The Topaz Necklace

Chapter 2

I started to scream, but hands clamped around my mouth.

"Quiet! I'm on your side."

I had no way to tell if he was telling the truth, I didn't even know what my side was, but I was quiet, allowing my heart rate to return to normal.

"Your eyes, they-"

He looked me in the eye. His eyes were now a shade of grey, dark and bluish, no where near red, and much more humanlike. They also didn't glow in the dark quite as much, though they still seemed unusually luminescent.

"I can explain this later. Right now, you have to get out of here. And please, try to be quiet."

I nodded. More quiet. No answers.

He untied my chains, which had been way too tight, and handed me something. My necklace. It was the same one as before. I touched the blue pendant. The light once again filled the room.

The boy stepped back. "Turn that off!", he hissed. I still couldn't tell what he looked like, the light didn't seem to have reached him. I let the necklace drop around my neck and the room was filled with darkness again.

"Yrunic is in my backpack. Come on, let's go."

I looked at him quizzically.

"Right. Sorry."

"What about Kan?"

"Zoomy?", he let out a snort. "Yeah, we're going to get him next."

I followed him down a narrow pathway filled with more darkness. Why was everything so dark here? I had to stay close behind him to avoid running into any walls.

"What's your name?"

He sighed. "Shadow."

"Really?"

"Yes. Now come on."

Shadow stopped outside a door just like all the others. How he knew which was which I had no idea.

I opened my mouth to talk, but he held out a finger for quiet. A few seconds later the door swung open, and inside the room was Kan. He lay on the ground, snoring loudly.

"Zoomy!", Shadow hissed.

Kan opened his eyes a peep. "Oh, I was wondering when you'd get here."

He came with us the rest of the way, through twists and turns. We had to sneak past a couple guards to get there, but eventually we were out. I don't know where we went the rest of the way, but eventually we came to a pile of large rocks stacked on top of each other to form a small hole just big enough walk through.

Upon entrance, the first thing I noticed was the size. It was bigger on the inside. How? I didn't know. But it was. And there were multiple rooms, with fancy carvings on the walls.

"How is this..."

"Magic."

"Right... Magic..."

I didn't really know how magic worked, or anything about it really. In fact, I didn't even know it was real.

When I turned around, Shadow was gone. I wasn't sure where he'd gone, or how he'd managed to sneak away. Actually, I wasn't sure of anything. I hadn't the slightest idea what was going on.

A different boy, this one with dark brown hair, and pale skin, walked up to me. He appeared to look a bit... angry.

"Kan. I need to talk to you."

The boy made eye contact with me, briefly, and Kan followed him reluctantly.

Great. Now I'm stuck here. With no one to explain to me WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?!

I stubbed my toe into the ground in frustration and sat down on the floor, which was more of the ground, letting out a breath. Why can't someone just tell me?! I have no memory, of ANYTHING, but these people seem to know, the problem is, THEY REFUSE TO TELL ME!

I calmed my self down and heard Kan's voice from through the door.

"It's not my fault! You should've sent someone more 'experienced'! Like Shadow! He was able to get us both out, in minutes ! But no, you had to go and send me. And then you yell at me for not getting you're precious girlfriend  home safely, on my blasted first mission, that I shouldn't even have to do!"

"You should've been able to handle that mission! It wasn't even that hard! And I didn't know Roupiel would be there!  And I didn't think Sherry would try to go in by herself, okay! But if you hadn't tried to fight Roupiel by yourself, even though there was no way  you could've won, Topaz would still have her memory!"

"I thought I could do it, okay?!"

"Well you shouldn't have taken a chance like that! It was too risky, and look where it got us now!"

"None of this is my fault!"

Kan stormed out of the room,  walking right past me.

The other boy looked at me. "How much do you remember?"

"I don't remember anything. I didn't even know my own name."

The boy sighed. "That's what I thought. I'll start from the beginning then. I'm Jones."

I nodded.

"My code name is Top."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you have a code name?"

"We all have code names. Yours is Gem. Kan's is Zoomer. Shadow's is... Shadow is his code name. You get the idea."

"But why do we need code name's?"

"So no one knows are real names."

"Why can't they?"

"I'll get to that later. I have a lot of explaining to do."

He told me about magic, and how it works, but I hardly understood a word of it, other than that some people are born with it, others aren't, and that certain objects, like artifacts, had magic. He explained that wizards, like our 'enemy', Roupiel, could get magic from anywhere, making them extremely powerful. Pretty soon I had a headache from trying to understand it all. I regretted wanting an explanation. I just wish I could remember.

After a while, I managed to ask, "Can I have a break now?"

"Yeah. You're room's the one at the end of the hall, on the right."

I left and opened the door he'd instructed me to. Inside of it was alight blue fuzzy carpet. Carpet. It was so soft, my feet felt numb from having to walk in those dirty old shoes for so long. It had a window, but I had no idea how, or how it had managed to get there, with the 'bigger on the inside' problem. But it let in an amazing amount of sunlight onto my bed.

I lay down in it's soft comforters to sleep, and fell into a dream.