It wasn't like being in water; that's the first thing I noticed about the dark river. Tiger and I were both held suspended beneath the surface, but whatever was holding us up didn't feel like liquid. It didn't even have a temperature.
The not-bats hovered restlessly above us like a dark cloud before a storm, screeching indignantly; despite their best efforts, Tiger and I had escaped, and none of them seemed too keen on diving in after us. I couldn't help but smile as the strange current of nothingness pulled us away, leaving them bewildered and hungry. "Sorry, guys," I thought, "but Maddie and Tiger are not what's for dinner."
"Ha ha. Very funny. Ever consider going into stand-up comedy? Because you'd be great, you know? Seriously. No joke. You'd draw huge crowds every night. Can you tell I'm being sarcastic, by the way?"
I looked back at Tiger. "Be quiet," I said, but for some reason sound just wouldn't come out of my mouth, and somehow I knew it was because of the not-water. "Ugh. Stupid river," I thought.
"Yeah. Stupid river that saved us from the snake-bat freaks. Would a little gratitude kill you?"
I glanced back at Tiger. She shrugged and mouthed, "What?" Realizing with surprise that she couldn't speak aloud, she clapped a hand to her mouth.
"Let me guess... we can only communicate in here by thinking?" I thought at her.
She shrugged again. "Unless you prefer to lip-read."
"No, not really."
For a few minutes we let ourselves be carried along by the swift current, just in case the not-bats decided to follow us downstream after all. Luckily, we never heard any more leathery wings snapping above us. After a while I let my tired muscles unclench, surrendering myself to the current's steady pull.
And then I felt it.
A pulse not unlike the waves of emotion I had given off to help Tiger, but somehow... calmer, more powerful, washing me in a sense of serenity. Maybe this was a river that flowed with feelings instead of water.
"Did you feel that?" I asked Tiger in my thoughts.
"Yeah. Kinda felt like something a Mesprit would give off."
"You're not far off!"
Tiger and I opened our mouths in silent yells of astonishment. That voice!
"ADRIENNE?!" It was unbelievable; somehow she was able to mentally communicate with us! A disturbing thought crossed my mind: Was this river made of Adrienne's feelings? Were we swimming in the very place my sister's emotions were created?
"So you can hear me! Great! Okay, listen to me." Adrienne's words seemed to fill the river with her happiness and relief knowing Tiger and I had escaped Darkrai's moonbeam. "Guys, you're in my Stream of Consciousness, which is the only reason I can talk to you right now. Lucky for you, if you just stay in the stream it'll take you right to the core. Darkrai is holding me there—and don't ask me how I can be inside my own soul, because I have no clue—and he thinks he's smart by keeping me imprisoned in my worst nightmares, but frankly nightmares get boring fast when you know they're not real."
"Hey, Adrienne, what's the big deal with the bat things?" I asked, heaving with silent, relieved laughter. Adrienne was still okay, there was still time! "I mean, I knew you were weird, but geez, that was just going a little overboard!"
"Bat things? You mean the Serpensaligeres? Huh, I figured you'd be dumb enough to go into a cave labeled 'to the evil ones', so I left them in there to chase you here. The Serpensaligeres are completely harmless, actually. And before you say anything, no, I couldn't make the Latin signs say whatever I wanted them to! It took a ton of energy just to make this cave appear for you; believe me, I'm no magician, so you'd better come save me before the Inners and Darkrai make me pull my final vanishing act!"
"Saving you is the general idea, yes. Don't worry, those four will be sorry they ever messed with us," I assured her, hoping I sounded more confident than I felt. Well, at least Tiger and I wouldn't have to search for the core anymore, now that we knew the river—or the Stream of Consciousness, as Adrienne had called it—was going to take us there. But then something else occurred to me. "You know Cresselia, right?"
"Of course. I saw her locked up when Darkrai captured me and brought me here. She didn't look too well. But right before Darkrai plunged me into endless nightmares, she spoke in my mind and promised to send you a message."
"How long has it been since Cresselia came to speak with us? Do you know?"
The emotions of the Stream of Consciousness seemed to darken with uncertainty. "You know, I'm not a hundred percent sure. As far as I can figure from sensing the moon's rise and fall, Cresselia sent you her message two nights ago. This will be the second full day they've had me imprisoned. Why do you ask?"
Tiger and I looked at each other with horror. It had been that long already?
"But..." I said, shuddering with fear, and cut the thought short. It couldn't be true. If this was the second day since Adrienne's capture, then that could only mean one thing.
"The eclipse," said Tiger dully.
"The eclipse?" asked Adrienne, clearly confused.
