Veronica's eyes shot open, she sprang from her bed, shedding her blankets and jumping to her feet. She had a strange feeling pass over her—almost like an overwhelming barrage of déjà vu, she could not offer justification for her actions, but as she stood their in attack poise, she screamed.

          Seconds later, Veronica's companion Edward T. Malone came bolting into her room, alarmed by her screams. He stopped at the doorway and stared at her. Veronica knew that Malone could recognize her predator stance, but she figured he was probably wondering why she stood there unclothed. After staring blankly for several seconds, Malone quickly looked away. He covered his eyes and smiled sheepishly, the shade of red that splashed across his face showed his embarrassment.

          "I heard you scream," Malone said, "I thought something might be wrong."

          "Something is wrong," Veronica told him, "something's very wrong…"

          With that, she threw on her clothes, armed herself and rushed to the elevator. Malone watched from the balcony as Veronica burst into the jungle on a dead sprint.

          Not oblivious to the events in the treehouse, Challenger interrupted his laboratory work and came out to the living room. He immediately spotted Malone looking out into the jungle.

          "What's going on?" Challenger demanded, "…because I have a feeling that…"

          "…that something's wrong," Malone finished.

          "Yes…" Challenger said, as he struggled to break down the walls in his mind that were revealing some information about their present situation.

          "That's what Veronica said," Malone relayed to Challenger, "just before she took off into the jungle. I think…"

          "…we better follow her," this time Challenger finished Malone's thoughts. Without another word, Challenger and Malone armed themselves and took off after Veronica. They wanted to follow her, in case she needed any further assistance.

          "Is that a flute?" Marguerite asked Roxton, as a high-pitched sound interrupted their disastrous picnic.

          "I think it is," Roxton agreed, happy that the topic of conversation shifted away from his incompetent spill, "the question is, where's it coming from?"

          "There's nobody around here is there?" Marguerite asked.

          Roxton looked around. "Look," he pointed, "there's a cave over there at the base of that hill."

          "That must be where it's coming from," Marguerite reasoned.

          "Let's go find out," Roxton ventured.

          The two walked toward the cave, but something was not right.

          "The sound isn't getting any louder," Marguerite said, "it still sounds so distant."

          "Yes," Roxton said, realizing she was right, "you stay out here, I'll go look around and make sure it's safe."

          Without warning, the shrubs lining the path around them shook violently and a bellowing voice echoed across the area.

          "WAIT!" someone shouted.

          Roxton and Marguerite both turned to see what was happening. Roxton, ready for an ambush, instinctively clenched his rifle a bit more firmly than before. To both their surprise, Veronica came leaping from the surrounding jungle.

          "Veronica?" Marguerite asked, "What are you doing here?"

          "Don't go in that cave, Roxton," Veronica warned.

          "Why?" Roxton asked simply.

          Marguerite took the follow up question, "What's in the cave?"

          "I… I don't know," Veronica conceded.

          "Then why not explore…" Roxton started slowly, confused by her presence and reaction to his curiosity.

          "No!" Veronica exclaimed, "I have this, this overpowering feeling in my gut that tells me that you, the both of you that is, must stay out of that cave. I don't know why I feel this way, I don't even know how I knew to find you here, but somehow I know that going in there is a very bad idea."

          Roxton took a moment to run the situation through his mind. Something about this whole cave business did make him nervous.

          "I think you may be right…" Roxton muttered vaguely.

          Before their conversation could continue the rest of the team made their way to the huddle. Roxton, Marguerite, and Veronica turned to watch Malone and Challenger join them, wheezing after trying to keep up with Veronica.

          "Veronica," Malone asked, "What's wrong? What's going on here?"

          She didn't know how to answer him, but Marguerite chimed in before she had the chance too. "The flute music," Marguerite observed, "it's getting louder."

          "We have to get out of here," Veronica said without hesitation.

          "Why Veronica?" Challenger needed answers.

          "There's no time to explain, Professor," Veronica said, "you just have to trust me… and run!"

          All of the others exchanged looks and knew that they had to take Veronica seriously. They all began sprinting along the jungle path, running away from the cave. After franticly charging several feet, Malone positioned himself beside Veronica.

          "How do you know all of this?" Malone asked.

          Veronica looked over at him, only to see a surprisingly horrific sight. A large and very bloody gash was on the side of Malone's head. Veronica knew this injury could not simply appear, so she closed her eyes for a couple seconds and looked at Malone again. The injury was gone.

          After a slight delay, Veronica responded to Malone's question, "It's just instinct, Malone, I can't explain it."

