The Forbidden Room

Sydney

My heart leaped out of my chest when we finally saw the cave holding the next part of the map.
"Where almost there." I said hardly able to contain my excitement
"Just remember that we don't know what's in here there could be anything." Jacob warned us
"Stop being such a worry wart." Courtney teased
I clicked my horse forward I into the mouth of the cave. Isaac followed right behind me. I didn't look to see if anyone else came.
Lately my life has just been about me, Isaac, Christina, and the sword. I felt bad I should be more worried about my friends.
I put the thought behind me as the cave opened up. I stopped my horse. The cave forked into two different paths.
"Half of us go to the left one one and half of us to the right."
"What about the horses? They won't fit into the small openings."
"Someone will have to stay and watch the horses while the rest of us go by foot."
"I will." Jacob piped in
"Then Isaac and I will go down this one and Ryan, Courtney and Aubrey can go down the left passage." I hoped that Aubrey didn't feel bad that I had her go with Ryan and not me. We were close friends but I liked to be alone with Isaac some times.
"Let's go." Ryan said as he disappeared Courtney and Aubrey followed.
"Wait up Isaac." I said. "I wish for a horn." The horn appeared in my hands. "Blow is if their is a problem." I handed it to Jacob.
Isaac and I started running down the cave. It grew dark very quickly so I wished for a flashlight.
We had gone at least a mile when it finally opened up. Three more door were there.
"Which one do we take." Isaac said out of breathe.
"Not sure." I closed my eyes trying to relax. I was shaking with anticipation. Suddenly inside my head I was behind the first door. I looked around for Isaac. He wasn't in sight. I was surrounded by total darkness. The door that I would have come in was gone.
I began to run trying to find anything solid. Even the ground seemed like air. I tripped over something and I began to fall. Not into the ground like you would think, I just fell farther and farther into nothingness.
I screamed but so sound would come out. I finally hit the bottom and my eyes snapped open.
I was back at the entrance of the three door. Isaac look at me concerned.
I wiped sweat off my forehead. "I...I need to sit down for a moment." I didn't no if Isaac could understand me.
"Are you okay?"
"I don't know. I closed my eyes and I went behind the door. It was completely dark in their no light. I ran and ran until I fell and then I was back here."
Isaac looked at me wide eyed.
"What happened to me?"
Isaac didn't say anything.
"What happened to me?" I screamed. "What?"
"I think you unlocked a new gift. You can experience something without leaving moving a muscle."
Jacob was right I was unlocking new gifts. I didn't want to though. I didn't care that my parents on earth aren't my parents I wanted to go home and forget everything that had happened here. I was done.
"I think I died in there."
Isaac sat down next to me. He put an arm over me and tried to comfort me. I buried my head in his shoulder. We sat there for awhile before we get up again.
"We are not going in that door."
"Sydney I know you don't want to do this but I need you to do it again only on the middle door."
"No." I immediately said.
"Listen to me." He grabbed my hands. "If you don't and we take the wrong door. We will die."
His words weighed on me heavily.
"What about Aubrey, Ryan, and Courtney?" I asked suddenly very nervous. If they walked threw one of the wrong doors they could be dead.
Ryan?
Ya?
Don't go in any of the doors! I practically yelled.
What doors?
At the end of the tunnel
We just hit a dead end and now we are just entering your tunnel wait for us okay?
Okay.
"Isaac we should wait here for Ryan, Courtney, and Aubrey."
"How do you know that they are coming? They could get have gone through a door on the other side and already found the map."
I didn't really want to tell him that Ryan and I could communicate simply by thinking about it. I thought he might feel envious of Ryan.
"When I was behind the door in my mind I could hear them from behind me. Not like they were right next to me but from a distance. I think they were with you." I lied
Isaac seemed to think about all of this for awhile before saying "Alright we wait for five minutes." He said sitting down.
I hoped five minutes would be enough for them. I sat down next to him.
"Is there something your not telling me?"
"Why would you think that?"
"I don't know, I just-" he paused "Never mind forget it."
I was keeping something from him. I haven't told him about me. Who I was, or that I would probably need to go back home. I didn't really think I was going back though.
I scooted closer to him so that we were touching. He put his arm around me.
"Tell me about yourself."
"What?"
