Chapter Four: A Dungeon Appears and I'm an Idiot
I woke up just a couple hours later, much shorter than my first nap while they were here. However, when my half awake mind finally registered the loud noise that roused me from sleep to yelling downstairs, I began to panic. Had someone broken in and began to terrorize my friends? No that was absurd. Then again, the entire situation involving nine fictional characters living with my best friend and I was just as absurd, so my racing heart didn't calm down at the thought at all. I grabbed the nearest thing next to my bed, which just so happened to be a wooden back scratcher, and flew down the stairs as quickly as I could.
The room quieted as MD spotted me at the foot of the stairs, wielding a backscratcher like a baseball bat and looking more frantic and disheveled than usual. My eyes darted around the room to spot the cause of the danger, but there was nothing obvious to be found. Then my eyes narrowed in on the television screen playing the news, and big, bold letters spelling:
Mysterious building appears overnight, no one knows where it came from.
Just as my feet began to move back up the stairs to pack, MD grabbed me around the middle. I instantly began to struggle against her, panic flooding in even more and tears beginning to well up in my eyes.
"MD, I need to go!" I said, "I need to go fix it! It's my fault they're here to begin with!"
"You'll die!" She protested, sounding just as frantic and scared as I was, "You need to stay, we'll do something else!"
"I need to fix it!" I continued. I felt responsible, I felt terrified. Our world would tumble into chaos if anyone with influence got that Djinn, but if the little impoverished girl who hates going outside got it we should be fine. "I won't die, okay!? I need to fix it!" Sinbad stepped forward.
"Mady is right. It's too dangerous-"
"Stay out of this!" I shouted at him. It got deathly silent, the only thing I heard was my own panting breathing. I could barely see straight, everything was blurring together and I felt dizzy. I turned to MD, trying to look as understanding as possible. "MD, I know this is terrifying. I really need to this before it gets any worse, though, okay? I'll be back soon, alright? I just really need to do this." I felt horrible, but I ripped away from my best friend, the only person I could freely talk to, the only person who knew all my demons, the only person I was really trying to protect, and ran back up the stairs. I didn't stop to continue arguing with everyone.
I grabbed a bag and threw an extra set of clothes in. What else would I need? I reached to the bottom of my bed and pulled one of the drawers out to reach what was inside. A sword collection rested inside, inherited from my father. I grabbed a dagger and a sword. Think, think, think! I demanded of myself inside my head. But I could only think of the hurt look on my friends face. Guilt and fear rose to an unbearable level and tears began to freely flow down my cheeks. I stubbornly wiped them away, and continued to pack. After bandages, Neosporin, Tylenol, and a waterbottle had been stuffed inside, I ran back down to the kitchen, protests falling on deaf ears. I filled the waterbottle, grabbed some non perishable food, and ran out the door just like that, dodging grabbing hands and red wires all the while. I didn't stop for anyone.
I ran down the street, adrenaline still pumping in my veins. I ran across the road, almost getting hit by a car, but I kept running until I was far enough away that I felt I couldn't be tracked. I leaned against a tree for balance to catch my breath, to calm down. There was a dungeon in our world. The only way I could rationalize the situation was that our world was adapting to the new stimulus from the Kingdom of Sindria's officials presence. Sinbad did have a way of making the world revolve around him after all.
After I could finally breathe, I looked around, realizing that the dungeon wasn't near at all. I barely saw the tip of the spire over some houses to my left. With a sigh, I picked my bag back up and walked off to go sneak into the dungeon.
A film crew was already there when I got there. This specific dungeon was a tall, twisting spire that looked as if it was crumbling. It was made out of a dark stone; marble accents warped into the design, almost looking like skulls. Walking around them, I saw police all around it as well. How I was going to get through this was beyond me. I decided that it was worth a shot to just run right through. The small crowd that had appeared would make that difficult, though.
"Hey! Watch where you're going you little punk!" An middle aged man said angrily. I jumped back, hands up as if to protect myself. I didn't realize I had spaced out so much to the point of running into someone.
"I'm sorry!" I squeaked. He looked unimpressed at the miserable excuse of human interaction and I cringed.