          "There's a large clearing ahead," Roxton, who had found his way to the front of the pack, announced, "we should position ourselves there in case we are ambushed by attackers of some sort."

          Once they reached the clearing Veronica became alarmed. The sky darkened and not long afterward she stopped running and turned. The first thing she noticed was that her friends were suspended in peak running stride. Normally, she would walk up to them to inspect this strange phenomenon, but there was also the matter of the darkened sky.

She looked up and noticed that the moon was positioned in front of the sun, leaving only a small rim of bright, piercing sunlight left to illuminate the mid-morning sky. Veronica found this strange, as Challenger was not anticipating an eclipse of any kind to be coming to the plateau soon. There was a force of some kind that tempted her to look at eclipse, but a tinge of fear allowed her to fight the notion.

Helping her overcome the urge to stare at the solar phenomenon was a noise—a small hissing sound. Veronica stared out into the shaded clearing. A big cloud of glistening purple smoke was steam rolling toward her. As the fast moving smoke reached Veronica, it halted its progress. It was then that it became clear that a man was riding the smoke cloud. A small, pudgy man wearing a purple tuxedo leaped from his floating perch on the cloud. Shortly afterward, the steam dissipated.

"Greetings," the man announced, "I am the Pied Piper!"

"The Pied Piper?" Veronica was confused, "shouldn't you be wooing rats away?"

The Piper smiled, but did not respond to her question directly. "Your confusion is only natural. But think Veronica, do I seem at all familiar to you?"

"Actually," Veronica began to her own surprise, "you do seem oddly familiar… yet I know for a fact we've never met before."

"No," the Piper confirmed, "this is our first formal introduction. Tell me, how do you like my music?"

Veronica hadn't even noticed, but the music had never ceased. She finally took some time to let her ears absorb the repetitive notes.

"It's beautiful," she admitted distantly, "enchanting in some sense…"

"The only thing I find enchanting is you," the Piper said softly.

Veronica didn't even hear him. She was too busy trying to untangle the knots in her brain. There was a flood of data barricaded in her mind, but it was oozing out ever so slowly.

"Wait a minute," Veronica said, "this music is too enchanting! You used it—in the cave you used your music to gain control of Marguerite and Roxton. You told them to bring you back four people—three dead, one alive."

"Let us end this game of cat and mouse," the Piper proposed.

"But I wasn't at the cave," Veronica realized, "I shouldn't know that."

"You will not understand for quite some time," the Piper informed her, "but it is no matter. It was all a childish, foolish game; the purpose of which was to bring you to me."

Veronica did not like the sound of this, she pulled out one of her knives and held it up to the Piper defensively. "What do you want?" she asked.

"Oh, please, Veronica," the Piper said comfortably, "put the knife down." With a wave of his hand downward Veronica obeyed. "Now drop your weapon," the Piper instructed.

Again, Veronica did as he commanded. She wanted to charge the Piper, hold the knife to his throat and demand he return things back to normal, but she couldn't. There was something about him that compelled her to do as he suggested. A combination of reasons explained why: the rhythmic tune of his flute music, his soft friendly voice, and his warm smile.

"Stand still," the Piper instructed.

He proceeded to approach her. He walked around her slowly, and Veronica simply stood there, feet shoulder to the part, arms at her side, staring straight ahead. Eventually, the Piper made his way to around back of her. He stood directly behind her and placed his smooth, dry hands on her shoulders. The Piper began running his hands up and down the silky smooth skin of her upper arms. His hands glided up and down her arms falling into the same rhythmic pattern as the Piper's flute music. This seemed relax him even more than before, calamity becoming the essence of his being. Veronica herself could not deny that the experience was stimulating on some level. The friction of his hands to her skin… it felt as if a blanket of pleasure and joy was slowly wrapping itself around her—tickling not only her skin, but her heart and her soul as well.

Still, something was terribly wrong. From what Veronica knew about the Piper, he was an evil man. And she also knew that her draw to him was not normal, yet she did nothing. It was a difficult situation for her, her body feeling as though all its' needs were being pampered to, while her mind told her that the fierce huntress in her needed to lash out and attack her enemy. The problem was that Veronica had nothing bitter to grasp onto.

As the Piper's hands continued rhythmically massaging Veronica's arms, he began to lean his head forward toward her. He used his nose to brush back some of her wild, stringy hair, enamored with the invigorating aroma. He crept so close that the hair of his bushy mustache brushed against her neck. She felt his warm breath glide down her chest.

"Veronica," the Piper whispered, "you are my deepest desire, all that I desire and long for."

Veronica spoke, with some difficulty, as her mouth had grown dry, her muscles stiff from standing in one place without a single movement. She managed to speak anyway, "Why me?" she asked, the conflict between mind and heart still clouding her ability to attain control.

