Chapter 3: Crow's Shadow

Everything was happening all at once. Finn had been running for what felt like hours now. He failed to notice exactly when, but he had dropped his sword on the ground somewhere along the way back to his treehouse. The melody in his head would not stop no matter what, and the strange symbol of the crow was still present on the human's palm, never fading away and causing a never-ending burning pain.

He never dared to look back, but Finn felt like something was chasing him. Like some kind of unbeatable monstrosity was mere inches away from grabbing him from behind and pulling him into the darkness. He only sense of comfort he had was the light of the stars and moon that were beginning to shine down upon the land, but the human felt nothing but genuine fear the entire way. Fear that he had never experienced before.

The treehouse was in view, and a wave of relief rained over Finn for the briefest of moments. If only Jake was with him right now, surely he would be able to provide some sense of safety, but the human was all alone. And just when it felt like whatever was chasing him would have succeeded in catching up, Finn reached for the front door of the house and shut it behind him as soon as he entered, bringing an end to the haunting melody and the burning pain in his palm for good.

Beemo and Neptr were both inside the main room and were both startled when the human appeared breathing ecstatically. "Finn, what's wrong?" asked the little game console.

Finn did not reply. He only turned around and made sure every single lock on the door was in place so nothing could get inside. If there even was anything that could, but he would not take any chances after the experience he just went through.

"Master, why are you so frightened?" Neptr asked. "I've never seen you act in such a way."

Again, no response came from the human. He walked right past the two curious robots and made his way towards the bathroom, all while staring at the palm of his right hand. While the melody and pain had gone away, the strange crow marking that had burned into his skin was still there. Everything happening was so weird, Finn wanted to believe this was somehow just another nightmare and he had not woken up at all yet.

He turned on the faucet and began to try scrubbing away the marking furiously. Beemo and Neptr both peeked their heads around the frames of the doorway to get a view of him as he used as many items as he could to wash his hands; soap, towels, brushes, nothing worked. Finn had to accept the fact that the marking was there to stay.

Angry, he threw his tattered hat and backpack on the ground. He supported himself on the frame of the sink and stared into the mirror, taking in the sight of his bruised face. It still hurt, but the pain was what worried Finn the least at this point. As he raised his hand to look at the marking once more, the two little robots quietly walked in and carried his hat and backpack away, leaving him on his own for the time being.

After taking a few deep breaths, Finn eventually began to calm down. 'This isn't real,' he thought to himself. 'That wizard dude must've been crazy. He had to be…But how did he know so much about my dream? Everything about it made no sense and I can't make out anything from it. Unless…could Flame Princess be in some kind of trouble?'

The thought bothered him greatly. He knew for sure it was not a premonition dream. At least, as far as he could remember and what he told Jake, the Cosmic Owl was never there. And yet he still could not shake the feeling that something was very wrong. That there was something else at work here that he could not comprehend.

Everything was too much to comprehend at once and he was beginning to get a headache. In fact, just about his entire body hurt by this point, though he did not notice until now. Sighing, he shook his head an opened the medicine cabinet behind the mirror and began to tend to some of his wounds. Most of them were cuts, so it only took several minutes to be done.

Aside from pain, Finn also noticed he was incredibly tired. The night was still young, but it felt as if he had been awake for days on end after all of the running he had done. He doubted he would able to sleep soundly after all that happened, but that's exactly what he set out to do as he made his way upstairs to his bedroom.

'I'm not gonna let all of this ruin me. I'll call it a night and deal with it tomorrow. Or better yet, have this all end and never have to worry about it again.'

His clothing remained on as he lied on the bed. Sleeping with the appropriate clothing or taking a shower was the least of Finn's concerns by now. He wasted no time whatsoever and closed his eyes, letting the embrace of sleep take him.

Finn opened his eyes in the middle of the night. It was not that a noise had woken him up or that he was not tired, but he still felt the sudden urge to wake up. His body was still sore, but most of the cuts had begun to heal from what he could see with the light of the moon entering through the window.

Slowly, he sat up on his bed. Everything felt…wrong for some reason. It still felt as if he needed more sleep before getting up, but something was keeping him from lying back down and closing them. It was like there were anchors keeping his eyelids in place even if he could still blink normally. There was also the sound of wind coming from outside, howling as if spirits were floating around the house.

'Ugh, I can't sleep,' he thought as he rubbed his eyes. 'Great.'

After all he had been through, Finn was not surprised. But the inconvenience of no sleep was too much for him to ignore. Sighing, he began to stand up from his bed and walked downstairs.

The house was completely dark and devoid of any light, except of the moonlight still managing to peek through certain windows and cracks. It was not much, but it was enough to guide the human through the wooden structure without tripping on anything. Beemo and Neptr were usually asleep in the main room, and Finn found it weird neither of them were around.

