Trisha lay in a coma on life support, her parents crying near her hospital bed. Time was running out and the decision to discontinue the life support was being discussed. But unknown to her family and doctors she wasn't dead, but trapped inside, ins...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"You've met my father?" Zada asked Mike. "What's he like? I can't remember my parents. Just glimpses of memories I'm not even sure are real or imaginary.
"Well, he's a very nice man, a bit heavyset, graying blond hair but balding. You have his eyes."
Zada smiled. "I wish I could see him. What about my mother?"
Mike looked down at his feet. "I'm sorry. She died in a car accident a year after you were put in a coma.
Zada looked down, sadness in her eyes. After a moment of silence, she stood up. "Time to go."
"Go where?" Mike asked.
Zada lit her hands, using them as torches. "Down there. It is a secret entrance into my Lava Kingdom." She led the way down the lava tube, the floor smooth with ripples, but easy walking. The ceiling was twenty feet high and about fifty feet from one side to the other. The temperature dropped to chilly, but Mike wasn't complaining.
After an hour or so of walking, they could see a reddish glow up ahead. They emerged from the lava tube upon a ledge, looking down upon hell itself. The sky was now dark and below them was a lake of lava being fed from a lava river flowing from a huge volcano. Smoke billowing from its summit as the lava poured down its slopes. Then Mike saw a castle across the lake. He couldn't believe it. Who would have a castle on a volcano?
"Welcome to my lava kingdom." Zada waved her arm over the scenery. "This is my home, where I grew up with the Fire People."
Mike couldn't believe it. "There are really people made of fire? Like the Ice Men?"
"Yes, come-on I'll show you." Zada said, beginning to walk down a narrow path along a cliff wall high above the lava lake. Mike didn't move. Zada turned around and looked at him.
"The heat will kill me." Mike said, stating the obvious.
"Do you feel any heat?" Zada asked him, frowning.
Mike thought about it and realized he didn't. "That's strange. It should be burning hot right here and I'm not even sweating? In fact, I can't feel any heat at all. How is this possible?"
"The water in the cavern we drank seeps out of your pores and coats your skin in a film that protects you from the heat. We will have to keep drinking it several times a day." She explained, holding up her water horn and handing him her spare. There is more at the castle.
Mike looked down at the lava lake far below. The air was a wavy blur of heat blowing up into his face. He could feel a touch of warmth, so he quickly took a drink. The warmth slowly subsided. He hurried to catch up with Zada, who was nearing a natural rock archway, expanding the lava river that flowed into the lake. He caught up to her just as she reached it and started across. As they got to the center of the rock archway, the wind was buffeting them hard on both sides as it blew up from below. It had to be burning hot, he figured.
