A Place Unknown

Chapter 4

Sakura walked through the front door of her house. She was surprised to see all of her friends there. "Happy birthday, Sakura!" they all yelled…

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Slowly Sakura opened her eyes to reveal the gray of dawn. Her memory slowly came back to her. That's right, she thought. Today would've been my birthday.

It had been a long walk since they had left Tiana the day before. And the night's sleep had been very uncomfortable, as they hadn't been able to reach a town so they had slept on the ground.

The sleeping Syaoran began to stir. Sakura watched him as he got up.

"Hurry up, Syaoran. We have to get going."

The pair quickly gathered their gear and prepared to set off again. Just as Sakura had turned to start walking, Syaoran spoke up.

"Uh…Sakura?" he said.

"Yes, Syaoran."

"Um…Happy birthday." He was holding out a small box wrapped in colourful paper.

"Thanks, Syaoran," Sakura said, taking the gift. She was wondering what it could be.

When she opened the box, she gasped. Inside was a silver necklace. Attached to it, inlaid in gold, was the pale pink stone that was given to them by Misumi. She didn't know what to say.

"Syaoran, it…it's beautiful." Sakura threw her arms around his neck in a huge hug. This took Syaoran completely by surprise. "Thank you so much."

"You're welcome."

"When did you have time to get this?" Sakura asked.

"I did it just before we left," he said.

"So that's where you went."

They then continued on their way to their next stop. Syaoran was still blushing from the hug he had gotten from Sakura.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sakura was pretty sure they were lost. Tiana had said that it would only take a couple of hours to reach the next town. Yet they had been travelling for 24 hours already and they hadn't seen any sign of civilization. She was sure they had followed Tiana's directions, but this forest was full of twists, turns, and forks so it was fairly easy to get turned around.

Eventually, Sakura voiced her worries.

"I know we're lost," Syaoran said, "but there's not much we can do about it. Besides these paths have to lead somewhere, so if we just follow the path, we'll eventually get out, even if it's not where we had originally intended."

And so the pair continued through the forest, stopping only briefly to decide which fork to take. Before long, the forest began to grow darker and there still wasn't any sign of a city.

"Syaoran, I don't think this plan is working to well."

But Syaoran just kept walking, looking straight ahead, as if his eyes were lasers and he was blasting a new path through the trees. Suddenly, Syaoran stopped dead. He was staring forward, straining to see through the thickening darkness.

"Sakura, look straight ahead. Tell me what you see."

Sakura stopped and peered into the darkness. Slowly, several dark shapes swam into focus. "It looks like…buildings!"

"See! I told you this path would lead us to a city eventually," Syaoran said as they started running towards the buildings.

It didn't take the two of them long to reach the buildings, but when they did, their excitement drained out of them faster than it had arrived. There was no doubt that they were in a city. The problem was, they had no idea how long it had been since another person had set foot here.

Sakura and Syaoran walked down the main street, looking at the deserted buildings on either side of them.

"They look like the ruins that we studied in history class," said Sakura, commenting on the ancient look of the buildings.

"I guess we can stay here for the night," Syaoran said. "What do you think? Sakura?" He turned around to see that Sakura had stopped in her tracks several feet behind him. She had a look of pure terror on her face. Syaoran ran back to her. "Sakura! Are you all right? What happened?"

"You want to stay here?" she stammered. "At night? I've read about places like this. They usually have ghosts and spirits and stuff.

"Come off it, Sakura. There's no such thing as ghosts. Besides, these buildings look like they'll be more comfortable than the hard ground."

Sakura figured he had a point and so, in the end, she agreed to stay there overnight. She still hadn't quite gotten over her childhood fear.

After a bit of exploration, they discovered a building with a couple of extremely old and moldy mattresses. Sakura lit a fire in the grate with the Fiery Card. Sakura hadn't realized how cold she was until she felt the warmth from the fire wash over her.

The relaxing heat sent her into a sort of stupor. Soon, Sakura had fallen into a deep sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sakura woke with a start. She was drenched in a cold sweat. She strained to remember what she had been dreaming about. All that came to mind was a shadowy figure with piercing red eyes.

She looked around and saw that the fire had gone out. The lack of sunlight coming through the window told Sakura she hadn't been asleep for more than a few hours.

All of a sudden, Sakura was overcome with a blast of cold air. Something about this made her feel extremely uncomfortable. She was suddenly reminded about all the spirits that were said to haunt places like these. She needed something to get her mind off ghosts.

"Syaoran, wake up." Sakura tried to wake up Syaoran so she could at least have someone to talk to. "Syaoran," she said again. But Syaoran didn't react. He wasn't even showing the slightest signs of movement.

Sakura reached over to shake him awake, but something happened. The moment her hand touched Syaoran's body, a shock, like a surge of electricity, traveled up her arm.

Sakura cried out in pain. When the spots that had formed in front of her eyes faded away, she looked at Syaoran. He still hadn't moved.

Sakura suddenly noticed that all the colour seemed to have drained from Syaoran. She let out a horrified gasp. She glanced around the building for anything to help Syaoran, but she found nothing. However, she did notice that Syaoran was not he only thing with no colour. The building around her was also made up of the same shades of gray. She wasn't sure if this made her more or less worried.

She was relieved though to see that she still had some colour left. Sakura looked at her own hands. Her skin seemed to glow brightly against her dull surroundings.

Sakura couldn't shake the eerie feeling that this had happened before. Then it came to her. This was surprisingly similar to the effects of the Time Card. And unless she was mistaken, something similar to a time freeze had occurred here.

She decided suddenly to go take a look around outside. But when Sakura stepped through the door she caught her breath.

"Whoa," she whispered. The ruins that surrounded her seemed to have rebuilt themselves in a couple of hours. They were just as splendid as if they had been built yesterday. She was amazed. It was incredible.

