Healig my Memories

by MystiCitrus

Carter has woken up in a place that is unfamiliar to him. A school for magic. He soon finds out that he has lost the memories of his past life and the mysteries surrounding it. Unfortunately, no one else knows his past either, so he must stay at the school until they can find them. After a few weeks at the school two of his new friends go missing. Carter must set off to find them.

Chapter 1

I woke up with my head throbbing. The only thing I knew was that I was on a bed, which was surprisingly comfortable. I slowly sat up looking around the room I had woken up in. The lights were off so it was hard to see many details, but I could tell it was a decently sized room, big enough to have about 3 people living in it. I blinked, letting my eyes adjust to the lighting. There was a closet directly across from my bed and a tall lamp next to it. To my right was another bed. 2 desks sat on either side of the room next to the beds.

I slid off the bed to get a better view of the room. I had to put a hand on the side table, but I was able to keep standing. There was a lamp on the table and I flicked it on with my other hand. A groan came from across the room. I stumbled backward and fell back onto the bed behind me.

A boy with curly dirty-blonde hair sat up on the bed across from me. He looked puzzled for a few seconds before spotting me.

"Oh! You're awake!" He grinned and hopped off his bed. "We found you unconscious 3 days ago right outside the gates. How did you get here? We've never had an outsider arrive before!" I didn't know how to answer. The truth was, I didn't remember… anything. But before I could find a way to respond the boy started talking again. "Hey, can you talk? If not, that's cool with me. I have enough words to go between the both of us!"

I laughed. "I think I can talk." My voice sounded a bit hoarse but otherwise, I could use it just fine. The boy smiled.

"Well, that's still cool! That means we can have conversations! Hopefully you have interesting things to say, though I'm sure you will. " He chuckled and glanced up at a clock hanging on the wall above my bed. "Ack! I thought I set an alarm! The opening ceremony starts in ten minutes!" He flicked the lamp on the lamp on his side and ran over to the closet. The boy started rummaging through it. After about 2 minutes he tossed a grey sweatshirt and jeans onto my bed.

"Those are for you. Don't worry, they'll fit! Oh, and your changing room is right through that door." He pointed at a metal door a few feet from my bed. He picked up a few clothes that he had taken out for himself and walked over to another metal door on the other side of the room. I picked my own clothes and shakily walked up to the door.

I was confused at first because I didn't see any door knob but after a minute I noticed a piece of smooth glass next to the door. I put my hand on it and the door opened with a click. Huh, I thought, That was easy. It wasn't a big room but it was good enough for the purpose it held. I closed the door and started to get dressed.

We were of course late for the ceremony, though I didn't exactly know what it was yet. We got there just a few seconds late but apparently, the rules were strict here. The boy from the room had also apparently done this a few times and got a harsh talking in front of a bunch of other teenagers. Even before we had taken a step into the auditorium used for opening ceremonies, a loud voice echoed over the room.

"Phoenix Grey! This is the fourth time you have been late this month! We expect to see you in Slivermyth Cave at exactly 2:00 for detention. It would be appreciated if you could bring the new one up to the stage. Thank you. " The other boy (supposedly named Phoenix) sighed.

"So much for free time! Come on, we've better get you up there." I followed him down the stairs that lead to the center stage. The auditorium was shaped like a bowl, with the seats going up and around the sides and a stage in the middle. I shivered as we passed people on our way. The youngest was around 5 years old while the oldest seemed to be about twenty. Almost all of them were whispering. I assumed they were talking about me. It seemed that I wasn't supposed to be here, or something like that. I was alien to this place. Honestly at the moment, I felt alien to every place. I could remember anywhere as home.

When we reached the center stage I looked around, expecting for someone to be there waiting for us. Strangely, there was no one there. I started to ask what we were supposed to do but Phoenix put a hand up to stop me.

"Just wait for it. They'll be here soon." He said. We stood there waiting for a few seconds before a orb of light erupted from the stage. I almost fell backwards with suprise. Phoenix only squinted at the light and no one else in the auditorium seemed surprised so I assumed this was a normal occurrence. I noticed that the light was beginning to take form and stepped a bit closer.

The light separated into three forms, which all looked identical. The forms were all of a pale middle-aged man with fair hair and square glasses. The only differences I could make out were the color of the light and the expression the man wore. The man on the left was blue, with a calm yet concerned expression. The man on the right was red with clear annoyance on his face. The final man, in the middle, was yellow with an excited yet slightly anxious expression.

"Welcome to BraveHearth, a school for magical and unique children!" It was strange, somehow I knew that the yellow man was the one addressing me, but all of the men talked in unison. I stood there gaping, not exactly sure how or to whom I was supposed to respond. The blue man cleared his throat and started talking.

"I am Principal Bloomstone, I am in charge of running this school. We are delighted to have you join our lovely school!" He raised his hands as if to give me a big hug. I resisted the urge to step back and glanced over at Phoenix. He looked like he was trying to hide from the men in the shadows. That seemed a bit strange to me, because the Principal seemed pretty welcoming but it definitely put me more on edge. The guy that was red raised his eyebrows and grunted,

"Well, aren't you going to introduce yourself boy?" I looked down at my feet and tapped my left foot nervously. What was I going to tell them? I took a deep breath in and looked back up.

"I don't mean to be impolite... Sirs, but the truth is... I don't really know who I am." The red Principal studied me.

"What do you mean, you don't know who you are?"

"Well er, I don't remember anything. I mean I know how to walk, talk, read... I think so, but I don't have any memories of my name or anything like that! I-" The auditorium went silent. I turned to look at the stunned faces in the audience and realized that at least a hundred eyes were on me.

My throat felt dry again, at a loss for words. Why was I here? What was I doing? Why couldn't I remember anything!? The world started to fade and I felt myself dropping to my knees before my vision went black.

Chapter 2

I was asleep for 2 hours. Of course I fainted after only being awake for an hour. I don't exactly know why it happened. My theory is that it was built up stress from that morning and then seeing all of those eyes staring at me… I made such a fool of myself.

When I woke up I was in the same bedroom that I had woken up in before so at first I thought the whole thing had been a dream. (Well actually I thought I was in a time loop and the whole thing was going to happen again but obviously that could never be true... I think. Im never really sure what can happen and what can't.)

I took a deep breath in and hopped off the bed to turn on the light. It seemed like Phoenix wasn't there, which made sense. He was probably in classes. That made me feel even worse. I was supposed to be doing work right now and going to my own classes, whatever they were. But instead I was sleeping again!

I sighed and looked around the room. Maybe I could explore a bit more with my spare time. My side of the room wasn't super decorated, which was fine by me. Phoenix's side of the room had stars stuck on the ceiling and different kinds of trinkets laying on his desk. His side was also messier than mine, which also made sense because he had been here longer. I decided to check inside the drawers and desks to see if there was anything interesting. There wasn't really much. The drawers and the side tables that held things like band-aids, scissors, a stapler, etc.

I walked over to my side of the room where there was a bookshelf full of, well, books. I walked over and took one out. The title read "How to make Fire Potions and Machines!" (A guide to explosions.) I cringed at the cover, well that sure didn't sound concerning at all! I put the book back and flopped onto my bed.

What was I even going to do here? I had no idea what I was doing! I combed my hand through my hair, surprised by how long it felt. It was then that I realized that I didn't even remember what I looked like! There had been a mirror in the changing room, but I hadn't thought to look at myself through it. I got up and walked over to the metal pad I had used before. As I pressed my hand to it the door opened and I went in.

My appearance didn't really surprise me, but I didn't feel connected to it either. It was a strange feeling, as if I was looking at a photograph of someone I didn't know. I had pale skin and deep blue eyes. My face was freckled and I noticed two bigger ones just above my nose. My hair was dark brown and fell just above my shoulders. I wasn't exactly tall, but I wasn't really short either.

I sat down on the carpet floor and studied myself few minutes. Who was I? I felt lost in my mind, trying to find something that wasn't there anymore. I heard a knock on the door and quickly got up.

When I opened the door to our room I was surprised to see a girl standing there. I guess I had assumed it would be Pheonix or the principal. She looked to be about fourteen or fifteen, around the same age as Phoenix and assumably me. Her brown hair had lighter highlights streaked though it that made it look like she was bathed in sunshine. It fell just under her shoulders in wavy swoops. She had tanned skin, which made me think she spent a lot of time outside. She was a pretty girl, though I didn't really have anyone to compare her to. For a while she just looked at her feet as if she hadn't heard me open the door.

"I know you said- Oh!" She finally looked up at me and her eyes widened. "Gosh, I should have known. Sorry about that. Would you um... let me inside your room for a second? I need to grab something."

"Uh, sure." I stepped out of the way and let her in. She smiled at me.

"Thanks! This won't take long." She walked over to the bookshelf and pulled out a soft brown book. I watched as she opened the book and gently tugged something out of it before stuffing it into her pocket.

"Thanks, again! You know you really are lucky to have Phoenix as your roommate. He really is a great guy," She smiled but there was pain lurking in her expression. "Oh, by the way! Please don't tell him I was here." I opened my mouth to ask why, but her hazel eyes seemed to plead that I didn't.

"O-ok... Bye then." She nodded and walked out the door. Wow. I thought, I wonder what that was about. I walked back over to the book shelf and looked at where the girl had stuffed the book back in. I was tempted to pry it out and look through it, but when I thought about the pain in her expression... No, I couldn't be like that. I wasn't going to go around looking at other people's private stuff.

I sighed and sat down on my bed. There wasn't really anything I could do but wait for instruction at this point. I didn't think anyone here knew myself any better than I did. I thought back to the opening ceremony, before I had made a fool of myself. Principal Bloomstone had said this was a school for "magical and unique children". Did that mean I had magic too? I didn't feel very magical at the moment. Maybe my magic could help me get back my memory, though I doubted it.

What had happened in my past? That was starting to worry me. What if I had done something bad in my lifetime? The thought made me laugh, of course I had done some bad things! How could I not? It still made me nervous though, thinking of all the things I could have done. Maybe though, I could use this as a chance to be better than I had been! That thought made me a bit happier.

A couple of hours later, I heard the door creak open. I looked up from the book I had found-a history book about various powerful magic users- to see who it was. It was Phoenix, who looked a lot messier than he had in the morning. His hair and hands were covered in soot and it looked like his shirt had been burned in multiple places. I looked him up and down.

"What happened?" He flopped down on his bed and groaned. He didn't answer for a few minutes but then he sat up and gave me a weary smile.

"Don't worry I'm fine, just exhausted! Today was rough. First of all we had a math test," His face cringed up into a scowl. "Hate math. Science is a bit better, but only when we are doing experiments. Which of course, we weren't doing today! I liked Language Arts. We've been reading an interesting book about a war. Then, after all of that, I had to go do my punishment." Phoenix flopped back down on his back and sighed.

"All I did was move stones around and then chuck them into a fire. The fire was cool, the rocks were cool too, I guess but also so heavy! Anyways, that's why I'm all dusty. How did you spend your day?" I stared at him blankly, not sure how to answer. My day consisted of questioning my existence and staring at the ceiling. I decided not to tell him that.

"I mostly just read." I held up the book I had pulled out. He grinned,

"Oh that ones really interesting. Good choice! It's one of my favorites." I smiled back and responded,

"Yeah I was really liking it so far. I find it interesting how they shine light on both the good and the bad and everywhere in between. The author really did a good job! Huh..." Phoenix sat back up and cocked his head.

"What?"

"Sorry if this is a rude question but... Do you have any magical abilities? I heard Principal Bloomstone say it was a school for magical people." I asked.

"Oh," He looked down at his feet, "I think I should have at least one, but I have no idea what it is. They say I have some sort of "magical aura" or whatever that is. I'm thinking it's probably the same for you. You don't remember anything about yourself right?" I rubbed my arm.

"Yeah... It's really strange. I feel so... I don't know, disconnected? Like this place doesn't feel like home but at the same time... No where." Phoenix nodded then his head popped up and I saw his eyes widen.

"Wait, so you said you don't remember your name right?" He grinned.

"Nope, dont remember a thing."

"So that means we need to pick a new one out for you!' He jumped off his bed and rushed over to the book shelf by my bed. He pulled out a book and motioned for me to scoot over on the bed. I did so and he sat down beside me. I looked at the cover and it said, Encyclopedia of Names. I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Why do you have a book of names?" He coughed.

"Well you never know when you might need it! And here we are, using it! Now, lets get you a new name, shall we?"

It basically went like this, "Aaron?" "No." "Ben?" "Better but I don't think so." "Carter?" "Hmm. We can put it on the list."

In the end our list included:

-Carter

-Oliver

-Carter

-Lincoln

-Alexander

-Thomas

"Hm... We've got a pretty good list here but how are we going to choose?"

"No Idea..."

We ended up settleing on Carter after a few minutes of thinking. So I was Carter now. Great I had a name, my past was still a mystery but atleast people could call me by something. I was constantly awake that night.

Chapter 3

The next day we went to the opening ceremony, (again) though this time I didn't have to go up in front of everyone, which definitely cooled some of my nerves. Not much happened, we sang an anthem to start the day, got told about anything of importance, most of which i didn't really understand. After that everyone filed out of the auditorium and went to their classes. I decided it would probably be a good idea to ask Phoenix what to do about my classes.

"Er, you're probably going to have to go ask the principal about it. Good luck with that!" He ran off, leaving me confused and anxious. I had no idea where to go in this place, let alone how I was going to have the courage to go up and ask the principal about something like that! I sighed and went up to one of the other kids to ask them.

A few people told me they didn't know, but the fourth person I asked, a dark skinned boy with short hair, told me where to go.

"Just go down that hallway over there. Go straight past two hallways then turn right. If you go 3 rooms down you'll find his office. Huh, I'm surprised I remembered that." I thanked him and he turned to walk off to his other classes. I took a shaky breath and walked down the hallway.

The hallways weren't at all spooky like I had been imagining. I guess that made sense, it was a school after all. Still, I was feeling apprehensive about this meeting. The way Phoenix had acted around Principal Bloomstone during the opening ceremonies the day before... It made me nervous about talking to him. I told myself I had to do this. If I was going to get anything done, this was the first step.

When I reached the door I was a bit unsure if it was the right one. I was pretty sure I had followed the directions the boy had given me. The door had no name on it or anything decorative around it. Nothing made the door stand out. But when I touched my hand to the door knob, I felt sure this was the right room.

A security camera popped out from the right side of the door, a few inches above my head. It adjusted to stare down at me. I rubbed my hand against my arm nervously. A robotic sounding voice came from a speaker I couldn't see.

"State your name and reasoning."

"I-i don't have a name- Oh!" I remembered what Phoenix and I had discussed the night before. "You can call me Carter. Reasoning? Ah, why am I here? I, uh need to get a schedule. You know the thing you use to find out when your classes are? Wait, you probably knew that-" The voice interrupted me mid-sentence.

"Access: Permitted" I heard a click from the door knob. I took a deep breath and turned the knob. I was hit by a shine of bright light. I squinted as the light faded a bit. The room was filled with light and a hundred mirrors covered the walls. No, not a hundred, just one, giant mirror on each of the four walls. All of the objects looked slightly see through, as if they were made of light.

"They are." I turned around sharply and faced the man who was sitting in a chair in front of a pale blue desk. I turned rigid as I realized who the man was.

"Principal Bloomstone." I said. He smiled at me.

"Yes, the real one this time. You met my... clones I guess you could call them yesterday."

"So... They weren't the real you?"

"Nope, not me."

"They were... Made of light?" I glanced around the room. He laughed.

"Well aren't you a smart cookie! Yes they are made out of light!" He flicked his fingers and the blue copy of him appeared next to him. He nodded at the figure and then flicked his finger again to make it disappear.

"So... How exactly does it work? I mean, how did you make light solid? You have a desk made of light, I assume it is solid right?" I asked. He scratched his chin thoughtfully.

"Hm... I haven't ever thought about that. I don't really know how it works but yes it is solid." He put a hand on his desk to demonstrate.

"Is it always solid, or can you make it so you can pass your hand through it?"

"Ah! Yes, yes I can. Watch." An orb of light appeared next to him, floating in the air, "You see I can affect its density. You see, if I make it more dense, it will fall." He made an upwards motion with his pointer finger and the orb fell with a bonk onto the floor.

"Huh, that's interesting..." I said, then I remembered why I was here in the first place. "Oh! Uh, Principal Bloomstone, I need to get a schedule of my classes."

"Oh yes that is right. He opened a cabinet on his desk and pulled out a device the size of his hand. " If you press this screen a list of your classes and what time you have them. Simple right." I nodded and took it from him.

"I-I better get going. Thanks for the device!" He nodded and waved a hand to motion me out the door. I nodded back and went out the door.

Well, that wasn't as bad as I had been imagining. I thought it had almost been comfortable for a bit, until I messed things up. I shook my head and walked down the corridor. Ok, let's see what classes I have.

I pressed the screen and looked at the names. Breakfast at 7:20. I looked at the next timestamp, History at 8:00. If I hurried I could get to that class. I tapped the icon next to the words and a map came up, showing me where to go. Well that's convenient! I thought.

I ran down the hallway to my history class. It was hard to find a balance for myself, I didn't want to seem like an idiot who overslept, but I also didn't want to be late! When I reached the classroom I saw that I was five minutes early. What a relief. I walked over to the teacher, a dark haired young woman probably in her late twenties.

