Hello! Hola! Konhichiwa! Guten tag!
Umm… well that's my extent of foreign languages…

Anyways! Hey guys! I'm back! Did ya' miss me? I missed you guys! I can't believe it's been two years since I started this story. I'm a bit mad at myself for not finishing but I guess life kinda took over. High school had been a bit demanding but I've found my groove (even if it took me over a year) and I'm finally devoting more time to my writing. I really have missed this a lot, it's such a good stress reliever. Currently I'm in the back seat of my truck as we (my family) drive across South Dakota (we're on our way to Illinois if you must know). And after rewatching the first two movies I feel ready to get to work. And when I say work, I mean work. I'm completely redoing the story. My main reason being that I feel my skills have improved and I want to carry that through the whole story, not just the later chapters. My secondary reason is that my characters have changed. We've all grown up over these two years and I want to do them justice because some of us are different people now.

So my plans consist of tacking the new chapters onto the end of the first book for now. If you want it could be fun to compare the two versions. Eventually I will take down the old chapters but for now I'm a bit too attached to them to get rid of them completely.

I'm going to get a bit sentimental for a few minutes now guys so bear with me…

I really want to thank all of the people who followed and favorited this story for me in the beginning. It was a great confidence booster for someone fairly new to all of this and for someone who had very little faith in her skills. I loved coming home from school after posting a new chapters and reading the reviews everyone left. I was really happy that people were enjoying something I put my heart into. So, thank you all and I love you guys to pieces! I hope you continue to read my work.

~Crystal

Chapter 1- Journey

"So, have you seen the Battle of Five Armies yet?" The girl with a black pixie cut asked, leaning against the locker to the right of my own.

"No! I'm so mad! My parents promised we would go while we were on the trip but we never got to!" I whined, reaching in to grab my north face jacket. "I was stuck babysitting Bianca the entire trip! And then when we made it back to Spokane they wouldn't let Lauren and I go alone to the theater!" I slammed my locker closed to emphasis my discontent.

"Poor Sasserra." Tosha clipped, rolling her eyes.

"Would you stop calling me that? My name is Cierra, and I'm not sassy."

"I agree with Cierra." Emma, our trumpet playing friend cut in, closing the locker she shared with Tosha. "Cierra's name sounds better if it's left alone."

"Thank you Emma darling." I wrapped an arm around her shoulders in a half hug.

Tosha rolled her eyes at the two of us before yelling at our darker skinned friend by the piano. "Riley! Don't you agree that Cierra is really a Sasserra?"

Riley started walking in our direction. "I don't know about sassy but she does have a bit of a potty mouth now."

"Oh shut it. Tosha's worse than me."

"True. True." Interrupted Nani, poking her curly head around the corner.

"Oh you just go back to sucking face with Avery!" Tosha shouted back.

"Excuse you." Said boyfriend appeared from around the corner and glared at Tosha.

"See Riley! Tosha's so mean to us!" Nani complained, hugging her boyfriend from behind.

"You two deserve it for being so disgustingly cute!" Emma added, earning her a high five from Tosha.

"So are we going now?" Riley asked, grabbing her backpack and nabbing her beanie back from Mac.

"We should get going, I have work tonight." I agreed, pulling my blue jacket on over my sweater.

"Where are you guys going?" Questioned Nani as the four of use started towards the band room doors.

"Emma's house. We're going to work on the pep band piece." Tosha informed her.

"Why weren't we invited?" Nani slightly frowned as we reached the exit.

"Because you have lessons with Davy today, right?" Riley almost knew Nani's schedule better than she did.

"Oh yeah! It's Wednesday isn't it." Nani chuckled slightly. "Okay, I'll catch up with you guys afterwards then."

"Do you know where Emma's house is?" I questioned, not remembering if she had come with us before.

"Yes, I've been there once before."

"Can you remember how to get there?" Tosha asked, sounding skeptical of our Hawaiian friend's navigation skills.

"I'll bring her over afterwards." Avery reassured us before waving. "We'll see you guys in an hour."

And off we went.

Riley and I both decided to leave our cars parked at school since it was only a five minute walk from school to Emma's and we didn't want to clog up her drive way with both automobiles. So we walked in the brisk January air to the neighboring church where we would take the gravel shortcut to Emma's road. On the downside Washington decided to live up to it's reputation. It was drizzling by the time we reached the church parking lot.

"Uggg. My hairs going to get frizzy." Tosha groaned and pulled her olive green hood over her short mop of hair.

"It's mid-winter in the pacific northwest. What less would you expect?" Countered Riley who just pulled her black beanie further down on her own dark hair.

"Nothing. We don't get snow but it's not warm enough to be comfortable either." I agreed as we reached the gravel path.

The path itself had been nice when it was put in, clean with neatly swept gravel but it had been 4 or 5 years and the path went between two backyard fences and under a line of pine trees. It had quickly become a harbor for drugies and truants. This wasn't somewhere you should go alone. But with a group of four and crappy weather it should be safe enough.

