We slept in my tent, all four of us squeezed into my puny tent of leaves and grass. I was just starting to drift into sleep when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I flipped onto my side to face the direction it came in, and saw Tyler looking at me. "Hey, about what you said earlier. You said 'Well I'm afraid it's not quite that easy,' what did you mean by that?" He said softly. "Well I have gotten to the top myself, for my friend. There are ten floors, and each has a new challenge, a monster, like the serpent. It's hard, but we can do it," I whispered.
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely."
I flipped back onto my back, and sleep came almost instantly.
The next morning, we all woke up in bad moods, but we were ready to start heading for the tower. "You guys ready?" I asked, only to receive three tired groans in response. "Ruby, you can come with me to the edge of the woods on the other side of this field. Austin, you blow out the fire, and Tyler, take the cover off the top of the tent and wrap the food up with it. When you're done, meet us at the edge of the real wooded forest over there," I pointed towards the real trees on the horizon to my left. "Then we'll start heading towards the tower." Austin laughed "Yeah, like I'm about to do what you tell me." I rolled my eyes. I know he is extremely defiant, but he would do what I told him if all it is that he needs to do is blow out the fire and maybe even help Tyler out with the food. I hoped so hard that this was true, because me and Ruby needed to get to the edge of the woods as soon as possible so that we can scope out the area and see just how we plan to get to the tower.
Later on, me and Ruby spotted the boys trudging towards us, Austin being much stronger than Tyler, carried the large sack of food. "Ready?" I asked. "Let's hope so," Tyler responded.
We walked through the forest slowly, without a word for quite a while. Until I smelled something in the air that wasn't quite right. "Do you smell that?" I asked. "Not me this time," Austin responded. "Very funny, that's not even remotely what I meant." I looked up at the sky, to see a cloud of black smoke filling the air. "Austin! Did you remember to blow out the fire? Please tell me you did," I asked worriedly. "Uh, yeah no, but who cares. The grass in that field isn't even real grass, it's made of silver," he remarked. "Just because it's the color silver, that doesn't make it actual silver, OR any less reason to listen to me!" A burst of heat hit me in a huge wave that made me stumble forward. The trees behind us were catching fire and spreading to others quickly, closer and closer to us. Ruby screamed and we all started running away from the growing flames as fast as we could. We ran out of the forest, and jumped over a creek that separated the forest from the ground of rainbow sand that led up to the tower. After catching our breath, to my horror, I heard Austin say, "Wait, where's Tyler?"