"I want to know more about you." I said again
"What do you want to know?"
"Tell me about your life growing up."
He face grew solum.
"I'm sorry if that's a touchy spot." I immediately said
"No, it's fine." He paused "My Mom got married and after awhile she found out she was pregnant. My Dad didn't want a child so he tried to convince her to kill the baby.  She never let him. One night she awoke and found her husband trying to inject her with something that would kill the baby. She got up and ran around the house trying to get away from him. She found a hand gun and threatened to shoot if he didn't get rid of the needle.
"The next night when my father fell asleep my mother snook out of the house and ran away. After several months she had me, but died giving birth." His face was dark and sad. "Mr. Timothy took me in as his own child and I have been living with him ever since."
"So Mr. Timothy is like your Dad.?"
"You could say that."
I heard a small thud thud thud. Isaac and I got up almost instinctively. Ryan, Aubrey, and Courtney came stumbling out of the tunnel.
"Hey." Aubrey said panting for breathe
Isaac took my face into his hands and looked at my deeply. I looked into his eyes. Every time I saw them he swallowed me up. I laced our fingers together. They fit together perfectly like two pieces of a puzzle. I put my other hand on his neck and slowly ran my fingers threw his hair.
"I need to to look threw those doors."
My heart fell into my stomach. I knew I needed too, but I was scared. I didn't want Isaac to know that though.
I peeled myself away from him and stared at the door in front of me. I closed my eyes. The door appeared in my head. Taking a deep breathe I opened the door and stepped through. It was a stair case. The walls were lit by the same lanterns as in the previous hall. I headed down the stairs. As I became lower and lower under ground it felt cold and damp. I sludge my finger along the wall. I retracted it quickly discussed by a thin slim on the wall. I wiped my finger on my pants and continued down the staircase.   
Several minutes later I reached the end. It opened up into another large cavern. The room was a sphere. The floor fell so that if I continued I would have slid down the side of the wall. To both my sides was a stair case that went along the sides of the walls. They met at the other side of the room. In front of me on the floor was several items: a feather, book, hand mirror, my mothers diary and dagger. The one that I had brought with me from the attic. I had kept them in my knapp sack ever since I had gotten here. I looked into my knapp sack and found that it was gone. How did it get here? I thought perplexed. I looked back at the other items again and released they were all items I had found in my mother box of belongings in the attic. I found one more that I had missed. It was the necklace I found in the dairy. I put my hand up to my chest were it should have laid.
Beside the items was a bowl of water. Engraved in a rock next to the items was these words: Before you is the item that you seek. I looked up quickly, in the middle of the room was a tiny island.
I grew ecstatic. We found it!
On it was the next piece of the map. Since it floated in it the middle of the room there was no way to get to it.
I looked back onto the Rock and finished the rest of the writing: Before you is the item that you seek bit don't be so quick to think. To receive the item you desire place the right one in the water. This isn't as easy as you think for the answer you seek lies within a member you brought along on this endeavor. But beware for if the wrong item is placed it will end in your last day. If you do solve the riddle there is still the bewared devil beast.
I didn't know what to think know. Which item was the right one?
I heard a faint voice "Sydney." It said over and over again. I could hardly hear it. It slowly got louder until I could interpret the voice as Isaac's. He was waiting for me to finish finding out what door to use. I had forgotten that this is all in my head. It was all so life like. If I didn't know any better I would think this was really happening before me.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on the room back up the stair case were everyone else was. I could feel myself being shaken over and over again. I opened my eyes. Isaac was staring at my worried. Everyone else was staring at me with the same worried expression. Isaac's hands were on my wrist. "Sydney." He embraced me. I was so worried.
"Why? What's wrong."
"You were just standing there with your eyes closed forever."
"How long was I out."
"An hour at least."
How could that I have happened in an hour. I thought I had only been gone for about ten minutes maybe less.
"Did you find out what door to use?" Aubrey pipped in hopeful
"Yah, this one." I said pointing at the door in the middle.
Isaac look at me one last time before turning around and opening the door. "Does this look familiar?"
I nodded. We headed down the stairs and made it to the same room with the map in it.
Isaac read the riddle engraved on the rock and looked at each one of us confused. "Who is the person that knows what item to use?"
No one answered.
