Chapter 7
[sorry I didn't post anything in a long while, I was a little busy with life stuff.]
Alicia had no idea where she was. She stood in the middle of a void, if she could even call it that, swimming in an ocean of endless black and purple ripples. One minute she was in Mrs. Periwinkle's classroom, listening to her lecture about the Dragon World, but then the next...here. How did she come here in the blink of an eye?
Something didn't feel right with her, like a piece of her went missing. It didn't take her long to realize what that missing something was when her rogue hand decided to brush against her waist: her core deck case. Weird, she remembered having it on herself today; it just had to be with her, it couldn't have gone far. But patting herself continuously brought her the same empty result, and it wouldn't bring her deck case back.
"H-hello?" Her shaky greeting only met itself several times over inside the darkness, like it was answering itself. "Hello? Where am I?" Again, the void echoed with her nervous questions, taunting the girl with her own words. It was wasted effort figuring out she was the only inhabitant of this strange...place? Strange, where am I? She gasped suddenly, closing her mouth with both hands as she fell to her butt! Even her own thoughts rang through the void as clearly as she could have spoken them! I-I-I can actually hear myself think outside my head? H-how can that be?
Suddenly a small light flickered in front of the confused girl. The bluish white flames of the ember gave little warmth to her, not enough to overcome the cold of the dark, but it assured her she wasn't the only thing in wherever she was. Its light was beautiful to her eyes, but she couldn't shake the weird sense of dread that it brought. The tiny speck ate away at the darkness surrounding it, growing and spreading its flames as if catching the dark on fire, stretching until its form resembled something human. The flame being stood about as tall as Alicia, though that was her impression at first glance. Two scarlet dots shined from its head, glaring down the girl like it was attempting to stare into her soul. The blaze covering its body danced slowly, putting some of her nerves at ease just by staring at them, though what remained kept her suspense high. "Wh-who are you?" Alicia asked the thing while trying to compose her calmness, only to be replied back with a haunting silence from the being and a subtle crackling sound from its flames. Alicia gulped, maybe that question wasn't the right one to ask it. Collecting more of her composure, she asked again, "What are you?"
"Do you realize the potential you hold, Alicia Hightower?" The flame whispered, mimicking Alicia's own voice, only in a more confident, assertive tone.
The being proved the girl's own calmness to be a lie, replacing it with an eerie cringe surging through her muscles. "Wh-what? How do you know my name?"
The flame ignored her question, and continued with its lecture, "Look around you, Alicia Hightower, what do you see in this empty void? Hollowness? Darkness? Loneliness?"
"I-I don't understand; what are you talking about?"
"Inside these blackened walls lies your potential." The flame's voice echoed. "Inside this deprivation is the ability to turn your aspiration into a reality. All you need to do is: unlock it. And I am the key to the lock." The flame added as it extended its hand to the girl.
Alicia stood up slowly, the rattling of her knees echoed across the space. Nothing was making sense to her; her questions weren't being answered; this was one puzzle she knew she couldn't solve on her own. "N-no." She told the being, looking down to the ground. "I understand that I have the potential to become Buddyfight Champion, but I want to achieve it my way, with my friends."
"Friends?" The flame scoffed. "Listento yourself, you're being delusional: you only met those people for just two days, and yet you trust those strangers wholeheartedly. They won't ascend you as high as I can."
"They're not strangers!" She barked back, determined to rescue herself from the corner she's been put into, "They promised to help me! I just know that if I fail and fall, they'll be there to pick me up; and when the same happens to them, I'll be there to pick them up! Sure, I haven't known them for long, but it's more than how long I've met you! If you're telling me not to accept help from strangers, then I'll just start with you!"
The flame stood in front of her, speechless. The only sounds being produced from it were the crackling of its flames subtly haunting the space, though the glare from its red dots persisted. Alicia had won the argument before it even began, or so she believed. The flame came prepared to surprise her with its next statement, "You know what's ironic? You know me longer than you actually think."
"W-what?! How could that be?" She's only met this thing for what felt like minutes, how could that make sense? A massive migraine invading her skull commanded her to kneel, her hands wrapped around her throbbing head as confusion turned to hysteria. "No, no, no! That doesn't make sense!" She screamed, shaking her head violently believing it'll shake all the lies out.