"It's why Darkrai wanted you in the first place—and why the Inners are working with him," Tiger explained in a hollow voice. "Normally a person's soul is too powerful to be taken over by brute force. But tonight there's going to be a lunar eclipse... and when the moon turns red, Darkrai will gain the power to overcome your soul and use your Azelf body. He and the Inners will be able to control the willpower of everyone. ..." She paused then finished haltingly, "Everyone on Earth!"
For a long time Adrienne said nothing, but it was a loaded silence. After a few minutes I began to worry that Darkrai or the Inners had discovered her communicating with us. I was about to say something, anything to reassure my sister, when a pulse of emotion struck me so hard I thought my tiny Mesprit body would be shaken to bits.
"Adrienne! What're you doing?!" I yelled mentally. Over and over, I was bombarded from every direction by a frighteningly unstable mix of emotions: panic, guilt, horror, and, most unmistakably, anger.
"It's all my fault!" she cried. "If I hadn't just stood there like a deer in the headlights and watched that moonbeam come down on me, none of this would've ever happened!"
The river surged and boiled, threatening to dash Tiger and me against the stone it flowed through. "Adrienne, if it weren't for you, Tiger and I would probably be trapped too! Stop blaming yourself for this!" I cried, struggling against the iron grip of the violent flow. Adrienne didn't seem to have heard me. No matter how hard I tried to send out waves of calm hope, my Mesprit powers just weren't enough to make her stop this torrent of feelings.
Finally I just decided to try a different approach.
"Adrienne." No answer; the not-water continued to swill me about wildly as Adrienne rambled on and on about how the whole world was doomed thanks to her stupidity. "Adrienne, shut... UUUUUUUUUUUUUP!" I shrieked mentally, pouring every last ounce of mental energy into the single blared word.
As it turns out, mental shrieks can be much, much louder than oral ones if you try hard enough. Finally, FINALLY, my sister fell into a blessed silence. At the same time, the tsunami force of the Stream of Consciousness began to lessen. Over the course of a few seconds it lost its monstrous wrenching pull, slowly at first, then with increasing speed, until at last the current was back to its original swift-but-gentle state.
I heaved a sigh of relief, silently vowing to never again play in the wave pool at Splashtown for as long as I lived. Even though the river was made of emotions, I was really ticked off at water right now. Water could be a royal pain in the butt. Then again, so could sisters. Geez!
Adrienne was quiet for another long while, but I could feel her pensiveness streaming past me. When she spoke up it was to say, "You're nearly at the core of my soul; I can sense it. Please, just do your best. And thank you. Thank you so much." She gulped. "For coming this far."
From the tone of her voice, it didn't seem like she felt much confidence that Tiger and I would be able to take on all three Inners and Darkrai by ourselves. She tried to hide it, but I still felt tiny trickles of her anxiety and doubt stream past. I couldn't say I blamed her. Without any help, how could Tiger and I possibly hold our own against the four powerful evildoers, much less defeat them? My heart sank, but I tried not to pay my dwindling spirits too much attention. There was always hope; I had to go on believing that. I sent a weak pulse of the emotion to Tiger; understanding the message, she turned to me and allowed herself a sad smile and an encouraging nod.
I smiled back, and firmly decided that no matter what happened, I wasn't about to go down without fighting the good fight. From my social studies class last year with Mrs. Hutchins—who had been much more fun than the Ringworm—I recalled Patrick Henry's famous quote: "I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"
"Yeah... I like that! Give me liberty, or GIVE ME DEATH!! ... Um, preferably liberty." Tiger and I cracked up with muffled laughter. So Adrienne still had a sense of humor after all. Maybe she didn't doubt us as much as I had thought.
All at once, the Stream of Consciousness just... ended. The two of us were dumped out onto land. Neither of us was wet, but now we were both in high spirits. "Give us liberty or give us death! Give us liberty or give us death!" Tiger and I chanted like hyped-up cheerleaders at the football game of saving the world. We floated up from the riverbank and stopped our chant short when we found ourselves in a creepily familiar meadow.
It was an exact replica of the field where Cresselia had given us the details of our mission. The place where Darkrai had captured Adrienne with his dark moonbeam. ...
"Give you liberty or give you death? Hmm. You're not giving us much of a choice here, now are you? Not nice, other me!"
The chillingly cheerful voice was all too familiar, so I knew who would be standing there even before I turned my head.
"Careful, guys... now it's up to you..." Adrienne's voice wavered, then faded, leaving us to face the evil ones alone.
Inner-Maddie, the one who had spoken, stood grinning nastily next to her equally nasty friends, Inner-Adrienne and Inner-Tiger. And behind them, hovering like an image torn from a nightmare, was Darkrai.