"You are a goddess," the Piper told her, "truly a goddess, more so than you could ever imagine…"

Finally, Veronica saw something. It was nothing new really; it had been there, frozen before her, the entire time. However, this was the first moment that she realized it was something she could grab a hold of that wasn't pulled straight from a fairy tale.

"My friends," Veronica said, "they are frozen."

"You need not worry about that," the Piper suggested. His hands stopped massaging her arms and for the first time slid down past her elbows, over her wrist, tingling her fingers, and finally resting on her waist.

Veronica's blanket was now thoroughly wrapped around her, and its hold on her was beginning to tighten. She could not help but moan as his hands reached her waist, causing an electrifying rush to surge through her body.

"No," Veronica resisted and persisted, "they're not supposed to be like this. Free them—free my friends!"

"Your friends need not be freed," the Piper commanded firmly. He leaned forward again, twisting his head around her to look at her face to face. He placed his hand on her chin, jerking her head so that their eyes met. "I trust you understand."

A look of both confusion and concern slowly appeared on her face. She blinked quickly, breaking out of her trance and putting into perspective the potential danger they were all in, and the great power the Piper must have in order to freeze time in this way. She grabbed the Piper's thick, chubby, wrist with both hands and threw him over her shoulder onto the ground. The Piper landed with a thud, and, lying there on his back, looked up at her, unable to hide his surprise.

"No," Veronica told him angrily, "I don't understand."

The Piper was not afraid of her. His contented, close-mouthed smile stretched across his face and he closed his eyes. It was clear that he was exerting a tremendous amount of concentration. Veronica watched him curiously, still in control of herself, but not understanding what the Piper was doing. It soon became forthcoming.

Purple mist began forming around them and within minutes Veronica and the Piper found themselves standing atop the same sparkly purple cloud the Piper had so boldly rode in on. As soon as the cloud formed, they began to rise into the air. The Piper stood up slowly, not quite sure of what reaction he would get from Veronica. Before long, they were hovering higher than even the treehouse; the other explorers were now merely shadowy blips below.

"You can fly us beyond the stars if you want to," Veronica told the Piper, "but if you don't free my friends, I will kill you."

"Veronica," the Piper asked, "your clothes—are they intended to shelter you from rigid outdoor elements?"

Veronica's adrenaline level slowed, as she was having a hard time understanding the transition of topics. "No," she responded, "I wear these to…" her eyelids sagged once again, her knees locked, and her arms dropped to her side, "…I wear them because… it's… not… appro… appropriate to…" She could not finish.

"So," the Piper began calmly, "basically, all they do is mask some of your natural beauty." Veronica was once again losing the ability to control her body, she found herself nodding to the Piper's reasoning. "Well, then," he continued, "why not simply remove them?"

The Piper approached Veronica once more. He grabbed the armband she wore and gently pulled it from her. Next, he lifted her right leg, carefully removing her boot, a smooth procedure, nothing abrupt. Then, he took off her left boot. After that he untied her top. Veronica offered no resistance and each article of clothing was carelessly tossed off the magical cloud, falling to the clearing below. Finally, the Piper undid the belt to Veronica's mini-skirt and threw it back over his shoulder. Veronica was now completely in the nude. The Piper re-assumed a position behind her.

"Now," he said, using his hands to massage the back of her neck this time, "where were we…" The Piper proceeded to whisper erotic musings into her ear, while kissing random areas of her neck, cheek, and shoulder blade.

Veronica's mind was now completely disconnected from her body. She had no control of her movements, but she was thinking very clearly. She knew that the Piper was pure evil. He was controlling her somehow—not in the same way he controlled Marguerite and Roxton, though. She was able to successfully filter out the sounds of the flute. Nevertheless, he did have some sort of spell over her. The sensual feelings he inspired in her were not natural—it was as if he was able to open up her heart and stuff any feelings he wanted into it. She was adapting though, the false fulfillment the Piper interjected was no longer exciting her, and she had a very comprehensible understanding of what was going on. It was shaded to her earlier, but there was no uncertainty about it now. The Piper may have the power to make it feel like allure, but she was being violated. She did not know what she could do to interrupt his harassment, but she had no doubt that he intended to breach her to the fullest. Her body was to be his plaything, and he would touch her as no man ever had. Veronica began wishing that her fear could rescue her, but knew deep down inside that it could not. She would have to be a conscious witness to this living nightmare. Her friends frozen—as if amassed in ice. It is at this thought that her hope began to drain away, leaving a void of emptiness comparable to her lifeless, shell of a body.

To Be Continued…