"If you force yourself to find sense in something, you're not gonna find it. You don't realize how much you're hurting yourself fighting against the current. Go with the flow; let the current carry you. Accept me, and no one else, and become the strongest Buddyfighter you'll ever know."
"M-my answer is still no!" Alicia barked back, still trying to settle her nerves down as she pointed at the flame. "I don't know what you are, or where I even am, but I won't abandon the help of my friends for something like this. I admit friendship is kind of new to me, and maybe I'm kind of quick to trusting my friends so much, but they mean something to me. They all agreed to help me on my quest to become Buddyfight Champion, and I'm grateful to them. I don't want to waste any of their help. How do I know you're not helping me, only so you can stab me in the back later?"
"I could ask you the same thing: how do you know your friends don't have any ulterior motives? How do you know you're not being played?"
"Because that's not what friends do to each other-!" Alicia tried to defend her philosophy, but her defense fell short to amuse the sentient flame.
"And how do you know that?" It asked back, with a tone still as calm as a stream, but with its glare harboring a certain disdain that only the girl understood. "Listen to yourself: you're letting your naivete speak for you. I'm growing tired of this petty argument; it has reached far beyond its climax-"
The flame held out its open palm in front of Alicia. The black floor bubbled mildly from beneath her; whatever was happening, she knew she wasn't going to like it. Suddenly the solid ground turned to water, dropping her into the pool below in just a second flat! She didn't know what else to do, but hold her breath as she was dragged down into the black void, trying to swim up to the surface, wherever "up" was. She kicked her legs and fanned her arms desperately, fighting to relieve the tightening in her chest with a breath of air.
"Gaaaagh-!" She exploded from the surface of the ocean, but just before she took a breath, something below yanked her back into the black waters. The flame stood silently, watching the girl bob above the surface for her life. "H-h-help me! P-please! Help!" Alicia screamed at the top of her lungs.
"I'm sorry, I'm afraid I've already accepted your previous answers." For being a flame, it answered back coldly, as if just to spite her. "What made you suddenly want my help?"
"Because I'm going to drown to death-!" Alicia's attempts to stay afloat slowly started to fail, each time she'd burst from the surface, splashing everywhere, she'd only get dragged back down into the deep. Her muscles grew heavier and tighter, as much as she refused, her body kept telling her to give up on her attempts. "Please, help! I don't...gasp...know how much...gasp...more I can take-!"
"Well then, maybe your friends can come help you out, since you put so much faith in them. I know you, Alicia Hightower, more than you realize. At some point you're going to be put against a wall, and the only thing you can think of doing is lash out angrily out of desperation. And when that happens, I'll be there to give you that push for freedom. We'll meet again."
"W-wait-!" It was too late. Before Alicia could mutter anymore words to the flame, she was yanked back into the blackened deep. Fatigue overcame her, her kicking and fanning was sluggish and slow, she was being pulled down faster than she could swim up. Even her held breath became exhausted, but as much as her body wanted to force her mouth open and take in a lung full of liquid, she kept it clamped. Everywhere she looked, she couldn't see anything, not even her own hands inches away from her. She couldn't hold it in any longer, she took a big inhale for air, but instead her lungs filled up like water balloons. Her screams were replaced by faint gurgling that she could only barely hear under the thick volume of liquid she's sinking into. A slight burning sense slithered into her muscles, and jammed them from flailing for survival.
Sinking deeper and deeper into the darkness, Alicia laid motionless, letting the tug drag her to the bottom, if there was ever going to be one. Either her body went numb, or she forgot how to control her limbs. But she didn't want to move if she could; what's the point to resistance at this point? This...this is how I die. Her final thoughts still managed to haunt her outside of her head. Her only sign of crying was a weird flowing feeling from under her eyes, and she lacked the strength to scream anymore. I...I don't want it to end like this. I don't even know where I am, or what that thing was. But that doesn't matter now. I'm...going to die, alone. Wh-why? Why must this happen, when I just now started to feel happy? Jason, Fionna, Axia, I want to see you guys even more, now. I don't want my own voice to haunt me as I slip away, not like this. She knew what she had, and now, it was all going to be ripped out of her hands. In the end, she really was alone.