And thank goodness it was. The path was empty, well from what we could see. A mist hung beneath the pine trees making it difficult to spot the road at the end of the trail. The air felt heavy and a few degrees colder than it had out in the open parking lot.

We ceased our chatter as the mist seemed to get heavier around us. A twisted feeling quickly settled in my gut. Something was definitely wrong.

"Gah!"

Tosha and I (who had been walking in front) spun around to face Riley and Emma. Emma was lying face down on the ground.

"I think she just tripped." Riley knelt down next to our fallen friend. "You okay?"

Emma didn't respond.

"Emma?" As I knelt down next to her my head felt heavy and my brain felt numb. It was the same feeling that the pain pills from after my car accident had given me, somewhere along the lines of your ears stuffed with cotton and having stayed up for 48 straight hours.

Before I could ask Tosha or Riley for help my vision faded to black.

Blackness. Darkness. Nothingness. That's all there was. I couldn't feel anything. See anything. Think of anything but the void I seemed to be in.

Then there was pain. A dull throb in my shoulder and an aching in my neck. The topper on the cake was the explosion of a thousand tiny needles in my head. They struck at my scar above my ear, my temples, the base of my neck. It hurt like nothing I'd ever felt before.

Then there was nothing again before I was cold. The slow, dull ache of cold creeping into your bones. The kind of cold no number of layers of clothing could ward off.

"Shit." I groaned as the aching returned to my shoulder.

"You're telling me."

I immediately recognized Tosha's voice and felt better. I wasn't alone.

Slowly I cracked my eye lids open as I heard movement directly to my right. At first there was simply just darkness and I feared I had gone blind but grey shapes started to form in front of my eyes. I recognized Emma's silhouette sprawled out next to me before another groan came from the brunette.

"You guys there?"

That was Riley's voice but it was a little farther away. Probably closer to Tosha than me.

"Yeah, we're somewhere." Tosha muttered. She was somewhere behind me but I wasn't completely sure. The sounds were all echoing around us.

"What's going on?" Emma moaned. Rolling to face us.

"I have no clue." I answered before slowly scooting myself to her side. My eyes at this point were almost completely adjusted and I could make out confusion and fear on her face. I was sure mine didn't look too different.

"What do we do now?" Riley had walked to our side, holding out her hand to help Emma up and then me.

"Try and find a way out?" Tosha suggests, brushing off her pants.

"But where are we exactly?" I question.

"A cave maybe?" Emma offers nervously.

"Are there any caves in town?" Riley asks skeptically.

"Not that I've ever found." I frown.

"Well instead of talking about it can we try to get out of here?!" Tosha started to raise her voice.

"Hey." I grabbed her shoulder. "It's okay. We'll find a way out. Just take a deep breath."

Tosha did just that and unclenched her fists.

"Better?"

Tosha nodded.

"But what way do we go?" Emma asks, scanning the darkness.

"Right?" I suggest.

"If we walk until we reach a wall and follow it in one direction we should find some sort of exit." Riley agrees.

"Eventually." Tosha mutters.

So with no other options we started off in the direction that we believed was our right. Tosha had pulled out her iPod and was using it as our flashlight. Thanks to the apple device we avoided a few ledges and drops.

"So what exactly happened when we blacked out?" Emma asked, dragging one hand along the wall to our right.

"Well you looked like you just tripped and fell." Riley explained. "Then Cierra collapsed after trying to help you."

"What about you guys? Any ideas on what caused all of this?" I question. "Did you see anyone or anything?"

"Well that's the thing. Tosha collapsed right after you and then I started feeling really dizzy and couldn't think right. I fell down but before I blacked out I think I saw someone in the mist."

I shuddered. "Creepy."

"What did they look like?" Emma asks.

"I don't know, I couldn't see a lot but there seemed to be pointy hat." Riley motioned the shape with her hands. A sort of crooked point.

"What is this, Harry Potter?" Tosha scoffed.

All of us sighed. "I wish."

According to Tosha's slowly dying ipod we had been walking for three straight hours when we came upon a glimmer of light, which turned into a column and then an opening to a sweet patch of sky.

"Sweet, sweet, sunshine!" Tosha cried, stepping out of the cave and into the beautiful vitamin-d filled rays.

"Be careful!" Emma squeaked, grabbing the older girls arm.

I'm glad Emma did because if Tosh had taken another step she would have fallen over a ledge into a large river valley.

"Where in the world are we?" We were all wide eyed at the valley with a large river winding through it, clumps of trees filled in the remaining empty space. Looking to the left the valley seemed to taper off as the surrounding mountains smoothed out. Looking to the right a gigantic waterfall cascaded out of the rocks right behind a large stone series of buildings.

Tosha and I looked to each other;

"Rivendell?"