'Maybe they're in the treasure room or something,' Finn wondered.

After taking only a few more steps, everything came to an abrupt stop. The wind from outside stopped howling, the walls of the house stopped creaking, and no matter how hard he tried to focus, Finn could not hear his own heartbeat. Instead, the air was filled with a sound that immediately filled him with dread. The very same melody that had been haunting him for the entire night.

"No…Please…"

Not much time passed before an eerie orange glow began to illuminate the room. The melody was coming from behind him, and he gasped when he saw her again.

The phantom of Flame Princess was standing only several feet away, still as faceless as the first time he saw her. And again it sounded as if the melody was coming directly from her, but he wondered how it was even possible for her to make any kind of noise.

"Finn…" the phantom called.

It was an exact copy of Flame Princess' voice. Finn wanted to deny everything that he had seen and heard in his nightmare, but it was all real. There was nothing fake or coincidental about any of this anymore. The human was being toyed with, and he did not appreciate it one bit.

"Who are you?" he asked through grinded teeth. "What do you want from me?! I don't know what's going on here or what you are, but you're not her. You're not Flame Princess!"

Silence was all Finn got in return. The strange phantom tilted its head and appeared to be staring at him with eyes that were not there. It made the human extremely uncomfortable. He had never been this afraid in his life. Not even the ocean had freaked him out as much. But he still mustered up the courage to not make any of that fear known to it.

"What do I want?" she asked. "To be free. And I will only be free if you come to me."

"But where?" he asked.

"Where skin burns but there is no fire."

"That makes no sense! If you knew anything about Flame Princess, you'd know that's impossible."

She remained quiet for a short period before responding. "My heart aches. A shadow consumes it, and I have no one to comfort me as death begins to reach for my soul. I'm scared, Finn…"

Finn shuddered as she said his name. "But you have to give me something. Anything to go by. If it's help you're looking for, I'm willing to offer it."

The phantom turned its head and began to slowly raise its arm. Finn followed it and saw that it was pointing towards the door leading outside.

"Underneath the crow's shadow. Where there is no fire, no life…no hope. Only ash and death."

Finn raised his eyebrow. "I…I don't know of any places like that."

The phantom had no response. She simply continued to point her finger at the door. Finn already knew what she wanted him to, but the question was if he even wanted to.

He began to walk towards the door, squinting his eyes at the moonlight shining through the little window. Finn never remembered the moon being so bright, but then again, nothing made sense at the moment so he did not question it any more than he needed to. However, the brief moment of blinding light was gone when, for no apparent reason, the moonlight went away, possibly blocked by a cloud. As the human walked, he looked back to see the phantom never lowered her hand and remained pointing at the door, sending shivers down his spine as she also kept singing her mesmerizing melody.

Upon reaching the door, Finn turned the knob and opened it, but what he saw outside was not the Grasslands he had grown to know.

Everything was covered in ash and all of the trees were dead. The moon had indeed been blocked by clouds, but they were not rainclouds. They were a lot darker and the way they flowed in the harsh winds made them seem more like smoke. The entire ground was nothing but dirt and the collected piles of ash, with not a single piece of grass to speak of. Finn could hardly believe his eyes. The entire world seemed dead.

An orange glow cast his shadow in front of him, and he knew the faceless phantom of Flame Princess was next to him, though he dared no look at her directly.

"If you are to find me, first you must find the land of ashes," she said.

"The lands of ashes?" Finn asked, still avoiding eye contact. "Where exactly are they?"

Finn heard a 'whoosh' come from right beside him and looked to find out the phantom had turned its head away, as if something else had drawn its gaze. What that was, Finn could not tell.

"He calls to me," she said. "Poor soul…He never asked for any of this. We shall meet one day, Finn the Human. It is up to you to face the horrors of this world and put an end to my suffering."

The phantom turned her attention to the endless fields of ash and raised her hand. By her apparent command, the entire ground began to shake and cracks began to form right in front of Finn's feet, prompting the human to take a few steps back as the ground began to fall and what seemed like and endless dark abyss now lay in front of him.

Finn stood forward ever so carefully to get a good view into the newly formed hole. There was nothing in it except darkness. "What's the point of this?"

Flame Princess' phantom placed a hand on his shoulder and the human looked back at her now completely black skin. "Your mind goes down the void."

Before Finn could react, the phantom pushed him down the crevice, and its stone walls echoed with his screams.

The wooden floor was hard against the back of Finn's head as he fell off of his bed. He groaned as he slowly opened his eyes, a wave of relief washing over him as he saw the morning sun beginning to shine through the window and heard the birds chirping outside. Another horrible nightmare survived.