"I bet you are," He said before turning away again. I almost continued to walk around him, but I saw the perfect path to run inside just in front of him. But how to move him…?
"A-actually," I started softly, unnoticed by the man. I smacked his arm to gain his attention and he looked outraged. My will strengthening with the thought of saving the world, I continued, "You're the first shitlord I've ever aspired to electrocute." That turned his anger into wrath. He raised his fist, going to swing at me, but I slipped between the gap between him and another person before he could. I ran forward, ducking under the caution tape and quickly gaining the cops' attention. The man chased me right through the tape.
"Stop where you are!" The cops demanded, but I had a mission to complete. I continued to run, an officer popping up in front of me, and I ducked and rolled between his wide stance, accidentally hitting him in the nuts.
"I'm sorry!" I called, realizing that one officer had a tazer and that it was pointed at me. Thankful for a pillar next to the door, I hid behind it just as the tazer left the gun. With officers on either side and an angry man screaming profanities, I leapt into the portal of the dungeon, bracing myself for whatever I'd run into. However, I just felt weightless. Opening my eyes, I looked around to see the world.
"I must be in the pillar of light," I said to myself, trying to regain my bearings on the strange place. Despite myself, I marveled at the beauty, watching it grow brighter and brighter.
I seemed to wake up some time later on a floor. I groggily sat up, taking my surroundings. Furniture blocked most of my view of the walls and looked to be made for giants. In the center of the room, that was surprisingly the easiest to see, I found two chairs on either side of a table. The chairs looked very ornate with dark wood and white vines growing around the structures. They were cushioned with a round back and the fabric seemed to be embroidered black silk. Marble skulls adorned the tops of the backs with a light wispy smoke emanating from the eye sockets; one chair purple and the other red. The rest of the room, although dimly lit, followed a similar color scheme; the only difference that it held no purple. I stood up, brushing myself off despite how ridiculous it seemed from just waking up.
BARK. It sounded like a dog as it rounded the corner, but once it did I saw that it was creature resembling Cerberus the hell hound. I would have screamed if my voice didn't seem to be caught in my throat. I almost thought I heard someone channeling my terror with a screech of their own but quickly wrote it off as my ringing ears. Fear pouring into my mind, I ran for a chair and began to climb up the leg. I felt like a mouse as I climbed, and panic pushed me forward faster than I ever would have. The demon dog didn't seem all that intelligent once it crashed into the legs of the chair, causing it to rock as I was headed to the cushioned back of the seat. Finally scaling the back of the chair when the dog rounded the chair to the front with its paws in the seat, I leapt for the table.
The dog lunged forward, aiming to bite my leg. Due to the sheer size difference, my leg slipped right through with only a rather deep scratch. I rolled on impact, pain seizing my leg. The dog seemed to have jumped into the chair and once again looked as if it was about to eat me. I looked around quickly for an escape from the lumbering beast. I expected to see large tea cups or plates, but was instead met with a house, or what was most likely a dollhouse given the size of the room. Clumsily climbing to my feet, I ran for the door. I collided with it as the dog's paws on the table rocked it. Shaking hands clutched the door knob and turned. I threw myself inside as two giant jaws closed around the space I was previously standing. I closed the door as fast as I could, leaning against the door for support as the pain from my leg began to get to me. I shifted my weight to make it hurt less.
I turned around, once again not meeting the scenery I expected. Like any dollhouse, there was furniture; the same table and chairs from before. There was even a window to the side. However, the rest was a cave, or more of a tunnel with how deep it looked. I began to walk to the window to look out when pain shot up my leg.
"Fuck!" I cursed loudly as I nearly fell to the ground. Yellow eyes opened all the way to the darkness of the tunnel and bats began to swirl around the room. It seemed that I woke them up. I shielded my face on instinct and when the bats seemed to have no end, I drew my sword, slashing my way through the flurry to get the window. I opened it and the bats swarmed out, disappearing into what seemed to be an endless desert with the same table and chairs in the center of the scene with the small glimpses I caught. When the last of the bats flew through the window, I slammed it shut, glad to be rid of the cretins.
"Ahem," A voice behind me called out impatiently, "it's not very nice to ignore people."
