The Awakening: 41

In the next instant, it was windy. Keya had to run to keep herself warm in the forest. The trees were at least ten feet above her head and the road was an-inch deep with yellow leaves. They whipped in the air making circles as Keya ran through them, one hand in front of her. They felt like soft butterflies hitting her skin but Keya was just glad they weren't cold because the wind was making her feel uneasy. The road then zig-zagged, bringing her to a place where nothing but tall blue bushes grew to a height of about twelve feet. They were too thick to see through but the path narrowed through them. The path was barely the size of three people before. Now, Keya almost brushed up on the sides of the bushes. Luckily, there was enough room to run without being scratched-up by the pointy blue leaves sticking out of them.

Then, from the corner of her eye, behind her was the sound of paws on dirt. Whatever was behind her wasn't slow-moving and it definitely wasn't about to stop chasing her now. Keya ran again after having stopped briefly to catch her breath. This was worse than when she'd first arrived outside of her earth. At least, she knew, if those men had caught her, she would have been kept alive. Here, she thought she may be at the mercy of hungry wolves or wild dogs.

The sky above her was all purple, so it was definitely some predatory animal that hunted only when it got dark or in the evening.

Oil appeared beneath her feet like magic. Keya was running fast and coming up on the edge of the turn. She needed to slow down or she would slide into the wall of thorny leaves. She turned, instead, her shoulder hitting the bush full-force. She broke through it tumbling downhill. Ahead of her was an inexplicable scenery. She saw mountains along the edges of the world looking like mirages, as they shimmered red and brown in the distance blinking on and off like broken static. In her stumbling state, she managed to get a full view of where she was exactly. Here was a place that was a hill on all sides but like a football stadium with all the seats acting like hills. She was on one of these hills tumbling in circles downward while at the bottom was a pool full to the brim with a brown goo that she rather not find out what it is.

As she slammed down on her elbow, she finally came to a halt right before the oozing pool.

Keya breathed in hard and squirmed loudly. "Aww! awww!" The initial pain came to her at once. The strange burning at her elbow, then the feel of a pinch at her sides. It brought a tear to her eyes without her noticing it.

After a few moments of breathing in and out hard, she got up from her place before the pool and began a small trek back up the hill. She had obviously been forced off-track and needed to get back to the maze. Keya figured it was all just a program and that she would need to get used to the dangers of it, when she tried the next time, although the scratches that those pointy leaves left on her shoulder were anything but fake. One of the leaves had drawn a fancy squiggly line from her forearm to her wrist with its pointed end. When Keya looked at it, bleeding slightly, she thought she might have a scar from it, not that the pain of it was making it any less significant.

She went up the hill but therein she found a problem. It was dark and there was the distant sounds of hungry growling. Right. She was being followed. She decided to skip the maze and go straight across the football field to the other side of the maze, where the edges of the other hills introduced pathways to those shady mountains.

Those mountains must be there for a reason, she thought.

She ran around the brown gooey pool, looking back only to measure the distance of her pursuers. It was so dark she could only make out glowing blue eyes two hundred yards behind. Ahead of her was a climb upward toward the entrance of the maze again or she thought that's what it was, since more blue bushes blocked her view. She was scratched along her arm and yet she still needed to push aside the bushes up on the hill to get through them while her entourage was closing in on her. She decided to head full-force again, slamming against the bushes with her other shoulder. She pushed through them onto another set of bushes on the other side but here was a path at least. It wound in an L-shape ahead of her with bushes on either side. At the end of the road where it turned, she saw paws on the floor. Fudge. More wolves.

Suddenly, the whole thing was gone and she was in an empty basketball court. Teresa, in blue jeans and a white T-shirt, stormed into the place with sneakers on. "What the heck was that, little girl?"
"Well," Keya said, dazed from what had just happened, "There were wolves behind me, too."

"Hmm," Teresa said, "I think that you're missing the point. You don't need to see what's behind you. You need to focus on what's ahead, the future, that's what's going to hit you next. The past is the past."
"Were those wolves real?"

"You mean could they bite you?" Teresa asked her, "Because they bit me pretty good the first time. You preferred to run around and get scratched up by bushes."
Then came Mark in a brown coat and his ugly brown hat with tears at the edges. He was sporting a bulletproof vest underneath and blue jeans with a sword belt around the waist. Keya could see two swords at his sides. The one on the right was slightly longer in length than the other. "You did good," Mark said, "Considering that most people just stand there frozen by fear their first time."

"It wasn't fear," Teresa complained, "The thing had glue on the ground before."
"Your oil didn't help," Mark said, frowning, "Girl could have gotten seriously hurt."

"She looks just fine to me," Teresa said, her eyes dancing around Keya's face. Was she jealous or angry? Keya couldn't tell.

Keya looked at her hand and winced. "It didn't look this bad before," Keya said.

Mark took her hand and looked at the scratches. "It's your healing ability," he said, "Good for others, bad for you. The more you use your magic, the greater it affects your own health. It's primarily the reason why I don't want to take you to that evil place."

"But I must go," Keya said, "No matter what."

Mark frowned at her, "Yes," Mark said, "To save your friend, or whomever is trapped there, as we suspect."

"My plan will work," Teresa said with a smile, "You just gotta stop being a wimp, little girl."

Mark eyed Teresa for a second. "We need to talk," he said, grabbing Teresa by the hand. They left to consort in another area of the basketball court, while Keya sorted out through her things, trying to find something to put over her wounds. They had given her a first-aid kit to take along with her but Teresa had thrown it around in some corner of the place.

Keya decided to search for it. She could really use a band-aid or three.

In the next instant, she heard some yelling, "She's my little sister and I won't allow you to hurt her this way! And stop calling her that. She's got a name!"
"IF you don't like the way I train her, then you do it!"

Mark stormed off, shaking his head.

Teresa walked over to Keya who had found the first aid kit and was trying hard to open the box. Teresa kicked it out of Keya's hands. "You ready for part two, little girl or should I magic you up a dimension hole?"

Keya got up, now almost as mad as Mark. "Just do the trick," Keya said, "I'm ready."