Ok, I'll try and make this chapter longer.

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"Maureen, you won't believe this!"

The boy and his friend were in his sitting room, and Maureen had just entered.

"What is it?" she asked curiously.

"These rings..." he started. "No, don't touch that one!" he exclaimed as she reached for one of the yellow ones.

"Why not?" she said in a hurt voice.

"Because, they're magic rings," he drawled, annoyed. "The yellow ones will take you to another world."

Maureen's face pinched up as if she had just smelled something rotten. "If this is all that rubbish about 'Atlantis' and 'magic', then I'll have nothing to do with it Clive."

"But Maureen, its true, it's not rubbish," Clive said.

Maureen turned up her nose and looked away. "Yes it is, and if you believe for a second that I'll..." she cut off as she turned around and saw that Clive had disappeared. "Clive, I know you're here!" she yelled. "Come on out, I won't believe you that easily." She waited, and was astonished to see Clive reappear right in front of her very eyes.

"See? I told you they were magic."

"Well then, you should just put those right back where you found them and forget about this whole thing."

"But Maureen," Clive insisted, "I read journals on these rings. Aren't you curious about other worlds and such?"

She thought for a moment. "Well..."

"Come on then!" Clive exclaimed, pressing a green ring into her hand. "Go on, put that in your pocket, you'll need it. Oh, one other thing. You'll become somewhat drowsy when we get there. Just wait for a while, and you're memory should return. Now, grab this yellow ring and we'll be off," he said, snatching up a pair of rings for himself, promptly disappearing, with Maureen shouting, "What do you mean, should return!" after him. Shrugging, she pocketed the ring he gave her and put on a yellow one. She felt the same sensation Clive had on his first trip, and surfaced in the pool a moment later.

"See?" he said. "I told you they were real."

Nodding dazedly, she wandered around for a moment until she heard Clive shouting, "Be careful, you'll fall!" She stopped just short of a gaping hole, unlike the other two empty pools near her. It was a sickening looking hole. No, she though after a moment. The hole itself wouldn't be so bad, but when compared to the forest around it, it looked almost evil.

"What do you suppose this is?" she asked Clive, as even now it ate away at the soil.

"I honestly don't know. It wasn't in the journals," he replied. They watched whatever it was devour the dirt for a while until Maureen suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, Clive, won't our folks be worried about us being gone for so long?"

Clive's mouth drew into a sly smile. "No, they won't even know we're gone. Time doesn't pass in our world as long as we're here."

Maureen was slightly confused, but she turned back to the hole nonetheless and promptly exclaimed, "Clive, look! It's about to eat it's way into that pool!"

Clive was suddenly at her side looking down into the hole. Sure enough, the slowly spreading hole was on the brink of tapping into one of the multiple pools around them.

"What do you s'pose will happen when it hits that pool?" Maureen whispered, afraid.

"I..." Clive trailed off. It was there. It was breaking down the thin wall of dirt between it and the water. When it finally ate away that wall, the water flowed into it, glowing with an eerie black light. Soil swirled in the large hole, adding to the effect. When it all settled, the hole was now growing at a much more rapid pace. It soon tapped into another pool, filling even more with the same, eerie light. The two children watched, astonished, as the huge pool, now almost thirty feet all the way around, broke down the dirt between it and the two pools it was eating its way toward. These pools were not really pools, for they were empty, but they looked as if they had been full at one time. They held their breath as it devoured soil, breaking down the barrier to one of the empty pools. The water in the hole surged forward, filling it. The hole continued to expand, but the children were amazed that half the water stayed behind in the once empty pool. The disease, or whatever it was, now greedily headed for the other pool. But as it neared it, it slowed down a considerable amount. It almost stopped, but the water that it had left behind in the one pool now drained, forcing the invisible force to work its way forward until it had breached the second empty pool. Once some of the water had filled it, the remaining liquid drained back into the first empty pool, and all was quiet. It wasn't until now the the two children realized there had been a steadily growing roar this entire process, and they were too astonished by what was occurring to notice it until it stopped.

"What was that?" Maureen asked shakily, cowering behind Clive.

"I don't know," Clive replied, equally afraid, and looking very much like he wanted to hide.

"I think we should go home now," Maureen said, straitening.

Clive whirled on her. "Are you crazy?" he said. "Don't you want to know what is in those pools, that made them draw the water like that?"

"How do you know that they even drew the water?" Maureen shot back. "It looked to me like that hole just brought it to them somehow."

Clive looked puzzled. "Couldn't you feel it? Something from that first empty pool was pulling the water to it. And how do you think the water just happened to return to it, when it had all this room to go to?" he asked, motioning to the sickening black hole that was about forty feet around now.

Maureen was at a loss for words. She felt exactly what Clive was talking about, but she didn't want to admit it. "I don't know, maybe that area was lower," she said weakly.

"Yeah, sure," Clive retorted. "Well, I'm going. You can go home if you want, just put on your green ring and jump in the pool we came out of, but I'm going into that one," he said, motioning to the second pool that had been empty. "I want to find out why it resisted being filled."

Without another word, he jumped into the pool and was gone, despite Maureen's protests. With a huff, she too twisted the green ring on her finger and followed him.

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Well, what do you think? Did you follow that? If you didn't, ask in a review or PM me and I'll explain. Next chapter coming soon!