The Opal Sphere

Twisted Trees and a Never-Ending Sleep

Lucy's POV:

I could feel something tingling my arm. It didn't feel natural, it sent shivers down my spine every time I thought of it. I couldnt move, and all I could see was darkness, pure darkness. It seemed my mind was awake, but my body was not. All I could remember was Natsu staring into my eyes as he carried me, then me getting down to walk, then we we running..... now i'm here in the surrounded by darkness again, unable to see but I could hear. Footsteps. Someone was coming closer. I think it's Natsu, I hope it is, I hope that I am not back there.

"What happened Natsu" This was Gray's voice, it seemed angry. I must be at the guild.

"I don't know myself" Natsu's voice wasn't angry, it seemed upset.

"Well you must know!" Gray's voice was getting louder and angrier "You're the one who found her and brought her back!"

"Why don't you just shut up bastard" Natsu's voice sounded like he was getting angrier "I found her locked up so i got her out and I took her back to the guild okay?"

"Arguing isn't going to help the situation here is it?" I now heard Mira. I felt like they were all stood round me, I don't even know why I cant wake up "I guess so" This was Natsu's voice, it was calm now "But why is Lucy like this? Did I do this to her?" I could feel the sadness in Natsu's voice, i really wanted to talk to him, to tell him that he didn't do this, but i couldn't open my eyes or my mouth.

Sting's POV:

I needed Yukino back. I didn't really care if she didn't want me, but i wanted her. We were still chasing the mages. It felt like we had been running for decades, it seemed Yukino had been gone for centuries. The forest swallowed us, you couldn't see any cities or anything from inside this forest. As we continued to run and my thoughts were mainly of Yukino, I quickly snapped out of the haze that I put myself in. I noticed the scenery changed, drastically. The trees where twisted as they cascaded into the sky. The trees were leafless and the branches stuck out like knifes. The wood was a mouldy brown colour and moss covered the roots of the leaves, the only green thing around here. The path was also dark as well. I wonder which forest this was.

"Erza where even are we" Rogue bet me to the question it seemed everyone's pace turned slower and I looked into the distance to see that they weren't there anymore. In fact all you could see was the twisted trees and darkness in the distance. No wonder we lost them. We all stopped walking.

"If i'm correct we should be in Mikage Forest. " Erza had a thinking expression, she must be devising a plan. "We should just keep walking on this path, the guild that they were returning to must be in thsi forest."

"This is defiantly a Dark Guild" Gajeel said. This is the first word he said since the fight he had. "What makes you say that" Erza said, we were now walking on the path. "When me and Juvia were in Phantom Lord we used to associate very discreetly with these types of guilds. Most of them had their guild's in creepy forests, but I cant recall whether or not we knew a guild that was in this forest"

"Well i'm sure we'll find out soon enough which guild this is" I said, with quite a cheerful tone to my voice. Maybe I was one step closer to Yukino. I do hope so.

As we carried on walking, none of us talked. I think its because we were all determined to find out which guild this was. None of us even made eye contact. You could tell this was serious business. The path seemed to go along forever with the same twisted trees passing us, Were we going around in circles? "Look" Rogue said, We all turned to the direction he was pointing to. It was to the left of me and he seemed to be pointing to a building in the distance. A small pathway was made in between the twisted, leafless, trees towards a building that could be a potential dark guild. We all started heading that way on the path. I could smell her now. I couldn't before but I could definitely smell Yukino now.

"She's in there" I said everyone turned to me. "Yeah I can start to smell her too" Rogue said

"Is is Lucy you can smell" Erza said. Now that she had mentioned it I couldn't smell Lucy at all I couldn't even smell Natsu. "No I smell Yukino" I answered

"Gajeel can you smell Lucy at all or even Natsu ?" Erza's voice seemed demanding.

"Lucy has been here but she isnt anymore, and Natsu is the same" Gajeel said, his voice was colder than his iron. "They must have left together"

"So your telling me that they left together without Yukino?" My temper started to rise. How could they forget about Yukino?

"They probably tried to escape to come and tell us about the place, i'm surprised we didn't pass them along the way"

"Sting, calm down" Rogue put his hand on my shoulder and gave me a small, but reassuring, smile "she's in there lets go get out comrade"