Original - The 17th Realm (The Maniac Trilogy - Book 1)

6 - The Ice Boss

KAI'S POV

"What happened?" I asked.

"Nya?!" Jay shouted.

"Cole?" Zane called.

I turned to the monastery. "Lloyd! Something weird happened, you've gotta see this."

Silence.

"...Lloyd?"

Master Wu ran out with the Death Realm scroll in his hand. "LLOYD OPENED THE SCROLL TO THE 17TH REALM!"

We didn't know what happened. Nya, Cole and Lloyd randomly disappeared in front of our eyes. Master Wu finally explained the consequences of opening the scroll and how the younger someone is, the easier to tempt them to open the scroll. "The scroll tempted him to open it. Almost like hypnosis."

We didn't talk much in the past few days. Everyone was worried and in shock.

Jay wouldn't stop panicking.

"What if they won't find their way back?"
"What if they're dead?"
"What if someone got injured?"
"What if I won't see Nya again? I didn't get to say goodbye!"
"What if..."
"What if..."

It was like that for the past two days. I get that he's freaked out but it's only been two days. Also, he's not the only one who's worrying about this but he just doesn't realise it.

"How come you don't care?"
"How are you not stressed?"
"How can you be so calm about this?!"

I was the exact opposite of what he assumed. I guess I'm a good actor. Jay was kinda over exaggerating. Although I was like him on the inside, on the outside I tried to think optimistically.

Which was difficult.

Because there were no bright sides to the situation.

Master Wu was just annoyed and stressed for the past few days. He locked himself in the scroll room again. PIXAL wasn't even aware of the situation since she was stuck with repairing the bounty. She almost finished rebuilding it. She finally decided to take a break and visit us.

"Where are the rest?"

We all went silent. We looked at one another and dropped our heads with a frown. She had a worried look on her face.

"They're in the Death Realm. Lloyd opened the scroll that lead them there," Zane explained.

PIXAL seemed just as worried as Jay for some reason. Maybe there's something we don't know.

Maybe there's something she's hiding? Nah...

"What about Skylor? Is she there too?" She finally asked.

"I don't know..." I said. "I'll go check on her now. Pix let out a sigh of relief. "You do that." That seemed suspicious. What could she possibly know about Sky that I don't?

I decided to go to her who was hopefully at home. I unlocked the red doors (how surprising) and saw Sky sitting on the sofa drinking coffee. I shut the doors behind me. "Hey, babe!" I said, kissing her on the cheek as I took away her mug. "You know full well you shouldn't be drinking this. Doctor's words, not mine." I took a sip and poured the coffee into the sink. That coffee was gross.

"It was only my first cup, calm down. You know, it's really tiring carrying an eight-month-and-three-week-old baby," she said with a chuckle.

I sighed with a frown.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

"We were warned about some scroll and we were told not to touch it. Guess what Lloyd did."