"Uhm, I'm new here, where should I sit?" I asked. She looked me up and down suspiciously.

"We dont get newcomers often..." She pointed to a desk at the front of the room. "You can sit there. I'll get a binder and notebook for you." I waited for further instruction. She just raised her eyebrows at me.

"O-oh, I'll just sit down." I put the device in my pocket and sat down at the desk she had motioned toward. I borrowed my head in my hands. Nothing was going right at all! Was I ever going to stop embarrassing myself?

I was so busy drowning myself in my woes I didn't hear the bell ring. I felt a finger tap my arm a few times and then pull back suddenly. I sat up and looked around. It was the same girl who had come to get her thing yesterday. She was staring at her hands and looked like she had just been shocked.

"Are you ok?" I asked. She shook her head and looked at me. She smiled weakly and nodded.

"S-sorry... I just wanted to make sure you were awake. A lot of people fall asleep in this class." She laughed but it sounded shaky.

"I don't think I got your name yesterday, I'm Carter." I smiled, hoping to get her head off of whatever she had been shocked about.

"Oh! I'm Halina. Everyone just calls me Hailey though. Sorry, I was kind of... busy, when I came yesterday." I smiled and nodded,

"You're fine, you'd better get in your seat though, I think we are starting."She nodded back quickly and sat in a seat two seats across from me. The teacher came to the front of the class.

"Take out your textbooks and turn to page 106." She said as stabbed a pointer stick on the white board in front of us which read the same thing. I looked down at my desk and opened the textbook the teacher must have given me. As directed I opened the book to page 106 and scanned the pages.

The weird thing about losing my memory was that I remembered everything I had learned previously, except my life. I knew how to read and I remembered the history I had been taught. Just no memory of the teaching. But this lesson was completely different. I found that I knew hardly anything about this new history, except little tidbits I had been taught previously.

"Messy hair, what war did Martin Frontern win in 1965?" I didn't know she was talking to me until she tapped her pointer on my head. I flinched and looked up.

"Um, sorry could you repeat that?" She glared down at me.

"I asked, " What war did the Fronterns win in 1965?"

"Oh! Uh, I think It was called the Glass War? It was called that because the first battle was fought on a mirrored frozen lake." I responded. She gave me a small smile.

"Good, at least you learned something." She looked up at the clock. "Five minutes left of class, feel free to talk to your neighbors for the remainder of class." I didn't expect anyone to come over and talk to me so I started reading more of the history textbook. I looked up as I noticed Halina coming over.

"Oh, hi. Is there anything you need?" I asked. She smiled.

"No, I just wanted to talk." I looked at the book, trying to collect my thoughts. Then I looked back up at her.

"Why? You must have other friends dont you?" She looked back a couple seats behind her.

"Well, I mean yeah... But you're so much more, I guess... chill than them." I stared at her blankly. Me? Chill? Right now my mind feels like a war zone.

"Uh- thanks." I said. She nodded uncomfortably and looked at the textbook I was reading.

"You really like history don't you?" I nodded and looked down at my feet. She kept talking, "It honestly is pretty interesting, what our ancestors did. I think it helps us not make as many mistakes. But..." She sighed. "I don't think many people even pay attention in this class and even if they do, they don't like it. I get it though, Miss Bearin isn't exactly the most likable teacher we have here." I looked back up and smiled.

"She didn't seem very excited about having me in class."

"Oh yeah, she hates change. I bet you coming really annoys her. But in all seriousness you showed up and rustled everyone's feathers." I rubbed my arm anxiously.

"How exactly... Did I show up? I mean I don't remember walking here."

"Yeah, well you kind of passed out outside our front doors. From what I've heard they were going to sendsent you away but they sensed some sort of magic aura around you." I borrowed my head in my hands.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"Everyone's going to call me the fainting boy or something like that." When she didn't respond I peeked out of my hands and saw her stroking her hair nervously. I put my hands back over my face. "I'll take that as confirmation."

Chapter 4

The next class period was Math, it was then that I realized what Halina had been so nervous about. As soon as I walked into the class three boys came and crowded around me. The one in the middle, a tall dark brown haired boy smirked down at me.

"Hey pancake face, that was a great performance yesterday. Wasn't it, Tom?" He looked to the boy to his left who sneered down at me.

"Of course! We haven't seen anything like that in years!" Tom grinned. "Speaking of which, is that something on your nose? Maybe something from your fall?" I jumped back before he could touch me. Luckily they had made an oversight and I was able to get out of their little circle. I ran out past the classrooms. The last thing I heard was one of the boys calling. "Hey, don't you dare tell Pheonix about this!" I ran through the halls until someone reached a hand out and caught me by my shirt.

"Hey, where are you going?" I looked back at Phoenix and let my shoulders fall slack. He pulled me into an empty room and we sat down criss-cross applesauce style. I must have looked pretty pathetic.

"What happened? I doubt you would be running through those halls for no reason. Unless you want to join the track and field team. But I don't think that was the reason." I told him what had happened. Phoenix was unusually quiet for some time before he responded in a whisper,

"They wouldn't..." He swiftly got up and walked to the door. I stood up and watched him warily.

"Where are you going?" I asked. He turned to study me for a second and then looked back at the door.

"I'll be back. I just have to talk to someone. Go back to our room until you're next class."

"But what about you? Surely you have a class to attend as well?" I asked.

"Luckily, the person and class come together. Well, it's lucky today." He laughed and ran out of the door, leaving me behind. He seemed to have a habit of doing that. I sighed and pushed the door back open.

I read through more of the history books while I waited for the next class to begin. It felt a bit wrong to miss a class but hopefully the teacher would understand, and reading was more fun anyways. I found myself more relaxed when I was reading because I was often lost in a different world or learning something new about the world that I hadn't known before.

I remembered the history I had known before I came to the school. Of course, I had known that magic had existed but not to this extent. This school had everything. It felt like a lot of this had been covered up for the general public. From what I had been taught, magic barely existed anymore than it had in the past. But now I saw that there had been so much magic history the world had been overflowing with it.

I wondered why all of this had been hidden and even more so I wondered what had happened to all of the magic. These days it seemed that only a few individuals arewere gifted with magic. Somehow, I was included in that rare few. It made me wonder again what my magic was. I hoped it was something subtle, like being able to change my hair color. Actually, I hoped It wasn't that exactly, but hopefully it wasn't something embarrassing. I had had enough of that.

I looked at the clock and saw that there was ten minutes before the next class started. I got out of my bed and looked at what the next class was. Language Arts, that sounds ok I guess. I started walking toward that class just as the bell rang. People started to crowd the halls. I had to duck so I wouldn't get hit as something flew through the air. I didn't know what it was but I questioned why people were even throwing things in the first place.

When I got to Language Arts I sighed and collapsed on a desk. It had been such an exhausting day already and it was only 11:00! My stomach grumbled and I remembered that I hadn't had breakfast that morning. I groaned and dropped my head on the table. This was not turning out to be a very good day. The thought that this was going to be my life everyday made me shiver. I heard a slam from somewhere nearby and jolted up. Phoenix sat to the right of me flipping through pages in a binder vigorously.

"Are you-"I started to ask, he turned to look at me with a scowl on his face. I jumped back in my seat. Phoenix's eyes widened and he turned back to look at his desk.

"I- Sorry, Carter. I don't want to talk right now." I cautiously scooted back into a comfortable position and murmured back,

"Ok." I wondered what had happened. He had seemed ok earlier... Was it something I had said? I fidgeted with my hands nervously. I hoped it wasn't because of me. Why was the bell taking so long to ring? I looked up at a clock hanging on the wall. Three more minutes. Why so long, and why wasn't anyone in here already!

Just as I thought that a crowd of people filed into the classroom, chatting and talking. A few that passed by Phoenix said greetings and he nodded back and smiled. It seemed like he was sort of well known around here.

I looked to the front of the class as the teacher struggled to get everyone's attention. The woman was small with graying shoulder-length brown hair. She had freckles dotting her body and wore a friendly smile. Finally after at least five minutes of shouting to no avail she resorted to a high pitched whistle. The whole class immediately quieted and shuffled into their seats. Our teacher nodded and turned to the board.

"Good, Now class take out the books we have been reading and turn to chapter 14." The class obeyed and took out books from inside their desks. I did the same and turned to the chapter.

I liked Language Arts. I was able to read, which I had come to realize was one of my favorite things to do. As i stated before, it is very relaxing and I would recommend doing it every once ina while! It was also pretty quiet throughout the class period, which soothed some of my nerves. The class was refreshing, a break from the stress of the past few hours.

After Language Arts we had lunch, which I realized was a whole other problem. Who was I going to sit with? Now I'd assume I could sit with Phoenix but he probably had other people he sat with. Would they want to be friends with me too? I didn't really know anyone else unless you counted Halina, but I only thought of us as acquaintances at this point. Besides, she probably had other friends to sit with judging by how friendly she was.

I decided to do the first thing I could, before that problem and get my lunch. I couldn't really remember anything that I had liked to eat in the past so I chose a random sample of a bunch of things. I took a step outside of the lunchline and gazed at all of the seats. It seemed like everyone had lunch at the same time so there was a wide variety of ages displayed. Six year olds were running rampage through the tables. College age students sat at their tables, chatting while studying. Kids his age were jumping from table to table to chat with other teens.

I took a look around wondering where would have space for me to sit. I spotted a table by the doors that was nearly empty except for a girl and a boy who were talking fervently. It seemed like one of the only tables that had space so I walked over. The girl had a petite frame yet had a fierce aura about her. Her dark hair came down in harsh curls around her face so that she looked like a lion. This made me want to back away but I knew this was probably my best shot at finding a table.

The boy that sat next to her was like a complete opposite. Appearance wise they looked like they could be siblings with their brown skin and dark curly hair. The boy was far more bulky, yet I could tell from the way he talked that he was calmer than his companion.

"Anne, It's not for another four months." The boy said while picking at his food.

"But we need to get as much practice in as possible Gale! The Star is an impressive award! Only one team gets it every year. We need to start practicing now... We should have startedof started earlier!" I hated to barge in on their argument but it was getting a bit tiring to stand with a tray in my arms.

"Um... Hi? Can I sit with you two?" The girl (assumably Anne) looked up at me and then to the boy. He shrugged and went back to picking at his food. Anne looked back up at me.

"Sure." She responded. I smiled at her gratefully and sat down. I had successfully found a place to sit! I placed my tray on the table and started to wonder what I should try first. Anne cleared her throat. I looked up and realized I hadn't introduced myself.

"Oh, uh I'm Carter. Thanks for letting me sit here. It can just be for today if you like. I could probably find another place to sit..." The boy smiled at me reassuringly.

"Nah, you're fine! You can sit with us for a while."

"It would probably be hard for you to get a seat anywhere else thanks to that little stunt you pulled yesterday." Anne added. The boy shot her a look and she put her hands up as a signal of surrender. He turned back to me.

"Ignore her. I'm Galieno but you can call me Gale. This is Dianne, my sister." I nodded.

"Thanks again. I don't know where I was going to sit if you hadn't let me sit here."

"No problem. Anne here needs more friends anyways." Dianne grumbled something that I couldn't hear and kept her eyes on her tray. I looked back down at my tray and remembered that I hadn't eaten anything yet. I picked up a fork and returned to deciding what to eat.

I started with strawberries which I liked. Then I tried the main course, pizza. I was more fond of the strawberries but it was fine. After trying a few more things I found that I liked: strawberries, pizza, cucumbers, carrots and mashed potatoes. I also found that I did not like olives, they were too salty.

Chapter 5

After lunch I had Science. Nothing really exciting happened there and I didn't recognise anyone. I was okay with that, though it would have been nice to see a familiar face. Then we had free time for the rest of the day. Well, mostly. Apparently everyday everyone had to go outside or do some sort of physical activity for 30 minutes.

That day I decided to go on a walk because it was a warm day. I also wanted to explore more of the school's property. I had been told by Gale that there was a beautiful lake surrounded by a forest and multiple different gardens. Even with his descriptions I was amazed by how massive the area was.

I came out into a garden of rose bushes and tulips. (I'm not personally a big fan of vibrant reds but I have to admit that those flowers were very pretty.) They were arranged in strategic rows and they all looked healthy and cared for. I wondered if the students were the ones who cared for them. Spending time surrounded by nature and the sound of the lake sounded pretty nice to me.

As I walked through the rows of flowers I noticed bees circling around the flowers. They paid no attention to me which was great. I didn't want to scare them. I had some knowledge from a book I must have read in the past that had stated that bees die when they sting you. The idea of anything dying made me sad. I also thought that the bees were pretty cute. I decided to move on so that I wouldn't unintentionally harm them.

The garden led into a path through the forest. This is what I had been looking forward to. I had no memories of the forest but the idea appealed to me. It was such a nice day to go on a walk anyways. Leaves flowed in the gentle wind and in the forest I could still smell the sweetness from the flowers behind me. The sky was slightly cloudy but the sun still shined brightly in the sky. Temperature wise it was perfect combination of warmth from the fun mixed with the nice breeze.

After about five minutes of walking in the forest I came upon a bench facing the stream. I took the book I had brought out of my backpack, (Which had been waiting on my bed when I got back from Science class) and opened it to the first page. The title had read, Dangerous and Mysterious Creatures, by Olive C. Emile. I don't know about you, but I thought that title sounded pretty interesting.

The first page bore a sketched grey scene. It looked like there were jagged cliffs that stretched on into the distance. The scene had a chilling beauty to it that I couldn't place. I flipped to the next page which had the first creature on it.

The Ash Elf: A secluded species that despite their name are not technically elves. They are called Ash Elves because of their large pointy ears and gray-scale features. They have large bat wings and fluffy antenna not unlike that of a moth. These strange creatures live their lives alone from other creatures. Though not inherently bad they have the tendency to kill things that stumble upon their dwellings. There is a-

I squinted, the rest had been scratched out. I guess someone really didn't want anyone to know what there is about Ash Elves. I sighed and closed the book. Any more of that would make me shivery all night. Mysteries made me anxious to figure them out. I guess I should have known from the title of the book that there were going to be some.

I stood up and walked through the forest for a bit longer. After who knows how long I felt a buzzing in my pocket. I remembered that I had put the schedule device there and pulled it out. It stopped buzzing when I tapped the screen. The screen read, 'DINNER IN A HOUR!'

Had I really been gone that long? I checked the time, it read 4:02 pm. I really had been walking around for a while! I turned around and started making my way back towards the main school building.

Dinner was good, stew and rolls. Both didn't have too much flavor yet they weren't bland either. It was a perfect balance! Dianne on the other hand didn't seem very happy with the meal at all.

"Stew again. They always have this at least once a week! And It isn't even good!" She complained.

"I like it." I said. She turned to look at me.

"Well yeah of course you would like it. Your'e just as bland as it!" I didn't know what to say. How was I supposed to respond to that?

"Excuse me?" I ended up saying. Gale was already glaring at his sister.

"Why would you say that!?" She looked at him blankly.

"What? Oh..." She looked at her feet. "Sorry Carter, that was rude."

"It's fine... So, do you two have magic?" I said, trying to change the subject. Dianne grinned.

"Yeah!" She held her hand up as if to demonstrate. Before she could do anything Gale pushed her arm down.

"Anne we aren't supposed to be doing that outside of class. We can just tell Carter." He turned to face me and said, "We can change the temperature of liquids." The only thing I could think of to respond to that was,

"Wow, that might be the worst power ever to not be able to use whenever you want."

"I know right! Like for example, what if I want to heat my soup up? Or heat up the shower? The possibilities are endless! It's so unfair..." She grumbled. Gale started patting her head to calm her down.

"Its okay Anne. They have a good reason for not letting us use them when we aren't being supervised. Think of all the chaos that could break loose!" He shuddered, "Wouldn't want that happening!" Dianne shook his hand of of her and sighed.

"Sometimes I wish that did happen. It would be much more exciting than here. But, most people follow the rules so the chances of that are pretty low."

After that we mainly stayed quiet for the rest of dinner. The bell rang and Gale waved goodbye to me. I stayed at the table for a bit longer, watching all of the people leave. There were so many people here who were complete strangers to me. What had I gotten myself into?

I spent most of that night reading more books. I liked reading and it helped take my mind off of the mysteries surrounding me. Phoenix was usually gone until around 7 at night so I didn't have anyone to talk to for a while anyways.

The books in the bookshelf were mostly about wars and the creatures of the world but there were a few outliers. There was a book called The Secret Language of Flowers which was honestly pretty interesting even if I did wonder why Phoenix had it. There was a book on names and a book all about the atmosphere. Another book was all about how human memory works. Then there was a book called 'Cookie Solves a Murder Mystery' which as the title suggests was ridiculous yet somehow dark.

So I read books until Phoenix came back. Then after that we would talk about our days. Phoenix would either go straight to sleep or talk to me until 10 at night. then we would finally fall asleep and do it again the next day. The cycle went on for weeks.

Chapter 6

The first few weeks of school went quicker than I expected. After the first day Tom and his friends avoided me as much as possible. That was perfectly fine by me, I did not want a confrontation with them again. Phoenix didn't say much to me for a week which made me worried about him. I didn't want to disturb him so I decided not to ask him about what had happened. After that week he went back to normal as if nothing was wrong. That made me even more worried about him.

