𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗱𝗼𝘄𝗛𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿 - 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑙

Chapter 1

     Eclipse blinked open her eyes, shocked to find that she was in the middle of a terrible battle.

     Why did I fall asleep in a battle? She wondered. Did I get knocked unconscious?

     But then she stood up, and saw that she'd just stepped out of her body.

     She yelped in shock. She noticed that the necklace Sapphire had given her wasn't around her body's neck anymore. She reached for it on herself, and felt the key with the little gems on it underneath her pads.

     Weird.

     Then a horrifying realization struck her.

     I died!

     She saw a wound on the neck of her dead body that was bleeding into a growing pool around her. She saw Sapphire laying in her body's blood, crying. There were Drolgons around her, protecting her and Eclipse's body.

     "I'm sorry about snapping at you on the night we met at the border!" She howled. "Don't leave me, Eclipse! I'm sorry! Don't die on me! I love you! I love you more than anything in my life!"

     "I... Sapphire..." Eclipse whispered. "I'll never leave you, Saph! I love you too..."

     She realized that now. She'd always felt immense emotion for Sapphire, although she'd just thought it meant she was a great friend. But she saw now that it wasn't great friendship, it was love. Eclipse wanted to be with Sapphire for the rest of her life, and always be close to her, and compliment her every morning when they woke up, and give her the attention and love she deserved.

     Eclipse's wings and tail drooped as she realized that Sapphire couldn't hear her. She laid next to Sapphire and her own body, nuzzling Sapphire's shoulder. But she couldn't move Sapphire at all, and her shoulder was as cold and hard as a rock.

     "Eclipse... we have to go," a voice said from behind her.

     Eclipse turned, and saw her mother standing behind her.

     "No!" Eclipse cried. "I can't go to the spirit realm! I have to go back!"

     StarFlower dipped her head.

     "Yes, you do have to go back. But I need to take you to the spirit realm so that you can."

     Eclipse glanced back at Sapphire, and nodded.

     "Okay."

     She followed StarFlower up into the sky, until they were near the storm clouds.

     "How do we get there?" Eclipse asked.

     "I'll show you," StarFlower said.

     Just then, a bolt of lightning struck the sky in front of the two.

     StarFlower shoved Eclipse into it, and Eclipse shrieked, terrified.

     Eclipse at first was too shocked to move, thinking she was dead twice-over, but then she realized that she was in the skies of a crystal-like landscape with shimmering Drolgons padding around here and there.

     "W-what... just happened?" Eclipse asked, more confused than she'd been in her life.

     "Once you're dead," StarFlower explained, "you can travel to the other dimensions through lightning. Living Drolgons would say that lightning is just a bolt of electricity, because they're not dead, and can't pass through it. But we spirits know that it's actually a tear in the dimension you're in. If you pass through different lightning bolts, you go to different places. That's why there was a lot of lightning where the Darkbeasts came from- they were passing through the lightning bolts from their dimension to yours."