "That sounds familiar, but I can't remember why…"
Seriah smiled. A feeling of euphoria was inside of her. "Nevermind, then. Let's go."
"Go where?" Louise sounded skeptical.
"I don't know," Seriah said, "just follow me,"
Reminding herself of Jill, she suddenly swam even deeper into the water. Behind her, Louise followed, though unlike Seriah and Jill the Zafara was able to keep up.
Before long, Seriah saw a cave made of coral. A faint light seemed to emanate from the entrance. "Over there," Seriah said, pointing.
"What's in there?" Louise asked, but then realized that she was just wasting her words. Obviously, Seriah didn't know. She didn't even say anything.
Out of nowhere, the Aisha twitched and her eyes narrowed. A strange presence was inside the cave; a presence she had never felt before in her many dreams about the location. "There's something here…" Seriah said. "Something not fun at all." Louise didn't even bother asking any questions; instead, she just set a determined expression on her face and continued following her friend.
They swam to the mouth of the cavern. The two dreaming girls were about to go inside when there was a rumbling from the back of the cave and a Maraquan Grarrl came out in a flurry of dark bubbles and pieces of gravel. Seriah already knew who the enemy was. "Miss Ice," Seriah muttered to Louise, whose eyes opened wide. "She must've fallen asleep, too."
"What's this?" Miss Ice said, looking at Seriah, and then Louise. "Such a smart girl like you should not hang out with riffraff like this, Louise. Mr. Hanson was correct; bad apples do spoil the rest. Come over to my side, and we can practice mythology and writing together. You can succeed, and one day transform into a successful Neopian. You can listen to the right side."
Miss Ice's word bubbles seemed to worm through the air above her. She was maliciously smiling at Louise, who looked uncomfortable.
'iDon't listen to her/i…' Seriah thought at her friend. 'iShe'll just make you like her… bossy… arrogant… evil…/i'
Louise looked like she heard her friend's thoughts. She held her head high, looked Miss Ice straight in the eye, and said, "No. Seriah is my true friend. You are not my friend, Miss Ice. You are my teacher. You would be a fake friend. We can never become friends."
The Maraquan Grarrl reared back, foaming at the mouth. Dark bubbles sprouted and floated into the water. "You – you foolish girl! You dare to do anything like this! You – you –" Then, the teacher turned to Seriah. "This is your fault! You've corrupted my best student, and as a result, she's condescended to your level! You've poisoned her mind, interrupted her good thoughts and replaced them with bad –" Miss Ice seemed to glow red as she charged at Seriah, her jaws wide open. The Aisha recoiled, ready for the impact.
"You will not harm my friend!" And a shadow fell over Seriah. Was she dead? No, she looked up. Louise was standing in front of Seriah, but she was slowly fading away. "I'm waking up, Seriah… this dream… I can never return to this sea…"
Giving no further explanation, she exploded into a torrent of bubbles and disappeared. Miss Ice's teeth were clenched in the place where Louise had been. She appeared to be in pain.
"This – these feelings… the courage she left behind… the friendship… it burns my hurt! It burns the very fibers of my body… it… it…"
Miss Ice recoiled again, and she started to fade into bubbles. Quickly, she sped off into the distance, so Seriah did not see her remain broken in the Sea of Dreams forever in her sleeping state.
Hesitantly, the Aisha swam into the cave. Things seemed awfully lonely without Louise, but the light was inviting. She wondered vaguely what had become of Louise and Miss Ice. Had they actually woken up? She had to wake up too to check on them, though she had to figure out what the light inside the cave was.
Something inside Seriah told her she just had to.
When the light was about to envelope her, the Aisha anticipated the shaking of the walls. She closed her eyes and prepared to awaken. However, nothing happened. Miss Ice was not there to shake a desk. There were no alarm clocks to wake her up. The tide on the turquoise sand where she was now asleep had not yet reached her face to douse her back into reality. She swam on, and finally reached the end of the cave.
There, at the source of the bright light, was a Maraquan Ixi carrying a glowing orb. "So, we finally meet in the water," Jill said, smiling.
Seriah suddenly felt the euphoric feeling leave her, despite breaking the chain of curiosity that had drawn her to the cave for so long. She sat down on the floor of the cave and broke down and cried.
"That Miss Ice, she's gotten me so wound up for so long, and now because of her Louise is gone, and my parents are going to be so mad, and I'll be stuck in this dream forever, and – and –"
Amidst her sobs, Jill once again put her arms around Seriah, who tried to recoil. However, the light the Ixi was carrying seemed to bind her to Jill's embrace. "Dry your eyes, Seriah," she said, in a voice of serenity. A feeling of calm swept over the Aisha as Jill said, in a voice that seemed to be fading, "Everything will be alright…"
The cave did not shake, but instead faded. Jill found herself on the bench in front of her classroom again.
"I just don't know what happened, doctor. She just won't wake up." Louise's voice said. Seriah sat up, thinking that her friend was talking about her. However, she was talking to one of the two doctors that held up a hammock, with Miss Ice on it. "We've tried everything: littering, talking during class, ripping pages out of textbooks, gluing everything in her desk together, Neomailing during class, poisoning her food, destroying the classroom: nothing worked. It's not like she's dead, though. It's as if she's in a trance or something."
"Thank you, young lady," a third doctor, who was writing down all of the information, said.
"It was no trouble, sir," Louise said, bowing. The doctors carried Miss Ice from the building. After she exited to never return to the NeoSchool, an Ixi teacher walked up the hallway with a scrap of paper in her hand. Seriah could see there was a room number written on it, and was surprised when she realized that it was her classroom.
"This is classroom 403, correct?" the teacher asked Seriah, who was still lying on the bench (though at least she was sitting up). Seriah nodded, too stunned to talk. "That's wonderful. I will be taking over this class tomorrow, and I just wanted to find it first. You may call me Miss Jill."
Seriah rediscovered her voice. "My name is Seriah."
The Ixi winked at her. "I know," she said, before walking away.
Seriah blinked.
"What was that all about?" Louise asked, sitting down on the bench beside Seriah.
"New teacher," the Aisha said casually. "Did you fall asleep in myth today?"
Louise grinned sheepishly. "Yes, I did, but I woke up when I poked my elbow on my pencil."
"Then – then Miss Ice didn't eat you?"
"What are you talking about?"
Seriah shook her head. Now that she thought about it, what had she been doing for the past hour when she had been sent out? She seemed to remember something about a sea, and Miss Ice, and some Neopet named Jill…
"Come to think of it, do we still have that quiz tomorrow?" Seriah asked Louise, forgetting what Miss Ice had forbid her from doing.
"Yeah, but it's easy. It's on the Sea of Dreams."
The name stuck out to Seriah. Somehow, she seemed to know all about it.
"That'll be a piece of cake," the Aisha said, smiling.
Louise smiled, looking at her friend as if she was insane. "How do you know?"
Seriah smiled and stood up. "I just know everything will be alright."