I usually only ever saw Halina in Social Studies but every once in a while I would see her out in the gardens tending to some of the plants. I found out that her power was to make plants grow. That was pretty interesting to me. I also thought the power suited her personality and appearance perfectly.

I still sat with Gale and Dianne at lunch everyday and after a few days Dianne started opening up to me more. I could tell that Gale was glad to have me there, though I wasn't all too sure of why. For me, I was just happy to have somewhere to sit. It also made me happy to have some more friends at the school.

As for my classes, they were the least of my concern. I was doing pretty well in them all things considered. Really, I was worried about all the things happening. It all felt a bit strange. There was Halina's expression when she had brought me back to reality, Phoenix's sudden mood change and the way he acted as if nothing had happened.

It was all very strange. Of course, I had only been there for a few weeks so for all I knew this was normal. But... It didn't feel like it. This felt wrong. I didn't know how I was going to solve this, honestly I was hoping the pieces would just click into place. But I knew that I couldn't Ignore it. Not after all of the strange happenings. I couldn't forget it, not even if I wanted to.

It was exactly three weeks after I had first come to the school that something happened. What happened was strange, but I guess it's easy to explain. Everyone seemed to think that I had been there all along. I first noticed that something was wrong that morning.

The previous day Halina had told me about this place where you could watch birds. The class had ended before she could tell me where it was, so I was going to ask Phoenix later that day. I ended up forgetting and only remembered the next morning. While we were walking to the opening ceremony I asked him. He stared at me like I was crazy.

"You don't know where it is? I thought I told you how to get there years ago. You go there at least once a week don't you?" I stared back at him, puzzled.

"No? I just heard about it yesterday, and what are you talking about? I've only been here for a couple weeks." Phoenix was quiet for a minute before he responded.

"You really are going crazy aren't you? If you really can't remember the Bird Watch is right of the wildflower field. It's a small building colored red. Just go inside the door and you'll find it."

"Thanks." I responded, not really knowing what else to say. Yet another piece of the mystery. I thought. We walked the rest of the way to the ceremony in silence.

When I got to Social Studies I told Halina about it. She frowned.

"Carter you have an amazing imagination but really, Phoenix is right. You have lived here for years. I think you have been here longer than me or Phoenix." That response shook me. Of course I could be wrong but... I had only been here for a few weeks! Though, if I thought about it, maybe I had just forgotten my life again! But what they were telling me was a completely different story.

"Y-yeah no. You're right, just playing with you! Haha..." I said shakily. She smiled at me but I could tell she was still concerned.

"Okay then." She said as she went back to her seat. Now what was I going to do with this! Everyone thought I had lived here forever. Or something like that. I didn't remember it like that and I didn't know why I wouldn't. Maybe I was sick, yet I didn't know what sickness would cause a completely wrong remembering of events.

Lunch was even weirder than the classes before it. I went to sit at my usual table with Gale and Dianne. Gale smiled and greeted me when I sat down. At least that was normal. I wasn't planning on asking them about the confusion I had had today, I didn't want more people thinking I was crazy.

Lunch was normal for about five minutes. It all fell to pieces when Phoenix came over to our table. Lunch was a time when we usually didn't interact so this was a bit strange. My whole day had been strange though so this was just adding to my list. When I heard him calling my name I turned around.

"What happened?" I asked him. He looked at me and then to Gale and Dianne. He kind of just stared at us blankly for a bit.

"Uh, Carter? What are you doing here?" He finally responded. I frowned in confusion.

"I sit here during lunch?" I looked in the eyes, "Everyday for the past three weeks." I added. Gale and Dianne nodded behind me. Phoenix looks bewildered.

"Are you- No nevermind... I uh, see you later. Bye." He waved and walked over to his table. I waved back before turning to Gale and Dianne.

"That was strange." Dianne commented as she braided hair absentmindedly. I sighed.

"It's been strange for me all day." I remembered how they had nodded in agreement when I had said I had been there for three weeks, "So, I have been here for three weeks? Im not going crazy." They looked at each other then back at me.

"Yeah not pretty sure you only arrived that long ago. Unless it was four weeks... But, no you haven't been here for long, if that's what you're wondering." Gale said. I looked at my feet and tapped them up and down nervously.

"That's weird... Everyone else I have talked to seems to think I have been here for years." I tapped my fork on my tray anxiously. What did all of this mean? If Dianne and Gale had the same memories did that mean I had the right memory? Or were we the wrong ones? Ughhhh! Why was everything so complicated!

I folded my arms on the table and dropped my head onto them. Neither Gale or Dianne tried to stop me so I spent the remainder of lunch lost in thought. By the time the bell rang I was even more confused than I was to begin with.

Chapter 7

I didn't expect what happened the next morning. I don't think anyone did. Two students mysteriously vanished. Of course, I only knew this because of the rumors floating around but it seemed pretty serious. The staff hadn't told us anything but I could tell they were on edge as well. Even Miss Bearin who was usually quite stable kept tapping her pointer stick on her feet.

Later that same day I got called to the Principal's office. Now, luckily it wasn't announced over the intercoms, that would have been awful. Instead a message popped up on my navigator (as I had started to call it) to head there.

I waited until after class to sneak to the office. I still remembered the way, even if it was a bit more fuzzy after the weeks of not being there. As I walked I wondered what I was getting called up for. Was I in trouble? I didn't think I had broken any of the was I being called up for a different reason? Maybe the disappearances had to do with it.

When I walked into the room I was surprised to see Halina waiting there, sitting on one of the three stools in front of Principal Bloomstone's desk. She turned and smiled at me when I came in.

"Hello Carter! We are just waiting for Phoenix to get here." She said, I had so many questions.

"Wuh- How did you get here before me?" I asked her. She laughed.

"I took a shortcut! There are tons of them around the school."

"Uh huh... So do you know why we are here?" I looked around and noticed for the first time that Principal Bloomstone was missing. "Where's Principal Bloomstone?" I asked. Halina shook her head and shrugged.

"I have no idea. That's the answer to both of your questions, by the way." Just a few seconds after she said that the door opened. Phoenix walked in and took in the room with wide eyes. Then his eyes fell on me and Halina. He gave me a faint smile and walked over. When he reached us he sat down on stool two from Halina.

I realized that I was still standing up. Now what was I going to do here? It might be a bit awkward for me to sit down, but wouldn't it be more so if I didn't? I noticed Phoenix looking up at me expectantly and I quickly sat dont on the stool in between Halina and him.

"So do either of you know why we are here?" Phoenix asked once I was seated. Me and Halina both shook our heads.

"No idea. I was going to ask you once you got here. The only information I received was that both of you were going to be here." Halina said. Phoenix groaned.

"Well. It seems none of us have been given the information we need." I looked around the room. "I wonder where Principal Bloomstone is."

Phoenix shuddered, "Ugh, right that guy."

"What's your problem with him?' I asked.

"He just weirds me out. I don't like the multiple of him thing." Just before I was going to respond a voice called from somewhere in the room.

"Weird you say? I suppose my abilities do tend to make people uncomfortable." We all turned to find the face that had said the words. In front of the door stood Principal Bloomstone. This time he was made of a faint white light that produced little glow.

"You're finally here!" Phoenix exclaimed. "You better get right to telling us why we are here. I dont want to miss lunch because of this!" Principal Bloomstone sighed and shook his head.

"You will probably be having lunch late no matter how fast I start talking. I have a lot to explain and you three have to get ready. Be patient Mr. Ashenglade." He responded. After a few moments in silence I saw Phoenix's eyes widen.

"Get ready? For what?" He asked. After a moment he blinked in confusion. "Also that isn't my last name." The light version of the school principal walked over and took a seat at his desk.

"My bad, must have been a different student. There are so many of you running around it's hard to keep track of who's who. As I was saying, I have much to explain. First of all, let me tell you what has happened. I know there have been rumors floating around about missing students. Unfortunately those rumors are true. Two students have been captured." I heard Halina gasp.

"Captured? You mean, like kidnapped?" I asked. Principal Bloomstone nodded grimly.

"Yes, I guess that's another way of saying it. Luckily for us, we know where they went because of a tracking device one of the captured was carrying." He conjured up a map and showed us what was on it. A glowing red line trekked across the map at alarming speed.

"We don't know exactly where they are headed but you should be able to-"

"Wait, wait, wait, wait," Phoenix held up his hands to stop the principal, "I think we need more details. First of all, who even are the people who got kidnapped? And why are we here instead of anybody else? I mean, neither me or Carter know what our powers are, so I doubt those would be any help." Principal Bloomstone nodded his head thoughtfully. I nodded too.

"I want to know why we have tracking-" I was cut off by Principal Bloomstone before I could finish.

"Yes It would probably be a good Idea to get to that first. The students captured were the siblings, Dianne and Galieno Rivera. We don't know why they were captured specifically. As for why you three are here that matter is less..." His words seemed to fade into a buzz in my ears.

Dianne and Gale? They were the ones taken? What if it was because of me? What if they got hurt? Would they still want to be my friends? Where would I sit at lunch? Could I ask Phoenix? Would he let me?

I felt a hand on my shoulder and I looked up. Halina stood to the side of me with a concerned expression, Phoenix on my other side looked worried as well.

"Carter? Are you ok?" Phoenix asked. I shook my head to clear my thoughts.

"Yeah... I was just zoning out. What were you saying Principal Bloomstone?''

"I was telling you three why you are here. You were chosen to go out to find the two missing students. " I shivered.

"Chosen? But why us? I'm sure there's more experienced people here! Plus like Phoenix said-"

"Yes. I know you haven't discovered your powers. But for reasons I can't say I know for sure you three are the right ones for this quest. I don't know why but you are. Now, hurry of and get to your classes!" He pushed the map our way and then shooed us out the door.

Chapter 8

A cold breeze hit my face as I walked outside the building. A cold front had come in the night before and now everything was chilly. I hoped it wouldn't last for very long because we had a long trek ahead of us. Though, despite the cold weather I was full of anxious energy.

What were we going to run into? What if one of us got hurt or even... What if one of us died? Those questions scared me but if I was being fully honest I was more concerned about what had happened before our journey. Why had I been chosen for this quest?

"Good morning Carter! It's a kind of chilly morning isn't it?" Phoenix yawned beside me. I gave him a forced smile.

"Agreed. I can live with this weather though, I just hope it isn't like this the whole time." Phoenix shook his head.

"I doubt it, we'll be going through a lot of different areas so the cold most likely won't follow us. I nodded to him, but I was still a bit worried about the weather. It really would be bad if it started snowing. That would slow us down a lot, and who knew how long it was already going to take to reach where Gale and Dianne had been taken.

"Where's Halina?' I asked Phoenix. He shook his head.

"Probably still getting ready. There's a reason Lina can still look like sunshine on a rainy day. She explained to me once, first she has to take a shower, then brush her hair then either straighten it or curl it more..." I started to drown out Phoenix's talking as I looked out into the distance. I thought I saw a rocky cave in the distance.

"I think I see where Principal Bloomstone said our journey would start." I said. Phoenix turned to me and started looking where I was.

"Yeah I see it... You can start heading over there if you like, i'm going to stay here and wait for Halina." He responded. I nodded to him and started walking up to the cave. Once I got there I saw a faint light coming through it. I took a cautious step inside and started to follow it.

After a few minutes of walking I arrived at the source of the light. The scene was breathtaking. It looked like a sunny day had been brought into the cave. Sunlight streamed through the rocky ceiling in a way that seemed impossible. There was moss and lichen covering the walls and further along a tiny stream curved down a stone slope.

I walked up to where the river started to go downwards. It seemed like there was a path leading down, which I assumed was meant for me to follow. I walked down the slope being careful with every step so as not to slip.

When I got down I took a step back to take in the scene. I could see the stream that sloped down the hill. Spotting a rock I took a seat and started watching the water fall down. It was such a peaceful scene, I felt like I could sit there for hours. I closed my eyes and let the sound of the river calm me.

I don't know how long I was waiting there but suddenly I heard the sound of walking. Swiftly I stood up. I assumed that it was Phoenix and Haline, but it wasn't. Two boys climbed down the hill. They laughed as they talked and wore strangely outdated clothes that would have been worn around sixty years ago. They looked only a few years older than I was, which was strange because I had never seen them, despite how small the school was.

The strangest thing was that they passed right by me like I wasn't there. I watched them run after each other, their laughter echoing through the cave. Soon after they had left another set of children came down the slope, this time three girls. Their faces were grim and they walked by more slowly than the two boys. They're clothing looked more like something worn in the 1970's.

After them more kids came down, more and more frequently with more and more modern outfits. I tried to touch some of them as they walked past but my hand passed right through them. Shakilly drew back my hand. It was as if they were only memories of the past. Maybe they were.

There was a longer time gap as I waited for the next group. After about ten minutes since the last people I heard footsteps. But It wasn't a group of people that came down, this time it was only one person. It was me. I watched myself walk the same path as I had minutes before. This time when I tried to touch myself, the image faded into nonexistence. I jumped back and fell onto a rock.

I sat there for minutes just processing what had just happened. I heard more footsteps l q

but I stayed sitting. I didn't know who would come down next. Only looking up when I heard familiar voices, I saw Phoenix and Halina coming down the slope. I stayed put, almost motionless on the rock, because I wanted to see if they could see me. Were they both only illusions as well.

But despite my worries when they both came down I was greeted with waving and extreme apologizing.

"Im so sorry Carter I didn't mean to keep you two waiting for so long! I just knew that I probably wouldn't be able to take a shower for a- Carter?" I jumped up and strangled Halina in a hug. She patted me on the shoulder. "I didn't know you missed me this much!" She said with a slightly joking tone. I took a step back.

"Oh no it's not that- I mean I missed you its just that some weird..." I stopped short. Was that laughing? I took another step back and looked up at the hill. I heard people running. There couldn't be more memories could there? I was in the present now, right?

But as one of the group was in sight, I knew this was different. It was a small girl, probably around six or seven years old. She had shoulder-length dark brown hair and freckles covering her face. The strange thing wau at sea zs that she seemed to be fading out of existence. Her image was fuzzy and a bit see-through unlike the others that had come down, which had looked like whole people.

As she giggled and ran down the hill I thought I saw something familiar in her face, but I couldn't place it. Shortly after she reached the bottom of the slope a boy came into sight, this time much older. He looked about eleven years old with short blond hair and bright green eyes. As he chased the young girl he shouted insults that sounded foggy, as if you were listening to an old recording.

Soon two new people came to the top of the hill. A man probably in his 30's and a young boy who looked almost identical to the young girl who was still being chased. I realized this was the first time I had seen an adult in the cavern. His hair was a light brown and he wore a pale blue scarf around his neck. There was something odd about him but I couldn't place it.

The boy who was walking with the man pointed to somewhere near where I was standing. The man nodded to the boy then looked up and locked eyes with me. He smiled and waved.

"Carter?" Haline asked. I shook my head back and forth.

"Uh- Yeah?"

"You were zoning out again." She said with a concerned look on her face.

"I-I'm fine let's get going."

As we made our way to the exit I could still see the kids chasing each other. He couldn't have really seen me could he? I shook my head, it was a silly thought. But as we walked out the cave I was still unnerved.

Chapter 9

"We could go around." I suggested. Phoenix shook his head.

"No, that would take too long. This is urgent, remember!"

"I know, but I'm not sure if there's any other way..." I responded. It was only our second day of traveling and we had already run into a problem. The cold had mostly gone away but there was a huge lake on our way and there seemed to be no way to get over it. We had no boat because Halina forgot to bring the inflatable one because of the rush. She had apologized about this over and over again.

Phoenix sighed, "If only I could fly. That would get us over there and would be a cool ability to have!" I laughed at this statement.

"Yeah, Phoenix the Superhero." I said, Phoenix nodded in agreement.

"Destroying enemies with his non-stop chatter! Best superhero ever. But jokes aside I do really think it would be neat to fly."

"Who doesn't?" Halina said from a rock, where she was braiding her hair.

"Honestly I think it would be kind of scary. All of the birds, trees, planes... So many ways to crash." I shuddered.

Phoenix sighed, "Well, we can't do much about flying right now so we better find another solution. Lina, couldn't you just get plants to carry us across the lake?" Halina shook her head.

"First of all, Phoenix, I talk to plants not control them. If I had more practice than maybe..." She suddenly stood up and started looking around the beach.

"What are you looking for?" I said, walking over to her.

She kept walking as she talked, "I'm looking for fallen planks. Sometimes they end up by lakes because boats crash into the beach or broken branches fall into the water. If we find some we might be able to make a raft to row over there."

"Wouldn't it be faster for us to just walk around?" Phoenix asked.

Halina shot him a dangerous look, "You were the one who said that was going to be too slow! Now get up and help, we have to hurry." Phoenix quickly started looking around for wood and hardly made a sound while we were looking.

We were luckily able to gather the materials we needed quickly. I don't know how she did it but Halina was able to craft a working raft in about 15 minutes. We struggled for a few minutes trying to figure out how to configure ourselves onto our make-shift boat. Eventually we settled on having me sit in the front navigating while Phoenix and Halina row. I was hesitant to let them do most of the work but they assured me it was fine.

The waters were calm, which was good for us. We had a strangely nice ride across the lake. I watched ducks and once even a swan swim in the water near our raft. As soon as we got close most of them swam away, but it was nice to see them even if it wasn't for long. The weather was turning out to be a rather pleasant breeze with a slightly overcast sky.