Sakura stumbled around the ancient city in awe until she found herself standing outside what was easily the largest building around.

Sakura instinctively cast a nervous glance around her. Seeing no one, she gathered her resolve and stepped over the threshold.

She found herself in a stone passageway that led into the depths of the dark building. By the light of the moon that managed to creep in through the entranceway, Sakura could tell that the walls were covered in symbols of some sort.

She made her way along the darkening passage. Eventually, she had to feel along the walls to tell where she was going. Suddenly the wall disappeared and Sakura's hand was grasping only air. For a second, she panicked. Then she realized she must be in a room, but as it was so dark, she didn't know for sure. After a moment's hesitation, Sakura pulled out a card.

"Light Card!" she whispered.

The light reached right into the darkest corners of the room, which was now revealed to be huge. It looked even too big to be contained in this building. Sakura had been right about the symbols on the walls too. Except even her vivid imagination couldn't have predicted this. There didn't seem to be an inch of stone that wasn't covered in the ancient paint.

All of a sudden, Sakura saw something gleaming out of the corner of her eye. On the other side of the vast room was an elaborately carved pedestal, on top of which lay the source of the gleam, although she couldn't make it out exactly.

Sakura didn't think it could hurt to check it out. She started to walk across the room. About halfway across she heard a faint whooshing sound. Turning, she saw three large spears speeding through the air towards her.

"Shield Card!" she yelled, her voice bouncing off the walls. All three spears hit the Shield and fell harmlessly to the ground. She considered going straight back to the cottage where she and Syaoran had slept.

Suddenly Sakura was reminded of the state that Syaoran was in and why she was here in the first place. And so, hoping that whatever lay on the pedestal might help Syaoran, she continued onward.

On top of the pedestal lay a golden cherry blossom encrusted with rubies. Sakura thought it was beautiful but she couldn't see how it might help Syaoran, so she picked it up to examine it further.

She was so involved in the piece of jewelry that she didn't notice that something was winding itself around her waist until it was too late.

All of a sudden Sakura was lifted into the air. She dropped the golden flower and it fell to the floor with a clatter. She looked down at her waist. Chains that seemed to move by themselves had tightened painfully around her waist.

Suddenly, four more living chains shot out of the walls and wrapped themselves around Sakura's arms and legs. She wasn't able to move an inch.

Everything went dead quiet, until Sakura could make out vibrations through the chains. She was soon able to make out a grunting sound coming through the tunnel she had entered through. She couldn't see what it was, but she had a bad feeling it was big. It also seemed to emit a bright light, which poured out of the tunnel.

Sakura tried to shield her eyes, but she remembered she was still bound by the chains. Instead she squinted to try and soothe her eyes. Then she realized that the light wasn't coming from the tunnel itself, but above it. She then noticed the only symbol in the room that she recognized. Centred perfectly above the entranceway was the symbol of Clow Rood!

Sakura's mouth dropped open in surprise. All the pieces finally fell into place. And she knew the perfect card to help her. She tried to summon the Arrow Card, but it was useless while she was still tied up. And the chains showed no signs of loosening their grip. All hope seemed lost. The only thing she could think of was calling the card without her wand, but she wasn't sure if it was even possible. But it was her only idea, so she had to give it a shot.

She closed her eyes tightly and focused all of her power on this particular task. When she opened her eyes, Sakura saw that she too was glowing. Suddenly a rectangular shape emerged from her chest and hovered in front of her.

"Oh my god!" she gasped. "I actually did it!" She wasted no time in completing her task. "Go, Arrow Card!"

The card glowed bright and an Arrow shot out, hitting its target perfectly. Whatever it was that was in the tunnel disappeared and the chains that were holding her loosened their grip. Sakura fell painfully to the floor. It took her a few minutes to stand up again because what she had just accomplished had drained her of most of her energy.

When Sakura did manage to get up she picked up the ruby cherry blossom. She looked at it quickly and pocketed it. Then she glanced upwards. The whole ceiling had disappeared. It seemed that the buildings had gone back to being ruins. She also saw a pale gray fog hovering a few feet off the ground. Realizing what it was Sakura reached under her shirt and pulled out the necklace that contained the Spirit Gem that Syaoran had given her.

Instantly, the demon's spirit flew into the gem. She placed the necklace back under her shirt and made her way back to Syaoran. Sakura moved slowly because she was still weak.

When she got back, she knelt down beside Syaoran and tried to shake him awake. But she saw that his colour still hadn't returned. She bent over him, crying, because she had no idea how to get him back. However, the answer came by itself.

As she was crying over Syaoran, her necklace fell out of her shirt and knocked against Syaoran's side. As soon as it touched the gem flashed a bright pink than went back to its original colour. When she looked again, Syaoran was back to normal and he was struggling to sit up.

"Sakura?" he mumbled. "What happened?"

So she launched into the entire series of events. However, she didn't know why, but, she left out the part about her being able to call the card without her staff.

By the time her story ended, the first light of dawn began to shine in the window.

"Well, now that we're up, we might as well get going," said Syaoran.

They gathered their things and started to leave the ruins. When they were almost out of sight, Sakura remembered the ruby cherry blossom that was still in her pocket. She drew it out and showed it to Syaoran. After a brief examination, he reached over and tied it into her hair.

"You know Sakura, you're going to have quite the jewelry collection at this rate when we get home," said Syaoran.

If we get home, Sakura added to herself.

To Be Continued…


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's finally done!!!!!!
What did you guys think?
I'm really sorry it took so long to finish.
I'm not sure when Ch. 5 will be out
because I'm kinda out of ideas right now.
If you've got any suggestions, e-mail me.

– Kero


February 9, 2003