She started to hear weird sounds. A muffled yelling almost, but it couldn't be hers. She listened to it grow louder and louder, the snuffed noise carried her name. "Alicia! Alicia! Alicia, wake up!"
What? Wake up? Her brain was already fried from confusion, how much more did she possibly need? It said something about "waking up", what was it talking about? She forced herself to call out to the voice, to ask for meaning to this, but it was pointless: nothing much more gurgling came out.
"Alicia, wake up!" The voice grew louder, Alicia could almost recognize its owner. It was Fionna! But where was she? All she could see was: black, black, and more black. But a sudden, sharp pain to her face fixed that for her, turning the entire space white.
"Uuuuggghhhh..." Alicia opened her eyes, her vision came to her, but only enough to make out severely blurred objects. She couldn't focus on anything but the burning across her left cheek, which hid a slight sting under her skin the longer it lingered. "Aaagh, my cheek. It hurts." She whimpered softly in slight pain. "How did it-?" She wanted to rub the hurt away from her rosy cheek, but neither of her hands responded to her demand. Her sight adjusted, and within the circle of worried faces surrounding her, two of the class' boys manhandled her arms with cautious care, spreading them apart to keep her exhausted frame sitting up straight. To say she was confused won't be describing it accurately, more like: reality ran her over with a semi-truck as if she were a blind skunk mindlessly walking across busy traffic. "Wha-? Wha-wh-what's going on?! L-let go of me!" She fought back to her tired, but best ability, but she did nothing to deter the mens' grasp- they hardly budged an inch. She petered out like the tempered toddler she was; even catching a few breaths felt like a life-or-death battle wagging in her rib cage. "Wh-what...the hell...is going on?" She asked the group with what little energy she could accumulate.
"Alicia, darling, are you all right?" The teacher, Mrs. Periwinkle, stepped forward from the crowd, overflowing with more worry than a mother could harbor for her sick child. "I thought you were daydreaming in my class at first, until you hit your head severely on your desk, and started to flail rabidly and shout 'Please, help me!'."
"Wha-wh...what?" It was just a little too much for her to take in all at once. So all of that with the empty, black room, with the talking flame, was all of that just a bad daydream? She could have sworn she was drowning for real, but it just turned out to be a cheap imitation of a demonic possession to the watchful eyes of the class. It kinda made her wonder, did they also hear everything she said from the dream?
"YOU ACTED LIKE YOU WERE DYING!" Fionna filled in the details for her friend, rather aggressively with tears flowing like rivers. "seriously, you were flailing around, and screaming and crying 'Please, help me! Please, help me!' You had us all worried! What the hell went down with you?"
"Daniels: no cursing in my classroom!" Periwinkle demanded.
"But-!"
"Guys, I-I'm fine. I'm fine." Alicia's voice could barely be heard, even as a weary whisper slipping through a tired smile.
"Are you sure? You're paler than a ghost! And you're sweating enough to fill a pool! You don't need to go to the nurse?" Mrs. Periwinkle tried voicing the emotional pit in her stomach, her hand gently placed on the girl's shoulder doing a better job at absorbing the excess liquid than her uniform, but Alicia kept assuring her with a pausing breath-
"I-I'm fine, really...I-I-I just felt a little...lightheaded..."
The teacher found it hard to swallow, her student's condition wasn't alleviating her worries any time soon. She looked the weary Alicia straight in her eyes, noticing her faint pupils had a bit of a shake to them; she was even surprised Alicia hadn't slipped out of her handlers' hands by now. But maybe she doesn't need the help of the men to keep her upright anymore, now that she stopped squirming. Periwinkle gave the two boys a little nod, telling them to release her out of their grasp, but that proved to be stupid of her. Alicia didn't know why, but her forehead seemed to be attracted to the surface of her desk- as soon as she was released, she met with the flat hardwood with a skull-cracking "Thunk!"
"Ow..."
"See, you're not fine, darling!" The teach yelled. "You need to go to the nurse's office! You're in no shape to be sitting in class."
"N-no, r-really...I'm fine..." She talked back trying to hide the fatigue in her voice, muffled by her table, but who was she trying to fool? Definitely not Mrs. Periwinkle.
"Daniels, please take Hightower to the school nurse."
