Into the Madness of the Dark Realm

The Different Paths

The giant figure faded back into the cloudy purple sky... leaving everyone's mouths hung open in awe of what they had just witnessed. They thought that the end had come, well... the end had just begun. This was what they really needed to beware of...
Then in front of them... light blue lightning struck from above, it struck again, and again. In front of them, a girl who looked familiar to Ava appeared. She looked different from how Ava had last seen her. Something stopped her from saying something. Then she forgot about it, like she had never seen the woman before. A spark emitted from Ava's arm. The feeling she had before she lost her powers. The only thing different about this spark is that it had a feeling of darkness with it. It uneased Ava.
"I am Halave... I am the spiritual embodiment of light." The woman said.
"I will be helping you through this 3-day period."
"We're gonna actually be stuck in this dump for 3 days!" Sophia said.
"Try being stuck here for more than 10 years." Samantha said.
Sophia felt bad for saying that, forgetting that she and her friends had been stuck in this place for years.
"For about 16 years, I've just been writing stories in a journal." Samantha said.
They all walked into the giant Purple castle in front of them. As they did so they found a skull with some ancient looking markings on it that sat on an old table that looked to be made out of polished wood. There were 2 distinct markings on them. A symbol of a Sun, and a Symbol of a Moon. Zach picked up the skull, but as he did... he noticed that something was hidden under the red and gold cloth on the table. He pulled it, a book being hidden inside the top of the table. Ella pulled out the book, a mark being put in one of the pages. They opened the book to the lake with the marker inside of it, laid it on the edge of the table and read it.
"The beginning will end, the end will begin again. As the doors close, the windows will open. Light is gone... darkness creeps in. As you weep in fear, the phantom flies through with the wind." Ella read.
The windows of the castle slammed open, and wind bursted through them. They heard eerie whispers coming from all around them. They each looked outside through the window, what they saw was about 20 monsters floating in the sky. They were headed towards the castle. The monsters were purple, they had giant pointy ears on the sides of their heads. Their eyes were blood red, and it looked like there was another layer of skin beneath the purple part. The monsters didn't have mouths, but had a long tail with a red tip at the end. They had 3 arms and 3 legs. They were more like tentacles than actual limbs. There was also cloth draped on their backs, they weren't shaped like humans... more like animals. Suddenly their pace quickened as they saw Zach in the window. He couldn't comprehend how they would move faster. Their limbs were barely moving. This wasn't the weirdest thing that he had seen in his life however. He had seen monsters, and demons, all of the sorts. He was still taken aback by this though. Halave shoved Zach out of the way of the window. She saw the monsters floating in the sky. "We need to hide, there's a map of this place in the basement. Go!" Halave said. She shoved them to a door next to the stairs. They opened it and went down the stairs in front of them. Halave shut the door behind them. They soon arrived in the basement. There was a map of this place they were in, the Dark Realm. It was pinned to the wall with 4 thumbtacks. Micheal took them out of the wall, and grabbed the paper. He handed it to the only person with a bag, Sophia. "Soph, keep this in your bag, don't lose it, and don't die."
Micheal said.
"Okay, God... I'm not that irresponsible." Sophia said.
"Yes you are." Jobe said.
She rolled her eyes in annoyance as she slipped the rolled up map into her bag.
"Can one of y'all go up the stairs with me so I can see if those monsters are up there?" Caleb asked.
Everyone was quiet.
"Wow..." He said.
"I can go with you." Sophia said.
"Okay..."
They went up the stairs as everyone made conversation with each other.
Soph opened the door to peak out, she saw one of the purple monsters hovering around outside of the room. It looked directly at her, they were caught. Its eyes glowed and a muffle scream came from the horrendous creature. She shut the door... but it didn't have a lock.
"Go, go, go!" She shouted to Caleb.
The creatures were now slamming their bodies into the door. As they reached the bottom of the stairs, the door loudly slided down the steps... briefly brushing Sophia's ankle with dust. They heard the monsters violently heading down the stairs.