I had been surprisingly calm on our journey so far. It turned out that being in nature was far less stressful for me than being in crowded halls. Of course there was still pressure but it was slightly soothed by my surroundings.

By the time we made it to the other side of the lake Phoenix and Halina were exhausted while I was feeling refreshed. I made them promise me that they would let me do the physical labor if we did something like that ever again. They agreed with nods because both of them (even Phoenix) were too tired to talk. We took about thirty minutes to rest and eat lunch and then started walking again.

"At the rate they're going we will probably arrive at least a couple days after they will." I said, looking at the magic map we had been given. Like on the raft I had been given the job of navigating. I had turned out to be the best at it. Phoenix had gotten us lost before we even exited the cave and Halina said she just didn't like doing it. I was happy to navigate for us because I was actually pretty good at it.

We kept following the signal up north. I estimated that it would probably take at least two weeks of walking without set-backs to arrive at the final destination. Of course, we still had no idea where we were headed but it seemed like we had a long journey ahead of us.

Luckily we had brought a sufficient amount of supplies with us. Principal Bloomstone had given us, A magically weaved basket that was able to hold enough food and water to last us months, three backpacks that held sleeping bags and four changes of clothes, two bottles of sunscreen, a poncho for each of us, a hairbrush,bag of elastics,a bar of soap, a small shampoo bottle, a compass, a tent and the map. (The hairbrush and elastics were Halina's)

Of course we had forgotten the inflatable boat, but we had found a way around that. We just had to hope that there were no other obstacles but I highly doubted that. In a world of magic it seemed to me that anything could happen to us.

"There's no way we can go any faster?" Phoenix groaned. I shook my head.

"It seems like they have a fast mode of transport. Maybe flying or some other sort of vehicle. We are walking. Plus even if we did have a car or something, there is no way we could drive it through here and none of us are even old enough."

"It would be nice though..." Phoenix grumbled. Halina, who was a couple feet ahead of us, looked back at him with a confused expression.

"Phoenix we have been on this quest for less than two days and you're already complaining? Wow, such amazing patience you have." She said,

Phoenix scoffed, "I'm just saying it would be great if we had a quicker way to follow them. We would get there quicker and maybe even intercept them."

I sighed and shook my head. "Well, Phoenix we don't have a quicker mode of transport so it would be better if we stop thinking about it and move on." I looked down at the map in my hands.

"There's a fork in the road up here. Looks like they went left."

"Uh, that doesn't bode well for us." Halina said from up ahead.

"What do you mean?" I asked. Me and Phoenix ran up to meet her. Instantly I saw a problem. There was no second path. I looked back and forth from the map to the trail. It didn't make sense!

"Didn't you say there was a fork in the road?" Phoenix asked, squinting at the trees.

"Y-yeah. There should be one here." I looked up and down and then behind us. Halina sighed and shook her head.

"That's not what a meant. The left trail is this right here." Halina walked through a tree. Phoenix ran up to the tree and started frantically looking around it.

"Lina? Where did you-" A hand caught hold of him and he tumbled through the tree. I walked up to the tree cautiously. Lightly, I tried to touch it. My hand went right through it. I took a deep breath and walked through it. Surprisingly it felt almost no different than walking through air. Maybe a bit hotter, but otherwise there was no difference.

Halina and Phoenix were waiting for me on the other side. They had their backs to me and seemed to be looking at something up ahead. I walked over to them.

"Ah." I said when I saw what they were looking at. A forest of thorny vines laid before us. They didn't seem to be normal thorny vines though. Not that I knew what a normal thorned vine would look like. These vines were pale white and seemed slightly see through. The thorns were a bright purple color that was almost blinding.

Beside me Halina was nervously playing with her hair. "These are ghost vines. If the thorns even tap your skin you're out for at least an hour." She dragged her hand over her face.

Phoenix turned to her, "So uh... You can't just tell them to like, clear a path for us?" He asked.

"Maybe I could. But I've never tried talking to vines before. I don't know how hard it would be." She took a deep breath. "But I can try." She spread out her arms in front of her and started whistling a tune. I saw the vines shiver and they slowly started to edge away from our path.

When there was a big enough area for us to go through, Halina started walking forward. Phoenix beckoned for me to follow. I felt uncomfortable walking through all of the writhing vines. The whole time we went through I was terrified that one of them would touch me. I was not fainting again!

In front of me even Phoenix seemed nervous. He took cautious steps, so much so that I also bumped into him once. I could tell when we got to the other side that we barely made it to the end without the vines closing in on us. Halina was shaking when we got there and fell to her knees once the vine closed into the gap. Phoenix and I rushed over to her.

"Are you ok?" Phoenix asked her. He had a concerned expression on his face. Halina stood up and brushed herself off, although she was still shaking.

"I- I'll be fine." She turned to look back and the vines. "I'm surprised I managed that." Phoenix nodded to her and then turned to look at the rest of the forest ahead of us.

"Well," I said, "Who wants to camp around here?"

Chapter 10

"Ok so we are just going to turn left here..." I pointed to the left path and walked that way. Phoenix and Halina followed behind me, talking about food. Actually argueing might be a better term.

"How can you not like spagetti?" Phoenix exclaimed.

"I dont understand why you like it! I might be okay with it, but the way the school makes the sauce always makes it so sour!" Halina retorted. Phoenix shook his head in disbelief.

"The sourness is the best part!" This bickering had been going on for the past two days. I never got into the converstions for a few reasons: First of all my memory had been wiped so I didn't really have any opinions. Second, I didn't really want to get into an argument. Third, I actually think that those two enjoyed arguing with eachother so I wasn't about to stop them.

At this point we had been traveling for five days. A whole school week! I couldn't believe that we had been gone that long. I wondered what everyone was doing at school. Had the routine returned to normal or was there still unsettling rumers floating around the school? I hoped that people were'nt talking about me, but of course they would be.

I had just showed up at the school and then disapeared. Of course, someone had signed me up for the school but it seemed that most kids there had been attending since they were small. A question apeared in my mind. I turned to Halina and Phoenix.

"Do you two stay at the school year round?" I asked. They both went quiet and looked at each other. Phoenix nodded and Halina turned to face me.

"Phoenix does, but I dont. Most kids just stay for the school year. On Christmas break we are allowed to go home for a week. During the summer we have the choice to stay at the school if we want but there are still a few classes we'd have to attend." She explained. In nodded.

"So, you go back to your family over the summer?"

"Well, yeah. Most years. Last year I stayed at school over the summer..." She turned back to Phoenix. He smiled slightly.

"Its alright you can tell him. Carter's not going to goof off with the infromation." Halina turned back to me.

"I- I stayed back with Phoenix last summer. I felt bad for him. He always stays at school each year." I looked up at him.

"Yeah, I dont exactly know who my parents are. I dont even know if they are alive or not, so..." I smiled slightly.

"Well, I dont know who my parents either. I guess thats a similarity between us." I said. He smiled at me and nodded. While we had been talking Halina had gotten ahead of us and was now standing at the top of a ridge.

"Uh, guys?" She hollered. We came running up to her. Phoenix almost fell of the edge when we caught up to her and Halina had to grab his shirt to stop him.

"Ack!" He screamed. Halina loosened her hold on him so he could get back on two feet. "Thanks Lina, but that hurt! Did you really have to pull that hard?"

"Do you see how far of a fall that is! If you had fallen you would have surely broken something! If you had hit your'e head on any of those stones down there you could have..." She shivered. "Too many bad things could have happened to you." I looked down the ridge. Halina was right, it was a long fall down with large stones all the way down. They stook up like minuature mountains with tops that spiked up towards the sky. I took a step back, I did not want to fall down there.

"I- I see our problem." I said shakily. Halina nodded and pointed to some wooden poles I hadn't noticed.

"I think there used to be a bridge here, but it seems that its long gone."

"How are we going to get over then?" Phoenix said.

"Thats the problem, I dont know. For once I agree with you Phoenix, it would be great if we could fly right about now..." Halina responded. I sighed and looked down at the map I was holding.

"Everything just seems to be in our way..." I said.

"Yeah, It really does! But were any of us really thinking this was going to be easy?" Phoenix asked. I shook my head. Halina smiled and nodded too.

"Alright, we're going to figure this out. Do either of you spot other crossing places nearby?" She asked. I squinted and looked out to the left of us.

"Uh I dont-" I started to say, Phoenix interupted me with a yelp.

"Oh! Look over there!" He exclaimed. I looked over to see a path of earth that cut inbetween the ravine just a few yards away. We just stared at it for a few minutes. Finally, Phoenix broke the silence.

"Who would of thought it would be that easy! It seems we finally have a bit of luck on our side!"

"Uh huh..." I said warily. Phoenix started running off toward it. Halina ran after him and caught onto his left hand before he could set a foot on the path. When focusing on his wrist i thought I could see something shining under Halina's hand. My thoughts started to buzz around inside my brain but I snapped back into reality when I heard Halina start talking.

"Woah, no! We are not crossing that!" She said.

"Why not?" Phoenix asked her. Halina looked back at the path.

"How do we know if its safe? It seems to good..." Phoenix laughed.

"This journey really is getting to you Lina! It looks fine. Look, I'll go over it first to see if its safe. If its not you and Carter can always come save me!" He said. Halina looked like she was going to say something back but decided not to. She nodded slowy and stepped back to let Phoenix go ahead. I walked up to her and watched Phoenix step foreward onto the path.

"Why did you let him go?" I asked her. She sighed and shook her head.

"I wasn't going to be able to stop him. He's pretty sure about this. I only hope it doesn't get us into even more trouble..." She looked up to see Phoenix yelling to us from the other side. "I guess he made it. We should get going," She started walking over the bridge of dirt to the other side.

Once she got there it was my turn. I got over without issue but I was shaking when I got to the other side. I was terrified that the ground was going tocurmble beneath me and I was going to end up burried in rubble. But I didnt so our journey was still running!

After crossing we continued on the path we had been following. There wasn't much exciting to see on this part of our trek. We were walking through feilds that went on for miles. There was the occasional wild animal but over the past week we had become used to seeing them and they weren't very exciting anymore. To entertain ourselves we talked.

Halina and Phoenix still thought that we had been eachother our whole lives but I was still pretty sure we hadn't. I was able to learn more about them that I hadn't known before, though I still didn't know much about myself.

I learned that Halina's family lived in a large city with a waterpark near thier house (she had to explain to me what a waterpark was because apparently I had never heard of one before.) Phoenix's favorite food was apparently spagetti, which explained his strong feelings about the food. Halina's birthday was in May while Phoenix's was in July. I didn't know my birthday of course. I was glad to know thier birthdays though so I could buy presents. The only problem was that I didn't have any money.

"If you need money to buy us presents I could lend you some!" Phoenix said.

"But Phoenix, then it wouldn't be a suprise." Halina responded.

"How else is he going to get the money?"

"I could get a job." I said softly.

"You dont even know you're own birthday and there aren't many places around the school. Unless you want to help the teachers." He groaned. Halina rolled her eyes and shook her head.

"Phoenix its not just helping teachers sort papers. For that you dont even get paid! You can get a bit of a boost in you're grade though..." She added softly. Phoenix squinted at her.

"Its sounds like you have done this before..."

"What does it matter if I have?" Halina retorted, "Also, you already know I have a job tending the gardens at the school." Phoenix nodded.

"Sounds like your power would ome in usefull there." I said. Halina nodded.

"Yeah, the gardeners really value me in the job. I help coax the flowers into blooming or figure out why they aren't." Halina said. She started listing a ton of things she had learned from the plants. I was interested but Phoenix lost attention quickly. After a few minutes of Halina rambling he interupted.

"Hey, Lina flowers are great and all but could we move onto a... Cooler subject?" He said. Halina sighed.

"Fine. What do you want to talk about?"

"Uh... Oh! Remember that one time when I fell out of a tree and had to wear a cast for months? Everyone signed my cast! It was awesome." He grinned. Halina smiled slightly and nodded. Phoenix could have gone on forvever, telling every single day of his life from start to finish but somehow I found space to pipe in a question that had been on my mind.

"Phoenix, I hope you dont mind me asking but is there something on your'e wrist?" I asked. He held up his wrists and looked at both of them. Then he held up his left arm. He had a silver band on his wrist, it seemed normal enough exept a red dot in the middle of a circle in the center of the band.

"You mean this?" He said, twisting his wrist to look at it.

"Yeah probably. I dont know why I haven't noticed it. You didn't get it recently did you?" He laughed and shook his head.

"Not at all! I have had this forever. I cant take it off actually." He demonstrated my tugging on it in various ways.

"Huh." Phoenix shrugged.

"Yep its wierd. I have kind of just gotten used to it though. I dont notice it." He rubbed the band and then set his arm down. "Nothing to worry about. So yeah, then there was this time when I got my head stuck in a chair, still dont know how I did that!"

I was amazed at how easily Phoenix could lauch back fullspeed into a discussion. Well for the most part the "discussion" was entirely missing but that was perfectly fine with me. I didn't have much to say anyways.

Chapter 11

A few nights later we were woken up by the sound of howling. I sat up as soon as I heard it. Looking around, I didn't see anything but it was pitch dark outside. After struggling to get out of my sleeping bag, I crawled over to where Phoenix and Halina were sleeping.

"Did you hear that?" I whispered.

"Yeah." A voice that sounded like Halina's whispered back. Then I heard a sound that sounded like rolling a blanket.

"OW!"

"Shh..." Halina said.

"Ugh... Did you have to roll me over? You could have maybe like... tapped me?" Phoenix groaned.

"That wouldn't have worked. Anyways I'm guessing you didn't hear the howling?"

"Howling!? Oh right, sorry, quiet... So what's this about howling?"

"We don't know. We Just heard it outside." I said.

"Wolves?" Phoenix asked.

"Maybe... If we stay quiet they might not find us." Halina responded.

"But can't they smell us?"

Halinas sighed, "Yes. I said they might not find us. Our other option is to go outside. Hopefully though they are miles away."

"So we just sit here waiting?" I said.

"I'm guessing you don't have any better ideas."

"Yeah no, that's fair. Well... See you guys in the morning, hopefully." I crawled back over to my sleeping bag. After I got comfy inside of it I found that I couldn't get to sleep. It was unnerving and also strangely exciting knowing that there were wild creatures hunting around us. Of course, I knew there were animals out where we were camping but I had never really grasped what that meant. Until tonight.

I continued hearing distant howls all night. I wondered what they were saying, I had heard that wolves howled at the moon but I found that strange. I was having thoughts like, Why would they howl at the moon? Is there a factual reason for it or is it just a myth? Maybe this is why I can never fall asleep.

After who knows how long of asking myself questions I finally fell asleep. I had to focus on how I needed the energy for tomorrow and Halina and Phoenix needed me to guide them.

That night I had a dream; I was in a garden, but I was the size of a bug. Flowers seemed to rise high into the sky, as tall as skyscrapers! I sprinted forward as if being chased. As I ran the garden seemed to get more and more wild. Soon enough flowers were poking up outside of their rows everywhere. Each time I ran past one of them I would try to get them back in place, but each time two new flowers would grow. The flowers started to strangle me, pulling me into the soil.

I woke up with a start. No-one else was in the tent. I scrambled up, forgot I was in a sleeping bag, and fell back down. After struggling a bit more I unzipped the tent. I cannot tell you how relieved I was when I saw that both Phoenix and Halina were right outside the camp and alive for that matter.

Phoenix was making a fire a few feet away from me and Halina was sitting on a rock staring out into the forest. I walked over to Phoenix to see if he needed any help.

"Good morning! I'm guessing-" Phoenix flinched and dropped the match he had just lit onto the grass. He quickly started stomping on it to put it out, then he looked up at me.

"Carter! You snuck up on me!" He looked down at the ruined match and sighed, "Another match wasted..."

"Sorry." I said, looking down at my feet glumly.

Phoenix jumped up, "Hey it's not your fault! Well... No. It's not your fault." He looked down at the fire. "I'm going to get back to working on this fire. How about you go talk to Halina? She's in a good mood today!" I nodded and looked over to where Halina was sitting.

I walked over to Halina and sat down on a log near her. She turned to look at me.

"Oh! Good morning Carter, how did you sleep?" She asked.

"Uh, not so great. I couldn't fall asleep after we heard those wolves last night."

"Ah, That's not great. Do you think you'll be able to travel today?" She said sympathetically.

"I'll be fine. I think I can go a day without sleep." I smiled weakly. Halina chuckled and shook her head.

"Ok then, if you're sure. I will say though, it might be a bit risky to have our navigator low on sleep."

"Oh no. Forgot I had to do that. I'm sure I can still do it. I'll just get some breakfast and then I'll be all good!" I said. She smiled at me but there was a sad look in her eyes. I was about to ask her if something was wrong when I heard a shout from behind us. Phoenix had started the fire.

After eating our muffins and toasted bread by the fire we started back on our path north. It was a beautiful day, sunny with a small breeze. We were in the middle of spring and most of the plants were in full bloom. In the early morning we could hear birds singing in the trees. We even stopped for a minute to skip rocks over the edge of a lake we were passing by (because Phoenix insisted.)

Despite not getting a lot of sleep the previous night I was feeling refreshed and I wasn't the only one who was feeling that way. What Phoenix had said was correct, Halina was in a good mood. The past few days of our journey she had been grouchy and easy to annoy. But this day she seemed happier, less stressed than the others. It made me smile to see her happy.