His legs were still mounted on the bed as his upper body lied on the floor. He pulled them down so he could properly get up, groaning during the whole process. There was a certain lightness to him; one that nearly made him fall over again before he regained his balance in time.

'No matter how much I hate to admit it, I'm gonna have my hands full for a while."

His short time of thinking was interrupted when he heard a noise coming from somewhere else in the house. Specifically, the sound of glass breaking inside the kitchen downstairs.

"Beemo? Neptr?" Finn called out, but neither answered.

More noises continued to come from the kitchen as Finn went down the stairs, and could tell it could not have been Beemo or Neptr. There was a strange humming accompanying the clattering of glass, one that did not sound like the two little robots at all. So he held off on examining the strange mark on his palm to go investigate the source of the commotion.

The light of the kitchen had been turned on as well, something that was clearly off when Finn came into the house. Or was it really on? He could not remember properly. After all, he was panicking when he came in. Either way, Finn tried to reach behind him to get his sword only to remember he did not have it anymore. So he improvised and took a pair of scissors that were lying on top of a small table, slowly moving towards the entrance to the kitchen with the sharp tool held up to the level of his chest.

There was a shadow coming through the doorway, too big to be Beemo or Neptr. It was now clear that someone had broken into Finn's house. "I'm not in the mood for this right now," he whispered to himself. "Fine. I'll just deal with you and get it over with."

The human exhaled as he leaned against the edge of the kitchen's entrance before running inside. Whoever had broken inside was currently raiding the fridge, but Finn was going too fast to notice who it was as both of them tumbled to the ground at the same time, causing the perpetrator to drop all of the items he had grabbed to the ground. When everything settled a bit, Finn raised the scissors and was mere seconds away from impaling them against the stranger's arm.

"WAIT!" the voice of the stranger shouted.

Finn immediately recognized the voice, and sighed in frustration as he threw the scissors towards the other side of the room. "Ice King, what are you doing in my house?!"

The ice wizard grunted and snapped his back in place again as he got up. "All of my penguins ate the food I had at my place and I couldn't get any breakfast. I was gonna ask for you and Jake to give me some but I didn't wanna bother you, so I invited myself in through the window. You don't mind, right? I mean, we're bros after all."

"We're not bros," Finn replied after noticing the open window. "Jake's not here. And normally I would gladly kick you out of here but I got more important things in mind."

"So can I take the food then?"

"No!"

Ice King grumbled in annoyance and shut the refrigerator door. "You're no fun, dude. By the way, what's with all the scratches?"

"It's none of your business." Finn pointed to the window. "Now get out!"

"Aw, come on. We can…" Ice King came to an abrupt stop and narrowed his eyes, staring straight at Finn's hand. "Really?! They let you in?! What makes you so special since you're not even a wizard?! Ugh, I thought they were my bros too…"

"What are you saying?" Finn asked.

"The mark on your hand," Ice King replied while pointing at it. "It's the mark of the Order of the Crow in Wizard City. One of the coolest and most exclusive wizard clubs there are. I've been trying to get in for months and they always reject me, but they allowed you in?"

Finn mumbled and stared at the mark. "Order of the Crow?"

"Yeah. Lucky."

'Hmm, Wizard City,' Finn thought as he stared at the mark. 'Is that where she wants me to go first?'

"Well, now the mood is completely ruined," Ice King said. "I'm outta here. Peace out."

With a swift notion, Ice King levitated off the ground and flew out the window, accidentally hitting his elbow on the frame and shouting incoherencies that became muffled as he became distant. Now Finn was left on his own again. But the human was busy thinking of other things. Specifically, the mark on his hand.

Beemo walked into the kitchen, looking around for anything weird. "Finn, I heard noises. What's wrong?"

Finn stuttered a bit before responding. "It's nothing…Beemo. I've just got some things I need to take care of."

"Neptr and I worked all night to fix your hat and backpack. They're ready for travel."

"Thanks, little buddy."

The robot smiled and happily skipped out of the kitchen. One more time, Finn stared down at the crow mark on the palm of his hand. He now knew where he needed to go.

'Wizard City is my target. But first, I have to see if I can speak to Weimar again. I won't like it; but if anyone has answers, it's him.'

Finn lowered his hand and went ahead to get ready for the start of his journey.

'And afterwards, I have to go to Fire Kingdom and make sure Flame Princess is okay.'

Note: As always, I hope you enjoyed and make sure to leave a review if you did.

-DRAGONNINJAMAN: Answers and more to come in later chapters.

-Fiery Crusader: We shall have a clearer picture soon enough, I suppose.

Next Chapter: Blazing Sun