Lukas's POV
While Petra and I were in the burning building, it never really occurred to us that we probably would need a mask or air tank or something. We both started suffocating.
"What... do we do?!" choked Petra.
Before I could answer her, a figure emerged from the fire...
...right before everything went dark.
I soon heard the sounds of the cool rain rushing down the leaves of the trees and hitting my face.
I opened my eyes and saw a girl looking at us with concern. She had orange skin, red eyes, red hair, and an orange and red dress with a long train in the back.
"Wh-who are you?" asked Petra.
"I am Fire Princess, but you may call me Eva. I saw you in my house... look, there is something I must tell you!"
I peered around to see where I was and found myself sitting on a large tree branch, elevated about as high as the burning house, which stayed on fire without burning down. Cool.
"You saved us?" I asked.
"Yes, I also used my healing energies to save your friend," she moved her red gaze over to Aiden, "That was very noble what you did back there, saving your comrade from dying."
Aiden blushed a little and smiled.
"Can you save Jesse?" Maya blurted. Eva just looked confused.
"Who is Jesse?"
"She was one of our closest friends," I said sadly, "but she's gone now."
"Wait a minute," Petra began, "when she died, she and Carter turned into statues. I tried leaning on them, and they turned into dust. How did that happen?"
"Well, I know not of Jesse nor Carter, but I presume that because Jesse gave up her life for yours, the logic of our dimension turned her to dust. Carter must have been touching her in order to be frozen as well, was he not?" Fire Princess asked.
"I... think so... yes, he was," Petra said, "Wow, that's really interesting."
"I'm afraid I am unable to save her... unless..." she stopped talking and put her fist to her chin, "...unless I can find her essence upon you! How long has she been gone?"
"She just died a little while ago!" I said gleefully.
Wow, never thought I'd say something like that so happily.
"This is perfect!" said Eva radiating joy, "Alright, I just wish to warn you that this will be very bright."
She closed her eyes and held out both of her hands in front of her body. Something blew her red hair around almost as if by magic considering how wet it was outside which I thought looked pretty cool.
The bright light grew larger and moved onto the branch between Petra and me. We had to hold our hands out in front of our faces and squint our eyes because it was so bright.
The next moment, the light died down. When my eyes adjusted, a smile spread across my lips.
"Jesse!" everyone shouted at once and gave her a hug. I looked over to thank Eva, but she was out of breath.
"You okay?" I asked.
"Yes, yes, I am fine," she said as she caught her breath, "I may have healed you, but there is something all of you must know."
Everyone quieted down and listened.
"I think that... maybe I didn't find you before — "
"Mortals!" boomed a strong, but feminine voice from behind Eva, "What have you been doing in my house?!"
"What's going on? Who is this? What's going on?!" asked Jesse.
"I'll explain later," whispered Maya.
"This is my mother," Eva whispered, "The Fire Queen."
"Nobody asked you!" she boomed again. Wow, some mom.
"I hope you realize that our kingdom isn't fit for mortals such as you! Because of your carelessness, an entire beam has fallen, nearly collapsing this entire house!"
She spoke with so much force I could almost feel the sparks flying out of her mouth. I guess that's the, uh, "fire being" equivalent of saliva. Yeah, how about let's not get into what's inside everybody's mouths.
"Not to mention that breaking into anyone's house is considered a serious felony, and we just happen to be royalty!"
Whoa, this must be serious judging by the amount of italics she uses.
"Um, in our defense, your majesty," began Maya, "we were coming into your house to see if there was anyone stuck in there that needed our help!"
"All that does is make it clear to me that your intentions were good, but that doesn't change the consequences in any way!" Fire Queen responded.
"What did you do?!" exclaimed Jesse.
"SILENCE!" roared Fire Queen. Everyone jumped.
"Mother, please! Have mercy!" pleaded Eva.
"I thought I said SILENCE!" Fire queen bellowed again. Fire Princess flinched.
"You children can't lose sight of the fact that, despite your good intentions, you still very rudely, and illegally, came into my house and destroyed my property!"
"But we didn't even touch that beam!" argued Maya, "it fell on its o- "
"It fell after you showed up, did it not?" asked Fire Queen, coming dangerously close to Maya's face. She cringed.
"Uh, well, it did, but we --"
"Are you trying to make a fool of me?" she asked, making Maya turn her head to the side a little.
"No ma'am," she said quietly. Fire Queen floated back to where she was.
"You individuals still must be punished. Maybe I'll be merciful enough to let you off with a curse."
"Mother! Please, no! They are just children!"
"I didn't request of your opinion," Fire Queen said harshly.
"Um, I don't know what's going on here, or why my friends are being punished," Jesse said with her voice nervously trembling, "but I wasn't involved in anything that happened! Can you please just let us off with a warning and we'll never— "
"I said a curse!" Fire Queen insisted, "every time you go to sleep..." she raised her hands above her head as a giant orb began to collect, "...every time you dream, you will experience the most horrendous, most unbearable, most awful nightmares you've ever had!"
The orb was about a third of her size now. It was pitch black with white spikes pulling in and out of it. She then thrust it at us, and I'll do my best to describe the feeling of being cursed.
