The Portal to Another World

Chapter Two: Falling Stars

Truffles watched open-mouthed as the stars streaked across the sky. She'd never heard of anything like this. What was it? Was their world going to end? She began to sweat with anxiety.

"Follow me to the Pufflet Archives!" Sochi shouted to Miku. Miku followed Sochi as fast as she could. Truffles followed them anxiously, looking up at the sky every now and then as they made their way to the highest house in the City of Trees.

Miku panted as she made her way up, stopping to collapse on the second to last flight. Truffles was running up like a lightning bolt, but she tripped over Miku after flying around the tree trunk.

"Sorry pal," Truffles panted, "I didn't see you there."

"Too. Tired. And. Squished." Miku said in a muffled voice underneath Truffles. A loud BANG made Truffles leap to her feet.

"What was that?!" she exclaimed.

"Hurry up!" Sochi yelled from the Archives.

"C'mon! Get moving!" Truffles shoved Miku from behind. They ran up the last flight of stairs and entered the Archives.

The Pufflet Archive was a part-house, part-carved-out-of-a-dead-tree sort of thing. The empty shell of the huge dead oak was filled with layers of shelves where scrolls were stored, and Pufflets could sit and read. There were ladders lining the walls, making it easy to get to a different level.

Truffles stood with her mouth open for a moment, because honestly, she'd never visited the Archives.

"Don't just stand there!" Sochi said incredulously. "Help me find scrolls on astronomy!"

"Right away, master!" Miku slid down a ladder quickly to the next level down. Truffles was at a complete loss for what to do.

"How can I help?" Truffles asked.

"Search the shelves for any scroll about astronomy!" Sochi said, scowling as he rooted through scrolls.

Truffles slid all the way down the ladder to the ground floor. She picked a scroll and read the title. It was in a different language.

Feeling hopeless, Truffles yelled up, "What does 'Undeve Skryop' mean?"

"It means 'House Cleaning!'" Miku yelled to Truffles. "That's the home keeping section, search higher up!"

Truffles shot up to the level beneath Miku.

"Isn't there an astronomy section?" she asked.

"No! Someone, through vigorous studying has lost some of the scrolls and distributed the rest of them throughout the top section of the library," Sochi snapped.

"I wonder who did that," Miku muttered.

"Erm... well, that may have been me..." Sochi admitted awkwardly. "I used to study astronomy extensively..."

"Do you remember any of it?" Miku asked anxiously.

"...No..." Sochi replied. "But I do know that we were seeing the stars fall because there is damage in the fabric of space and time. We must hurry!"

"This is taking too long!" Truffles said helplessly. "I'm going down to see what's happening!" Truffles leaped out of the Archives and pounded down the stairs.

"Wait Truffles!" Miku yelled. Truffles didn't listen. She felt so helpless searching through scrolls. Maybe she could see something from the oak tree.

Truffles ran down the stairs, at last reaching the oak. The stars were streaking across the sky like small blurs of fire. Truffles felt half fear, half awe at the beautiful yet horrifying sight. Truffles suddenly noticed something. One star, the biggest, brightest star, wasn't moving. As a matter of fact, was it absorbing the other stars?

"Truffles!" Miku found her finally. "We need help! We can't find the-" she stopped suddenly. "What is that?" she asked in a hushed tone, gazing up at the huge star.

The star began to move. Down it came, slowly. It looked bigger and bigger as it came closer and closer. It finally landed on the ground in front of them. It was ten pufflets tall, equally wide, and perfectly round.

Miku and Truffles stood transfixed by the huge star. They became aware of nothing else.

Miku... Truffles... We've been waiting... so long... Come.

At the imperative, Truffles and Miku moved slowly as one toward the star. Their minds emptied of every thought. In the back of their minds they could hear Sochi calling them, but it was too late... They were gone.

Hey kittens! Its Skylaar with my first chapter. Just for your info, I write the even chapters and Janice writes the odd chapters. Hope you enjoyed! Skye out! :3