She really had been doing a lot to keep our little team going. Phoenix was constantly getting distracted and I was always hesitating, she seemed to be the only thing keeping us on track. But I think she was also stressing a lot about us. There was a lot of pressure on all of us but it must have been even more for her. Looking back on it I don't think I gave her enough credit for what she did.

💛 You Lina!

This was the kind of day that wasn't the most productive, but It gave us more hope moving on. I think this day was really important for us.

Chapter 12

"What happened here?" Phoenix was the first to say it but the question was on all of our minds. We stood at the entrance of a village. The town looked normal but there was an eerie quietness to it. The sun was high in the sky, so it must have been around noon but there was no sign of any people other than us.

I could see children's toys in some places on the ground but no children playing with them. Some houses had their windows cracked open to let in spring air. It looked as if the town had been frozen in time.

I walked up and picked up one of the toys left behind, a yellow duck stuffed animal about the size of my head. It looked well loved, with its fluff matted in places and its brightness dulled. I wondered what had brought its owner to leave it behind.

"This place looks abandoned." I said.

"Well yeah no, duh." Phoenix responded, "I mean, where did everyone go- Oh hey look at these!" I looked over to where he was. Phoenix had grabbed a pair of shiny binoculars. He held them up to his eyes and looked around.

"Woah... These make things look so close!" He took the binoculars down from his eyes, "I mean I have tried other binoculars but these really work!" He ran over to me and put them over my neck by the cord. I backed up.

"Uh, hey Phoenix we really shouldn't keep these." I held them up to hand them to him but then spotted a name. Engraved in the binoculars was the name Xiomara Orenda Ortega. There was a little X beneath the name. I hugged the binoculars back in close. "I thought you said we couldn't keep them." Phoenix said jokingly. I looked down at the binoculars in a hesitant awe.

"I-I did say that but..." I put the cord back over my neck, "I feel like I need to keep these safe. I don't know why." Phoenix shrugged,

"Okay then. You know if you feel like you need to return them when we are done with our quest we can always come back on our way back."

"Thanks. Where did Halina go?" I asked, looking around. Phoenix motioned behind him, and I could see a garden with an open gate. We walked over there to find Halina. I couldn't see much unusual about the garden, it seemed like the people here hadn't left that long ago.

When we spotted Halina she was kneeling next to some yellow tulips with her hands on the ground. She stood up and dusted herself off when she noticed us.

"Did you find out anything?" Phoenix asked. Halina nodded, still looking at the flowers.

"They said they're original caretaker left about a month ago. But all of these flowers look so well taken care of..." She furrowed her brow.

"Is it possible that they have a different owner now? They said they're "original caretaker" who left a month ago." I suggested.

"That would make sense but..." She looked up at us, "If no one is here, who's taking care of them?" We all looked at each other in silence. A branch cracked and we all turned to look behind us. The town was still deserted.

"We're all just a little on edge... The sun is going to be setting soon. I bet there's an Inn somewhere in this town where we can sleep. Maybe they will even have running water!" Phoenix said.

Halina sighed in relief, "That would be amazing. I haven't washed my hair properly in what, eight days? And I don't think either of you two have washed at all!"

"I've been washing my hands!" I volunteered (Put in? I dunno. ). Halina face-palmed. I turned to Phoenix.

"What did I say?' Phoenix just laughed and started walking down the street. me and Halina ran up to catch up to him and we all started looking for a place to stay.

I woke up the next morning feeling refreshed. We had all gotten showers the past night. The water was somehow still running in the town. This was yet another mystery to add to the list. Nonetheless we were grateful to get cleaned up even if it was suspicious.

Another amazing thing was that the Inn we had found had actually clean and comfortable mattresses. I felt like I had never had a better night of sleep. Though I suspect I have.

When we finished getting ready for the day we headed to one of the tables and started getting out our breakfast, muffins, again. I looked around when I realized Phoenix wasn't with us.

"Do you know where Phoenix is?" I asked Halina. She shrugged.

"I haven't seen him since we woke up. Probably doing something stupid. Lets hope he's alive when we see him again."

"Okaaay..." Just then I saw Phoenix round the corner. He had a cup with a weird greyish substance. Halina immediately jumped up and grabbed it from him.

"Phoenix what is this?!" She said looking down at it.

"I got it from a vending machine down there." He pointed down the corner, "What's the big deal?"

Halina shook her head in disbelief, "Phoenix do you even know what is in this? It could be expired or poisoned! You never know with all the weird things here!" Phoenix took it back from her.

"It's fine! Amazing actually! Do you want to try some?" He held up a spoon. Halina cringed.

"Of course you have eaten some of it already..." She walked back over to the table and took a seat. "Okay then... Well don't blame me if something happens because you ate that!" Halina started to grumpily eat a blueberry muffin. Phoenix turned to me.

"Do you want to try some?" He asked. I tilted back in my seat.

"Uh... No thank you?" I replied cautiously. Phoenix just shrugged and took a seat next to Halina.

"So do we have a plan for today?" He asked. I took out the map and set it down on the table.

"Well- No..." I stared down at the map in terror. Phoenix tilted his head.

"What's wrong?" He asked. I smoothed a hand over the map, maybe it was showing the wrong place. When It stayed the same I looked up at Phoenix and Halina.

"I hoped I would be wrong but..." I held up the map for them to see. They both stared at it.

"Those cliffs," Phoenix said, running a finger over the map, "Those are called the Ashen Planes right? Wow, I wasn't even paying attention when we were learning about that!"

I nodded to him. Halina frowned,"So what's the big deal about them? I mean I know they are dangerous but we talked about going through them earlier right?" She asked.

"Well..." I said, putting down the map, "We aren't going through the Ashen Planes, we are going to them."

Chapter 13

"Ugh. I wish we were still in that town!" Phoenix groaned as he dragged his feet across the trail.

"Nix, we only left a few minutes ago." Halina said. Phoenix sent a longing glance behind us.

"But there was air conditioning!" He retorted. They kept arguing which I had learned to drown out. At this moment I should have been holding the map to guide us but instead I was studying my new possession.

The binoculars looked like any other that you would see out and about with their cherry red coloring and sleek look. But I could tell something was different about this pair. It felt like there was something special about these, as if the normal look was to disguise something. Yet, after studying the binoculars for what seemed like an hour, (with Halina and Phoenix still arguing in the background) I still couldn't figure out what.

Now, as you can imagine, focusing on the binoculars instead of the map got us lost. Go figure. What happened was; we came to a fork in the road, and Halina asked which way to go. I absent-mindedly responded right. Of course, the right way to go was left.

So we started going right. This led us into another forest. By this time I was done tinkering with the binoculars and knew we had made a wrong turn. Halina and I had gone over the whole path that morning and there was not supposed to be a forest for a long way out.

As soon as I realized this I took the map out of my backpack and started looking for our path.

"Yeah, we are definitely on the wrong path. We'll just have to backtrack to the fork in the road and-'' I looked behind me, the trail had disappeared.

"Uuuhh...Wasn't there a trail behind us?" Phoenix said while Halina started running around frantically.

"What is happening? Where did the path go? Who did this? How do we get out? Aaahhhh!" I saw Phoenix run over to Halina before I turned to face in front of me. A wolf stood before me. On four legs her head was level with mine. (Of course I am not the tallest of people but she was still a big wolf!) She seemed as if she was waiting for me to do something.

So, as I was a teenager, I reached out a hand towards her. The wolf tilted her head to the side, studying me. Then she sniffed my hand. She seemed to like me so she rested her hand on my palm. I started to pet her slowly. The wolf sat down which made me have to reach up higher to stroke her.

Phoenix and Halina must have finally noticed the wolf because I heard a yelp from behind me. I looked behind me to see them running up to me.

"Carter what are you-" Halina gasped mid-sentence, looking up at the wolf, "He's gorgeous!" I looked from her to Phoenix who looked to be cowering behind her in bewilderment.

"I, uh... She was just standing here. I'm pretty sure she's a girl." She started growling at Phoenix and I started stroking her nose to calm her. Phoenix sneaked even further behind Halina, who was still gazing up at the wolf in awe.

"How are you so calm around it?" Phoenix squeaked. I looked up at the wolf and then back at him.

"She's been nice to me."

"What's her name?" Halina asked excitedly. I looked at her with utter confusion.

"You think I would know her name?"

"Oh, well yeah I guess that dose'nt make sense because you just met her. How about you give her a name?" I turned around and looked into the wolf's big brown eyes. They seemed knowledgeable, wise and a bit playful. How would I name her? I turned my eyes to her fur, hoping that would give me more of an idea. I put a hand to her red coat and a thought appeared in my name.

"Penny?" I asked, looking up into the wolf's big eyes. She licked my hair playfully. I laughed and pushed her head off. "Penny it is then! Your'e just like a giant dog! Oh, uh... Can you help us get out of here?" I asked. In response Penny lifted up her head to the sky and howled. I tensed, wondering if she was calling for other wolves. Instead once I turned around I saw that the trail leading back.

"Woah!" Phoenix exclaimed, then he turned back to look at Penny with an inquisitive look, "Wait... Does this mean you're the one who made the trail disappear?" Penny ignored his question and started and started walking down the path.

After that encounter I realized that I had cost us a lot of time. Sure, we had met a new friend but I wasn't sure how Penny was going to get us there any faster. You may be thinking of course you can get there faster with Penny! You can ride her. First of all Penny was barely as big as a horse, and they can usually only carry two people at most on them. Second, Penny made it very clear that she did not want to be ridden. She helped us cross a deep river once, but other than that there was no help along the way. So yeah, she could maybe help defend us but there was no riding. I know, sad.

But we kept to her wishes and didn't try to ride her. We did try to move more swiftly though, we didn't know how much longer Dianne and Gale had. It was beginning to dawn on us that this really was serious. If they really were taken to the Ashen Planes... Well that would be bad news.

Being there for a bit isn't so bad, but the longer you are there the more foggy your brain becomes. The only creatures who can withstand it are Ash Elves (I mentioned those earlier) and a few other creatures that have evolved to live there. At least, that's what I read in some books, so I couldn't guarantee that was true.

I was about to find out if that was true because if you haven't already caught on, that's where we were going. We were still at least a week away from getting there though, so there were other things to worry about before we arrived.

My first worry was where Penny was going to sleep because she couldn't fit in any of our tents. Luckily she was used to sleeping outside and I assumed even if we had a tent big enough for her she wouldn't sleep in it.

My second worry... Well, that didn't come for a few days later.

Chapter 14

Somehow I didn't wake up until Halina shook me awake. I don't know how I slept through all of the noise but I guess I had been very tired the previous night.

It had been our hardest day yet. We were trying to push ourselves to go faster and we were going up-hill. After a long day of hiking we were all exhaused. As soon as I got everything set up I collapsed onto my sleeping bag and instantly fell asleep. Halina and Phoenix said that they were going to stay up for a bit longer

After Halina stopped shaking me I sat up, rubbing my eyes and looking around.

"What's wrong? Did I stay asleep to long?" I said groggily. Halina shook her head.

"Do you hear that growling outside?" She whispered to me. I listened for a second and then nodded. Halina crawled over and started to slowly unzip the tent.

After we hurried out of the tent we found that these sounds were coming from Penny. She was wrapped up in ropes, lying on the ground. She was growling at something in the woods though I couldn't see what was bothering her. As soon as I saw her I ran to her. I sat on the ground and began trying to untie her.

"Penny! What happened, how did you-" I heard a sound coming from the forest and screams of my name, but before I could respond to the calls the world became dark.

When I opened my eyes the world was still dark. I blinked a few times but I couldn't still couldn't see anything. I started panicking. Am I blind? Where am I? Are the others ok? Will I ever see- Oh. I touched my face and found that there was something covering my eyes.

After struggling for a few minutes to get the blindfold off, I managed to get it off. I squirted and rubbed my eyes for a bit while my eyes adjusted. Something I learned, closing your eyes does not help them adjust, actually I think it might have just made it worse.

When my eyes finally adjusted to the light I saw that I was in some sort of log cabin. All of the walls were made of wood. I spotted a window to the left of me and tried to stand up and walk over to it. The first time I attempted this I fell as soon as I tried to walk. It turned out that my legs were tied to the floor. (How they did that I have no idea don't ask me.)

The second time I stood up I did not make the mistake of trying to walk. From my position I could see that I was in fact in a tree. A treehouse to be exact. I sat back down on the floor. What was I going to do about this? I looked down at the ropes binding my feet to the floor. Possibly I could find a way to cut them off.

I searched myself and found I still had my binoculars and a stone I had kept for the next time we skipped stones. I looked at the binoculars thinking, Wow they really didn't take these when they kidnapped me?

Then I looked to the stone. It was small but the edges were sharp. This might be able to help me. I thought. I picked it up and started to rub it across my bindings. The ropes started to fray. After a few minutes of repeating this over and over again I managed to get my legs free.

That was easier than expected! I got up and started looking around the room. There was a door but I couldn't get it open no matter how hard I pulled. (I also tried pushing it, but that didn't work either.) Apparently my captors knew how to do something right!

After failing with the door I fell down to the floor next to it. There was nothing else in the room. What was I going to do? I had gotten this far only to fail. I wondered if Halina and Phoenix had escaped. If they had, would they come rescue me? Honestly I kind of hoped they wouldn't.

I sighed and dropped my head onto my knees. We'd had so many setbacks that I was beginning to worry that there was no way we could save Dianne and Gale before their minds went blank.

I sat up, realizing something. What had happened to me was awfully similar to the effects of being in the Ashen Planes for a long period of time. Could that be why my memory was missing? Was it because of the Ashen Planes? If so, were the two incidents connected? It could be a coincidence but if not... What was the connection?

THUMP THUMP THUMP

I sat up and backed away from the door. Someone seemed to be hitting it. That seemed strange to me. Why would the kidnappers have to bang on the door to get it open? Maybe someone else was trapped on the other side. If we combine our strength we could be able to get free.

After taking a deep breath I started pulling on the door. The person on the other side started to hit the door harder. The door flung of its hinges, leaving me squashed under it. I heard a muffled "oof" and then felt a weight shift of of the door. A pair of arms lifted the wooden door off of me. I faced a familiar brunette.

"Ah! Carter. Sorry, didn't mean to have this fall on you." She set the door down on the floor and held out a hand to me. I took it and shakily stood up.

"Do you know where we are?" I asked her. She shook her head.

"Nope. I mean, you must have noticed we are in a tree house. Other than that I have no clue." She looked around the room.

"So, was there another door on your side?" I asked. She didn't answer, instead she walked up to the far right wall and touched it. Then she looked back at me.

"No, but there is one right here." Her hand seemed to pass through the wood. She pulled the wood back to reveal a staircase leading downwards. I shook my head in disbelief.

"How do you keep finding all of these hidden paths?" I asked. She laughed and shook her head.

"I just sense where the plants are. Really what I think is strange is that there have been so many illusions on our quest.

First the path through the vines was hidden, then there was the path disappearing into the woods, and now this. It's all very strange..." I nodded in agreement.

"I know..." I looked down to the stairs. "We better get going. Hopefully Phoenix and Penny are okay." Halina nodded her head and started down the stairs. "Don't run!" I called after her as I started making my way after her. She slightly slowed down her pace.

The tree turned out to be very tall. It seemed to take forever for us to get to the bottom. I was surprised that I didn't faint when I got to the bottom, (I don't have a very good track record). But fainting was the least of our problems when we got to the bottom. large trees like the one we had just been up in surrounded the area and went on for acres. Wherever we were, it really was going to take us forever to find our way out.

I heard a whooshing sound above me and regained focus. Looking up I saw a flash of grey, which stood out in our lush surroundings. I backed up and almost tripped on the stairs.

"Did you see that?" I whispered to Halina. She nodded and crouched down low.

"I don't know what it was but it seemed relatively large. Maybe... smaller than Penny but much bigger than us." She said, We waited there for a few minutes. Looking back on that I think that just made us more vulnerable, but there wasn't really anywhere else to go. The treehouse would have taken a while to get up to and would be counterproductive.

After we thought the coast was probably clear we walked out into the forest. The tree's were intimidating, with them towering above us. Yet it was nice to be in their shade. It might have been a strangely peaceful scene, if we hadn't just been kidnapped. That made me think, How long have I been out? It could have been days or merely a few hours. Who knew? I sure didn't. I decided to ask Halina how long she had been there.

"Well," She whispered back, "I'm not really sure, It was a bit difficult to keep track of time in there. But i'm thinking only a few hours."

"So you were awake before me." I said. She nodded. There was an awkward silence that followed. I really didn't know what to say. I wanted to get to know Halina better but I wasn't really sure how. She was strange. I felt like if you were just meeting her she would seem like a pretty open person. But the more I got to know her, the more isolated she felt.

Instead of trying to think of a conversation topic my mind turned back to our surroundings. Strangely, we hadn't been spotted. Thinking back to the other obstacle on our journey, they had seemed difficult at first but had turned out to have simple solutions. This all felt too easy. Maybe it was from all of the books I had read but it seemed like there had to be something behind this, some sort of plot twist. All of this was making me even more nervous than before! I shook my head solemnly.

Suddenly something hurtled into me. I flew backwards into a tree.

