Chapter 6: Home Already?

Hiding behind one of the bushes, the brothers only kept their eyes up from the top. From what they saw, two strange creatures suddenly emerged from their view; one has a tree like appearance with barky skin and leaves coming out from its face while the other was similar but it had a slithery tentacle-like arm on one side.

Toby was shocked. He has never seen anything unusual like this before. 'I guess Nick was right about this forest not being normal,' he thought, worriedly. 'What are those creatures?'

Nick was thinking the same thing but that when he heard talking from the creatures.

"How's the repairing of the forest doing?" asked the bark creature, scratching his chin as a gesture of curiosity.

The creature with the tentacle-arm sadly dropped his shoulders. "Not good I'm afraid. We're still trying to put the remaining fires that the lava Gormiti have left."

"Did you see if you can find any Sea Gormiti?"

"Well, we did try but when can't go underwater expect for them remember?"

"You forgotten that they come over the beach when they need to do?"

"Well- "

"Then why don't we suggest we do that! We'll have along on the cliff of one of the beaches and wait for them to come out. The Sea Gormiti would sure need our help them!"

"But what if Magmion and the other lave Gormiti spot us?"

"Then we'll just to fight then. Come on! We need to protect Gorm after all!"

Nick and Toby carefully stood from their hiding place once the creatures left. They both looked at each other in confused at the conversation they just heard. Fire Gormiti? Sea? Gorm? Is there more to this forest than they imagined?

Toby felt a ping in his stomach. "This sounds serious," he whispered to Nick. "Do you think we should go back?"

"How can we go back if there's no way?" hissed Nick in a serious tone.

'Good point,' thought Toby. He thought that finding a way out if there wasn't physically a way to go would be easier than being stuck in a bush. Cautiously, he began to creep behind the bush so that he wouldn't be seen when…

"Look out!"

Toby didn't hear Nick's warning which was in a whisper but when he noticed, he found out was stepping on a twig which made a big noise.

"Oops." Toby wished he didn't move now.

Nick shook his head while he placed his hand on his face in anger. All of a sudden, he noticed the two creatures that were just talking earlier turned around towards him. He swiftly turned to look at Toby, who was still standing, his foot away from the stick.

"Run!" Nick said to his brother.

On his brother's command, Toby nodded and they both began to run out of the bushes.

Panting through the lanes of the forest, both of the boys kept on running as fast as they could to make sure the forest creatures wouldn't see them. Soon enough, they were at the edge of one of the cliffs of the beaches that the creatures talked about and close to the sands was the crystal blue sea that sparkled between the sun rays.

Toby gulped at the sight. The thought of having to jump from the cliff to the beach was difficult but still it was an extremely high to jump, especially for a bunch of kids.

"Do we really have to do this?" shuddered Toby.

Nick also gulped. "I guess we don't have a choice. Either get into trouble with mum or dad or THESE." He pointed his finger to the sound of rustling leaves and crunching twigs.

Toby felt a tight pain in his stomach. He hate having to do this but his younger brother was right. Even if the forest creatures chasing after them, maybe, they didn't have a choice but to jump off.

"Ok, if you say so, on the count of three,"

"One…"

"Two…

"Three!"

But before even of the boys could jump, a grey tornado suddenly appeared before them and with a gust of wind, everything turned to black.

Nick was the first one to wake up. He noticed that he was back in the dark aquamarine room by the pool-circle. Phew. At least he was safe and-

Toby! Nick remined himself of why he was here; because of his older brother! Standing up on his two feet, he looked around the area in hopes of finding Toby. Luckily, he found him by the same area as where Toby first jumped into the pool-circle. Noting that he still might unconscious, he patted his brother's back gently.

"Toby?" he consoled.

Toby fluttered his eyes at the sound of Nick's voice. He weakly started to get up until he was on his knees.

"Nick...wait, what happened?" he answered weakly.

Nick had to give himself a break before answering Toby's question. "I'm not sure what had happened but it's going to take time for us to figure out,"

"Figure out?" Toby was still processing those words in his head, even though he was about to…

Jump! That was the thing that the boys were about to before blackness overcome Toby's mind. He quickly got up but felt himself feeling stiff again. Returning to where he was before, he crossed his arms.

"Right," Toby went back to his thinking state. "So we were about to jump off the cliff and then-"

"Save the discussion for another day," reassured Nick calmy. "I think it's best for you to go back up while I go and investigate was just happened."

"How are you going to do that?"

"There's hundreds of books, Toby," Nick gave his brother a wink. "I'm sure I'll be able to figure it out. I think."

And then with a gentle smile, Nick began to walk towards the library section.

Toby had a look of concern over his face as he slowly got up. His mind was going around in circles about the mysterious place, the jump, the creatures and the secret stairways. 'I wish I could do something to make this right,' he thought to himself, stiffly walking back up the stairs. 'There's got to be at LEAST something that could be linked to all of this. But what?'