Velvet Summer (Disney Edition)

101

Karan

Bound at ankle, heel, knee, waist, around the arms and over the chest, with a bandage wrapped around his head parting his teeth from meeting, Ravi watched as the room spun into a long corridor.

 Eventually the dark, damp mud walls became that much similar to a hospital. The dim rectangular lights passing over him one at a time he managed to roll his head over to look at the doors that went by just as quickly. 

His eyes rolled down and he saw the one opened at the very end of the hall. The only thing he could see before entering was the number above the door. "101" 

The only thing in this room was a chair. Such polar visuals compared to the room he was just in. He went from getting buried alive to getting a dental cleaning in under thirty seconds. The feeling of sudden change manifesting inside his chest. 

The men lowered him down thrashing him into the examine chair with a fair amount of aggression. Something deep down told him they weren't human. A smaller even more frightening voice told him that said creatures don't exist anymore. Humans went extinct around the the end of the nineteenth century. 

"You're in quite a bit of trouble..." Said the first. The other looked like it couldn't speak at all. As the silent monster bound him in and lowered the thing above his head down to latch it over his jaw and eyes the one who could communicate was swaying back and forth like he was anxious. "She's going to be excited to see you." 

It grunted at his partner. The two of them walked out of the room leaving him alone to his thoughts and the sound of screaming come from the other rooms. The way he said that: "She's going to be excited." Told him that mrs. Kippling was the least of his worries.

Kevin

"Do you hear that?" It was the first thing either of them had said in hours. "I have for a while... I figured it was just me." She responded. He looked over at the bed where the noise was coming from. Just beneath Christina Ross's puddle of blood a very high shrill scream bordered on music. "Don't open it..." Hazel pleaded. "I can't go through another internal battle like before." She stood up and backed away from it.

What was he supposed to do just ignore it? "Well you don't have to go in there." He said. She wouldn't go down there if her life depended on it. She had spent most of her life down there. What awaited him wasn't just a battle of Egos... it was the breeding of Ego's. Something much more vile. 

The bed wheeled away scratching the floor as he threw it against the wall. Kneeling down and pressing his hands to the thick red matter his nails dug into a plank of wood that was loose. Ripping it back he found a trap door, a bronze ring around the hinge big enough to fit two fingers. He opened it to release a toxic mournful voice. 

A song of death. A song pleading for death. It belonged to a girl who mustn't have been no older than twelve. The roar of a lioness in unforgivable pain. He flew backwards by the sheer force of the yell from the strings around her. She was manifesting but why so intensely for her age? All humans can produce magic, only when it's forced out of them does it become black. 

"Xander..." Hazel cried. His eyes bolted to her as he was crawling on his hands and feet to reach her. "That's a whole can of worms meant to be left unopened." She knew he wouldn't listen but she would hate herself if she didn't try. "Is it dumb to play the hero?" He asked only to get a nod of yes in return. "Well I've never been smart Haze, you know that." He winked and dived inside. The trap door shutting behind him with a thud! The sound of the bed being scooted back over let him know she had boarded him inside. No going back...

Skai

There was something wrong with the journal. Or more like with her hands... every time she turned a page her fingers glistened. A weird ultraviolet color escaping her skin as she touched the pages. She rested the leather bound book on the bed of the truck looking around to see that the trees had become nothing but twigs on the side of the road. Buildings everywhere were burnt to char and shrouded in fresh smoke. 

How long had she been reading? 

Jorge was asleep, wrapped in a blanket beside her. The truck came to a stop and she looked through the back window at Lou for an answer. It wasn't until she looked through the windshield did she realize why. The driver rolled down the window so that Zuri could hear her voice. "Hey... where's the road?" It was a fair question. One no one had the answer for. 

The boy beside her began to stir. Rising up with his eyes shut he walked over to the tailgate. His body literally levitated and lowered itself down to the ground. The girls both shared a look of confusion as he walked over to the cliff where the road used to be. He took a deep breath, turned to face the truck, and opened his eyes. Two bright red lights shone brightly through his skull. 

He fell backwards. 

"Jorge!" The oldest councilor ripped open her own door to race after the camper. She stopped before she reached the edge looking over to see something spectacular. Zuri waited a moment before joining her at the cliff. What they saw was something... new. 

A mix of water and sky, stars and fish, a pit of cycling galaxies that seemed like they were coursing in a pattern. 

What they saw was a universe. 

"Stop! Don't! Skai think about what you're doing! Remember who you are!" Zuri would know that voice anywhere. That southern slang, that drill sergeant attitude. "Jessie?" She spun on her heel to see the woman once under payroll as her nanny. The woman that stood before her was not that same baby sitter. Instead it was someone who had fought back hard enough to survive. She was littered in scars and covered in dirt. Her hair was tied down with a red headband and she had circles under her eyes like she hadn't slept in weeks. 

"You... you're not under their programming?" The rebel walked over to her old friend. Zuri wrapped her arms around the woman and took in a sigh of relief. "What's happening Jessie? Why do I feel like I'm going crazy?" 

The woman knelt down to look the girl in the eyes. "Because you're stronger than they thought..." A smile that could shatter the entire globe broke through to Zuri and revealed this woman could be trusted. "I need you to do something for me okay?" The woman asked as she ran a hand through Zuri's braids. "I need you to remember your name can you do that?" 

Was this a trick question? Zuri didn't understand. The look on her face must have made that obvious because Jessie pulled off her headband and placed it around the girls head. "Do you remember when you gave this to me?" Again Zuri was drawing a blank. "Do you know what 101 means?"

Her eyes widened and it clicked. "Debby Reynolds?" Both girls laughed as they embraced in another hug. "What happened... where am I?" She looked around in confusion. "Skai look at me." Debby grabbed her cheeks to focus her attention on her eyes. "You have been forced to play a role that isn't yours. You need to think hard about who you are and what you want." 

"What I want?" Skai Jackson eyed the ground as she centered her attention on herself and thought hard for a moment. She couldn't wrap her mind around the concept of what she had been. However, something told her what she was going to become. "Zuri means good in Swahili." She confirmed. "I am good... but I don't know what I want."  

"That's okay..." Debby assured her. "At least you know who you are. That's a great a start." The more you know who you are and what you want, the less you let things upset you. "Come on..." Debby walked over to the truck tossing in her bag next to Alan. "I got some friends the three of you need to meet."