Forest of Imagination

The Journey

"Didn't Jeffrey Nun-whatever have any sleeping bags in this place?" Trinity grumbled. We'd been walking and getting lost for six hours now, and Trinity was getting really pissed. Apparently there had been some recent remodeling down here, but no one ever bothered to change the maps, so we're getting lost a lot. There were two-inch wide windows in some places, and on the rare occasion that we'd come pass by one, all we saw was solitude. Empty loneliness, with no one else here except for us two, the windows, and the winding, weaving path of tunnel and no accurate guide to lead us to our destination.

"It's only been six hours, Trinity," I informed, and a hole suddenly appeared in front of us when she was trying to reply, "That's an entire school day!" Katie dropped down expertly, her eyes flashing red and gold.

"Sorry about the massacre, but I'm asking you, Mel...where are you going?" she asked, sweetly, but hands caked with either deep red spray paint or blood. I didn't want to think about it, and Trinity saved me from having to answer Katie's (very unprofessional) question.

"We're going to the Isle, Katie, but I didn't find those...papers...." Trinity blushed when she said it, looking at me guiltily. I'll ask you about it later, I mouthed, and she nodded, relieved. Katie raised her eyebrows and murmured, "Really?" Trinity replied, very formally, "Why did you expect official documented manuscripts to be in a foul individual's bedchambers anyhow?" I nudged her, mouthing, It's anyway, not anyhow, but she didn't seem to understand.

"Whatevs--OHMIGOSH YOU GUYS there's a flood heading our way!" Katie screeched, jumping up from where she came from and heading for safety. Unfortunately, she was the tallest sixth-grade girl I'd ever seen, so it's not like Trin or I could've just copied her. A massive flood was rushing toward us at sixty miles per minute.

"Sorry about this!" I quoted Trinity's sentence she said about what seemed three years ago. She looked potentially dismayed about this, but didn't protest as I grabbed her arm and ran closer to the flood.

"Hey, what are--AH!!!" she yelped, me changing into a mermaid and creating a bubble of air around us.

"You--you're one of them, like Katie and Collin and Charlotte?" she gasped, squeezing my neck.

"Yes, shh shh, there's a land called Terra Meridian and basically...it hosts people like us. But at times Terra Meridians come to Earth and meet beautiful, or handsome, soulmates and hook up. The result is people like three-quarter humans and a fourth pure wolf, or for me, three-quarters human and a fourth pure fish, even though that's not my proudest declaration ever," I grinned. Trinity gasped for air and/or possibly gasped at me. Which was a tad offensive.

"A fourth fish," she repeated, "a fourth fish. How come I'm purely, no offense though, but then how come I'm purely normal?" I wanted to say that most people were, but that would be a lie. Terra Meridian had more inhabitants than two Earths, and all their creatures were considered to be normal.

"You aren't," was all I could manage to say before the flood came to an abrupt stop. Trinity and I were thrown back forcibly and the bubble popped. Trinity hadn't been prepared and didn't hold her breath before, so I could see her face turning tomato red with the effort of just staying alive. Then her face went above.

"That was not...fun....Don't ever do...that again," she panted, and coughed up a sea of water.

I decided to take in our surroundings and saw a beautiful seascape painting of the ocean from a fish's eye-view, and it was beautiful. Fish's eye-view were so much better than a bird's, because if you're a bird, all you do is flap around all day being useless (no offense, Harmony). But fishes, they are the eye into the future Earth, the space invading land: the ocean. In the painting, realistic-looking coral wrapped around a peachy-pink Roman-style column, which all the fish of the sea tended to it, looking it over like picky home inspectors. And a blurred-out scuba diver swimming, watching the fish with wide eyes.