"Carter!" I heard Halina yell. I struggled against hands I couldn't see. The creature that had flown into me was seemingly invisible! I could feel something pushing me against the tree but I couldn't see it. As Halina was running up to help me I saw her get pushed down into the grass, again by invisible attackers.

Whenever I tried to swat them off of me they would be somewhere else. Not being able to see our attackers definitely gave them the advantage. Even so, we kept struggling. It must have looked pretty ridiculous. I was nearing the last of my energy when I heard a loud howling.

Everyone seemed to freeze. I could suddenly see our attackers, small creatures about 3 feet tall. They were humanoid but were clearly not human. With bared fangs,clawed fingers and wild white hair they managed to look menacing despite thier small size. They were also able to look slightly silly with thier big noses and feet.

"Gnomes..." I could barely hear Halina whisper. All of them looked frozen solid in fear. Soon enough we were able to see what scared them come into view. I saw Penny bounding up to us in huge leaps. Phoenix came running after her from a few yards away.

"Hey! Wait up!" He yelled after Penny. The gnomes scattered when they came close. I took a shaky step up and instantly fell down.I took a shaky step up and instantly fell down.

"Ow." I winced. Halina got up and walked over to me. She knelt down next to me and gently touched my leg.

"Ouch... Bad news bud, you've got broken leg." She got up and turned to Phoenix who had finally caught up to Penny. "Phoenix!" She hollered. He came over panting.

"What?" Phoenix asked.

"Carter broke his leg. I need you to stay with him and try to get his leg straight while I go find some things to keep it stable." Phoenix nodded. Halina dashed of with Penny following her. After they left Phoenix turned back to me.

"Hm... Well you sure have gotten yourself into a situtaion." He said, looking at my leg.

"Im sorry..." I responded weakly.

"Dont be! It wasn't your fault you broke your leg, was it?" I shook my head and winced as he tried to stretch my leg out. "This is going to hurt but it needs to be done. Maybe thinking of something happy will take your'e mind of of it!"

"Like what?" I asked.

"Like, hmm... Bats!"

"Bats?"

"Yes bats! They're adorable, with thier giant ears and eyes! And they can fly! How awesome is that! Plus they are some of the only animals that can see through-" His face went strangely blank and he stopped mid-sentence. He shook his head back and forth and looked back at me.

"What was I talking about?" He asked. I blinked, not sure what to make of this.

"Bats, you were talking about bats."

"Was I? Huh, dont remember that. Done!" He exclaimed. I let out a tiny squeak of pain. Phoenix smiled empathetically and stood up. He looked around a bit before sitting back down.

"Whats wrong?" I asked. He sighed.

"Should Halina be back by now? I can never tell with time. Sometimes it goes so quickly and other times it seems like i'm on a whole different clock than everyone else."

"Its probably been about five to ten minutes. She should be back soon." I responded. I could see that Pheonix swas beginning to get impatient. After a few seconds he got up again and started pacing.

"How long is it taking her to find one stick! We are in a forest! Should'nt be that hard..." He continued to rant and I tried to drown it out. It wasn't that hard because of the terrible pain in my leg. Really, it was hard to think about anything!

I looked up at the trees and realised that the gnomes were staring down at us, watching. I wondered why they didn't come down. Penny had left and I assumed they had been afraid of her. She had been the one to make them visible again so it was a reasonable assumption. (She is also a giant wolf i'm not sure who wouldn't be scared of her. Oh, wait nevermind.)

I turned back to where Phoenix was pacing. Could it be possible that the gnomes were scared of him? It didn't make sense to me. None of them had even seemed slightly frightened by me and Halina. Even if they ran away because there were more of us, that wouldn't make much sense. It was only me and Phoenix down there. There was something off about all of this.

Too late I looked up above us. A giant net hung in the trees. A trap, I realised. Before I could even yell his name the net started to fall. I tried to get up and run before it could fall, but I couldn't with my broken leg. The net fell down on me with such force that I crumpled to the ground. It was suprisingly heavy and much larger than it had seemed.

Here I was in another situation I couldn't get out of myself. Honestly this whole trip I had felt pretty useless. Well, I could navigate but Halina probably would have been able to do that without me. I could hear Phoenix thrashing around somewhere in the net but I stayed still. Even without my broken leg, there was no way I was getting out of this.

Suddenly I heard a loud whooshing sound. The net was lifted up a bit so that I was able to get onto my knees. I could hear voices talking in a strange language somewhere near the net. I assumed it was the gnomes but after a few seconds of looking around I found that the talking was not infact coming any gnomes, it was coming from a pair of Ash Elves.

I froze when I saw them. They looked exaclty like repicted in the book I had read. But what were they doing here? From what I had read they only lived in the Ashen Planes... That was it. Ash Elves, they were the ones who had kidnapped Dianne and Gale. But how did they get into the school? They seemed pretty noticable and hard to hide with thier tall stature, big wings, long ears and slim antenae.

The book had thier powers scratched out, could thier abilities have helped them get into the school? It did seem pretty likely... But what were these said powers? Possibly invisibility? Shapeshifting? If they could do that... Then they could be anyone! They could have replaced anyone with one of thier own!

The Ash Elves slowly walked around the net, talking quietly in their language. They stopped infront of where Phoenix sat. He had been silently watching them walk toward him, which seemed sort of strange for him, as he always seemed to have something to say. Phoenix tensed when they came to him and scooted back a bit. One of the elves tilted thier head slightly and said something in thier strange language to the other elf.

One of the elves walked closer to the net and said something to Phoenix that I agian, could not understand. Phoenix looked taken aback, but to my suprise he responded back in the same language the elves had been speaking. The elf who had stayed back and laughed. At least, I was pretty sure it was a laugh. It sounded like a whining dolphin.

With everything going on I had no idea what to think of all of this. My brain had seemed to have just stopped thinking. Of my thoughts on this, none of them were in the moment. So, I am unable to give any of my own thoughts on this moment. I am sorry.

Chapter 15

"How did you know what they were saying?" I asked Phoenix. My brain had gained its thinking capabilities back and had now realised what trouble we were now in. The Ash Elves had hooked us up to somesort of plane and we here now being lugged through the air. I was pretty sure we were heading toward the Ashen Planes and I wasn't quite sure if that a good or not.

We were going in the direction we wanted to go but not in the way we had wanted. How was Halina going to find us? Just imagining her looking around for us made me feel like I was going to cry. When would she stop looking? I wanted to tell her that we would be alright if she just kept heading toward the Ashen Planes, if she just followed the map but I couldn't. This made me feel even more helpless than before.

In contrast to earlier Phoenix was now talking nonstop. He tapped his fingers on the floor of the aircraft anxiously so I could tell taht he was just as nervous as I was.

"What do you mean? Couldn't you hear them?" He responded.

"No, they were speaking in some different language I couldn't understand. But you seemed to know what they were saying, you even responded back in the same language!"

"Did I? Thats weird. Hey maybe thats my power! Talking in different languages. Hm... A bit of a lame though, dont you think?" He said. I shook my head.

"No, that sounds neat! I would of loved to know what they were saying... Again, waht did they say to you?" He shifted around uncomfortably.

"They... They knew my name. I dont know how they knew, but they did."

"Thats strange." I fell down onto my back with my hands on my head, "Everything about this is strange! Nothing is normal! Everything is in our way! At this point we are never going to get Gale and Dianne back..." Phoenix scooted over to me and p a hand on my leg.

"Hey... Its going to be alright Carter! We got past all of those other challenges didn't we? They weren't so bad!" I sat back up and rubbed my eyes wearilly.

"No... Phoenix, its getting real now. This isn't just a fun little adventure anymore. Its serious." Phoebix again seemed to be at a loss for words. He scooted back into the corner and started staring up at the ceiling. I felt a bit bad but I wasn't sure what to say. I had so much on my mind. I started to lay out the pieces in my mind.

The first thing was how I had strangelly lost my memory. At this point I was pretty sure that was because I had been In the Ashen Planes.

The second thing was when Halina had flinched away from me after touching me. Nothing like that had really happened since so I had almost forgotten about it. I wasn't really sure what that connected too but it felt important.

The third thing was that both Halina and Phoenix had thought I had been attending the school my whole life while Gale and Dianne agreed with me that I had only been there for about a month. The thought of them made me sad, because I was still unsure about whether or not we would be able to save them. I pushed back those thoughts and went to the next event.

I'm pretty sure the next strange thing was at the start of our journey... Wait. That made me remember something. We had onlt been able to track Dianne and Gale because one of them had a school map device on them that was able to track where they went. Now the Ash Elves were taking us to the Ashen Planes, right where we wanted to go. I thought back to what Phoenix had said, "They weren't so bad". Our challenges had seemed hard in the moment but looking back on them we found solutions easily. Maybe someone wanted us to go to the Ashen Planes.

Why though? I thought. Why would anyone want us to come and save Gale and Dianne? Another peice clicked in my mind. Of course! They wanted to lure us! Gale and Dianne were just the bait. Why would they want to capture us though? I mean me and Phoenix were pretty powerless, (even if Phoenix had just found his power) and I had no idea why they would want to talk to plants. Maybe they had an ivy breakout? Even though I had figured something out the picture was still so fuzzy.

I racked my brain for other strange ocurances. Maybe those can help me find more out! I thought. Next was the time in the cave. There was definently something odd from that place and I got the feeling that the people I had seen weren't real. Or atleast they weren't in the form I had seen them in. Proof enough was that they disapeered with a touch. They were like ghosts, I could see them but they didn't have any physical form. The wierdest of the things that happened there had to be the man that had seemed to have seen me. This was all very strange but I couldn't really connect it to anything else so I moved on.

After that... Hm. It was mainly the obstacles then, well the abandoned town. What had happened there? Had it been another obsacle? No... If anything the place helped us. But where was everyone and why did the town look so well taken care of? Then there was the binoculars... I dont know why I felt so nervous that I didn't have it on me. For some reason, I felt connected to them.

I rubbed my forehead wearilly. With so mny mysteries my thoughts could go on for pages! We had only been on our journey for a couple weeks and all this had happened. In some ways it was beginning to get repetitive. I looked over to Phoenix who had begun drumming his hands and feet on the ground again.

"Phoenix I'm sorry." I said. He looked over to me with a sad smile.

"No, you were right... This was never a game. I mean, two kids got kidnapped, and this whole time I was acting like a little kid." Phoenix spread his legs out infront of him and started tapping on them. "Once we get out of here we are going to find Halina and Penny, dont worry."

Penny! I had almost forgotten about her. What would happen to her if the Ash Elves found her? I began worrying again. Would they let her rooam free? Probably not. Most likely they would capture her again. But what if they-

"Woah! Calm down! I told you not to worry, not to worry." Phoenix said.

"I'm sorry! You just brought up Penny and I started thinking about what they would do to her and I-"

"No."

I looked up at him in alarm, "W-what do you mean?"

"No more worrying. Thats all you have been doing! You've got to think of happy things!"

"But how do I think of happy things? All of my memories were wiped clean! I dont have any happy memories... All I can do is worry."

"Weren't you happy at the school?" He asked.

"Well, yes... For a bit. But whenever I start thinking about the school I think about Gale and Dianne... Or you and Halina! I think about how you're supposed to be there and that just makes me worry more" I groaned and put my head in my hands. "I wish I had a book."

"A book?" Phoenix asked.

"Yeah, they help me take my mind off of things... If only I had thought to bring one." I sighed, "It wouldn't matter though, I would have probably kept it in my backpack and I left that at the camp."

"You dont need a book to tell a story though! Here I have one." He cleared his throat and started talking in a comically deep voice.

"Our story starts on a normal day. Two brothers played tag outside of thier house on top of a hill. They didn't notice that they entered a cave. When they finally realized where they had gone the entryway had closed, they couldn't get out." Phoenix clapped his hands together to immitate the closing of the cave. "The brothers tried to find the way out but there was nothing that could be done. They were locked in. When they were about to give up they heard a voice echo through the stone halls." Phoenix shifted his voice to a slightly higher tone.

"You will find the exit at the end of your journey. Another door needs to be closed that has been opened. Once that door is closed you will find the door that will return you home." He returned his voice to normal. "The brothers were confused. Why would they be sent on a quest to close a door? Where would they find this door? The echo responded with an answer. 'You will go to the Ashen Planes. Once you arrive you will find the door.' "

"Hey, thats where we're going! Phoenix is this a real story?" I asked. He shushed me and continued.

"No questions. Anyways, the brothers were still confused, 'How will we get there?' They asked. In response the echo gave them powers. Though they were young the two brothers had become the most powerful humans in the land. The brothers set of on thier journey to the Ashen Planes. Just like we did!" By this time I was invested in this story.

"What do they do next?" I asked anxiously. Phoenix lifted a hand.

"Patience, I'm getting to that. The brothers, having nothing else to do, did as told."

"How did they get out?"

"The cave had an opening on the otherside, duh! Anyways the boys went on thier way toward the Ashen Planes. With thier powers it was easy, even when they ran into problems along the way."

"What kind of problems?"

"Well, like-" He stopped short. The aircraft seemed to have rumbled to a stop. Phoenix got up, (atleast a well as you you could get up in the small space, which was crouching) and looked around.

"We have stopped." He said bluntly.

"Yeah, but why?" I wondered aloud.

"Have we arrived in te Ashen Planes?"

"No, its to early for that its only been what, an hour? I doubt even this aircraft could be that fast."

It was Phoenix's turn to ask the question, "Then why did we stop?"

"Thats what I'm wondering." I said. Phoenix shrugged and squinted when the door to our room opened, letting sunlight into the dimly lit room. A body was thrown into the room. Phoenix crawled over to check them.

"Lina!" He exclaimed, "What happened?" She groaned and sat up, rubbing her head.

"They got me. Penny escaped out into the forest though, smart girl." She shook her head and looked over to me. "Do you know what they are?

"Ash Elves. I read about them in a book." I responded.

Phoenix nodded, "I think I had that one in my bookshelf. Had a lot of it scartched out didn't it? I remember at some point it didn't... I wonder what happened to it."

"Wait, Phoenix you saw it when it was whole, but you don't remember how it got ruined?" i asked.

"Nope." He said.

"Do you remember what it said?"

"Uh... Yeah actually! It read as follows-" A buzzing sound rang through the small space. Phoenix covered his ears and feel backward onto the floor. It wasn't a hard fall because he was already sitting on the floor but there was still an audible thump when his head hit the ground.

"Nix!" Halina bumped her own head trying to get up to reach Phoenix. After groaning and rubbing her head for a few seconds she crawled over to him and tried to help him up. When he wouldn't get up Halina moved to check if he was breathing. After a minute she sighed and looked over to me.

"He's still breathing. With any luck he'll be fine."

"Are you sure? He hit his head pretty hard..."

"Eh, he's hit his head a couple times. Usually he doesn't just faint like that though. I mean there was this one time..."

"What do you mean?"

"Well its really blurry... I remember we were talking about something and got onto the topic of his parents. After that it cuts to black. Then I woke up and he was just lying on the pavement."

"Why are your memories so messy? Both you and Phoenix. No offense! I just feel like there is stuff that is... oddly missing." I said. Halina looked up at the ceiling for a bit before responding.

"I wonder about that sometimes..." She whispered. I gave her some space to think for a few minutes. In those minutes of thought I remembered something.

"Halina! What happened to our stuff?" I exclaimed. She turned to me and tilted her head.

"You mean the tents and the backpacks? I have mine here. She lifted up her backpack and looked at it curiously. "Huh, I wonder why they didn't take this. They looked through it and then gave it back."

"Maybe they thought there was nothing important in it." I said.

"Probably. Thats also kind of true though, there's not much in here." She rifled through the backpack. "Yeah just, _. I gave the rest of the stuff to Penny. She's probably thrown them of by now though." She responded. I sighed in relief.

"The binoculars will be safe with her then." I said.

"You really care about those binoculars, don't you?"

"I- Yeah I do." I chuckled, "I know they're just binoculars but... They feel special to me. Some sort of distant memory." I finsihed. Halina nodded.

"Your'e clinging on to the only memory you have... Carter i'm sorry." She said. I blinked, suprised.

"Why? You haven't done anything wrong."

"I know. Its just that you came to the school being so confused. I remember that now... Then you got sent on this quest with us. You dont even have an idea of what your power is! I know its not my fault but for some reason I feel somewhat responsible." She sighed and looked down at her feet. Tears started to form in my eyes and I quickly tried to brush them away, not wanting Halina to feel more guilty. She looked back up at me and concern formed in her expression.

"What's wrong? Was it something I said?"

"No! Well actually yes, sort of." Halina looked even more upset at that, so I quickly added; "These are happy tears! You just care so much about me... I don't really understand why though." She smiled at me warmly.

"Everyone deserves to be cared about Carter! You're my friend, of course I care about you!"

"Thanks..."

Halina nodded and got something out of her backpack. She crawled over to me and held it up.

"Um... Nice hairbrush?" I said uneasily. It did actually seem to be a good quality hairbrush but Halina just laughed.

"No! I mean, thank you I think this yellow color is pretty sweet but I didn't get it out to show off." She shook it back and forth a couple times. "Your'e hair needs to be combed."

"Really? I haven't heard you tell Phoenix this." I said. Halina sighed.

"The need for him is less. He has shorter hair that needs a wash but it will be fine without a brush. You on the other hand." She gestured to me. "You're hair is longer and thicker so it gets in knots more easy than Phoenix's does."