I feel like it was supposed to be me since all the items were my mothers. But I had no idea what item to put in the water. If I picked the wrong one it would kill us all.
"It's not even a riddle. It just says that someone with us will know what item to use." Courtney added.
I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate. I saw myself in my head. I wondered if this would happen every time I closed my eyes. Someone appeared in front of me. It was a beautiful women. Her figure shaped perfectly like a model from a magazine. She had a dainty nose and vicious red lips. Her long midnight black hair flowed in a gust of wind that appeared from nowhere. Her slender eyebrows shaped perfectly. She wore a long red dress and shoes that made her height seem much taller than she really was.
looking more closely I noticed that I had seen her before in the pictures from the attic. I recognized her as my birth mother.
"Mom?" I asked perplexed
She walked up to me. A tear slipped from her eye and ran down her cheek. She cuddled my face in her hands. Taking a finger she played with a small piece of hair that had fallen loose from my pony tail.
"Surprise!"
I felt so relieved to see her face to face. "Is this a dream?"
"Almost, I'm contacting you in your mind."
Suddenly angry boiled up in me. And I pushed myself away from her "Why haven't you been there for me. I grew up never mowing who my mother was. Then I end up in this strange world and find out my whole life has been a complete lie."
She starred at the ground not knowing what to say. Finally she managed a word. "Sorry."
"Sorry? Is that all you can say?"
"You don't understand. I wanted to raise you. I really did, but I couldn't. You have unimaginable power that I can't even try to explain. Power that many people want. We figured the only way to protect you from that was to..." She trailed off.
"To send me to another universe?"
"It might have been better then living a lie for all your childhood."
"I know, I'm sorry. We were only trying to protect you. Please forgive me, when this is all over I really want become that person that will love and care for you. So I'm asking you to forgive me."
"I don't know that I'm ready for that." I said Solemnly
"I understand, is isn't what I came here for though. I came to help you with your journey. I haven't been able to contact you much since you got here since your power was limited. You remember the old man you talked to?"
"Yes."
"That was me. Since your power was limited that was the only way I was able to communicate with you. Now I'm here in my own form and I'm here to help you figure out what item you are to place in the bowl."
I was having many mixed emotions right now. Half of me wanted to leap out and hold her close. The other half of me was so angry that I couldn't think straight. Finally I agreed to let her help me.
"Think back to what brought you here in the first place."
"Nothing I just walked through the door and-"
She cut me off. "Exactly the door."
"But the door wasn't one of pf the items."
"That's because it wasn't the door in the first place. The door brought you here yes but something else unlocked the door."
"Then what was it?"
"Think about it. You out doe thing on right before the door appeared."
I thought back to that day in the attic. "I was looking at your things in the box when I found the locket shaped like the door and then-"
She cut me off again. "And what did the locket show?"
"It was words. I don't remember them though."
"Think." She coaxed
"The...forbidden.....oh the forbidden room."
"Right the same words that were on the locket were on the door."
"So the locket brought me here?"
"Yes, when you have collected the map remember to grab each of the items. You will need them later."
"For what?"
"I'm afraid I can't tell you that. Now you must get back to your group."
"I just have one more question. When I read the dairy it implied that you used the locket also to come here yet I was born here not on earth. Did you come back?"
"I never found a way back home and so I lived here. Eventually I fell in love and got married. Then you were born."
"If you couldn't get back to earth, then how could I?"
"By then an ancient artifact had been discovered. Your father and I paid handsomely for that."
"So you really just wanted to protect me?"
"Yes" she said another tear dripping down her face.
"I better go now." I said solemnly
"Could...Could I maybe have a hug before you go."
"Sure" I said with a slight smile
She embraced me. I had to keep back the tears but she let them come right out.
"Also" I said as she released me. "What's your name?"
"Heather, but I'd love it if you called me mom."
"Well mom" the word seemed awkward on my tongue calling anyone besides the mother I knew on earth would take a little getting used to. "Bye"
I appeared back with everyone. They were all still trying to understand the riddle and who it was that knew the answer.
While they were all still grouped around the rock. I picked up the locket. Taking a deep breathe I set it in the bowl of water.
The earth began to shake and large rocks fell from the ceiling. I must have put the wrong item in the bowl. Did my mother lie to me?