The Inside Story

Small Thinking

After walking through several dark passageways, seeing a lot of Egyptian hieroglyphics, and encountering even more booby traps that involved a rolling boulder that could've crushed us; we finally made it to the waterfall. Marina scooped the water of life into her vase and told us we could start heading back. When we entered the long passageway again, I went to Marina's side who was holding the flashlight and carrying Ijorid at the same time.

"Marina, I haven't seen a stone firefly yet. When was it supposed to attack us?" I asked.

Marina glanced at me worriedly. "A long time ago which is concerning, it's the guardian of the water so why would it not have bothered us about stealing water?"

"Because I let you get the water from the River of Life," a dark and ominous voice echoed throughout the walls, it seemed to have come out of nowhere. My eyes darted around looking for the source of the voice, I finally spotted a black room where an enormous stone statue that was shaped like a firefly was resting on the ground, its eyes were the only objects moving while the rest of his body was immobile.

I kept a safe distance from it and stepped shakily forward, closing my fists in an attempt to look brave. "Why did you let us?" I asked with a slight tremble.

"I was amused by the stupidity of Prince Charming, Robin Hood, and-"

"Hey!" Alejandro interjected, interrupting the firefly. His eyes looked frantic and eyed the group carefully, not looking at me. Why did he interrupt the firefly? He recognized us so that means that Alejandro still doesn't want us to know what FC he is. A part of me was stung he was keeping a secret but the other reasoned that Alejandro didn't know me that well and couldn't trust me fully yet.

I bet Katie knows, I thought sadly to myself.

The firefly continued to talk, "Their foolish antics made me want to keep watching the show and I also enjoyed seeing how all of you FC girls worked together to save the guys in distress. By the way, this is why you should be terrified of me you non-believers," the firefly said as his mouth slowly opened with a low rumble, a flame rushed out and hit Robin's clothes. Robin shrieked like a little girl and began rolling on the ground, I burst out laughing and made me realize I really like this firefly.

After a few moments had passed, Robin shrugged off his panic and glared at the firefly. He took a few steps back until he was behind everyone. Marina thanked the firefly and we were on our way, I gave a thumbs-up to the firefly for giving us a show of his great power. When we stepped out into the bright sun and the forest waiting outside, I gasped. "Are we going to have to walk back? It took hours to make that long walk, I'm still recuperating from that last trip!"

Marina snickered and pulled out a golden compass, she flipped it open and it showed the standard direction of north, south, east, and west with a needle pointing to the north. "No this time we won't, this compass will take us directly to the cave."

"Why couldn't we have used that in the first place instead of that 4 hour hike?" Selena said, looking irritated.

"The river of life was designed to only be issued to the ones with a pure heart and unselfish goals, part of the test to prove that is to make all travelers walk through the forest in order to get to the tomb. After that, the magic that governs this place allows you to leave in any way you desire. It's sort of a reward besides the water of life," Marina explained patiently, already waving her hand over the compass as it started to release a thick white fog. It surrounded us and I didn't feel like coughing because it felt soft like a cloud. I felt my body being hugged by something soft and it wrapped me until I could no longer feel my body.

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"That's weird," Marina said when we first landed in the cave. It looked the same as we had left it with Finnula looking at various books and maps, standing up to greet us and hug Marina. She hugged her back but still looked wary, I looked around the cave but couldn't find anything strange.