I hesitantly agreed. This was a mistake, I don't think I have ever been in more pain. Oh! Well except when I broke my leg! But in the moment I believed this hurt the most.

"All done! It takes me way longer to brush my hair. Of course yours is much shorter so it makes sense." Halina remarked when she was done.

"Ow... Why did you need to do that again?"

"It hurt because you had knots in it. If I waited longer it would have hurt even worse than that."

"Would cutting it help?"

"If you wanted to brush it less then yeah probably. I would advise you do that whenever we get the chance to go to a town that has a place to do it. Personally I would like to get my hair cut as well!"

I chuckled even though she hadn't really told a joke. When would we have the chance to relax like that? I had a feeling that our journey wouldn't be done, even if we did manage to escape.

Chapter 16

Sunlight poured into the room early in the morning. I got up and rubbed my eyes, squinting when I finally opened them. One of the Ash Elves stood outside of the door waiting for us to get up. I tried to crawl over to Phoenix and Halina to wake them up but cried out in pain when I did.

When I looked down at my leg I realised it was still broken. Somehow I had managed to forget I had broken it the day before. Luckilly this woke Halina up. After making sure I was okay she tapped Phoenix a few times to she if she could wake him up gently. When that didn't work she resorted to rolling him over. This woke him up.

"Ack! Why do you always have to do that."

"Like I said before its the only way to get you up." I heard the same strange laugh come from the Ash Elf waiting at the door. When they saw that I had noticed them they beckoned for me to come. I looked back to Halina and Phoenix who were getting up. Forgeting for the second time that my leg was injured I tried to get up with them. I ended up falling again. Phoenix and Halina came over to help me get to the exit.

When we got out I took in our surroundings in awe. The view was beautiful, in a strange, almost unsettling way. Pillars of dark grey rock reached toward the sky on all sides of us. There were circle pirches on the top of them where Ash Elves sat and conversed. A lake of perfectly clear water sat below the pillars. I noticed that this lake was actually where the pillars came up from. I wondered how the stone was able to come up from the water without being eroded. It must have been special rock.

I felt conflicted about how this community worked. These creatures were our captors, they should be the villians. But looking up at the Ash Elf citizens, talking just like anyone else would, I wasn't so sure about that anymore. It seems the world only comes in shades of grey. I thought.

Phoenix moved his head to look around us, a expression of confusion on his face. Halina was studying the aircraft that brought us here, which looked to be a sort of plane. The Ash Elf who had waited for us outside came walking up to us. He (i was pretty sure it was a he) had a satchel draped over his shoulder and a brush in this right hand, which he handed to Halina.

He said in suprisingly clear english, "You forgot this." Then he gave Phoenix the satchel he had been carrying. Phoenix stared down at it with a strange look in his eyes. The Ash Elf nodded, clearly satisfied. He started walking of toward one of the wider towers and beconed for us to follow.

"Come." He said. We all looked at eachother. Phoenix shrugged.

"I say we go with him. We cant really go anywhere else." Halina sighed and nodded. Together the two helped me hobble toward the tower. After a few minutes we were able to get to the door where the Ash Elf who led us waited expectantly. He opened the door and walked in, leading us into a empty room. When all came in he nodded and continued on.

There was another door on the backside of the tower that led to a different area. The Ash Elf opened it and walked down a path that led to an even bigger tower. This one looked a bit more elegant, with railings siding the stairs that led to the top tower. The Ash Elf started to go up them, much to my displeasure. Halina sighed and tilted her head down. The Ash Elf looked back at us.

"Sorry. This is the only way to get there." He said. Phoenix raised one of his eyebrows.

"Up a tower?" He asked increduosly. The Ash Elf laughed.

"Yes! You will see when we get there." He waited until we got to the stairs and then continued going up them. We struggled coming up the stairs but were eventually able to get to the top. Out of breath Halina and Phoenix sat me down.

"Thanks." I said weakly. Phoenix gave me a thumbs up. We looked toward the Ash Elf who was standing infront of what looked to be a hole in the middle of the tower. He looked back at us and smiled.

"I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Einar. Einar Grey." I was too busy getting back onto my feet to register my friends reactions but I thought a heard a squeak from behind me. It could have very well been the wind through.

Halina held out a hand and helped me up. After a few seconds Phoenix reached out his arm and helped us. Einar nodded and jumped into the hole he was standing infront of. I fell backwards almost tipping over Halina and Phoenix. They were able to steady themselves and calm me down.

"He- He doesn't expect us to go down there, does he?" I asked shakilly. Phoenix shrugged and pulled the satchel's strap back up his shoulder.

"We dont really have any other choice do we?" He asked.

"But he has wings! We dont!"

"He has a point Phoenix... What if he's just leading us down to our deaths?" Halina said. Phoenix sighed.

"Trust me you two will be fine. Just stick with me." With that he pulled me and Halina into the pit before we could say anything else against this plan.

To my suprise we didn't fall down to our deaths. I looked up to see that a parachute had expanded above our heads.

"Where did you get that?" Halina exclaimed.

"It was in the satchel!" Phoenix said holding the bag up. Halina grimaced.

"Ok thats great, but these things aren't supposed to hold three people! We are still falling too fast!" She said. Phoenix placed the parachute over her head and onto her shoulders.

"Hold onto Carter." He said. Halina looked at him with an expression of bewilderment.

"What are you- Phoenix!" Phoenix had dropped down from the parachute and into the abyss that lay under us. There was complete silence for a whole minute. Icleared my throat and finally spoke.

"Well we didn't hear any shattering bones!"

"Yeah i'm not sure if thats a good thing or not."

"What do you mean?" I asked. Halina combed her hair to one side with her hand and sighed.

"I mean, he's either alive and made it down safely somehow, or... Something else happened."

"What?"

"Thats it! I have no idea. Really, he can be so impulsive sometimes..." Her voice faded of into spitefull grumbling that I couldn't make out. I turned to look down at the pit below us. Suprisingly I wasn't scared of it, or at least not in the normal way. Sure I was afraid of falling but there was something drawing me down there that I couldn't quite place.

It wasn't exactly a warm feeling, it was more like... A distant memory. I must have been here before. I thought. That would fit with what I had already put together, that my memories had been taken way here, in the Ashen Planes. But it didn't explain how, or why I was remembering this or atleast having the feeling of rememberance.

We continued to float down to the bottom of the pit. We came to the bottom, which was a velvet covered floor. It contrasted the rest of the room which was an utterly colorless cave. When my feet touched the floor I instantly crumpled. Halian scrambled to get the pararchute of herself and help me up. Once I got up we both started looking around.

There wasn't much interesting in the cave execpt for the velvet floors. It just seemed like a normal cave. The only lighting came from above, which made the cave scarilly dim. That was probabbly one of the reasons I couldn't seem much. I looked upa nd squinted at the light coming from the hole we had fell through, my eyes still adjusting. While I was distracted Halina tugged on my arm and I looked over to her.

"Phoenix." She said, pointing over to a few boulders that sat in the corner of the cave. I blinked a few times and was able to see where she was pinting. Sure enough Phoenix sat there on the rocks, tapping his feet on the floor. Halina hauled me over with unexpected strength which almost made me fall on my we made it over without inccident Phoenix looked up with a smile that quickly turned into a fearfull expression.

"What were you thinking!?" Halina stormed.

"Hey, hey Im fine!" He exclaimed, putting his hands up in defense.

"You could have died! Do you understand how long that fall was? How are you even-"

"Shhhh... Calm down Lina. Again, I'm fineIm fine! No need to get all stormy." Halina took a deep breath in and out.

"Ok. Phoenix it really scared me when you jumped down here. Next time please tell me what your'e doing before you do it." She said. Phoenix fiddled with his feet and responded in a low whisper that I couldn't hear. This was fine with me though, because I felt this was a personal converstaion between the two of them.

I turned my attention back to the room. My eyes had adjusted to the lighting a bit more so i could just make out the hint of what looked like a doorway. I hobbled toward it to try to make it out better. Yep, just seemed to be a normal wooden door, yet it's normality stood out in the grey cave. To put it simply it was suspicious.

I reached out to open it, but remebering Phoenix and Halina's recent talk decided it was a far better idea to talk to them first. I came back to where they were sitting. It seemed that peace had settled and they were talking normally. Halina looked up when I came over and tailted her head.

"Did you find something?" She asked. I nodded and pointed to the door.

"Is that a door?" Phoenix said, "What is it doing down here?"

"I don'tdont know maybe it leads to somewhere?" I responded.

"Okay, obviously it leads somewhere." Phoenix said back.

"I think Carter means he doesn't know where it leads. Alright are we going to go open it?"

"Yes!" Phoenix said as he ran toward it. Halina sighed and followed him, coming back after a few steps to help me. Phoenix waited for us impatiently by the door tapping his feet on the floor. We finally got there and Halina pulled herslef away from me gently to examine the door.

"It looks so... Normal." She said. I nodded.

"It seems out of place in a cave though right?" I said. She nodded to me and then turned back to the door. Halina placed a hand on the door gingerly and rubbed it over the door. She drew her hand back and studied it.

"Seems like a perfectly normal door." Her expression changed suddenly and she turned back to us. "Where did Einar go?" She asked, mostly to Phoenix.

"Uh, I dont know! Why are you asking me?" He said, keeping his eyes on his feet.

"You dont know anything?" Halina said, suddenly suspicious.

"No. He must have left before I got down. Probably went through this door." Phoenix looked up and met her eyes. I thought I heard a click before he looked up but it was probably just my brain messing with me. For almost a minute they stared at eachother in silence only penetrated by the sound of Phoenix's still tapping toes. Halina tore her eyes away and looked back at the door.

"Ok. Lets see what this is all about." She put a hand on the doorknob and opened the door.

Chapter 17

I was blinded by the light coming from the doorway for a few moments. When my eyes adjusted I saw that the light was not actually as bright as the sun. The lighting inside the room seemed about as bright as it was inside of the school. Of course at this point my memory of the school and how it looked were slightly blurred at best but I was pretty sure it was close enough.

When i looked around I was stunned. The place looked like a palace! Silver decorated almost every part of the scene, the table in the middle, the entryway, and even the stairs! To think that this room was hidden behind such a normal door!

I wasn't the only one who was confused by the sight. Phoenix stepped foreward and touced one of the silver arches of the entry way.

"What happened to this place..." He whispered.

"Someone must have decorated it." I said, "In lots of shiny things." Phoenix stood rigid.

"I didn't know you heard me." He said back. I blinked in confusion but said nothing. Suddenly there was a whoosh of air from above us. Einar and another elf, this time a female landed infront of us. She had long pale grey hair that was tied up in a high ponytail.

"Welcome to the View Dining Hall!" Announced the new elf. "We are so happy to have you joining us. Please, have a seat." She gestured to the table. I shuffled uncomfortably.

"Didn't you just kidnap us? Now your'e acting like we are your'e guests. Im sorry but this doesn't quite add up." Halina said. The new Ash Elf tilted her head to the side before leaning over to whisper something to Einar. He grumbled something under his breath. I though I made out the word "Seeker". The new elf rolled her eyes. At least I thought she did, it was hard to tell with thier huge pupils.

"You are our guests. Im sorry for Einar and Haze's rude way of bringing here. None the less you are here! I am Crane. Im guessing you have already met Einar here." Einar sighed and shook his head. He produced a pair of silver glasses from a pocket in his jacket.

"They will be here soon." He said. Crane nodded and came over to us. I scooted back cautiously.

"We aren't going to hurt you." She said looking us over. "Hm. Phoenix you trust me right?" Crane looked over to him. Phoenix stared at his feet and didn't say anything.

"Wow you are a stubborn bunch. Look, if your'e not in those seats by the time The Seeker gets here we are all going to be in big trouble. They like things a certain way and we dont want to get in the way." I though about her words. She seemed to be genuine enough. I still didn't trust her but I could tell it was probably best to listen.

I walked up and took a seat in one of the chairs. Halina hesitantly took the seat to my left and Phoenix took the one on the right. The table was arranged in a way that made it so two seats were on one side and two were on the other. At both ends of the rectangular table was one seat. This made it so Phoenix was on the right end. The single seat without someone in it (once Einar and Crane took seats across from us) was directly across from Phoenix on the other side of the table. You dont really need this information but if you wanted to solve a riddle you might find it useful.

There was a uncomfortable silence as we waited for what would happen next. I noticed Crane tapping her clawed fingers on the table possibly from anxiety or lack of patience. Honestly, I felt like doing the same. It wasn't quite the silence, I kind of liked the silence. It was more of the suspense that was getting to me. I would consider myself a patient person but this kind of waiting was different. I knew something bad was going to happen and just wanted to get over with it.

Finally, Einar tugged out the glasses again. Nothing seemed to hae changed other than the fact that they were uncontrollably shaking. Einar set them quickly on top of the empty seat to the side of him. We all stared at the seat expectantly. Soon enough the glasses started floating in the air. The way they moved up looked odd if you have never put glasses on before but somehow I knew that was what whatever was lifting the glasses up was doing. After the glasses were settled they seemed to melt into the air. In thier place a set of eyes apeared.

Just eyes, floating in mid air. Not even eylids were there! It was such and uncanny sight that I squirmed back in my chair, which was slightly too big for me. I watched as the eyes surveyed the room before bobbing in the air. I assumed this was supossed to be a nod but it could have just been a excited head bob.

"Good. Thank you Einar, Crane, you have done well. I need to talk to these three. Please go get the main dish." The voice seemed to come out of nowhere. It almost sounded robotic, no tone and no feeling. Crane and Einar got up and bowed, then walked of toward one of the doors leading out of the room. Once they were out of the room the eyes turned to me.

The eyes narrowed on me with a glint of what I could only describe as hunger. I shrunk back in my seat. Phoenix cleared his throat which turned the eyes attention to him.

"Hello King Seeker! Can I call you that? Seeker, get it? You seek with you're eyes. Well most of the time, I guess dogs seek with thier noses and ears..." There was the sound of a sigh. I could have sworn the eyes rolled but again it was hard to tell.

"Fine. You may Phoenix." The King said before turning back to look at me. "Now, about you."

"Me?" I asked. I scooted back more but there was no more chair to scoot up against so I just bonked my head against it. The King laughed, a hissing sort of sound that sent chills down my spine.

"Yes you. The only one who can stop me... left." The last word was a whisper and I could barely hear it. But I did hear, whether it was intentional or not. I wondered what he meant. Were thier others who could stop him? What did he even mean by stop him? This "king" had some sort of plot going on and I could tell it wasn't going to be good for me. The King laughed again.

"That got you're head spinning didn't it. Sadly, you wont be able to do anything about it. You wont escape again. I have set up the perfect way to trap you. Even if you mangage to get out of the city you wont know where to go next!"

"Ok, ok so let me get this straight, you are trapping us in your city forever and you have some sort of evil plan that only Carter can stop?" Halina interjected. The eyes looked fro her then back to me.

"So thats what you are going by these days. Carter... No strong opinions on it. But..." He turned back to Halina. "What will I do with you? You're important somehow and I still dont know why. Talks to plants? How could you even begin to stop me?"" He laughed. Halina glared up at him with distaste.

"I guess we just have to wait and see. Though, to be honest, how are a pair of eyeballs going to rule the world?" She retorted raising and eyebrow. Phoenix hid a snort with a cough but the Seeker wasn't paying attention. His eyes were narrowed on Halina.

"Hm. Spicier than I expected." The eyes turned as Einar and Crane came back into the room, holding trays of what looked like some sort of soup. When they served it two us I found that it was a pure black substance. I looked over to Halina to ask her if we should try it but she was already looking at something on my side of the table. I turned around to see that Phoenix had already dipped a spoon in to try it.

"Phoenix!" Halina exclaimed. He looked up.

"What?"

"W- You cant just start eating it right away! Under normal circumstances it would be poor manners and even now it could be poisoned. Who knows whats in that!"

"Theres bitter berries, tomatoes, and a bit of pepper." Einar said, taking a seat.

"See Halina, he knows! Also if I am coreect I did not hear any metion of poison in this dish!" Phoenix said. Halina sighed and nodded.

"No... But why would you put bitter berries in a soup?" She asked. Phoenix shrugged and took a spoonful of the soup.

"To make it tasty?" He said after he swallowed. Halina shook her head and looked back toward the king. I looked back when she did and realised the eyes were staring right at me. I sat up straight and stared down at my soup.

"You are avoiding my gaze." His voice echoed through the room with a thunderous quality. I picked up my spoon and started stiring the soup around in the bowl. It was a watery substance with bits of what I assumed were the tomatoes Einar had mentioned. I picked it up in the spoon and let it drizzle down into the bowl.

"What are you going to do with us?" I finally said, after stalling for at least a minute. I looked back up at the eyes peering down at me. There was a glint in the eyes, something that made me want to shiver. The eyes tilted to the side before he spoke.

"You will be going exactly where you started and you will be staying there this time." My throat felt dry but I knew I needed to say something in response. I opened my mouth to speak but before the words could form the sound of shattering glass filled the room.

Chapter 18

The king's eyes flickered. There was silence. Then the room erupted into mayhem. I felt my chair get pushed over as King Seeker roared.
"Idiots! I told you to get my full day glasses, not the thirty minute ones! Didn't I explain thoroughly the importance of choosing the right one and what they look like? This is the second time this month and at this moment..." His voice started to fade out but I wouldn't have been able to hear him anyways.

