The boy who saved the light

Chapter 19

I grabbed Nicholas’s hand. “Let’s do this. Together.” I was trying to shake off the nerves that were inside me. “On three. One, two, three!”
We both jumped through the portal at the same time. I felt Nicholas being pulled away from me. “Wait! No!”
Everything began swirling around me. I was spinning very fast and I felt like I was going to be sick. Hopefully Nicholas would make it out alive.
I started to hear voices. “You’re going to lose him…”
“You won’t be able to protect him…”
“And your feelings will get in the way!”
“No!” I shouted. Why was I hearing this? The voices disappeared and a few seconds later I was thrown out of the portal. Nicholas seemed to have already gotten through. I saw him out of the corner of my eyes as I face planted.
“Ugh…” I was now lying face down in the dirt. This was not how I wanted that to go. “Are you okay?” Nicholas asked. “Yep. I’m fine.” I responded, getting up and brushing the dirt off of me.
“Well, I think you should see this.”
I looked up. The world was dark, and gray, just like my dream. There was no color to be seen. “So it was telling me the truth.” I thought. The same castle was looming over us, and I was certain that’s where we needed to go.
Before I could check the compass, Nicholas spoke up. “What happened to your ears?”
“Hm?” I touched my ears and sure enough, they were more pointy than before. My hair was slightly longer, and I was now just a little bit taller than Nicholas. Our backpacks also looked very different. “You look like one of those people we saw before.”
Maybe I was.
“I must’ve changed while going through the portal.” I said. Perhaps I did have a human disguise on.
“I kind of like it.”
I blushed at the compliment. “Thanks.” His hand reached for my hair, and I pulled back a little. “Hang on, there’s a flower in your hair.”
He pulled it out. This time, it was the color of his shirt that he was wearing. I hated these flowers, because they’re probably going to give everything away to him. Also, these flowers mean that I’ve had feelings for him ever since I met him, which is odd. I don’t think that I’ve liked him for that long.
Nicholas looked around. “Also, I thought you said this world was bright and happy, not a depressed looking piece of shit.” He said.
“I never said that! I just said that’s what my dreams told me.” I said back. I then realized that I never told him about the dreams with the castle in it. “Well, what if your dreams tricked us into coming here?” He said. “And now we’re stuck.”
He was right. I touched the portal again, trying to open it but I couldn’t. We really were stuck. Then, I saw something on the ground next to it. A piece of paper. I looked at it closely and saw that it was a map. “Someone must have dropped this when leaving.” That seemed to be the explanation, because it looked old.
I looked at the compass and sure enough, it was pointing at the castle. “I guess that’s where we’re headed.”
***
We had been walking for about an hour now. We mostly talked to keep ourselves busy. We approached a forest, and it looked very creepy. All of the plants that we could see looked evil, and I made sure not to touch them.
"Are you sure we need to go through this forest?" Nicholas asked. "That's where the compass is pointing, and it doesn't seem like there's any way around it." I said, looking at the map. After the forest we were supposed to go through a small town. I wondered if it was the same one from my dreams. I knew that there were plenty of towns in this realm, but I wanted to find that one.
We begin trekking the forest, trying not to get too freaked out by anything. The sky was full of clouds, and even though we weren’t able to see the sky, I could tell the sun was starting to set.
We kept walking for a little while before starting to find somewhere to rest. We were still very deep into the woods, so there was no chance of finding an actual place to stay.
It was getting very dark, and now I was even more spooked. I moved around some bushes to find a clearing. It was similar to the one we used to hang out at, except it was a lot bigger and had a small pond in the middle of it. “I bet we can use this for water.” I suggested.
We placed our stuff down and began winding down for the evening. I created a small ball of light so that we could see everything before we went to sleep.
I laid down on the grass. It actually felt cool, and soft. Definitely more comfortable than the last time I slept on grass. It was starting to get colder, so I pulled a hoodie out from my backpack and put it on. Nicholas stood up. “I’m gonna go use the bathroom.”
“Alright, be careful.” I didn’t want him getting killed because we didn’t know what was in these woods. We hadn’t come across anything yet, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t anything out there.
I looked up at the sky. The clouds were gone, and I could see stars. They looked beautiful. I couldn’t recognize any of the constellations though. Nicholas came back a few minutes later and laid down next to me. “Wait, are those stars?” He asked.
“Yeah. I guess the clouds disappear at night.”
We talked for a little while before deciding to go to bed. I touched the small ball of light, and it disappeared.
“I wish I had magic like you.” Nicholas said. “Instead, I’m just a boring human.”
“Don’t say that. Just because you don’t have any magic, it doesn’t mean I don’t-” I cleared my throat. I almost said something I didn’t want him to hear. “It doesn’t mean I don’t like you any less.” I said. “Thanks.”
I rested my head against the grass, slowly feeling myself fall asleep. “Goodnight Wilbur.”
I couldn’t say anything back, because I had already fallen asleep.
A/N: hi
I am so tired right now
Apparently missing 3 assignments in the first 2 weeks of school is not the right thing to do
Oh well