"We can go through that vent right there! It's our only hope and they won't be able to fit into it." Halave urged. They hurriedly tore off the cover of the vent Halave told them about.
Each of them crawled into the vent as the monsters went down the steps. Jeremiah was the last person into the vent, one of the purple monsters grabbed him by his ankle. Jeremiah kicked the tentacle wrapped around his ankle 4 times with his free leg before the creature let go. He crawled through the vent, and eventually caught up with the others. There was a flimsy metal ladder at the end of the ventilation system, Ella had reached it and started crawling up the ladder.
"Guys, be careful when you're going up the ladder! It's really flimsy!" She yelled.
Sophia went up, then Micheal, then Jobe, then Sammantha, then Caleb, then Ava, then Nick, but as he was going up the ladder... it started creaking more than before. He made it up, however when Rion got to the top, the ladder finally broke. As the ladder pieces fell to the very bottom of the vent shaft, he swiftly gripped the edge of the ground the shaft led to. Nick helped him up, but there wasn't hope for the 4 who were still at the bottom. "What the heck!" Jeremiah yelled.
"We're stuck down here now!" There was no way for them to get out of the vent system. One way was being guarded by purple monsters, and one had a ladder that was broken. Their only hope were the 9 who had succeeded to get out of the shaft and Halave.
The ones who had escaped from the ventilation shaft were staring down from the unknown area.
"We're gonna get you out of there!" Jobe shouted.
They un-kneeled from the edge of the  shaft and stood up to see where they were. It was an old room, there was a fan on the top of the exit of the shaft that blew cold air into the vent below. They were practically dying in this room, it was already cold enough without the giant fan. The floor was composed of wood, wood that was covered in dust. No one had been here in ages.
There didn't seem to be an exit to this room besides the giant vent area they had just come out of, that didn't seem to be an option though because more than half of the tall ladder had collapsed. There was a bookshelf standing against the wall.
Jobe just had to check...
He went towards the bookshelf as everyone else was checking out the room. Standing beside it, he pushed it to the left.
"I knew it!" He said.
The more and more he pushed the bookshelf, the more of the black empty hallway that was revealed behind it.
"I found a hallway!" Jobe yelled.
Everyone looked his way. "How did I not think of that?" Ella said.
They walked into the hallway, Jobe took his phone out to turn the flashlight on. In the middle of the hall, they found an old toy train. Jobe picked the train up and studied it closely. Encarved on the bottom was a name, Billy. He gave it to Sophia and she put it in her bag. They arrived in front of a wooden door. As they opened it, they stepped inside the room... it was pretty. The door slammed shut behind the people who were in the room. Samantha went to the door, banging it with all her might.
"Guy's!" She shouted.
Sophia, Jobe,  Ella, and Caleb were in the room they had just discovered, but Ava, Nick, Micheal, Samantha and Rion were stuck in the dark hallway they had just gone through.
"We're gonna try to open the door yall, it has a lock." Sophia said.
There was a timer on the wall counting down from 30 minutes, Samantha found a card, it had some instructions on it.
"You need to free your friends from the hall by the time the timer goes off, if you don't... at 30 minutes the room will fill with a deadly gas and everyone in the room will die. Find the house of the place that holds the key."
"What the heck does that mean?" Ella said.
Everyone looked around the room, Ella noticed a dollhouse in the corner of the room. It reminded her of the way she died at the Death Valley Castle. She went up to it and looked inside. She saw a note card attached to the side of it.
"Miracles are done of someone who is a miracle, sometimes the miracle is the journey, sometimes the journey ends." She read.
Suddenly a drape was pulled off of a table by seemingly nothing. There was a hatch built into the table that had a numbered lock on it. There was also a message engraved into the table, it said that they needed to look back at the clues that have been left for them. Everyone was gathered around Ella,
"What else is there to see?" Jobe asked.
"A card I found seemed pretty cryptic, maybe that has something to do with this all." Ella suggested.
They walked over to the card, Caleb picking it up. He examined it, noticing that 3 specific words repeated a lot in the riddle.
"Miracle, sometimes, journey..." He muttered.
"I think I have some ideas of codes we can try."