I could hear various bangs and yells throughout the room. Halina had disappeared somewhere in the room. It was a strange sight because well, I couldn't see anything abnormal in the room. It sounded like a battle was going on but anyone involved was invisible to my eyes. What I could see were the flying plates and silverware which tumbled with clinks on the floor then to be flipped again.

I felt the word organized chaos fit this situation nicely. Everyone seemed to be gone except for me, hiding under the table and watching the events unfold. On first glance, without the shouting, you would have thought nothing was going on in the room. Yet if you paid attention to the tiny details, the whooshing of the table cloth or the thumps of the floor you would realize that there was a battle going on in the room.

Scooting under the table I made my way to the other side, where I saw a door leading out. I ducked under the table and crawled toward the door, wincing when something bumped my leg. I stopped for a second but then kept crawling. As soon as I reached the hall that led from the dining room to the room I crumpled. I knew I had to keep going but it was becoming hard to crawl on my broken leg.

If only I had been able to get my leg wrapped up before we were kidnapped! There was nothing I could do about it now, with no materials. That made me think of my backpack which in turn made me think about Penny and then about the binoculars. I shooed the thoughts away. No. I was finally in the Ashen Planes, this was the moment when I could save my friends. But the thought terrified me.

Did I want to save Gale and (Anne?)? Of course I did! That's why we were here in the first place. At least that's what I thought we were here for... This was all so complicated! I sighed and started moving toward the door again. It wasn't that I didn't want to save them, it was that I had no idea how to save them.

When I reached the door I started to hear strange whispering sounds. At first I thought it was the wind. Could there be open air behind the door? That wouldn't make a ton of sense though, as we were pretty far underground. I waited at the door for a few seconds to see if I could hear anything else. I thought I could make out words, like, "wait", "what" and "how". This confirmed for me that it wasn't the wind but someone behind the door.

I took a deep breath in. I didn't know who was behind the door. It could be more ash elves, waiting to capture me again. But I didn't have much of a choice. I was sure there was someone who could catch me in the room I was in before. If I turned back and went through the door that had led us into the dining room, I would likely get catched in the room and even if I did make it out I would have no way to get back up to the surface. I sighed. This was really my only choice.

I shakily stood up and twisted the knob. The door opened without a sound, other that a click immediately after it had stopped swaying. At first I couldn't see anyone. The door had led into a splitting hallway where there were two sides, one hallway to my left and one to my right. I stepped out and looked to the right side first but couldn't see anything but a long hallway. Before I could look to the left, I was dragged to the left wall.

"Carter!" A familiar voice exclaimed. I looked to see who held onto my arm.

"Halina! How-" She stopped me short by shaking her head and holding a finger to her lips to shush me.

"Whisper... We don't know if anyone can hear us here. What were you going to ask?" She said in a quiet voice. I nodded and whispered back,

"That makes sense. How did you get here? And where's Phoenix?"

"I'm right here." Phoenix said, holding up a hand behind Halina. We were all pressed against the wall in a row that would not do us any favors if someone came down the left hall. It was probably the best choice of hiding in our situation though so I wouldn't argue.

Halina looked behind her and nodded to Phoenix before answering my question. "I ran over to the door the second everyone was distracted. Phoenix was already here when I opened that door. We haven't been here for long, maybe only a minute."

"Okay. How... How do you think that happened?"

"Well, the invisible stuff was the Ash Elves for a start." Phoenix said.

"How do you know?" Halina asked him, turning to look behind her.

"They can make illusions. Sort of like how Penny is able to do it but they control it with clicks or snaps." He held up his hand as if to demonstrate but quickly set his hand back down.

"That still doesn't answer the question of how you know they can do that." Halina said. Phoenix thought for a moment before responding.

"It was in the book! Remember, the one that had the pages torn out? That's what was on it, and that's how I know. Because I read it!" He said, pointing to himself to emphasize the point.

"That would make sense, and you couldn't tell us earlier because you wiped out before you could tell us." I said remembering what had happened on the aircraft the day before. Had it only been just yesterday? It felt like so much had happened that it should be days later! I was beginning to miss the days of our journey, no matter how rugged they were.

Phoenix blinked for a few seconds before responding. "Yeah, that's what I was going to say before I... Blacked out." He paused on the words as if pondering them before going rigid.

"What's wrong?" Halina asked frantically.

"Someone is coming on the left side, we have to leave." Phoenix said, standing up.

"But where do we go? There's nowhere to hide." I asked, shakily trying to stand up. Halina reached out an arm and helped me up.

"We have to go that way." Phoenix responded, pointing forward.

"But we don't know what's down there! It could be a trap!" I said.

"It's the only way we can go." Halina said. She started to walk toward the door. Without looking back she asked Phoenix,

"How far would you estimate they are from us?"

"I would say we have about a minute at most." He said, starting to walk after her.

"Wait! Where are we going? Surely whoever it is could see us down a long hallway couldn't they?" Phoenix looked back at me.

"There." He said, pointing to a door that was hiding in the shadows of the wall. I hadn't seen it at first but after it was pointed out I could. The door was pretty far away but I could see us getting there in a minute if we hurried. I got steady on my legs and started to follow Halina and Phoenix. It was difficult to walk fast with a broken leg but I was somehow able to move.

After a few seconds Phoenix came back to help me get there. I heard the clicks of footsteps behind us right after we got through the door opening. It was a dark room and I couldn't see much. Halina closed the door to a crack and hid to the side of it. Me and Phoenix joined her against the wall.

I was able to see a bit of the hall outside and watched as the Ash Elf passed the room we were hiding in. It seemed to be a female Ash Elf. I was able to see her long, pale grey hair, which was up in pigtails, pass by the door. She looked to be smaller than the other Ash Elves I had seen, even Crane. Maybe she was a younger Ash Elf? Maybe, it was hard to tell with Ash Elves and their sharp features. She looked like she was looking for something. Us? Probably.

I held my breath until she passed. Once she did I let it out with a big gasp. I felt Phoenix and Halina relax beside me.

"Ok... I think they're gone." Halina said. We all looked into the dark room. It was almost impossible to see anything in the darkness, even with the streak of light from the door. Phoenix found a lamp and flicked it on. I blinked as my eyes adjusted to the light. The room started to come into focus even if it was still a bit dim.

I found that it wasn't actually a room, not exactly anyways. The door had led us to a winding staircase. I went over to the rails and looked over the edge to examine them. It seemed to go on forever, but when my eyes had fully adjusted to the lighting I realized that it wasn't all that far just bathed in shadows that made it hard to tell when the stairs ended.

"Should we-" I started to say. Phoenix said, "no" the same time Halina said, "yes". They looked at each other for a few seconds in an awkward silence.

"You don't want to go down them?" Halina said, surprise clear in her voice. Phoenix shuffled his feet around on the floor and put his hands in his pockets.

"I don't know, I'm just a bit... Unsure about it." He answered uneasily. Halina looked up at him and they met eyes.

"I know there's a reason Phoenix. What aren't you telling me?"

"It's nothing! I just feel apprehensive about it..."

"Okay that's valid but... Who knows what down there. It could be Rivera siblings! If we leave, who knows when we would get the chance to-" Halina was cut off by a loud click. We all looked toward the door. It was shut. Phoenix immediately dashed up to it and started twisting the door knob back and forth. After a few seconds of trying he turned around to face Halina and I. His face was grim.

"We're locked in." He said. I looked down at the stairs that led down into the dark rooms below. I knew what this meant, we didn't have a choice anymore.

"We have to go down." Halina said. I nodded apprehensively and started to take a step down. Halina came over to help me down. I was starting to dislike having to be helped around everywhere. I felt like I was an inconvenience to our , there was nothing I could do about my situation at the moment so I tried to turn my attention back to our current path.

After we got to the end of the stairs (which took us longer than it really should have), we started to look for a light. I had my hand against the cold wall, feeling for a lamp when a light filled the room. Phoenix had found a similar lamp on the right wall. I was able to see the outline of a metal door. Another door. Honestly, I was getting a bit sick of the suspense. I went up to open it and surprisingly it opened with a simple click. I had begun to realize that a lot of these doors were open. Maybe the Ash Elves just thought they didn't need locks? We may never know.

I stepped into the room. The lights were surprisingly on. More light shined through a hole in the ceiling that looked small from the ground below. I realized it was nighttime when I saw the moon glowing through the gap. I remembered reading a book in science about the moon before we had gone on our quest. I had read that the moon didn't actually produce its light itself but instead it was reflected light from the sun. (dunno what to write here so here's a blank space )

Halina came through the doorway behind me and scanned the room. She let out a gasp and ran over to a corner of the room that I hadn't looked to yet. I followed her and found what she had found. A familiar middle aged man sat on a cot, staring up at the moon.

"Principal Bloomstone! But, weren't you at the school? How- How did you get here!" She exclaimed. He turned to us with a grim smile.

"Ah, Halina. I was wondering when you would get here. I expected you would be here a couple days ago but clearly I was wrong!" He laughed.

"We came as quickly as we could!" I said.

"Of course you did! It's great that it took you as long as it did! I just assumed they would catch you quicker."

"And why is that?" Phoenix asked, finally coming through the doorway. Principal Bloomstone looked him straight in the eyes.

"The Ash Elves have tricks up their sleeves, I'm sure you would know that. Their main priority is to trick you into giving them their way. They can't be underestimated." His face brightened a bit, "How did you manage to get this far without falling into a trap?" He told him the whole story, the vines, the ghost town, Penny and the forest where we finally got captured. When we were done he just nodded and smiled.

"Principal Bloomstone, I'm still confused about some things." I said. He tilted his head.

"What about?" He said.

"Well, first of all, Why didn't the Ash Elves just come and get us? I mean if they wanted me why did they kidnap Dianne and Gale?" The room went silent.

"That. Is a very good question." Phoenix said.

"I don't really have an answer for that. I'm sure they must have had some reason for it though... What are your other questions? I may have a better answer for them." Principal Bloomstone responded.

I thought for a few seconds. I wanted to ask the most important question first but I wasn't exactly sure what that was. I had so many questions floating around in my head like; How did he get here? Where were we? How would we get out? How long would we be stuck here? Yet, one question stuck out above the rest.

"Where are Gale and Dianne?" I asked. Principal Bloomstone grinned.

"That I can answer! You're friends are sleeping right over there." He pointed to another corner of the room where a few other cots were set up. Gale sat up on one and was shaking Dianne, who was asleep on another nearby. It was hard to tell in the moonlight but Gale looked unharmed if not a bit paler than when I had seen him last. I walked up apprehensively. Gale turned to face me and smiled.

"Hey, Carter! Nice to see you here! Well, not really nice that you're here in a dungeon but you know what I mean." He chuckled and looked over to Dianne. "I'm trying to wake her up. You would be surprised how hard it is to wake her once she has dozed off!" Dianne just turned over onto her other side and continued sleeping. Gale sighed.

"I guess she's not waking up then. Anyways how was the journey getting here?" I prepared to tell him the rest of the story when I heard footsteps clanking down the stairs. I turned around sharply and rushed to the door. Einar came around the corner and stopped a few steps away from the bottom of the stairs. From his position and stature he towered over us. He looked at me and smiled before looking at Phoenix, who had appeared at the doorway beside me. Einar chuckled,

"Well, Phoenix! It seems you have led our prey exactly where we need them."

Chapter 19

I backed away from the doorway and stared at Phoenix.

"...Led us?" I asked shakily. He tapped his fingers on the side of his leg anxiously but looked me in the eyes. They were as dark as a night sky but there was a glint of something in them. Fear? Anger? I couldn't think straight. The words passed through my head like a gust of wind.

"Carter, I promise I didn't-" Einar came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. Phoenix looked up at him and smiled weakly.

"Phoenix it's time to stop pretending. You know who you are. This isn't a little game anymore. We need the information." Einar said.

"I-" Phoenix started to say.

"No. Give me your hand." Einar responded briskly, holding out his own hand. Halina stood up and walked over.

"Phoenix, what's going on?" She asked. Phoenix didn't respond other than giving her a small smile and a nod. He held out his left hand, the one with the wristband, to Einar. Einar brought out a small spherical disk. He looked up at Phoenix.

"I'm sorry." He said. Phoenix looked down at his feet.

"Just do it." Einar touched the disk to the circle on Phoenix's wristband. I was curious, what could it do? I wondered if this was how it was taken off but I didn't understand why that would be important. It made a click when they touched together and the band turned white. It fell off and clinked on the stone.

I blinked and looked up to my friend. I almost fell over from shock. He was almost unrecognizable. Phoenix was at least a foot taller, his skin drained of color. Slightly ruffled antennae branched out of his hair, flicking in the open air. When he looked up I saw that even his eyes had changed, his pupils taking up his eyes as if they were made of darkness. The realization struck me like an arrow.

Phoenix was an Ash Elf.

He sighed and looked toward the stairs, "I'm going to go find my room."

"You're leaving?" Einar asked, not seeming at all surprised.

"Yep." Phoenix said. He stared up at Einar who was still a foot taller than him. Einar tilted his head to the side.

"What are you waiting for then?"

"I need the keys." Phoenix said, holding out a hand. I heard a cough behind me. Einar fished out a disk that looked similar to the one he had used on Phoenix's wristband, except it was bigger and had a blue tint. Phoenix took it and nodded before making his way up the stairs. I watched him leave with a foggy mind. I couldn't think. Nothing made sense.

I barely had time to process what had just happened before Halina had hurled herself onto Einar. They tumbled down. Einar growled and tried to push her off of him but Halina hit the side of his head with her backpack

By this point Gale and Dianne had joined me at the door way and were watching the commotion. (Dianne had woken up soon after Einar had arrived). Dianne had a hungry look on her face as she gazed toward the stairs. Gale held her back by her arm and stared into the space with foggy eyes. I shook my head and turned back to Halina.

"What are you doing?" I hollered to her.

She responded without looking back, "Buying you time! Hurry up the stairs, Phoenix always leaves the door open!"

Dianne had already started booking it up the stairs, with Gale trailing behind her. "What about you?" I asked Halina. She turned to meet my eyes, holding the backpack in front of her face to block Einar's claws. The backpack started to fall apart in her hands. I knew what she was doing. She smiled before responding.

"I'll see you soon Carter." I didn't have time to think before arms pushed me forward toward the stairs. I closed my eyes and faded into a deep sleep.

Epilogue

In the middle of the night clicking sounds echoed from a cracked door. A single Ash Elf sat on a bunk bed in the middle of a dim room. A single lit candle sat on a desk by the bed. The candle didn't shine much light into the room so it was hard to see anything other than dark shapes. The lone Ash Elf continued snapping while making frustrated noises.

"Why won't this work?" They grumbled. With each snap the color of the bedsheets changed. Once blue, once white, once yellow, once purple and then back to plain grey. The Ash Elf flopped down onto the bed with one final snap. The bedsheets turned red. The Ash Elf immediately jumped off of the bed.

"No, no no! This isn't right at all." They stormed out of the room and into the hallway. In the clear moonlit light it was easier to see the Ash Elves appearance. It was a female Ash Elf, with long, silky black hair that fell down her back. She looked fairly normal for an Ash Elf, arched bat wings, greyscale features, large pointed ears and big pupils like that of a doe's. There were only two things that made her stand out from the rest of her kind.

First was her fluffed antenna. This was considered normal for young Ash Elves but this one didn't seem young. She seemed to be in her mid 20's, a young adult. The second feature that set her apart were the freckles dotting her face and arms. Freckles were odd in Ash Elves, a species that tended to be nocturnal. No one questioned this though, as she was rarely seen.

She made her way silently to a cracked door. She knocked on the door and another female Ash Elf opened it. She let them into the room where with a snap her form changed. Her sleek back hair turned light grey and fluffy. She shrunk down to a childs size and took a seat on a small couch in the room. The Ash Elf who had opened the door took a seat at a desk, where a piece of fabric sat. She started to sew before speaking.

"So what are you here for? I'm still working on that dress you asked for. It will be done in about two days if that's why you're here." She said.

"I'm not actually. I was wondering if you could get me a new bed. I want one without the bunk." The new Ash Elf stopped sewing.

"I am the royal seamstress, not a carpenter. Besides, you will probably be needing that extra bunk soon enough." The now much shorter Ash Elf tilted her head.

"What do you mean by that Ms. Birch?" She asked. Ms. Birch covered her mouth.

"I wasn't supposed to tell you that!" She squeaked. The other Ash Elf reverted to her older form.

"I asked what you meant by that. Tell me!" She yelled.

"Shh... Calm down. You're going to wake the others. You aren't meant to be up this late. You know how Einar feels about proper bedtimes!"

"I don't care about that." She hissed, but lowered her voice and sat back down. "I want to know. Why would I-'' She paused mid-sentence and stared at Ms. Birch. Her face contorted in several different emotions. First anger, then guilt, before terror.

"It was him wasn't it?" She said, now in a hushed whisper. She got up suddenly and went to the door.

"S-sage, where are you going?" Ms. Birch called behind her.

"I'm going to find my brother. He's here. I know it. You lied to me!"

"No, no! Sage you have it all wrong! Y-your brother isn't here!" Sage turned to face Ms. Birch.

"No. He is here. I saw him. And," She turned and started walking back down the hallway, "I go by Argenta now."