Chapter 13

My entire body felt numb. I couldn't hear, I couldn't see, I couldn't move… I was glad of it at the moment, since I was almost certain I would feel miserable when my brain came back online.

It was only a moment later when my hearing started coming back to me. The reason I knew was because I could hear someone calling my name.

"Naomi…" it said softly. Whoever it was sounded tired. "Naomi, wake up." I tried to respond, but my tongue refused to work properly. Another moment later, I started to feel my body again. All over I could feel a dull ache, but it was most prominent in my back where I'd landed and taken the full force of the fall. "Come on, wake up!" I groaned as I slowly slipped back into full consciousness.

"Five more minutes…"

"There's no time. Come on."

"Four…" I felt a hand on my cheek, and a thumb make a slow sweeping motion across the corner on my mouth. It was then that I noticed that I could vaguely taste blood. I could feel my head start to throb, making me a thousand promises of the headache that was to come. But despite that, I opened my eyes.

Everything was double and wherever there was a dark spot, there were stars. But the first thing I saw was the Prince looming over me, concern in his eyes, fatigue on his face.

"Uhg… Prince…?"

"Are you all right?" he asked me, some of that concern being replaced with relief.

"Ugh… I didn't know you… had a twin…" He rolled his eyes.

"It seems you're well enough to make jokes at least. How are you feeling?"

"Like whale barf. You?"

"Not much better, but I'm all right." I gather what strength I could and tried to sit up. I hadn't noticed that the Prince had been holding me, but he inched back as I tried to get my body in working order again. But as soon as I was upright, I wished I had just stayed down. That headache I'd been promised came flying in like a bat out of hell. The pain hit me so hard I almost fell back over. I didn't, but I was suddenly dizzy. Everything started to spin, and became just a big blob of color. That dizziness quickly took its toll on my poor stomach and seconds later I scrambled to the edge, threw my head over and threw up.

Since there was basically nothing in my stomach to puke, it emptied quickly and I fell back on the ground, ready to die. The Prince, now shirtless, came back over to me.

"Can you walk?" he asked gently. I only made a pathetic groaning noise.

"Someone shoot me!" I cried, "Put me outta my misery!" The Prince carefully brushed my hair out of my face.

"Naomi, if we're going to get out of here, we'll need to work together. Are you up for it?" he asked, more firmly this time. I groaned.

"Where are we?"

"A prison, by the looks of it." The prison level. I think this one was one of the more annoying ones. But the Prince was right. If we both wanted to get out, we'd need each other. Slowly, I turned on my stomach and looked up at him. He answered my small plea for assistance. He came over, turned and knelt down so I could climb on his back. I did, and he stood up. I made sure I wasn't choking him and he started down.

At the base of the first ladder, he stopped.

"Naomi, with your extra weight, I won't be able to go very far," he explained, "Do you think you might be able to get enough airlift to fix that?" I wearily looked over my shoulder and tried my wings out. There were tired, and ached when I moved them. Obviously, they were pissed off at me for making them keep the Prince and I airborne as long as I did. But they moved.

"I can try to, but I make no promises."

"Good enough." With me on his back, he started a wall run. I spread my wings, however painful it was, and tried to get some airlift, just enough so the Prince could get us both across safely. To my surprise, it worked. We did that the whole way down, the prince taking it as slow as he could, probably knowing that my wings were aching. It got tricky when we had to start swinging on poles to get down, but we made it.

"There's Sand Creatures down there," the Prince told me, "up for a fight?"

"Not really…" I grumbled, "but if I must, I must…" With that, he slid down the ladder. Once his feet hit solid ground, I jumped off and we both drew out weapons as the beasts realized our presence. The first one over was one of the weaklings, which the Prince made quick work of. More of them converged on us. Though I was tired, I focused more on the littler ones while the Prince took on the big guys. Lucky for me, the small ones were the weakest of the entire Sand Monster Family Tree, so I had little trouble. The Prince didn't seem to be having a difficult time, either with the big guys with the hammers. The only real trouble was that there was only one dagger, and some of those damn things would just get right back up if the Prince couldn't get to them quick enough.

Annoyances aside, we got through that batch and started looking for a way out. Or at least, the Prince did. As for me, I hit the floor again and nearly threw up all over the ground. No, scratch that, I did throw up all over the ground. But what the freak was I puking?! I hadn't eaten anything for days now!