"Okay." The blonde happily obliged, wanting to see her buddy get well, but also as an excuse to skip a couple minutes of her least favorite school subject. "C'mere, you-" Fionna gently wrapped the half-conscious Alicia's arm around her shoulder with as much angelic care as she could muster, and slowly herded her from the room. Alicia's legs never wanted to cooperate with the duo during their walk, they kept collapsing on themselves like twigs under the sheer weight of a boulder, slowing down the hike to the nurse's.
But among the girls, there was only one who had a clue what was happening, and even he drank from the same cup of disarray his human indulged in. Sleeping within a little dimension provided by his partner's core deck case, Axia felt a slight beam of awareness strike him through the head like a speeding bullet, leaving him to ponder what the heck made him feel...uncomfortable. Huh, what was that feeling just now? He asked himself, the sensation disturbed him from his dream of a certain somedragon. I...I think something might be wrong with Alicia, but I just can't put my claw on it. I'm sensing she's in pain, but from what, I can't tell. Hey, I have an idea: maybe I can cheer her up when we get home! Yeah! Nothing like a visit from good ol' Axia to raise her spirits!
Two wishes have been on Fionna's mind as she made her journey: to see her friend get well soon, and for the nurse's office not to be so far away for her to drag a nearly unconscious body around. For a girl who was as thin as a feather, Alicia was as heavy as a boulder on her poor, aching shoulder. Occasionally the girl let out a sickly groan or two, though they were soft to Fionna's ears. At least she's still alive; that's a plus. There was no time to stop, she was only half-way to her destination. She just had to keep her legs moving, no matter how slowly she took each step, knowing she would reach her destination eventually.
Walking into the office, Fionna's senses became bombarded by the sickly clean stench of alcohol and other cleansing chemicals wafting through the air. "Hello? Hello?" Fionna cried for the nurse, awaiting her response, getting back a "I'll be out in a second!" She laid her friend down on one of the room's many sickbeds, the plastic case covering the thick mat crunched under her body.
The frail stick for a nurse stepped out from her hiding place, clad in minty green scrubs. What was a sunny smile given to Fionna, soon disappeared into a a frown of dread when her eyes caught onto Alicia. The girl barely had any color to her skin left, and her bangs were sickly, drooping heavily from soaking up her sweat. A long, damp spot developed around her collar, only ending below her chest. Her choppy breathing didn't sound all too well to the nurse, even for a girl in shock. "My goodness, what happened to her?" She asked Fionna.
"Well, it's kind of a weird story," she replied, recollecting that strange moment, "one minute she was awake, all fine and dandy, then suddenly she dropped to her desk like she blacked out, or somethin'. Then she started flailing around like she was drowning, screaming for help. When she finally woke up..." She didn't need to explain further to the nurse, her worried glance told her all the details she needed.
"That does sound rather strange." The nurse agreed. In all her years as a practitioner of health, she never heard a story so bizarre. She gently placed the back of her hand across Alicia's soaked forehead, only to violently retract back from her burning skin. "My goodness, she's burning up!"
"Well, do you know what's wrong with her?" Fionna asked the nurse a little too eagerly.
"With you breathing down my neck, not giving me enough time to figure that out? Probably a fever, and a pretty bad one." The nurse said. "Speaking of which, don't you have a class to go back to?"
"Yeah..w-well, see...cough, cough..." Fionna tried faking her own sickness in front of the nurse; any minute she can get out of Periwinkle's class would be a miracle to her. "Cough, cough,gagh, I think I'm getting sick, too! Can I stay a little while?"
The nurse gave her an unamused look, clearly not buying what Fionna had for sale. "Yeah, nice try, kiddo. Go back to class."
"Ugh, fine." Fionna stormed out of her office, a little tempered her top-notch acting stunt didn't pay off as well as she thought. Now the nurse finally had time to work on the poor, sick student. Alicia's thermometer exceeded the nurse's fears, reading one hundred-two degrees Fahrenheit. Her brain must be cooked a medium-rare by the fever by now, the nurse thought.
"Oh, dear, you really are a sick puppy, aren't you." The nurse said to herself, examining the sick girl. She doubted she is well enough to go back to class; looks like Alicia would have to be sent home.
