CHAPTER 12
Well, here it is. one of the startling climaxes of the story. Hope you enjoy!

Note: This story does not in any way establish a belief in vampires/witches, etc. or a justification of drinking blood in myself. It is simply a fantasy situation devised for entertainment.


Orchid felt raw power pressed against her neck. She was paralyzed. She knew what was happening, but she felt strangely far away from the reality of the situation. One of the minions was touching her. The minions could summon the portals through their hands. She was going to get sucked in. She was going to lose. Her surroundings were fading at an alarming rate. Her whole body was tingling. After all of this and now it was over. She hung her head.

All at once she was plunged back into reality with a breathtaking force. Her eyes had fallen on the light that shimmered through her fingers. In slow motion, her hand opened and the ring rolled off of her palm and dropped to the floor of the cave. It hit the ground with a disturbingly loud thud. And then, the entire cave was illuminated with an unearthly light. The ring's light seemed a hundred times brighter than it had in her hand.

Suddenly the pressure on her neck was gone. Orchid felt her body jerk, and suddenly the outline of the cave was clearer than ever. The minion had let go of her. Without thinking she had her knife in her hand and was frantically slashing the air around her. Her elbow connected with something solid and she turned and kicked out, colliding with a massive dark shape. She caught herself before she hit the ground and felt something fall on top of her. She stabbed again, this time feeling her knife sink into something soft. The thing on top of her gave a violent spasm and she wriggled out from under it, shakily jumping to her feet.

She felt something slice like fire across her back and gave a cry of startled pain. She spun around and saw her attacker clearly for the first time. This minion was even scarier than the last one she'd seen, due to the fact that it was missing an arm (presumably due to the place she'd stabbed it,) though it didn't seem to notice the loss of its appendage and was still clumsily advancing on her. In its remaining hand it held a long whip. That must have been what had cut her back.

Yet despite it's terrifying appearance, this minion was acting different than the last one had. It was moving slowly, and seemed disoriented. It was apparently losing more strength with every step it took. *The light,* Orchid realized. *The light must be messing it up. Maybe that's why the light is so weird here. These creatures can't handle any other form of it!*

In one fluid motion, Orchid sprang forward, snatched up the ring, and ran for the mouth of the cave. She felt another streak of fire on her calf but kept running, holding the ring high in the air. The world outside the cave burst into view and Orchid closed her eyes in pain. After spending so long in the cave, even with the light from the ring, the ground-lit world around her now seemed unbearably brilliant. She continued to run until she got a stitch in her side- another first- and collapsed behind a towering boulder.

After taking several minutes to catch her breath and gather her scattered thoughts, Orchid glanced around the side of the boulder, scanning the area for more minions. She seemed to have lost her now armless pursuer, but there tons more than it running around. She could see nothing but illuminated fog. She leaned back against the boulder, her mind racing.

Wow, things had changed. She had cast her first spell, just barely escaped from her pursuer in a fashion that reminded her of something from Rambo, and was, for the first time, experiencing the true life of a human. Her power was completely gone now. She could find no trace of it in her mind or body. That spell had probably drained out any that had been left in her rather quickly.

Orchid sighed. Her speed was cut in half. Her reflexes were slow. She could barely see or hear anything. She felt as weak as a kitten and now even wounds made without wood refused to heal. The lashes the minion had managed to inflict upon her still burned, and she knew her blood must be running down her back, staining her shirt. She could see the welt on her leg. Blood dripped into her sock and gave her a queasy feeling. Human blood had certainly never bothered her, but seeing her own running freely was disconcerting. It sure was wretched being a plain old human. She didn't see how the billions of them out there could stand it.

Through her depression at being so helpless, Orchid also felt a small ray of hope. Surely the hour was almost up now. The time that had elapsed seemed like years to her. She couldn't wait to get out of this dratted snake pit. She had never thought much about her small, dingy apartment, but now it seemed like a palace in her mind. She so wished that she was home, burrowed under the covers of her soft bed, sound asleep.

She stared down at the ring and noticed that the light inside of it was fading. Spells didn't last forever, after all. She supposed she could summon the light again, but she wasn't willing to sacrifice even more of her strength when the Game was so close to being over.

Figuring that it wasn't smart to stay in one place for too long, she climbed to her feet and set off in search of another safe place, constantly checking for minions and snake grass and portals. She was a bit stupefied when six minions suddenly appeared in front of her all at once. She stumbled back. That wasn't supposed to happen!

Once again her knife was held stiff in her fist. She held the ring up again, but the light was dimming at an alarming rate. The minions no longer seemed bothered by it. She stepped back again, tempted to turn and run but smart enough to realize that probably wouldn't accomplish much this time. Time was running out, so the minions had upped their power. There was no more time for silly games of hide-and-seek. They had decided to end it quickly with brute force. Without turning around, Orchid knew that the remaining minions had materialized behind her. She was surrounded. The only way out was to fight.

The circle of minions closed tighter around her. Orchid noticed that her armless friend was among them. She could feel the knife sliding in her sweaty hands and she tightened her grip on it. She couldn't just stab them one by one. She needed some sort of strategy.

The minions got closer and closer. They didn't bother trying to grab her. As long as she didn't fight back they only had to touch her to be rid of her.

No decent strategy was coming to Orchid. She felt immensely stupid. It couldn't end like this! She at least had to go out fighting. Thinking that perhaps the armless minion would be more off balance than the rest, she charged into it without warning. Sure enough, the minion wobbled and crashed into the creature next to it. It was like tipping off a stack of dominoes, only a very violent, alive set of dominoes.

Orchid couldn't believe her random plan had worked. She took the opportunity to stab two of the minions in the chest and disintegrate them before the rest of them regained their senses. She was staring happily at the evaporating forms when another minion hit her in the small of her back, knocking her to the ground. The knife flew out of her hand and disappeared into the yellowish mist. Orchid rolled onto her back and just avoided being sliced with some sort of ax. She didn't want to feel the human side of having one's arm chopped off.

She swung one leg out and crashed it into the leg of the minion, tripping it. It dropped the ax and she grabbed it and whacked off its head, then brandished it out in front of her, startled by how heavy it was. Three minions charged at her and she got ready to swing the ax. That was when two pairs of hands grabbed her from behind, easily shook the ax out of her hand, and hit her in the head so hard that she saw stars. She struggled to see through the blinding pain that had exploded in her head. The minions were still holding her and she struggled violently, realizing that her only hope was the time running out within the next few seconds.

She managed to wrestle free from one minion, but the other still grasped her arm painfully. She swung at another approaching minion and felt yet another blaze of fire across her back. She gave a scream of fury and swung out again, only to have her other arm grabbed by one of the horrible creatures. She couldn't break their grip. She could only scream one last time before they threw her to the ground and she tumbled into the portal that had appeared there.