"There's vomit in your hair," the Prince informed me when I looked up at him wearily. "And on your shirt." He looked pointedly over at the far corner of the room. "There's a fountain of water over there. Go clean up while I look for a way out."

"Well, aren't you helpful…" I muttered, crawling to my feet. I had to use the side rail to keep myself from falling on the floor again and dragged myself when I had nothing to support me.

I hauled myself up to the fountains edge and stared grumpily at my reflection. The Prince hadn't been lying… there was vomit in my hair, and on the collar of my shirt. The first thing I did was hold my breath and dunk my face under the water. It was heaven! The water was cool and refreshing against my sweaty, dirt smeared face. I held myself there until I couldn't stand it and threw my head back with a huge sigh. I took a minute to catch my breath, then drank some of the water to get the horrible taste of puke out of my mouth.

Then I looked at my shirt. There didn't seem to be much there… a little scrubbing might get it out. I tried doing it with my shirt on, but I quickly found that it was more trouble than it was worth and pulled it off. So what if I was standing there with nothing but my bra coving me. At this point, I really didn't give a damn. Even when I heard the Prince's footsteps stop behind me. I knew he was staring at me. Annoyed, I turned on him, my hands on my hips.

"What?" I snapped. His face turned red.

"I-I… w-well, I-I just…"

"Spit it out!"

"N-nothing!" I sighed.

"Prince, don't tell me you've never seen a woman wearing nothing but a bra. I've seen servant girls running around half naked, wearing much less than I am! So get over it!"

"Sorry… I-I just… I…" I rolled my eyes and returned my attention to my shirt.

"Just drop it before you stick your foot in your mouth." Another moment of silence went by at he drug a large metal cage onto the floor switch in the alcove next to me. I was sure the Prince had decided it was best to listen to me and shut up… but wouldn't you know…

"It's just—you—you're—well, er, pretty… I mean, not in that way, but—you know—as an angel…" he babbled. I sighed again.

"See? Now you've gone and embarrassed yourself," I told him without looked at him, "Prince, as a male, I can understand you're tendency for bashfulness, and saying the wrong thing. But seriously, you might want to learn to stop and think about when to speak and when to shut up." I quickly wrung my shirt out and 'modified' it to better accommodate my wings (even if it was just a big hole in the back…) and I shoved it on. "We're done here. Can we go now?" Obviously still embarrassed, he only nodded and lead the way out.

In the next hall, we found another fountain. I didn't even know it was there! I must've just walked right past it in the game. Anyway, we went inside. Again, I challenged Princy to another race, only without the cheating part this time. It successfully lightened the atmosphere between us, because at the finish line, we were right back to playful arguing.

"You run too fast!" I whined, panting.

"I don't run that fast! You just aren't as good as me!" he argued with that proud air about him that he was better than me.

"Meanie!" He simply grinned at me and took his drink from the fountain. I followed suit. When we reappeared outside, I felt much better than I did before. I was glad of it, too, since we had more huge blades popping out of the wall to dodge. My wings didn't hurt so much now, so I had minimal trouble getting past to the gate. The Prince got by, too, though I could tell he was hating every second of it.

The next room reeked of something awful. Considering the room was full of torture devices, I'd bet my teeth that it was blood. Both the Prince and I stood there in awe, staring at everything in the room, unable to believe that this room had once been filled with interrogators and unlucky prisoners. I could almost hear their screams for mercy and the interrogators demanding an answer to a question. I almost lost the rest of my stomach. Thankfully, I didn't.

"This place…" I whispered, "People have died here… the wrong way."

"I've never… I've never even set foot in a prison before…" the Prince admitted quietly, almost sounding ashamed. I shook my head.

"Neither have I. I hoped I never would. Gods, that smell!"

"Let's get out of here."

"Agreed!"

Kiri: AWWW!! I LOVE ALL YOU GUYS SOOOO MUUUUCH! All the nice reveiws... I think I'm gonna cry!

Mike: DON'T!

Kiri: oh, fine, ruin the moment. Well, i've got good news and bad news, then more good news. The good news is that I almost have this entire thing done, except for the final battle (sucks at battle scenes), so I'll be updateing every day. the bad news is that Monday, I start summer school and I'll once again be swamped.

Naomi: You will have no life this summer.

Kiri: No... I won't. But the other good news is that I get out at noon, so I'll still have plenty of time to write. I hope. But enough of my babbling. Sorry, guys, but there's not much I can do for an FAQ today... maybe next time? But until then, THE REVEIWS ARE AWESOME! KEEP THEM COMMING!