Chapter 18 (Lily)
She woke up, startled. Where a I? Was her first reaction.
She was in a room. A dark room. Lily could only see a few faint lights that seemed to be coming from far in the distance.
It must have been a big, big room, because as far as she reached, nothing was to be felt, heard, seen or sensed.
Lily was tired. She tried to remembered what had happened, after calming herself down and relaxing herself on the invisible floor. It was hard and soft at the same time. It seemed like she could easily fall asleep in this dark place.
She focused hard on her memory.
Flashes of pictures came to her mind.
In one she saw herself falling and screaming. In the next she heard a slithering type of voice; "Sssee? Do you ssee?"
It had all come back to her now.
She had been falling in the non-gravitational kind of place when she had heard it's voice. The Furie's.
Lily had heard her own say; "Ahh! No! How could you? I thought...I thought you were with us! Why! Why did you do this to us? Can't you see? I...."
She wondered what it meant. What did it mean by "I thought you were one of us"? Who was I talking about? Who is us?
She remembered the roller-coaster feeling slowly stopping. Lily suddenly saw a picture of herself in mid-air. Her hair was flowing through the air and every part of her was immobile. It was cool, although Lily couldn't remember that happening.
The memories of everything that had happened flooded into her mind. And as she began to understand everything, something changed. Something dreadful and scary happened.
The air around Lily felt hot. Her skin tingled and itched.
She scratched herself as much as she could, but it got worse and worse.
"Aaahhhh! Make it stop!" Lily cried out. She decided that she would try to stop scratching. But when she did, she felt as if she was burning.
"Ah! Please!" She continuously pleaded. She started crying for the pain made her. A tear fell down her face, and down on the floor that she still couldn't see, she could only feel it.
Until finally she said the magic words.
"Ansel! Ansel, make it stop! Please. I know you can!" Lily screeched.
Once the words were pronounced, the terrible feelings of death crawling at her left in a flash, just the way they came.
"Thank you! Thank you Ansel!" She yelled out. Lily got up to her feet and gazed around the still-dark room.
A few moments passed. Nothing really happened. She had walked around bit, her hopes high. But then she realized nothing and no one was there.
"Ansel? I th-thought y-you heard me." She managed to say.
"I heard you!" A unrecognized voice boomed out.
As much as Lily was glad to hear something and someone, she was also frightened by the voice.
"Ansel? Is that you?" She said, shyly.
"Ansel? Me? No. I'm not as great as him." The same frightening voice came back, now in a laughing kind of voice.
"But who helped me than?"
"I did."
There was a short pause. Then Lily spoke.
"Who are you?" She asked.
"It's none of your business." The person, or thing, Lily didn't know, said dryly. Something wasn't right. It seemed like the owner of the voice was slightly annoyed by Lily's questions.
"Can I ask you a question?" Lily asked.
"Make it quick."
"What are you?"
There was no answer.
"Why did you save me?"
Again, there was no answer.
Another pause came, this time longer, stretching farther and farther in the space of time. Lily finally decided to forget about the voice. What good will happen if 'it' doesn't even answer my questions?Lily thought.
"Never mind then..." She said, trying to get the 'thing's' attention.
"I'm sorry, but I can't have a cute little conversation right now. Please just leave. And make sure to be careful on your way out." The voice came back from the darkness.
"Why should I be careful? After all, everything's black and cold here." Lily said. It was a good question. If she had to be careful, why?
"It's not dark in here, hat are you talking about?" A laughing voice asked the girl.
"Can't you see it? The darkness?" Lily asked, confused.
"First of all you can't see darkness, and second of all, I realize you must not be one of my kind." The voice said.
Lily was annoyed at first because the thing had corrected her mistake, but when she realized that the voice must not have been coming from another human, she got scared.
"What are you then?" Lily asked innocently.
"Fine, I'll tell you. But you mustn't tell any other of your friends what I am, OK?" The voice said.
"Pinkie promise." Lily said.
"Pinkie what?...Anyways, I'll just how you what I look like, then you leave, OK?"
"OK."
There was a silence. Lily could here sounds of rustling and something moving around. Then she heard a short flapping noise.
"There, you have seen. Now, go!" The voice came out.
Lily was confused, had she seen something? What was going on?
"But...But I only saw darkness!" She said angrily.
"Oh, right... You're different. you can't see in the dark, how stupid of me. Here, take this." The voice said.
Suddenly, Lily saw a small light, appearing from nowhere. It was coming closer to her with every second. She was glad to actually start to be able to see something different.
A few minutes later, or what seemed like a few minutes, Lily was holding a small candle in her hands.
"Where are you?" She asked.
"Over here. Right behind you." The voice called out.
Behind me? The voice had seemed to come from in front of me... That's strange. Lily thought.
Lily turned around. As she did, her candle-light blew out.
"I can't see!" She screeched.
"Here, here, don't be too noisy." Again, the voice boomed out. It seemed annoyed again.
Lily heard the creature breath in, it was taking in a very big breath. It must have been a large creature. There was a small gurgling sound, and then, it happened.
Flames.
Fire struck out of nowhere, slashing straight towards Lily. It burned the air and was close to take Lily into the mighty flames of red and yellow.
But it stopped, just before struck her. It stopped right where the candle was, lighting a little flame onto it.
Lily, open-mouthed in terror, soon was calmed down. Her heart still raced and she still panicked a little, but she quickly found another reason to be terrified.
Scales.
A tail, to be exact. There was a tail full of scales right at her feet.
Lily gulped down the scream that desperately wanted to come out.
She couldn't think or do anything. Terror took control of her. Her body trembled. She dropped the candle.
The reptilian tail that was still there sprang up and caught the candle, wrapping around it to keep it steady.
"Don't be scared. It's me. What you wanted to see." The voice boomed out at Lily.
"Wh-what are y-you?" She managed to say.
"Here, I'm called a Ghanet, but I suppose on your planet, Earth right?" The creature said.
Lily nodded. Wow, people here know about Earth? She thought. She got interrupted by the booming voice.
"Then I suppose you would call me, well, something like, a Dragon."