Winx Club Next Generation #2

Chapter 9 - The Demon City (Part 1)

Lunace
(The Words)

Darkness. Then light. That is what I saw when I awoke. My left hand was clutching to notes that the woman gave me, before we were attacked. I was on the ground, on my back. Everything hurt. I could not get up. Would not get up.

My eyes adjusted and I saw the sky above me. It was a swirl of purple all cascading to one point. Like clouds forming a tornado. Perhaps I was in the eye of a storm.

Words tried to come out of my mouth but I could not speak. My throat seemed to be closed shut.
It took everything in me to raise my arm holding the notes and hold them up to my eyes. I rolled over to the side to get a better look. The words were fuzzy and they seemed to dance, glow before me.

They morphed from the incomprehensible to the legible. The first had only the word remember repeated all over the page. Then I did. It was my parents - looking over me. I was just opening my eyes, an infant. Everything was filtered through the colour purple.

In just a flash, they were gone. Replaced with the void. Visions began to dance. A flower blooming, a dragon raising its head skyward, an ocean freezing over, a grand ball with no one talking, a woman in eternal slumber. A grave. The flower from before wilting. Darkness then followed.

I lasted on the ground for several seconds before deciding to attempt arising. Like a blooming flower. Slowly, but surely, I sat up. Then I stood. I saw I was in a room. There were four walls, each with an identical door in the centre.

Without so much as a thought to the danger, I opened the one to my left. The handle, I found when touching it, was made of obsidian. Slippery, and silky and beautiful. But impractical. The room was identical to the one I was in before, sans the walls not having doors. My eyes were immediately drawn to the fresco painting opposite the entrance. It was a woman, with pale, yellow skin wearing a dress of orange. Long, and parted at her knees. Each layer of cloth ruffled outwards. Large wings extended from her body. There were spots of blue, but mostly golds and yellows. Her face was unremarkable. It showed anger. But her hair...orange as her dress and done up in an exquisite bun. Her eyes were downcast and I followed her gaze to the floor.

Charred bones. Charred human bones. And just to the left was a small pile of jewels. There is no exit here, so I moved back and tried the next door.

This room was like the first. But the fresco and human bones were gone. Replaced instead with statues. Exquisite marble. One was a woman, old and crouched over. In front of her were two fairies - watching her intently.  Still, no exit.

The third room contained only darkness. No light. But a chant began, softly, voices raised together and the sound of sirens rang through the room. It was not a language that I knew. Perhaps this was the exit - not that I would be able to tell. Reluctantly (the singing was heavenly, I wish I could have stayed...) I embarked onto the fourth room.

A flower. The same as before. Growing out of an exquisitely carved pot. It was glowing. Illuminating the room. I watched as the light spread. Bursting from the centre. Upward, shimmering and spinning. It was so...perfect. Then I saw what it made visible. Oh, I thought.

Aronn
(Interrogation)

We boarded the ship and I naturally took the mantle of pilot. It was the ship we brought from Red Fountain. Naturally I should fly it. Draine worked as copilot. No one manned the weapons system. Not that we'd need it.

The silence as we flew solidified the theory there was something wrong. We weren't being told the truth. A cursory glance across to Draine confirmed he thought so too.