Have you ever run straight into a glass door, not knowing that it was a glass door, then having all the glass break and shatter on top of you? Yeah, that's what it felt like. A bunch of glass shards cutting through my skin without actually being cut.
Adrenaline coursed through my entire body and I gritted my teeth, trying my best not to scream my lungs out (like Maya was doing).
When I opened my eyes, both Fire Queen and Eva were nowhere to be found.
Eva's (Fire Princess's) POV
"Mother! You can't put a curse of such magnitude on mere mortals!" I pleaded as I followed Mother into our household.
"I can and I have," Mother responded coldly without even turning to face me. I floated in midair with a look of shock and disappointment plastered across my face. Mother turned around and looked at me, then sighed.
"Oh, don't give me that look," she said, "it's for the safety of our home. Those delinquents had no place inside our property."
"Those 'delinquents' are heroes, Mother! They were all brave and willing enough to purge their own lives for the lives of others!"
"Well, they are very ignorant to the detail that we live in a burning building!" Mother said.
"Now you're just being ridiculous! How could they have known?!" I said with my voice rising.
"That's what makes them ignorant," Mother finished as she calmly floated away, leaving me in disbelief.
I solemnly floated back to the humans that had been cursed a minute ago.
"I am deeply sorry," I said sadly, "but I'm afraid Mother is unwilling to lift your curse. I've done everything I could."
"It's alright, uh..." began Jesse. I suddenly realized I had rudely never introduced myself.
"Fire Princess," I said as I extended my hand for the black haired girl to shake, "but you may refer to me as Eva."
She smiled and shook it.
"Jesse," she said, "My name's Jesse. And you shouldn't fret over not being able to lift our curse. Your mother didn't seem like she would cave anytime soon. Besides, what harm could a few silly nightmares do?"
"You don't understand," I began, "Mother's curses are far more than you may perceive. These nightmares can completely traumatize a mere mortal; they can take control over your life! They will continue on... forever. That's longer than anyone can even begin to imagine it's so long. Every single time you fall asleep, every fear you have will come back to haunt you. The dreams might not even stop there. If they persist long enough, you could be consumed by them, suffering an endless torment."
When I finally looked back at everyone, they all looked scared out of their wits as if my mouth had snakes emerging from it.
"Sorry," I said quietly, "I didn't mean to frighten you."
I turned and floated back to my house.
Jesse's POV
"Well," I said once I realized that my mouth was gaping open, "we've got a long night's rest ahead of us."
"But... the nightmares," said Maya.
"It's better than not having any energy to look for the portal," said Aiden.
We all found a somewhat comfortable position to lay in. The thought of the terror that awaited me prevented my eyes from closing until I couldn't keep them open anymore.
I awoke and found myself standing in a purely white room. I slowly turned around to get a look at my surroundings, even though there really weren't any.
"Hello?" I called out, my voice echoing when I spoke.
I finally noticed a small figure in the distance. A small... pink... figure...
"Reuben!" I happily called. He joyfully squealed as I raced over to him.
My heartbeat filled my chest and I felt like I might explode from happiness as I sided across the white floor to give him a hug.
I laughed as I wrapped my arms around my lost pet and said,
"It feels so great to see you again, boy!"
He oinked as I stretched my arms around his warm body.
"I'll never lose you again, Reuben," I whispered with tears filling my eyes.
He began to oink, but then it began morphing into a horrible screeching noise. The small animal in my arms began to become too big to wrap my arms around. I pulled away in confusion.
Reuben grew bigger and bigger and morphed into a giant, morbidly hideous monster. I grimaced and stepped back.
"Reuben?"
"RAAAUUUUUWWWWWERRR!" he screeched, covering me in his saliva.
"Gahh!" I screamed. I suddenly remembered that I should be running because Reuben lunged himself at me.
I couldn't run fast enough, though, because giant Reuben quickly caught up to me and tackled me to the ground. I fell onto my face, then frantically tried to get up, but Reuben tackled me again.
Tears streamed down my face as Reuben smashed my body, stomach down, on the floor.
I lifted my head to the best of my ability and saw a dark figure standing before me. It looked like a silhouette of a girl. She pulled out a knife and slowly walked toward me.
"NO!" I cried, "Please! No!"
A sudden, sharp pain came through my back. My eyes widened as I screamed at the top of my lungs.
"NO!!"
I cried harder as the knife drove deeper into my back and slowly, painfully moved down the side of my spine.
"AH-HAA!" I yelped more in pain. I started feeling something wet by my hands. I weakly opened my tear stained eyes and saw my hands drenched in red.
"AHH!" I screamed again as the knife stabbed me again, this time on the other side of my spine. Slowly but surely, the pain started diminishing, until I couldn't even keep my eyes open anymore.
I sprang upward as soon as I woke up. Sweat was covering my entire body. I patted around myself, then sighed in relief. It was only a dream. Not that it didn't scare me half to death, though. I was shaking and sweating really badly. I looked around at my friends to see how they were doing. Yep, fear was defiantly plastered across all of their faces.
I laid back down but had trouble falling asleep again because the feeling of impending doom haunted me. Well, I wasn't completely wrong about that.
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