Sophia stood next to the table, her hand being on the lock... ready to input the code.
"Okay... so the word miracle repeats 3 times, sometimes repeats 2 times, and so does journey. Try variations of 322." Caleb said.
Sophia tried 322, it didn't work. She tried 232, it didn't work. She then tried 223, it still didn't unlock.
"Okay, can you try different variations of the number of letters in each word?" Caleb said again.
She tried variations of 779, only one worked however. The hatch inside of the table was opened and inside of it was the key. They unlocked the door to the hall that their friends were trapped in and then found a trapdoor in the floor that led them back into the beginning of the castle. They heard the others coming.
"How did you guys get out of the vent shaft?" Samantha asked.
"They just got bored after about 20 minutes and then left." Zach said.
"Okay, I am going to take you to the voting lounge. There, you will pull a card with someone's team name on it out of a deck and whatever team that has the most votes will be thrown into the death challenge." Halave said.
"So we have to go against our partner?" Ella asked.
"Yes." Halave answered.
Everyone looked at each other, they were so scared.
"Come with me." Halave said.
They walked to the voting lounge, there was a velvety red couch in the middle of the room with some other velvety couches being around the area. There was a pedestal in the middle where Halave stood, there were 6 decks each of them had the names of the people on each team. There was a deck that said Sophia & Jeremiah, a deck that said Jobe & Ella, a deck that said Michael & Ava, a deck that said Samantha & Karie, a deck that said Rion & Nick, and a deck that said Caleb & Zach. Everyone would pick the name of the team who they wanted out. "It's time to cast your votes." Halave said.
One by one everyone went up, they would hand Halave the card of the team they wanted to vote into the death challenge. She shuffled them, left it up to fate, and randomly chose one.
"The team going into the death challenge is... Rion and Nick's team." She said.
Everyone else was so relieved that they weren't going into the Death Challenge, but Rion and Nick weren't happy.
"Sophia, can you take out the toy train you found earlier out of your bag?" Halave asked.
"Uhh... yeah."
"How did you know I had it in my bag, you weren't with us when I found it?" Sophia asked.
"I know all." Halave said.
Sophia gave a creeped out look to Jeremiah, Jeremiah shrugged his shoulders. Everyone was kind of unsettled about this, but decided to ignore it.
She gave her the toy train and gave it to Halave, Halave then gave it to Nick. She then led them to a door. Above it written in cursive, was the reapers. They walked into the room. There was a giant pool of purple slime built into the concrete floor, there was a table with a card on it that told them what they needed to do.
"Hidden in this pool of slime are pieces of a toy railroad, the pieces form one giant railroad that make the train functional. Once the railroad is built, a hatch hidden somewhere in this room will open. In the hatch is a motor for the train so it can move. Whoever finds it and turns the train on will win. The monsters that you have faced today used to be one regular human being, he had a close brother that died and that train set is his. His spirit will spare the person who finds the engine and makes the train functional. The other person will die a tragic death." Nick read.
"Okay, are you ready?" Rion asked.
They jumped into the pool, the purple sticky substance getting all over them. Nick tried a strategy where he wouldn't lift his feet in the pool as he walked. If he bumped into anything he would pick it up. The monsters were lowered down into the room they were in, in a cage. They urged to get out of the cage, hungry for a loser.
After a while of getting pieces for the railroad in the pool Nick found the last piece. When he found it, they heard something open, both of their goals were now to find it first. They first assembled the railroad and then went on the search for the missing motor. As Rion looked in a corner, he found the motor that was hidden behind a shelf. He raised his hand with the motor in it and headed to the toy train. He picked it up and inserted the small motor from the bottom of it. Nick had a look of defeat on his face, knowing that those monsters were about to kill him. Rion set the train onto the railroad,
"I'm so sorry for this." He said.
He then pressed the button to turn the train on. After it hit the stopper at the end of the railroad, the monsters were released from the cage. They headed towards Nick. He slowly disappeared as they surrounded him, making a weird screaming sound as they did so. After he died the monsters merged together into one, they then slowly disappeared into nothing.