Forgotten

Chapter Fifteen: Darkness

I'd always loved the dark. When I was a kid I loved it when there was a power outage at night because my mom would light up candles in every room making our house look like it was haunted. The lights would flicker and cause the shadows to dance. Lily and I would set up a tent-like fort in the living room using blankets and pillows and I would tell ghost stories under the fort with a flashlight to Lily until she screamed and my mother scolded me for scaring her. Even though Lily always liked my scary stories, Mom still forbid me from telling her anymore of them. That made it even more fun. Under our fort, Lily would whisper to me and beg me for a story. Then I'd have to be very quiet as I would tell her so that Mom wouldn't hear. It was like a game between us and Mom except Mom never found out about it.

Now I wished that my mom was here and that this was all just another scary story that I was telling Lily. But this was not home and this story was very real.

Before anyone could even react to the sudden darkness I felt cold, bony hands cover my mouth and nose so tightly that I couldn't breathe. I tried to bite the hand that held me, but its grip was so tight I couldn't even unclench my jaw. It was like someone had locked me in a muzzle.

I struggled in the grip, but my arms were suddenly bound behind my back. I knew the others were struggling too. I heard a shrill scream come from either Jess or her mother I could not tell, but only a moment did she cry out before her cry was nothing more than a muffled scream.

I could sense the grip around my mouth loosen as whoever held me was distracted by the scream and I took the opportunity to wrench my mouth open and bite down as hard as possible into the flesh that held me. The attacker yelled in pain and pulled his hand away from me. I brought my elbow back and hit him in his jaw; he stumbled backwards and I was free. Until an even darker shadow leaned over me. I saw two very bright, very red dots like eyes staring at me and heard the hiss of a snake: "Kill! Killllllllll!"

I froze at that....that was the source of my nightmares. The evil lurking behind every shadow.

Pago growled and barked and I could tell a struggle was going on all around me that I couldn't see. My eyes were beginning to adjust to the darkness, but not fast enough. In the confusion someone grabbed me from behind and placed an old, wet rag over my mouth and nose.

"Mmmmm! Fhm, mmmfh!!" I struggled again, but to no avail. I tried not to breathe in the fumes, but it was no use. In less than three seconds, I was out cold.

*******

"What do you think you're doing?" I opened my eyes to see a girl staring at me, hands on her hips. She looked upside-down, but her two braids stayed on her shoulders.

"I'm on a quest!" I told her. She scoffed at me

"Quest? No, you are an idiot who is hanging upside-down from the monkey bars," the girl said very matter-of-factly. She had very red hair and freckles covering her nose and cheeks. Her eyes were a deep emerald green and she had blue braces lining her teeth.

"No, this is a quest of patience and endurance," I felt proud of myself for using big words. "You see, the evil king has captured my dragon and the only way to get him back is to pass his tests."

"Tests?" The girl shook her head slowly and raised one of her eyebrows at me.

"I must prove myself worthy of owning a dragon."

"What if you can't pass the tests?"

"Then my dragon will be killed."

"Oh," the girl gasped, "that's awful!" Her expression was one of worry, I was about to tell her that I couldn't possibly fail these tests, after all I'm too clever to lose, when she said, "Wait a second, this is just a stupid game you're playing."